We are just a group of retired spooks that discuss things that you’ll not find anywhere else. It makes us unique. Take a look around. Learn a thing or two.
This is a nice little story by Robert Heinlein. It’s a fun read on a boring day. It is a very Poul Andersonish kind of story. A super-spy discovers he is a part of a super society, and perhaps a part of a race that would overcome humanity.
GULF
THE FIRST-QUARTER ROCKET from Moonbase put him down at Pied-a-Terre. The name he was traveling under began—by foresight—with the letter “A”; he was through port inspection and into the shuttle tube to the city ahead of the throng. Once in the tube car he went to the men’s washroom and locked himself in.
Quickly he buckled on the safety belt he found there, snapped its hooks to the wall fixtures, and leaned over awkwardly to remove a razor from his bag. The surge caught him in that position; despite the safety belt he bumped his head—and swore. He straightened up and plugged in the razor. His moustache vanished; he shortened his sideburns, trimmed the corners of his eyebrows, and brushed them up.
He towelled his hair vigorously to remove the oil that had sleeked it down, combed it loosely into a wavy mane. The car was now riding in a smooth, unaccelerated 300 mph; he let himself out of the safety belt without unhooking it from the walls and, working very rapidly, peeled off his moonsuit, took from his bag and put on a tweedy casual outfit suited to outdoors on Earth and quite unsuited to Moon Colony’s air-conditioned corridors.
His slippers he replaced with walking shoes from the bag; he stood up. Joel Abner, commercial traveler, had disappeared; in his place was Captain Joseph Gilead, explorer, lecturer, and writer. Of both names he was the sole user; neither was his birth name.
He slashed the moonsuit to ribbons and flushed it down the water closet, added “Joel Abner’s” identification card; then peeled a plastic skin off his travel bag and let the bits follow the rest. The bag was now pearl grey and rough, instead of dark brown and smooth. The slippers bothered him; he was afraid they might stop up the car’s plumbing. He contented himself with burying them in the waste receptacle.
The acceleration warning sounded as he was doing this; he barely had time to get back into the belt. But, as the car plunged into the solenoid field and surged to a stop, nothing remained of Joel Abner but some unmarked underclothing, very ordinary toilet articles, and nearly two dozen spools of microfilm equally appropriate—until examined—to a commercial traveler or a lecturer-writer. He planned not to let them be examined as long as he was alive.
He waited in the washroom until he was sure of being last man out of the car, then went forward into the next car, left by its exit, and headed for the lift to the ground level.
“New Age Hotel, sir,” a voice pleaded near his ear. He felt a hand fumbling at the grip of his travel bag.
He repressed a reflex to defend the bag and looked the speaker over. At first glance he seemed an under-sized adolescent in a smart uniform and a pillbox cap. Further inspection showed premature wrinkles and the features of a man at least forty. The eyes were glazed. A pituitary case, he thought to himself, and on the hop as well. “New Age Hotel,” the runner repeated. “Best mechanos in town, chief. There’s a discount if you’re just down from the moon.”
Captain Gilead, when in town as Captain Gilead, always stayed at the old Savoy. But the notion of going to the New Age appealed to him; in that incredibly huge, busy, and ultramodern hostelry he might remain unnoticed until he had had time to do what had to be done.
He disliked mightily the idea of letting go his bag. Nevertheless it would be out of character not to let the runner carry the bag; it would call attention to himself—and the bag. He decided that this unhealthy runt could not outrun him even if he himself were on crutches; it would suffice to keep an eye on the bag.
“Lead on, comrade,” he answered heartily, surrendering the bag. There had been no hesitation at all; he had let go the bag even as the hotel runner reached for it.
“Okay, chief.” The runner was first man into an empty lift; he went to the back of the car and set the bag down beside him. Gilead placed himself so that his foot rested firmly against his bag and faced forward as other travelers crowded in. The car started.
The lift was jammed; Gilead was subjected to body pressures on every side—but he noticed an additional, unusual, and uncalled-for pressure behind him.
His right hand moved suddenly and clamped down on a skinny wrist and a hand clutching something. Gilead made no further movement, nor did the owner of the hand attempt to draw away or make any objection. They remained so until the car reached the surface. When the passengers had spilled out he reached behind him with his left hand, recovered his bag and dragged the wrist and its owner out of the car.
It was, of course, the runner; the object in his fist was Gilead’s wallet. “You durn near lost that, chief,” the runner announced with no show of embarrassment. “It was falling out of your pocket.”
Gilead liberated the wallet and stuffed it into an inner pocket. “Fell right through the zipper,” he answered cheerfully. “Well, let’s find a cop.”
The runt tried to pull away. “You got nothing on me!”
Gilead considered the defense. In truth, he had nothing. His wallet was already out of sight. As to witnesses, the other lift passengers were already gone—nor had they seen anything. The lift itself was automatic. He was simply a man in the odd position of detaining another citizen by the wrist. And Gilead himself did not want to talk to the police.
He let go that wrist. “On your way, comrade. We’ll call it quits.”
The runner did not move. “How about my tip?”
Gilead was beginning to like this rascal. Locating a loose half credit in his change pocket he flipped it at the runner, who grabbed it out of the air but still didn’t leave. “I’ll take your bag now. Gimme.”
“No, thanks, chum. I can find your delightful inn without further help. One side, please.”
“Oh, yeah? How about my commission? I gotta carry your bag, else how they gonna know I brung you in? Gimme.”
Gilead was delighted with the creature’s unabashed insistence. He found a two-credit piece and passed it over. “There’s your cumshaw. Now beat it, before I kick your tail up around your shoulders.”
“You and who else?”
Gilead chuckled and moved away down the concourse toward the station entrance to the New Age Hotel. His subconscious sentries informed him immediately that the runner had not gone back toward the lift as expected, but was keeping abreast him in the crowd. He considered this. The runner might very well be what he appeared to be, common city riff-raff who combined casual thievery with his overt occupation. On the other hand—
He decided to unload. He stepped suddenly off the sidewalk into the entrance of a drugstore and stopped just inside the door to buy a newspaper. While his copy was being printed, he scooped up, apparently as an afterthought, three standard pneumo mailing tubes. As he paid for them he palmed a pad of gummed address labels.
A glance at the mirrored wall showed him that his shadow had hesitated outside but was still watching him. Gilead went on back to the shop’s soda fountain and slipped into an unoccupied booth. Although the floor show was going on—a remarkably shapely ecdysiast was working down toward her last string of beads—he drew the booth’s curtain.
Shortly the call light over the booth flashed discreetly; he called, “Come in!” A pretty and very young waitress came inside the curtain. Her plastic costume covered without concealing.
She glanced around. “Lonely?”
“No, thanks, I’m tired.”
“How about a redhead, then? Real cute—”
“I really am tired. Bring me two bottles of beer, unopened, and some pretzels.”
“Suit yourself, sport.” She left.
With speed he opened the travel bag, selected nine spools of microfilm, and loaded them into the three mailing tubes, the tubes being of the common three-spool size. Gilead then took the filched pad of address labels, addressed the top one to “Raymond Calhoun, P.O. Box 1060, Chicago” and commenced to draw with great care in the rectangle reserved for electric-eye sorter. The address he shaped in arbitrary symbols intended not to be read, but to be scanned automatically. The hand-written address was merely a precaution, in case a robot sorter should reject his hand-drawn symbols as being imperfect and thereby turn the tube over to a human postal clerk for readdressing.
He worked fast, but with the care of an engraver. The waitress returned before he had finished. The call light warned him; he covered the label with his elbow and kept it covered.
She glanced at the mailing tubes as she put down the beer and a bowl of pretzels. “Want me to mail those?”
He had another instant of split-second indecision. When he had stepped out of the tube car he had been reasonably sure, first, that the persona of Joel Abner, commercial traveler, had not been penetrated, and, second, that the transition from Abner to Gilead had been accomplished without arousing suspicion. The pocket-picking episode had not alarmed him, but had caused him to reclassify those two propositions from calculated certainties to unproved variables. He had proceeded to test them at once; they were now calculated certainties again—of the opposite sort. Ever since he had spotted his erstwhile porter, the New Age runner, as standing outside this same drugstore his subconscious had been clanging like a burglar alarm.
It was clear not only that he had been spotted but that they were organized with a completeness and shrewdness he had not believed possible.
But it was mathematically probable to the point of certainty that they were not operating through this girl. They had no way of knowing that he would choose to turn aside into this particular drugstore. That she could be used by them he was sure—and she had been out of sight since his first contact with her. But she was clearly not bright enough, despite her alley-cat sophistication, to be approached, subverted, instructed and indoctrinated to the point where she could seize an unexpected opportunity, all in a space of time merely adequate to fetch two bottles of beer. No, this girl was simply after a tip. Therefore she was safe.
But her costume offered no possibility of concealing three mailing tubes, nor would she be safe crossing the concourse to the post office. He had no wish that she be found tomorrow morning dead in a ditch.
“No,” he answered immediately. “I have to pass the post office anyway. But it was a kind thought. Here.” He gave her a half credit.
“Thanks.” She waited and stared meaningfully at the beer. He fumbled again in his change pocket, found only a few bits, reached for his wallet and took out a five-pluton note.
“Take it out of this.”
She handed him back three singles and some change. He pushed the change toward her, then waited, frozen, while she picked it up and left. Only then did he hold the wallet closer to his eyes.
It was not his wallet.
He should have noticed it before, he told himself. Even though there had been only a second from the time he had taken it from the runner’s clutched fingers until he had concealed it in a front pocket, he should have known it—known it and forced the runner to disgorge, even if he had had to skin him alive.
But why was he sure that it was not his wallet? It was the proper size and shape, the proper weight and feel—real ostrich skin in these days of synthetics. There was the weathered ink stain which had resulted from carrying a leaky stylus in the same pocket. There was a V-shaped scratch on the front which had happened so long ago he did not recall the circumstances.
Yet it was not his wallet.
He opened it again. There was the proper amount of money, there were what seemed to be his Explorers’ Club card and his other identity cards, there was a dog-eared flat-photo of a mare he had once owned. Yet the more the evidence, showed that it was his, the more certain he became that it was not his. These things were forgeries; they did not feel right.
There was one way to find out. He flipped a switch provided by a thoughtful management; the booth became dark. He took out his penknife and carefully slit a seam back of the billfold pocket. He dipped a finger into a secret pocket thus disclosed and felt around; the space was empty—nor in this case had the duplication of his own wallet been quite perfect; the space should have been lined, but his fingers encountered rough leather.
He switched the light back on, put the wallet away, and resumed his interrupted drawing. The loss of the card which should have been in the concealed pocket was annoying, certainly awkward, and conceivably disastrous, but he did not judge that the information on it was jeopardized by the loss of the wallet. The card was quite featureless unless examined by black light; if exposed to visible light—by someone taking the real wallet apart, for example—it had the disconcerting quality of bursting explosively into flame.
He continued to work, his mind busy with the wider problem of why they had taken so much trouble to try to keep him from knowing that his wallet was being stolen—and the still wider and more disconcerting question of why they had bothered with his wallet. Finished, he stuffed the remainder of the pad of address labels into a crack between cushions in the booth, palmed the label he had prepared, picked up the bag and the three mailing tubes. One tube he kept separate from the others by a finger.
No attack would take place, he judged, in the drugstore. The crowded concourse between himself and the post office he would ordinarily have considered equally safe—but not today. A large crowd of people, he knew, are equal to so many trees as witnesses if the dice were loaded with any sort of a diversion.
He slanted across the bordering slidewalk and headed directly across the middle toward the post office, keeping as far from other people as he could manage. He had become aware of two men converging on him when the expected diversion took place.
It was a blinding light and a loud explosion, followed by screams and startled shouts. The source of the explosion he could imagine; the screams and shouts were doubtless furnished free by the public. Being braced, not for this, but for anything, he refrained even from turning his head.
The two men closed rapidly, as on cue.
Most creatures and almost all humans fight only when pushed. This can lose them decisive advantage. The two men made no aggressive move of any sort, other than to come close to Gilead—nor did they ever attack.
Gilead kicked the first of them in the knee cap, using the side of his foot, a much more certain stroke than with the toe. He swung with his travel bag against the other at the same time, not hurting him but bothering him, spoiling his timing. Gilead followed it with a heavy kick to the man’s stomach.
The man whose knee cap he had ruined was on the pavement, but still active—reaching for something, a gun or a knife. Gilead kicked him in the head and stepped over him, continued toward the post office.
Slow march—slow march all the way! He must not give the appearance of running away; he must be the perfect respectable citizen, going about his lawful occasions.
The post office came close, and still no tap on the shoulder, no denouncing shout, no hurrying footsteps. He reached the post office, was inside. The opposition’s diversion had worked, perfectly—but for Gilead, not for them.
There was a short queue at the addressing machine. Gilead joined it, took out his stylus and wrote addresses on the tubes while standing. A man joined the queue almost at once; Gilead made no effort to keep him from seeing what address he was writing; it was “Captain Joseph Gilead, the Explorers’ Club, New York.” When it came his turn to use the symbol printing machine he still made no effort to conceal what keys he was punching—and the symbol address matched the address he had written on each tube.
He worked somewhat awkwardly as the previously prepared gummed label was still concealed in his left palm.
He went from the addressing machine to the mailing receivers; the man who had been behind him in line followed him without pretending to address anything.
Thwonk! and the first tube was away with a muted implosion of compressed air. Thwonk! again and the second was gone—and at the same time Gilead grasped the last one in his left hand, sticking the gummed label down firmly over the address he had just printed on it. Without looking at it he made sure by touch that it was in place, all corners sealed, then thwonk! it joined its mates.
Gilead turned suddenly and trod heavily on the feet of the man crowded close behind him. “Wups! pardon me.” he said happily and turned away. He was feeling very cheerful; not only had he turned his dangerous charge over into the care of a mindless, utterly reliable, automatic machine which could not be coerced, bribed, drugged, nor subverted by any other means and in whose complexities the tube would be perfectly hidden until it reached a destination known only to Gilead, but also he had just stepped on the corns of one of the opposition.
On the steps of the post office he paused beside a policeman who was picking his teeth and staring out at a cluster of people and an ambulance in the middle of the concourse. “What’s up?” Gilead demanded.
The cop shifted his toothpick. “First some damn fool sets off fireworks,” he answered, “then two guys get in a fight and blame near ruin each other.”
“My goodness!” Gilead commented and set off diagonally toward the New Age Hotel.
He looked around for his pick-pocket friend in the lobby, did not see him. Gilead strongly doubted if the runt were on the hotel’s staff. He signed in as Captain Gilead, ordered a suite appropriate to the persona he was wearing, and let himself be conducted to the lift.
Gilead encountered the runner coming down just as he and his bellman were about to go up. “Hi, Shorty!” he called out while deciding not to eat anything in this hotel. “How’s business?”
The runt looked startled, then passed him without answering, his eyes blank. It was not likely, Gilead considered, that the runt would be used after being detected; therefore some sort of drop box, call station, or headquarters of the opposition was actually inside the hotel. Very well, that would save everybody a lot of useless commuting—and there would be fun for all!
In the meantime he wanted a bath.
In his suite he tipped the bellman who continued to linger.
“Want some company?”
“No, thanks, I’m a hermit.”
“Try this then.” The bellman inserted Gilead’s room key in the stereo panel, fiddled with the controls, the entire wall lighted up and faded away. A svelte blonde creature, backed by a chorus line, seemed about to leap into Gilead’s lap. “That’s not a tape,” the bellman went on, “that’s a live transmission direct from the Tivoli. We got the best equipment in town.”
“So you have,” Gilead agreed, and pulled out his key. The picture blanked; the music stopped. “But I want a bath, so get out—now that you’ve spent four credits of my money.”
The bellman shrugged and left. Gilead threw off his clothes and stepped into the “fresher.” Twenty minutes later, shaved from ear to toe, scrubbed, soaked, sprayed, pummeled, rubbed, scented, powdered, and feeling ten years younger, he stepped out. His clothes were gone.
His bag was still there; he looked it over. It seemed okay, itself and contents. There were the proper number of microfilm spools—not that it mattered. Only three of the spools mattered and they were already in the mail. The rest were just shrubbery, copies of his own public lectures. Nevertheless he examined one of them, unspooling a few frames.
It was one of his own lectures all right—but not one he had had with him. It was one of his published transcriptions, available in any large book store. “Pixies everywhere,” he remarked and put it back. Such attention to detail was admirable.
“Room service!”
The service panel lighted up. “Yes, sir?”
“My clothes are missing. Chase ’em up for me.”
“The valet has them, sir.”
“I didn’t order valet service. Get ’em back.”
The girl’s voice and face were replaced, after a slight delay, by those of a man. “It is not necessary to order valet service here, sir. ‘A New Age guest receives the best.’ ”
“Okay, get ’em back—chop, chop! I’ve got a date with the Queen of Sheba.”
“Very good, sir.” The image faded.
With wry humor he reviewed his situation. He had already made the possibly fatal error of underestimating his opponent through—he now knew—visualizing that opponent in the unimpressive person of “the runt.” Thus he had allowed himself to be diverted; he should have gone anywhere rather than to the New Age, even to the old Savoy, although that hotel, being a known stamping ground of Captain Gilead, was probably as thoroughly booby-trapped by now as this palatial dive.
He must not assume that he had more than a few more minutes to live. Therefore he must use those few minutes to tell his boss the destination of the three important spools of microfilm. Thereafter, if he still were alive, he must replenish his cash to give him facilities for action—the amount of money in “his” wallet, even if it were returned, was useless for any major action. Thirdly, he must report in, close the present assignment, and be assigned to his present antagonists as a case in themselves, quite aside from the matter of the microfilm.
Not that he intended to drop Runt & Company even if not assigned to them. True artists were scarce—nailing him down by such a simple device as stealing his pants! He loved them for it and wanted to see more of them, as violently as possible.
Even as the image on the room service panel faded he was punching the scrambled keys on the room’s communicator desk. It was possible—certain—that the scramble code he used would be repeated elsewhere in the hotel and the supposed privacy attained by scrambling thereby breached at once. This did not matter; he would have his boss disconnect and call back with a different scramble from the other end. To be sure, the call code of the station to which he was reporting would thereby be breached, but it was more than worthwhile to expend and discard one relay station to get this message through.
Scramble pattern set up, he coded—not New Washington, but the relay station he had selected. A girl’s face showed on the screen. “New Age service, sir. Were you scrambling?”
“Yes.”
“I am ve-ree sor-ree, sir. The scrambling circuits are being repaired. I can scramble for you from the main board.”
“No, thanks, I’ll call in clear.”
“I yam ve-ree sor-ree, sir.”
There was one clear-code he could use—to be used only for crash priority. This was crash priority. Very well—
He punched the keys again without scrambling and waited. The same girl’s face appeared presently. “I am verree sorree, sir; that code does not reply. May I help you?”
“You might send up a carrier pigeon.” He cleared the board.
The cold breath on the back of his neck was stronger now; he decided to do what he could to make it awkward to kill him just yet. He reached back into his mind and coded in clear the Star-Times.
No answer.
He tried the Clarion—again no answer.
No point in beating his head against it; they did not intend to let him talk outside to anyone. He rang for a bellman, sat down in an easy chair, switched it to “shallow massage”, and luxuriated happily in the chair’s tender embrace. No doubt about it; the New Age did have the best mechanos in town—his bath had been wonderful; this chair was superb. Both the recent austerities of Moon Colony and the probability that this would be his last massage added to his pleasure.
The door dilated and a bellman came in—about his own size, Gilead noted. The man’s eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch on seeing Gilead’s oyster-naked condition. “You want company?”
Gilead stood up and moved toward him. “No, dearie,” he said grinning, “I want you”—at which he sank three stiffened fingers in the man’s solar plexus.
As the man grunted and went down Gilead chopped him in the side of the neck with the edge of his hand.
The shoulders of the jacket were too narrow and the shoes too large; nevertheless two minutes later “Captain Gilead” had followed “Joel Abner” to oblivion and Joe, temporary and free-lance bellman, let himself out of the room. He regretted not being able to leave a tip with his predecessor.
He sauntered past the passengers lifts, firmly misdirected a guest who had stopped him, and found the service elevator. By it was a door to the “quick drop.” He opened it, reached out and grasped a waiting pulley belt, and, without stopping to belt himself into it, contenting himself with hanging on, he stepped off the edge. In less time than it would have taken him to parachute the drop he was picking himself up off the cushions in the hotel basement and reflecting that lunar gravitation surely played hob with a man’s leg muscles.
He left the drop room and started out in an arbitrary direction, but walking as if he were on business and belonged where he was—any exit would do and he would find one eventually.
He wandered in and out of the enormous pantry, then found the freight door through which the pantry was supplied.
When he was thirty feet from it, it closed and an alarm sounded. He turned back.
He encountered two policemen in one of the many corridors under the giant hotel and attempted to brush on past them. One of them stared at him, then caught his arm. “Captain Gilead—”
Gilead tried to squirm away, but without showing any skill in the attempt. “What’s the idea?”
“You are Captain Gilead.”
“And you’re my Aunt Sadie. Let go of my arm, copper.”
The policeman fumbled in his pocket with his other hand, pulled out a notebook. Gilead noted that the other officer had moved a safe ten feet away and had a Markheim gun trained on him.
“You, Captain Gilead,” the first officer droned, “are charged on a sworn complaint with uttering a counterfeit five-pluton note at or about thirteen hours this date at the Grand Concourse drugstore in this city. You are cautioned to come peacefully and are advised that you need not speak at this time. Come along.”
The charge might or might not have something to it, thought Gilead; he had not examined closely the money in the substituted wallet. He did not mind being booked, now that the microfilm was out of his possession; to be in an ordinary police station with nothing more sinister to cope with than crooked cops and dumb desk sergeants would be easy street compared with Runt & Company searching for him.
On the other hand the situation was too pat, unless the police had arrived close on his heels and found the stripped bellman, gotten his story and started searching.
The second policeman kept his distance and did not lower the Markheim gun. That made other consideration academic. “Okay, I’ll go,” he protested. “You don’t have to twist my arm that way.”
They went up to the weather level and out to the street—and not once did the second cop drop his guard. Gilead relaxed and waited. A police car was balanced at the curb. Gilead stopped. “I’ll walk,” he said. “The nearest station is just around the corner. I want to be booked in my own precinct.”
He felt a teeth-chattering chill as the blast from the Markheim hit him; he pitched forward on his face.
He was coming to, but still could not coordinate, as they lifted him out of the car. By the time he found himself being half-carried, half-marched down a long corridor he was almost himself again, but with a gap in his memory. He was shoved through a door which clanged behind him. He steadied himself and looked around.
“Greetings, friend,” a resonant voice called out “Drag up a chair by the fire.”
Gilead blinked, deliberately slowed himself down, and breathed deeply. His healthy body was fighting off the effects of the Markheim bolt; he was almost himself.
The room was a cell, old-fashioned, almost primitive. The front of the cell and the door were steel bars; the walls were concrete. Its only furniture, a long wooden bench, was occupied by the man who had spoken. He was fiftyish, of ponderous frame, heavy features set in a shrewd, good-natured expression. He was lying back on the bench, head pillowed on his hands, in animal ease. Gilead had seen him before. “Hello, Dr. Baldwin.”
The man sat up with a flowing economy of motion that moved his bulk as little as possible. “I’m not Dr. Baldwin—I’m not Doctor anything, though my name is Baldwin.” He stared at Gilead. “But I know you—seen some of your lectures.”
Gilead cocked an eyebrow. “A man would seem naked around the Association of Theoretical physicists without a doctor’s degree—and you were at their last meeting.”
Baldwin chuckled boomingly. “That accounts for it—that has to be my cousin on my father’s side, Hartley M.—Stuffy citizen Hartley. I’ll have to try to take the curse off the family name, now that I’ve met you, Captain.” He stuck out a huge hand. “Gregory Baldwin, ‘Kettle Belly’ to my friends. New and used helicopters is as close as I come to theoretical physics. ‘Kettle Belly Baldwin, King of the Kopters’—you must have seen my advertising.”
“Now that you mention it, I have.”
Baldwin pulled out a card. “Here. If you ever need one, I’ll give you a ten percent off for knowing old Hartley. Matter of fact, I can do right well by you in a year-old Curtiss, a family car without a mark on it.”
Gilead accepted the card and sat down. “Not at the moment, thanks. You seem to have an odd sort of office, Mr. Baldwin.”
Baldwin chuckled again. “In the course of a long life these things happen, Captain. I won’t ask you why you are here or what you are doing in that monkey suit. Call me Kettle Belly.”
“Okay.” Gilead got up and went to the door. Opposite the cell was a blank wall; there was no one in sight. He whistled and shouted—no answer.
Gilead turned. His cellmate had dealt a solitaire hand on the bench and was calmly playing.
“I’ve got to raise the turnkey and send for a lawyer.”
“Don’t fret about it. Let’s play some cards.” He reached in a pocket. “I’ve got a second deck; how about some Russian bank?”
“No, thanks. I’ve got to get out of here.” He shouted again—still no answer.
“Don’t waste your lung power, Captain,” Baldwin advised him. “They’ll come when it suits them and not a second before. I know. Come play with me; it passes the time.” Baldwin appeared to be shuffling the two decks; Gilead could see that he was actually stacking the cards. The deception amused him; he decided to play—since the truth of Baldwin’s advice was so evident.
“If you don’t like Russian bank,” Kettle Belly went on, “here is a game I learned as a kid.” He paused and stared into Gilead’s eyes. “It’s instructive as well as entertaining, yet it’s simple, once you catch on to it.” He started dealing out the cards. “It makes a better game with two decks, because the black cards don’t mean anything. Just the twenty-six red cards in each deck count—with the heart suit coming first. Each card scores according to its position in that sequence. The ace of hearts is one and the king of hearts counts thirteen; the ace of diamonds is next at fourteen and so on. Savvy?”
“Yes.”
“And the blacks don’t count. They’re blanks . . . spaces. Ready to play?”
“What are the rules?”
“We’ll deal out one hand for free; you’ll learn faster as you see it. Then, when you’ve caught on, I’ll play you for a half interest in the atomics trust—or ten bits in cash.” He resumed dealing, laying the cards out rapidly in columns, five to a row. He paused, finished. “It’s my deal, so it’s your count. See what you get.”
It was evident that Baldwin’s stacking had brought the red cards into groups, yet there was no evident advantage to it, nor was the count especially high—nor low. Gilead stared at it, trying to figure out the man’s game. The cheating, as cheating seemed too bold to be probable.
Suddenly the cards jumped at him, arranged themselves in a meaningful array. He read:
XTHXY
CANXX
XXXSE
HEARX
XUSXX
The fact that there were only two fives-of-hearts available had affected the spelling but the meaning was clear. Gilead reached for the cards. “I’ll try one. I can beat that score.” He dipped into the tips belonging to the suit’s owner. “Ten bits it is.”
Baldwin covered it. Gilead shuffled, making even less attempt to cover up than had Baldwin. He dealt:
WHATS
XXXXX
XYOUR
GAMEX
XXXXX
Baldwin shoved the money toward him and anted again. “Okay, my turn for revenge.” He laid out:
XXIMX
XONXX
YOURX
XXXXX
XSIDE
“I win again,” Gilead announced gleefully. “Ante up.” He grabbed the cards and manipulated them:
YEAHX
XXXXX
PROVE
XXITX
XXXXX
Baldwin counted and said, “You’re too smart for me. Gimme the cards.” He produced another ten-bit piece and dealt again:
XXILX
HELPX
XXYOU
XGETX
OUTXX
“I should have cut the cards,” Gilead complained, pushing the money over. “Let’s double the bets.” Baldwin grunted and Gilead dealt again:
XNUTS
IMXXX
SAFER
XXINX
XGAOL
“I broke your luck,” Baldwin gloated. “We’ll double it again?”
XUXRX
XNUTS
THISX
NOXXX
XJAIL
The deal shifted:
KEEPX
XTALK
INGXX
XXXXX
XBUDX
Baldwin answered:
THISX
XXXXX
XXNEW
AGEXX
XHOTL
As he stacked the cards again Gilead considered these new factors. He was prepared to believe that he was hidden somewhere in the New Age Hotel; in fact the counterproposition that his opponents had permitted two ordinary cops to take him away to a normal city jail was most unlikely—unless they had the jail as fully under control as they quite evidently had the hotel. Nevertheless the point was not proven. As for Baldwin, he might be on Gilead’s side; more probably he was planted as an agent provocateur—or he might be working for himself.
The permutations added up to six situations, only one of which made it desirable to accept Baldwin’s offer for help in a jail break—said situation being the least likely of the six.
Nevertheless, though he considered Baldwin a liar, net, he tentatively decided to accept. A static situation brought him no advantage; a dynamic situation—any dynamic situation—he might turn to his advantage. But more data were needed. “These cards are sticky as candy,” he complained. “You letting your money ride?”
“Suits.” Gilead dealt again:
XXXXX
WHYXX
AMXXX
XXXXI
XHERE
“You have the damnedest luck,” Baldwin commented:
FILMS
ESCAP
BFORE
XUXXX
KRACK
Gilead swept up the cards, was about to “shuffle,” when Baldwin said, “Oh oh, school’s out.” Footsteps could be heard in the passage. “Good luck, boy,” Baldwin added.
Baldwin knew about the films, but had not used any of the dozen ways to identify himself as part of Gilead’s own organization. Therefore he was planted by the opposition, or he was a third factor.
More important, the fact that Baldwin knew about the films proved his assertion that this was not a jail. It followed with bitter certainty that he, Gilead, stood no computable chance of getting out alive. The footsteps approaching the cell could be ticking off the last seconds of his life.
He knew now that he should have found means to report the destination of the films before going to the New Age. But Humpty Dumpty was off the wall, entropy always increases—but the films must be delivered.
The footsteps were quite close.
Baldwin might get out alive.
But who was Baldwin?
All the while he was “shuffling” the cards. The action was not final; he had only to give them one true shuffle to destroy the message being set up in them. A spider settled from the ceiling, landed on the other man’s hand. Baldwin, instead of knocking it off and crushing it, most carefully reached his arm out toward the wall and encouraged it to lower itself to the floor. “Better stay out of the way, shorty,” he said gently, “or one of the big boys is likely to step on you.”
The incident, small as it was, determined Gilead’s decision—and with it, the fate of a planet. He stood up and handed the stacked deck to Baldwin. “I owe you exactly ten-sixty,” he said carefully. “Be sure to remember it—I’ll see who our visitors are.”
The footsteps had stopped outside the cell door.
There were two of them, dressed neither as police nor as guards; the masquerade was over. One stood well back, covering the maneuver with a Markheim, the other unlocked the door. “Back against the wall, Fatso,” he ordered. “Gilead, out you come. And take it easy, or, after we freeze you, I’ll knock out your teeth just for fun.”
Baldwin shuffled back against the wall; Gilead came out slowly. He watched for any opening but the leader backed away from him without once getting between him and the man with the Markheim. “Ahead of us and take it slow,” he was ordered. He complied, helpless under the precautions, unable to run, unable to fight.
Baldwin went back to the bench when they had gone. He dealt out the cards as if playing solitaire, swept them up again, and continued to deal himself solitaire hands. Presently he “shuffled” the cards back to the exact order Gilead had left them in and pocketed them.
The message had read: XTELLXFBSXPOBOXDEBT XXXCHI.
His two guards marched Gilead into a room and locked the door behind him, leaving themselves outside. He found himself in a large window overlooking the city and a reach of the river; balancing it on the left hung a solid portraying a lunar landscape in convincing color and depth. In front of him was a rich but not ostentatious executive desk.
The lower part of his mind took in these details; his attention could be centered only on the person who sat at that desk. She was old but not senile, frail but not helpless. Her eyes were very much alive, her expression serene. Her translucent, well-groomed hands were busy with a frame of embroidery.
On the desk in front of her were two pneumo mailing tubes, a pair of slippers, and some tattered, soiled remnants of cloth and plastic.
She looked up. “How do you do, Captain Gilead?” she said in a thin, sweet soprano suitable for singing hymns.
“Madame would be famous if only for her charities.”
“You are kind. Captain, I will not waste your time. I had hoped that we could release you without fuss, but—” She indicated the two tubes in front of her “—you can see for yourself that we must deal with you further.”
“So?”
“Come, now, Captain. You mailed three tubes. These two are only dummies, and the third did not reach its apparent destination. It is possible that it was badly addressed and has been rejected by the sorting machines. If so, we shall have it in due course. But it seems much more likely that you found some way to change its address—likely to the point of pragmatic certainty.”
“Or possibly I corrupted your servant.”
She shook her head slightly. “We examined him quite thoroughly before—”
“Before he died?”
“Please, Captain, let’s not change the subject. I must know where you sent that other tube. You cannot be hypnotized by ordinary means; you have an acquired immunity to hypnotic drugs. Your tolerance for pain extends beyond the threshold of unconsciousness. All of these things have already been proved, else you would not be in the job you are in; I shall not put either of us to the inconvenience of proving them again. Yet I must have that tube. What is your price?”
“You assume that I have a price.”
She smiled. “If the old saw has any exceptions, history does not record them. Be reasonable, Captain. Despite your admitted immunity to ordinary forms of examination, there are ways of breaking down—of changing—a man’s character so that he becomes really quite pliant under examination . . . ways that we learned from the commissars. But those ways take time and a woman my age has no time to waste.”
Gilead lied convincingly. “It’s not your age, ma’am; it is the fact that you know that you must obtain that tube at once or you will never get it.” He was hoping—more than that, he was willing—that Baldwin would have sense enough to examine the cards for one last message . . . and act on it. If Baldwin failed and he, Gilead, died, the tube would eventually come to rest in a dead-letter office and would in time be destroyed.
“You are probably right. Nevertheless, Captain, I will go ahead with the Mindszenty technique if you insist upon it. What do you say to ten million plutonium credits?”
Gilead believed her first statement. He reviewed in his mind the means by which a man bound hand and foot, or worse, could kill himself unassisted. “Ten million plutons and a knife in my back?” he answered. “Let’s be practical.”
“Convincing assurance would be given before you need talk.”
“Even so, it is not my price. After all, you are worth at least five hundred million plutons.”
She leaned forward. “I like you, Captain. You are a man of strength. I am an old woman, without heirs. Suppose you became my partner—and my successor?”
“Pie in the sky.”
“No, no! I mean it. My age and sex do not permit me actively to serve myself; I must rely on others. Captain, I am very tired of inefficient tools, of men who can let things be spirited away right from under their noses. Imagine! She made a little gesture of exasperation, clutching her hand into a claw. “You and I could go far, Captain. I need you.”
“But I do not need you, madame. And I won’t have you.”
She made no answer, but touched a control on her desk. A door on the left dilated; two men and a girl came in. The girl Gilead recognized as the waitress from the Grand Concourse Drug Store. They had stripped her bare, which seemed to him an unnecessary indignity since her working uniform could not possibly have concealed a weapon.
The girl, once inside, promptly blew her top, protesting, screaming, using language unusual to her age and sex—a hysterical, thalmic outburst of volcanic proportions.
“Quiet, child!”
The girl stopped in midstream, looked with surprise at Mrs. Keithley, and shut up. Nor did she start again, but stood there, looking even younger than she was and somewhat aware of and put off stride by her nakedness. She was covered now with goose flesh, one tear cut a white line down her dust-smeared face, stopped at her lip. She licked at it and sniffled.
“You were out of observation once, Captain,” Mrs. Keithley went on, “during which time this person saw you twice. Therefore we will examine her.”
Gilead shook his head. “She knows no more than a goldfish. But go ahead—five minutes of hypno will convince you.”
“Oh, no, Captain! Hypno is sometimes fallible; if she is a member of your bureau, it is certain to be fallible.” She signaled to one of the men attending the girl; he went to a cupboard and opened it. “I am old-fashioned,” the old woman went on. “I trust simple mechanical means much more than I do the cleverest of clinical procedures.”
Gilead saw the implements that the man was removing from cupboard and started forward. “Stop that!” he commanded. “You can’t do that—”
He bumped his nose quite hard.
The man paid him no attention. Mrs. Keithley said, “Forgive me, Captain. I should have told you that this room is not one room, but two. The partition is merely glass, but very special glass—I use the room for difficult interviews. There is no need to hurt yourself by trying to reach us.”
“Just a moment!”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Your time is already running out. Let the girl and me go free now. You are aware that there are several hundred men searching this city for me even now—and that they will not stop until they have taken it apart panel by panel.”
“I think not. A man answering your description to the last factor caught the South Africa rocket twenty minutes after you registered at the New Age Hotel. He was carrying your very own identifications. He will not reach South Africa, but the manner of his disappearance will point to desertion rather than accident or suicide.”
Gilead dropped the matter. “What do you plan to gain by abusing this child? You have all she knows; certainly you do not believe that we could afford to trust in such as she?”
Mrs. Keithley pursed her lips. “Frankly, I do not expect to learn anything from her. I may learn something from you.”
“I see.”
The leader of the two men looked questioning at his mistress; she motioned him to go ahead. The girl stared blankly at him, plainly unaware of the uses of the equipment he had gotten out. He and his partner got busy.
Shortly the girl screamed, continued to scream for a few moments in a high adulation. Then it stopped as she fainted.
They roused her and stood her up again. She stood, swaying and staring stupidly at her poor hands, forever damaged even for the futile purposes to which she had been capable of putting them. Blood spread down her wrists and dripped on a plastic tarpaulin, placed there earlier by the second of the two men.
Gilead did nothing and said nothing. Knowing as he did that the tube he was protecting contained matters measured in millions of lives, the problem of the girl, as a problem, did not even arise. It disturbed a deep and very ancient part of his brain, but almost automatically he cut that part off and lived for the time in his forebrain.
Consciously he memorized the faces, skulls, and figures of the two men and filed the data under “personal.” Thereafter he unobtrusively gave his attention to the scene out the window He had been noting it all through the interview but he wanted to give it explicit thought. He recast what he saw in terms of what it would look like had he been able to look squarely out the window and decided that he was on the ninety-first floor of the New Age Hotel and approximately one hundred and thirty meters from the north end. He filed this under “professional.”
When the girl died, Mrs. Keithley left the room without speaking to him. The men gathered up what was left in the tarpaulin and followed her. Presently the two guards returned and, using the same foolproof methods, took him back to his cell.
As soon as the guards had gone and Kettle Belly was free to leave his position against the wall he came forward and pounded Gilead on the shoulders. “Hi, boy! I’m sure glad to see you—I was scared I would never lay eyes on you again. How was it? Pretty rough?”
“No, they didn’t hurt me; they just asked some questions.”
“You’re lucky. Some of those crazy damn cops play mean when they get you alone in a back room. Did they let you call your lawyer?”
“No.”
“Then they ain’t through with you. You want to watch it, kid.”
Gilead sat down on the bench. “The hell with them. Want to play some more cards?”
“Don’t mind if I do. I feel lucky.” Baldwin pulled out the double deck, riffled through it. Gilead took them and did the same. Good! they were in the order he had left them in. He ran his thumb across the edges again—yes, even the black nulls were unchanged in sequence; apparently Kettle Belly had simply stuck them in his pocket without examining them, without suspecting that a last message had been written in to them. He felt sure that Baldwin would not have left the message set up if he had read it. Since he found himself still alive, he was much relieved to think this.
He gave the cards one true shuffle, then started stacking them. His first lay-out read:
XXXXX
ESCAP
XXATX
XXXXX
XONCE
“Gotcha that time!” Baldwin crowed. “Ante up:”
DIDXX
XYOUX
XXXXX
XXXXX
CRACK
“Let it ride,” announced Gilead and took the deal:
XXNOX
BUTXX
XXXXX
XLETS
XXGOX
“You’re too derned lucky to live,” complained Baldwin. “Look—we’ll leave the bets doubled and double the lay-out. I want a fair chance to get my money back.”
His next lay-out read:
XXXXX
XTHXN
XXXXX
THXYX
NEEDX
XXXUX
ALIVX
XXXXX
PLAYX
XXXUP
“Didn’t do you much good, did it?” Gilead commented, took the cards and started arranging them,
“There’s something mighty funny about a man that wins all the time,” Baldwin grumbled. He watched Gilead narrowly. Suddenly his hand shot out, grabbed Gilead’s wrist. “I thought so;” he yelled. “A goddam card sharp—” Gilead shook his hand off. “Why, you obscene fat slug!”
“Caught you! Caught you!” Kettle Belly reclaimed his hold, grabbed the other wrist as well. They struggled and rolled to the floor.
Gilead discovered two things: this awkward, bulky man was an artist at every form of dirty fighting and he could simulate it convincingly without damaging his partner. His nerve holds were an inch off the nerve; his kneeings were to thigh muscle rather than to the crotch.
Baldwin tried for a chancery strangle; Gilead let him take it. The big man settled the flat of his forearm against the point of Gilead’s chin rather than against his Adam’s apple and proceeded to “strangle” him.
There were running footsteps in the corridor. Gilead caught a glimpse of the guards as they reached the door. They stopped momentarily; the bell of the Markheim was too big to use through the steel grating, the charge would be screened and grounded. Apparently they did not have pacifier bombs with them, for they hesitated. Then the leader quickly unlocked the door, while the man with the Markheim dropped back to the cover position.
Baldwin ignored them, while continuing his stream of profanity and abuse at Gilead. He let the first man almost reach them before he suddenly said in Gilead’s ear, “Close your eyes!” At which he broke just as suddenly.
Gilead sensed an incredibly dazzling flash of light even through his eyelids. Almost on top of it he heard a muffled crack; he opened his eyes and saw that the first man was down, his head twisted at a grotesque angle.
The man with the Markheim was shaking his head; the muzzle of his weapon weaved around. Baldwin was charging him in a waddle, back and knees bent until he was hardly three feet tall. The blinded guard could hear him, let fly a charge in the direction of the noise; it passed over Baldwin.
Baldwin was on him; the two went down. There was another cracking noise of ruptured bone and another dead man. Baldwin stood up, grasping the Markheim, keeping it pointed down the corridor. “How are your eyes, kid?” he called out anxiously.
“They’re all right.”
“Then come take this chiller.” Gilead moved up, took the Markheim. Baldwin ran to the dead end of the corridor where a window looked out over the city. The window did not open; there was no “copter step” beyond it. It was merely a straight drop. He came running back.
Gilead was shuffling possibilities in his mind. Events had moved by Baldwin’s plan, not by his. As a result of his visit to Mrs. Keithley’s “interview room” he was oriented in space. The corridor ahead and a turn to the left should bring him to the quick-drop shaft. Once in the basement and armed with a Markheim, he felt sure that he could fight his way out—with Baldwin in trail if the man would follow. If not—well, there was too much at stake.
Baldwin was into the cell and out again almost at once. “Come along!” Gilead snapped. A head showed at the bend in the corridor; he let fly at it and the owner of the head passed out on the floor.
“Out of my way, kid!” Baldwin answered. He was carrying the heavy bench on which they had “played” cards. He started up the corridor with it, toward the sealed window, gaining speed remarkably as he went.
His makeshift battering ram struck the window heavily. The plastic bulged, ruptured, and snapped like a soap bubble. The bench went on through, disappeared from sight, while Baldwin teetered on hands and knees, a thousand feet of nothingness under his chin.
“Kid!” he yelled. “Close in! Fall back!”
Gilead backed towards him, firing twice more as he did so. He still did not see how Baldwin planned to get out, but the big man had demonstrated that he had resourcefulness—and resources.
Baldwin was whistling through his fingers and waving. In violation of all city traffic rules a helicopter separated itself from the late afternoon throng, cut through a lane, and approached the window. It hovered just far enough away to keep from fouling its blades. The driver opened the door, a line snaked across and Kettle Belly caught it. With great speed he made it fast to the window’s polarizer knob, then grabbed the Markheim. “You first,” he snapped. “Hurry!”
Gilead dropped to his knees and grasped the line; the driver immediately increased his tip speed and tilted his rotor; the line tautened. Gilead let it take his weight, then swarmed across it. The driver gave him a hand up while controlling his craft like a high school horse with his other hand.
The ’copter bucked; Gilead turned and saw Baldwin coming across, a fat spider on a web. As he himself helped the big man in, the driver reached down and cut the line. The ship bucked again and slid away.
There were already men standing in the broken window. “Get lost, Steve!” Baldwin ordered. The driver gave his tip jets another notch and tilted the rotor still more; the ’copter swooped away. He eased it into the traffic stream and inquired, “Where to?”
“Set her for home—and tell the other boys to go home, too. No—you’ve got your hands full; I’ll tell them!” Baldwin crowded up into the other pilot’s seat, slipped on phones and settled a quiet-mike over his mouth. The driver adjusted his car to the traffic, set up a combination on his pilot, then settled back and opened a picture magazine.
Shortly Baldwin took off the phones and came back to the passenger compartment. “Takes a lot of ’copters to be sure you have one cruising by when you need it,” he said conversationally. “Fortunately, I’ve got a lot of ’em. Oh, by the way, this is Steve Halliday. Steve, meet Joe—Joe, what is your last name?”
“Greene,” answered Gilead.
“Howdy,” said the driver and let his eyes go back to his magazine.
Gilead considered the situation. He was not sure that it had been improved. Kettle Belly, whatever he was, was more than a used ’copter dealer—and he knew about the films. This boy Steve looked like a harmless young extrovert but, then, Kettle Belly himself looked like a lunk. He considered trying to overpower both of them, remembered Kettle Belly’s virtuosity in rough-and-tumble fighting, and decided against it. Perhaps Kettle Belly really was on his side, completely and utterly. He heard rumors that the Department used more than one echelon of operatives and he had no way of being sure that he himself was at the top level.
“Kettle Belly,” he went on, “could you set me down at the airport first? I’m in one hell of a hurry.”
Baldwin looked him over. “Sure, if you say so. But I thought you would want to swap those duds? You’re as conspicuous as a preacher at a stag party. And how are you fixed for cash?”
With his fingers Gilead counted the change that had come with the suit. A man without cash had one arm in a sling. “How long would it take?”
“Ten minutes extra, maybe.”
Gilead thought again about Kettle Belly’s fighting ability and decided that there was no way for a fish in water to get any wetter. “Okay.” He settled back and relaxed completely.
Presently he turned again to Baldwin. “By the way, how did you manage to sneak in that dazzle bomb?”
Kettle Belly chuckled. “I’m a large man, Joe; there’s an awful lot of me to search.” He laughed again. “You’d be amazed at where I had that hidden.”
Gilead changed the subject. “How did you happen to be there in the first place?”
Baldwin sobered. “That’s a long and complicated story. Come back some day when you’re not in such a rush and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“I’ll do that—soon.”
“Good. Maybe I can sell you that used Curtiss at the same time.”
The pilot alarm sounded; the driver put down his magazine and settled the craft on the roof of Baldwin’s establishment.
Baldwin was as good as his word. He took Gilead to his office, sent for clothes—which showed up with great speed—and handed Gilead a wad of bills suitable to stuff a pillow. “You can mail it back,” he said.
“I’ll bring it back in person,” promised Gilead.
“Good. Be careful out on the street. Some of our friends are sure to be around.”
“I’ll be careful.” He left, as casually as if he had called there on business, but feeling less sure of himself than usual. Baldwin himself remained a mystery and, in his business, Gilead could not afford mysteries.
There was a public phone booth in the lobby of Baldwin’s building. Gilead went in, scrambled, then coded a different relay station from the one he had attempted to use before. He gave his booth’s code and instructed the operator to scramble back. In a matter of minutes he was talking to his chief in New Washington.
“Joe! Where the hell have you been?”
“Later, boss—get this.” In departmental oral code as an added precaution, he told his chief that the films were in post office box ten-sixty, Chicago, and insisted that they be picked up by a major force at once.
His chief turned away from the view plate, then returned, “Okay, it’s done. Now what happened to you?”
“Later, boss, later. I think I’ve got some friends outside who are anxious to rassle with me. Keep me here and I may get a hole in my head.”
“Okay—but head right back here, I want a full report; I’ll wait here for you.”
“Right.” He switched off.
He left the booth light-heartedly, with the feeling of satisfaction that comes from a hard job successfully finished. He rather hoped that some of his “friends” would show up; he felt like kicking somebody who needed kicking.
But they disappointed him. He boarded the transcontinental rocket without alarms and slept all the way to New Washington.
He reached the Federal Bureau of Security by one of many concealed routes and went to his boss’s office. After scan and voice check he was let in. Bonn looked up and scowled.
Gilead ignored the expression; Bonn usually scowled. “Agent Joseph Briggs, three-four-oh-nine-seven-two, reporting back from assignment, sir,” he said evenly.
Bonn switched a desk control to “recording” and another to “covert.”
“You are, eh? Why, thumb-fingered idiot! How do you dare to show your face around here?”
“Easy now, boss—what’s the trouble?”
Bonn fumed incoherently for a time, then said, “Briggs, twelve star men covered that pick up—and the box was empty. Post office box ten-sixty, Chicago, indeed! Where are those films? Was it a cover up? Have you got them with you?”
Gilead-Briggs restrained his surprise. “No. I mailed them at the Grand Concourse post office to the address you just named.” He added, “The machine may have kicked them out; I was forced to letter by hand the machine symbols.”
Bonn looked suddenly hopeful. He touched another control and said, “Carruthers! On that Briggs matter: Check the rejection stations for that routing.” He thought and then added, “Then try a rejection sequence on the assumption that the first symbol was acceptable to the machine but mistaken. Also for each of the other symbols; run them simultaneously—crash priority for all agents and staff. After that try combinations of symbols taken two at a time, then three at a time, and so on.” He switched off.
“The total of that series you just set up is every postal address in the continent,” Briggs suggested mildly. “It can’t be done.”
“It’s got to be done! Man, have you any idea of the importance of those films you were guarding?”
“Yes. The director at Moon Base told me what I was carrying.”
“You don’t act as if you did. You’ve lost the most valuable thing this or any other government can possess—the absolute weapon. Yet you stand there blinking at me as if you had mislaid a pack of cigarets.”
“Weapon?” objected Briggs. “I wouldn’t call the nova effect that, unless you class suicide as a weapon. And I don’t concede that I’ve lost it. As an agent acting alone and charged primarily with keeping it out of the hands of others, I used the best means available in an emergency to protect it. That is well within the limits of my authority. I was spotted, by some means—”
“You shouldn’t have been spotted!”
“Granted. But I was. I was unsupported and my estimate of the situation did not include a probability of staying alive. Therefore I had to protect my charge by some means which did not depend on my staying alive.”
“But you did stay alive—you’re here.”
“Not my doing nor yours, I assure you. I should have been covered. It was your order, you will remember, that I act alone.”
Bonn looked sullen. “That was necessary.”
“So? In any case, I don’t see what all the shooting is about. Either the films show up, or they are lost and will be destroyed as unclaimed mail. So I go back to the Moon and get another set of prints.”
Bonn chewed his lip. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Bonn hesitated a long time. “There were just two sets. You had the originals, which were to be placed in a vault in the Archives—and the others were to be destroyed at once when the originals were known to be secure.”
“Yes? What’s the hitch?”
“You don’t see the importance of the procedure. Every working paper, every file, every record was destroyed when these films were made. Every technician, every assistant, received hypno. The intention was not only to protect the results of the research but to wipe out the very fact that the research had taken place. There aren’t a dozen people in the system who even know of the existence of the nova effect.”
Briggs had his own opinions on this point, based on recent experience, but he kept still about them. Bonn went on, “The Secretary has been after me steadily to let him know when the originals were secured. He has been quite insistent, quite critical. When you called in, I told him that the films were safe and that he would have them in a few minutes.”
“Well?”
“Don’t you see, you fool—he gave the order at once to destroy the other copies.”
Briggs whistled. “Jumped the gun, didn’t he?”
“That’s not the way he’ll figure it—mind you, the President was pressuring him. He’ll say that I jumped the gun.”
“And so you did.”
“No, you jumped the gun. You told me the films were in that box.”
“Hardly. I said I had sent them there.”
“No, you didn’t”
“Get out the tape and play it back.”
“There is no tape—by the President’s own order no records are kept on this operation.”
“So? Then why are you recording now?”
“Because,” Bonn answered sharply, “someone is going to pay for this and it is not going to be me.”
“Meaning,” Briggs said slowly, “that it is going to be me.”
“I didn’t say that. It might be the Secretary.”
“If his head rolls, so will yours. No, both of you are figuring on using me. Before you plan on that, hadn’t you better hear my report? It might affect your plans. I’ve got news for you, boss.”
Bonn drummed the desk. “Go ahead. It had better be good.”
In a passionless monotone Briggs recited all events as recorded by sharp memory from receipt of the films on the Moon to the present moment. Bonn listened impatiently.
Finished, Briggs waited. Bonn got up and strode around the room. Finally he stopped and said, “Briggs, I never heard such a fantastic pack of lies in my life. A fat man who plays cards! A wallet that wasn’t your wallet—your clothes stolen! And Mrs. Keithley—Mrs. Keithley! Don’t you know that she is one of the strongest supporters of the Administration?”
Briggs said nothing. Bonn went on, “Now I’ll tell you what actually did happen. Up to the time you grounded at Pied-a-Terre your report is correct, but—”
“How do you know?”
“Because you were covered, naturally. You don’t think I would trust this to one man, do you?”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have hollered for help and saved all this.”
Bonn brushed it aside. “You engaged a runner, dismissed him, went in that drugstore, came out and went to the post office. There was no fight in the concourse for the simple reason that no one was following you. At the post office you mailed three tubes, one of which may or may not have contained the films. You went from there to the New Age Hotel, left it twenty minutes later and caught the transrocket for Cape Town. You—”
“Just a moment,” objected Briggs. “How could I have done that and still be here now?”
“Eh?” For a moment Bonn seemed stumped. “That’s just a detail; you were positively identified. For that matter, it would have been a far, far better thing for you if you had stayed on that rocket. In fact—” the bureau chief got a far-away look in his eyes, “—you’ll be better off for the time being if we assume officially that you did stay on that rocket. You are in a bad spot, Briggs, a very bad spot. You did not muff this assignment—you sold out!”
Briggs looked at him levelly. “You are preferring charges?”
“Not just now. That is why it is best to assume that you stayed on that rocket—until matters settle down, clarify.”
Briggs did not need a graph to show him what solution would come out when “matters clarified.” He took from a pocket a memo pad, scribbled on it briefly, and handed it to Bonn.
It read: “I resign my appointment effective immediately.” He had added signature, thumbprint, date, and hour.
“So long, boss,” he added. He turned slightly, as if to go.
Bonn yelled, “Stop! Briggs, you are under arrest.” He reached toward his desk.
Briggs cuffed him in the windpipe, added one to the pit of Bonn’s stomach. He slowed down then and carefully made sure that Bonn would remain out for a satisfactory period. Examination of Bonn’s desk produced a knockout kit; he added a two-hour hypodermic, placing it inconspicuously beside a mole near the man’s backbone. He wiped the needle, restored everything to its proper place, removed the current record from the desk and wiped the tape of all mention of himself, including door check. He left the desk set to “covert” and “do not disturb” and left by another of the concealed routes to the Bureau.
He went to the rocket port, bought a ticket, unreserved, for the first ship to Chicago. There was twenty minutes to wait; he made a couple of minor purchases from clerks rather than from machines, letting his face be seen. When the Chicago ship was called he crowded forward with the rest.
At the inner gate, just short of the weighing-in platform, he became part of the crowd present to see passengers off, rather than a passenger himself. He waved at someone in the line leaving the weighing station beyond the gate, smiled, called out a good-bye, and let the crowd carry him back from the gate as it closed. He peeled off from the crowd at the men’s washroom. When he came out there were several hasty but effective changes in his appearance.
More important, his manner was different.
A short, illicit transaction in a saloon near a hiring hall provided the work card he needed; fifty-five minutes later he was headed across country as Jack Gillespie, loader and helper-driver on a diesel freighter.
Could his addressing of the pneumo tube have been bad enough to cause the automatic postal machines to reject it? He let the picture of the label, as it had been when he had completed it, build in his mind until it was as sharp as the countryside flowing past him. No, his lettering of the symbols had been perfect and correct; the machines would accept it
Could the machine have kicked out the tube for another cause, say a turned-up edge of the gummed label? Yes, but the written label was sufficient to enable a postal clerk to get it back in the groove. One such delay did not exceed ten minutes, even during the rush hour. Even with five such delays the tube would have reached Chicago more than one hour before he reported to Bonn by phone.
Suppose the gummed label had peeled off entirely; in such case the tube would have gone to the same destination as the two cover-up tubes.
In which case Mrs. Keithley would have gotten it, since she had been able to intercept or receive the other two.
Therefore the tube had reached the Chicago post office box.
Therefore Kettle Belly had read the message in the stacked cards, had given instructions to someone in Chicago, had done so while at the helicopter’s radio. After an event, “possible” and “true” are equivalent ideas, whereas “probable” becomes a measure of one’s ignorance. To call a conclusion “improbable” after the event was self-confusing amphigory.
Therefore Kettle Belly Baldwin had the films—a conclusion he had reached in Bonn’s office.
Two hundred miles from New Washington he worked up an argument with the top driver and got himself fired. From a local booth in the town where he dropped he scrambled through to Baldwin’s business office. “Tell him I’m a man who owes him money.”
Shortly the big man’s face built up on the screen. “Hi, kid! How’s tricks?”
“I’m fired.”
“I thought you would be.”
“Worse than that—I’m wanted.”
“Naturally.”
“I’d like to talk with you.”
“Swell. Where are you?”
Gilead told him.
“You’re clean?”
“For a few hours, at least.”
“Go to the local airport. Steve will pick you up.”
Steve did so, nodded a greeting, jumped his craft into the air, set his pilot, and went back to his reading. When the ship settled down on course, Gilead noted it and asked, “Where are we going?”
“The boss’s ranch. Didn’t he tell you?”
“No.” Gilead knew it was possible that he was being taken for a one-way ride. True, Baldwin had enabled him to escape an otherwise pragmatically certain death—it was certain that Mrs. Keithley had not intended to let him stay alive longer that suited her uses, else she would not have had the girl killed in his presence. Until he had arrived at Bonn’s office, he had assumed that Baldwin had saved him because he knew something that Baldwin most urgently wanted to know—whereas now it looked as if Baldwin had saved him for altruistic reasons.
Gilead conceded the existence in this world of altruistic reasons, but was inclined not to treat them as “least hypothesis” until all other possible hypotheses had been eliminated; Baldwin might have had his own reasons for wishing him to live long enough to report to New Washington and nevertheless be pleased to wipe him out now that he was a wanted man whose demise would cause no comment.
Baldwin might even be a partner in these dark matters of Mrs. Keithley. In some ways that was the simplest explanation though it left other factors unexplained. In any case Baldwin was a key actor—and he had the films. The risk was necessary.
Gilead did not worry about it. The factors known to him were chalked up on the blackboard of his mind, there to remain until enough variables become constants to permit a solution by logic. The ride was very pleasant.
Steve put him down on the lawn of a large rambling ranch house, introduced him to a motherly old party named Mrs. Garver, and took off. “Make yourself at home, Joe,” she told him. “Your room is the last one in the east wing—shower across from it. Supper in ten minutes.”
He thanked her and took the suggestion, getting back to the living room with a minute or two to spare. Several others, a dozen or more of both sexes, were there. The place seemed to be a sort of a dude ranch—not entirely dude, as he had seen Herefords on the spread as Steve and he were landing.
The other guests seemed to take his arrival as a matter of course. No one asked why he was there. One of the women introduced herself as Thalia Wagner and then took him around the group. Ma Garver came in swinging a dinner bell as this was going on and they all filed into a long, low dining room. Gilead could not remember when he had had so good a meal in such amusing company.
After eleven hours of sleep, his first real rest in several days, he came fully, suddenly awake at a group of sounds his subconscious could not immediately classify and refused to discount. He opened his eyes, swept the room with them, and was at once out of bed, crouching on the side away from the door.
There were hurrying footsteps moving past his bedroom door. There were two voices, one male, one female, outside the door; the female was Thalia Wagner, the man he could not place.
Male: “tsʉmaeq?”
Female: “nø!”
Male: “zulntsɨ.”
Female: “ɨpbit’ New Jersey.”
These are not precisely the sounds that Gilead heard, first because of the limitations of phonetic symbols, and second because his ears were not used to the sounds. Hearing is a function of the brain, not of the ear; his brain, sophisticated as it was, nevertheless insisted on forcing the sounds that reached his ears into familiar pockets rather than stop to create new ones.
Thalia Wagner identified, he relaxed and stood up. Thalia was part of the unknown situation he accepted in coming here; a stranger known to her he must accept also. The new unknowns, including the odd language, he filed under “pending” and put aside.
The clothes he had had were gone, but his money—Baldwin’s money, rather—was where his clothes had been and with it his work card as Jack Gillespie and his few personal articles. By them someone had laid out a fresh pair of walking shorts and new sneakers, in his size.
He noted, with almost shocking surprise, that someone had been able to serve him thus without waking him.
He put on his shorts and shoes and went out. Thalia and her companion had left while he dressed. No one was about and he found the dining room empty, but three places were set, including his own of supper, and hot dishes and facilities were on the sideboard. He selected baked ham and hot rolls, fried four eggs, poured coffee. Twenty minutes later, warmly replenished and still alone, he stepped out on the veranda.
It was a beautiful day. He was drinking it in and eyeing with friendly interest a desert lark when a young woman came around the side of the house. She was dressed much as he was, allowing for difference in sex, and she was comely, though not annoyingly so. “Good morning,” he said.
She stopped, put her hands on her hips, and looked him up and down. “Well!” she said. “Why doesn’t somebody tell me these things?”
Then she added, “Are you married?”
“No.”
“I’m shopping around. Object: matrimony. Let’s get acquainted.”
“I’m a hard man to marry. I’ve been avoiding it for years.”
“They’re all hard to marry,” she said bitterly. “There’s a new colt down at the corral. Come on.”
They went. The colt’s name was War Conqueror of Baldwin; hers was Gail. After proper protocol with mare and son they left. “Unless you have pressing engagements,” said Gail, “now is a salubrious time to go swimming.”
“If salubrious means what I think it does, yes.”
The spot was shaded by cottonwoods, the bottom was sandy; for a while he felt like a boy again, with all such matters as lies and nova effects and death and violence away in some improbable, remote dimension. After a long while he pulled himself up on the bank and said, “Gail, what does ‘tsʉmaeq’ mean?”
“Come again?” she answered. “I had water in my ear.”
He repeated all of the conversation he had heard. She looked incredulous, then laughed. “You didn’t hear that, Joe, you just didn’t.” She added, “You got the ‘New Jersey’ part right.”
“But I did.”
“Say it again.”
He did so, more carefully, and giving a fair imitation of the speakers’ accents.
Gail chortled. “I got the gist of it that time. That Thalia; someday some strong man is going to wring her neck.”
“But what does it mean?”
Gail gave him a long, sidewise look. “If you ever find out, I really will marry you, in spite of your protests.”
Someone was whistling from the hill top. “Joe! Joe Greene—the boss wants you.”
“Gotta go,” he said to Gail. “G’bye.”
“See you later,” she corrected him.
Baldwin was waiting in a study as comfortable as himself. “Hi, Joe,” he greeted him. “Grab a seatful of chair. They been treating you right?”
“Yes, indeed. Do you always set as good a table as I’ve enjoyed so far?”
Baldwin patted his middle. “How do you think I came by my nickname?”
“Kettle Belly, I’d like a lot of explanations.”
“Joe, I’m right sorry you lost your job. If I’d had my druthers, it wouldn’t have been the way it was.”
“Are you working with Mrs. Keithley?”
“No. I’m against her.”
“I’d like to believe that, but I’ve no reason to—yet. What were you doing where I found you?”
“They had grabbed me—Mrs. Keithley and her boys.”
“They just happened to grab you—and just happened to stuff you in the same cell with me—and you just happened to know about the films I was supposed to be guarding—and you just happened to have a double deck of cards in your pocket? Now, really!”
“If I hadn’t had the cards, we would have found some other way to talk,” Kettle Belly said mildly. “Wouldn’t we, now?”
“Yes. Granted.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest that the set up was an accident. We had you covered from Moon Base; when you were grabbed—or rather as soon as you let them suck you into the New Age, I saw to it that they grabbed me too; I figured I might have a chance to lend you a hand, once I was inside.” He added, “I kinda let them think that I was an FBS man, too.”
“I see. Then it was just luck that they locked us up together.”
“Not luck,” Kettle Belly objected. “Luck is a bonus that follows careful planning—it’s never free. There was a computable probability that they would put us together in hopes of finding out what they wanted to know. We hit the jackpot because we paid for the chance. If we hadn’t, I would have had to crush out of that cell and look for you—but I had to be inside to do it.”
“Who is Mrs. Keithley?”
“Other than what she is publicly, I take it. She is the queen bee—or the black widow—of a gang. ‘Gang’ is a poor word—power group, maybe. One of several such groups, more or less tied together where their interests don’t cross. Between them they divvy up the country for whatever they want like two cats splitting a gopher.”
Gilead nodded; he knew what Baldwin meant, though he had not known that the enormously respected Mrs. Keithley was in such matters—not until his nose had been rubbed in the fact. “And what are you, Kettle Belly?”
“Now, Joe—I like you and I’m truly sorry you’re in a jam. You led wrong a couple of times and I was obliged to trump, as the stakes were high. See here, I feel that I owe you something; what do you say to this: we’ll fix you up with a brand-new personality, vacuum tight—even new fingerprints if you want them. Pick any spot on the globe you like and any occupation; we’ll supply all the money you need to start over—or money enough to retire and play with the cuties the rest of your life. What do you say?”
“No.” There was no hesitation.
“You’ve no close relatives, no intimate friends. Think about it. I can’t put you back in your job; this is the best I can do.”
“I’ve thought about it. The devil with the job, I want to finish my case! You’re the key to it.”
“Reconsider, Joe. This is your chance to get out of affairs of state and lead a normal, happy life.”
“‘Happy,’ he says!”
“Well, safe, anyhow. If you insist on going further your life expectancy becomes extremely problematical.”
“I don’t recall ever having tried to play safe.”
“You’re the doctor. Joe. In that case—” A speaker on Baldwin’s desk uttered: “œnIe r nøg rylp.”
Baldwin answered, “nu,” and sauntered quickly to the fireplace. An early-morning fire still smouldered in it. He grasped the mantel piece, pulled it toward him. The entire masonry assembly, hearth, mantel, and grate, came toward him, leaving an arch in the wall. “Duck down stairs, Joe,” he said. “It’s a raid.”
“A real priest’s hole!”
“Yeah, corny, ain’t it? This joint has more bolt holes than a rabbit’s nest—and booby-trapped, too. Too many gadgets, if you ask me.” He went back to his desk, opened a drawer, removed three film spools and dropped them in a pocket.
Gilead was about to go down the staircase; seeing the spools, he stopped. “Go ahead, Joe,” Baldwin said urgently. “You’re covered and outnumbered. With this raid showing up we wouldn’t have time to fiddle; we’ud just have to kill you.”
They stopped in a room well underground, another study much like the one above, though lacking sunlight and view. Baldwin said something in the odd language to the mike on the desk, was answered. Gilead experimented with the idea that the lingo might be reversed English, discarded the notion.
“As I was saying,” Baldwin went on, “if you are dead set on knowing all the answers—”
“Just a moment. What about this raid?”
“Just the government boys. They won’t be rough and not too thorough. Ma Garver can handle them. We won’t have to hurt anybody as long as they don’t use penetration radar.”
Gilead smiled wryly at the disparagement of his own former service. “And if they do?”
“That gimmick over there squeals like a pig, if it’s touched by penetration frequencies. Even then we’re safe against anything short of an A-bomb. They won’t do that; they want the films, not a hole in the ground. Which reminds me—here, catch.”
Gilead found himself suddenly in possession of the films which were at the root of the matter. He unspooled a few frames and made certain that they were indeed the right films. He sat still and considered how he might get off this limb and back to the ground without dropping the eggs. The speaker again uttered something; Baldwin did not answer it but said, “We won’t be down here long.”
“Bonn seems to have decided to check my report.” Some of his—former—comrades were upstairs. If he did Baldwin in, could he locate the inside control for the door?
“Bonn is a poor sort. He’ll check me—but not too thoroughly; I’m rich. He won’t check Mrs. Keithley at all; she’s too rich. He thinks with his political ambitions instead of his head. His late predecessor was a better man—he was one of us.”
Gilead’s tentative plans underwent an abrupt reversal. His oath had been to a government; his personal loyalty had been given to his former boss. “Prove that last remark and I shall be much interested.”
“No, you’ll come to learn that it’s true—if you still insist on knowing the answers. Through checking those films, Joe? Toss ’em back.”
Gilead did not do so. “I suppose you have made copies in any case?”
“Wasn’t necessary; I looked at them. Don’t get ideas, Joe; you’re washed up with the FBS, even if you brought the films and my head back on a platter. You slugged your boss—remember?”
Gilead remembered that he had not told Baldwin so. He began to believe that Baldwin did have men inside the FBS, whether his late bureau chief had been one of them or not.
“I would at least be allowed to resign with a clear record. I know Bonn—officially he would be happy to forget it.” He was simply stalling for time, waiting for Baldwin to offer an opening.
“Chuck them back, Joe. I don’t want to rassle. One of us might get killed—both of us, if you won the first round. You can’t prove your case, because I can prove I was home teasing the cat. I sold ’copters to two very respectable citizens at the exact time you would claim I was somewhere else.” He listened again to the speaker, answered it in the same gibberish.
Gilead’s mind evaluated his own tactical situation to the same answer that Baldwin had expressed. Not being given to wishful thinking he at once tossed the films to Baldwin.
“Thanks, Joe.” He went to a small oubliette set in the wall, switched it to full power, put the films in the hopper, waited a few seconds, and switched it off. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
Gilead permitted his eyebrows to climb. “Kettle Belly, you’ve managed to surprise me.”
“How?”
“I thought you wanted to keep the nova effect as a means to power.”
“Nuts! Scalping a man is a hell of a poor way to cure him of dandruff. Joe, how much do you know about the nova effect?”
“Not much. I know it’s a sort of atom bomb powerful enough to scare the pants off anybody who gets to thinking about it.”
“It’s not a bomb. It’s not a weapon. It’s a means of destroying a planet and everything on it completely—by turning that planet into a nova. If that’s a weapon, military or political, then I’m Samson and you’re Delilah.
“But I’m not Samson,” he went on, “and I don’t propose to pull down the Temple—nor let anybody else do so. There are moral lice around who would do just that, if anybody tried to keep them from having their own way. Mrs. Keithley is one such. Your boyfriend Bonn is another such, if only he had the guts and the savvy—which he ain’t. I’m bent on frustrating such people. What do you know about ballistics, Joe?”
“Grammar school stuff.”
“Inexcusable ignorance.” The speaker sounded again; he answered it without breaking his flow. “The problem of three bodies still lacks a neat general solution, but there are several special solutions—the asteroids that chase Jupiter in Jupiter’s own orbit at the sixty degree position, for example. And there’s the straight-line solution—you’ve heard of the asteroid ‘Earth-Anti’?”
“That’s the chunk of rock that is always on the other side of the Sun, where we never see it.”
“That’s right—only it ain’t there anymore. It’s been novaed.”
Gilead, normally immune to surprise, had been subjected to one too many. “Huh? I thought this nova effect was theory?”
“Nope. If you had had time to scan through the films you would have seen pictures of it. It’s a plutonium, lithium, and heavy water deal, with some flourishes we won’t discuss. It adds up to the match that can set afire a world. It did—a little world flared up and was gone.
“Nobody saw it happen. No one on Earth could see it, for it was behind the Sun. It couldn’t have been seen from Moon Colony; the Sun still blanked it off from there—visualize the geometry. All that ever saw it were a battery of cameras in a robot ship. All who knew about it were the scientists who rigged it—and all of them were with us, except the director. If he had been, too, you would never have been in this mix up.”
“Dr. Finnley?”
“Yep. A nice guy, but a mind like a pretzel. A ‘political’ scientist, second-rate ability. He doesn’t matter; our boys will ride herd on him until he’s pensioned off. But we couldn’t keep him from reporting and sending the films down. So I had to grab ’em and destroy them.”
“Why didn’t you simply save them? All other considerations aside, they are unique in science.”
“The human race doesn’t need that bit of science, not this millennium. I saved all that mattered, Joe—in my head.”
“You are your cousin Hartley, aren’t you?”
“Of course. But I’m also Kettle Belly Baldwin, and several other guys.”
“You can be Lady Godiva, for all of me.”
“As Hartley, I was entitled to those films, Joe. It was my project. I instigated it, through my boys.”
“I never credited Finnley with it. I’m not a physicist, but he obviously isn’t up to it.”
“Sure, sure. I was attempting to prove that an artificial nova could not be created; the political—the racial—importance of establishing the point is obvious. It backfired on me—so we had to go into emergency action.”
“Perhaps you should have left well enough alone.”
“No. It’s better to know the worst; now we can be alert for it, divert research away from it.” The speaker growled again; Baldwin went on, “There may be a divine destiny, Joe, unlikely as it seems, that makes really dangerous secrets too difficult to be broached until intelligence reaches the point where it can cope with them—if said intelligence has the will and the good intentions. Ma Garver says to come up now.”
They headed for the stairs. “I’m surprised that you leave it up to an old gal like Ma to take charge during an emergency.”
“She’s competent, I assure you. But I was running things—you heard me.”
“Oh.”
They settled down again in the above-surface study. “I give you one more chance to back out, Joe. It doesn’t matter that you know all about the films, since they are gone and you can’t prove anything—but beyond that—you realize that if you come in with us, are told what is going on, you will be killed deader than a duck at the first suspicious move?”
Gilead did; he knew in fact that he was already beyond the point of no return. With the destruction of the films went his last chance of rehabilitating his former main persona. This gave him no worry; the matter was done. He had become aware that from the time he had admitted that he understood the first message this man had offered him concealed in a double deck of cards he had no longer been a free actor, his moves had been constrained by moves made by Baldwin. Yet there was no help for it; his future lay here or nowhere.
“I know it; go ahead.”
“I know what your mental reservations are, Joe; you are simply accepting risk; not promising loyalty.”
“Yes—but why are you considering taking a chance on me?”
Baldwin was more serious in manner than he usually allowed himself to be. “You’re an able man, Joe. You have the savvy and the moral courage to do what is reasonable in an odd situation rather than what is conventional.”
“That’s why you want me?”
“Partly that. Partly because I like the way you catch on to a new card game.” He grinned. “And even partly because Gail likes the way you behave with a colt.”
“Gail? What’s she got to do with it?”
“She reported on you to me about five minutes ago, during the raid.”
“Hmm—go ahead.”
“You’ve been warned.” For a moment Baldwin looked almost sheepish. “I want you to take what I say next at its face value, Joe—don’t laugh.”
“Okay.”
“You asked what I was. I’m sort of the executive secretary of this branch of an organization of supermen.”
“I thought so.”
“Eh? How long have you known?”
“Things added up. The card game, your reaction time. I knew it when you destroyed the films.”
“Joe, what is a superman?”
Gilead did not answer.
“Very well, let’s chuck the term,” Baldwin went on. “It’s been overused and misused and beat up until it has mostly comic connotations. I used it for shock value and I didn’t shock you. The term ‘supermen’ has come to have a fairytale meaning, conjuring up pictures of x-ray eyes, odd sense organs, double hearts, uncuttable skin, steel muscles—an adolescent’s dream of the dragon-killing hero. Tripe, of course. Joe, what is a man? What is man that makes him more than an animal? Settle that and we’ll take a crack at defining a superman—or New Man, homo novis, who must displace homo sapiens—is displacing him—because he is better able to survive than is homo sap. I’m not trying to define myself, I’ll leave it up to my associates and the inexorable processes of time as to whether or not I am a superman, a member of the new species of man—same test to apply to you.”
“Me?”
“You. You show disturbing symptoms of being homo novis, Joe, in a sloppy, ignorant, untrained fashion. Not likely, but you just might be one of the breed. Now—what is man? What is the one thing he can do better than animals which is so strong a survival factor that it outweighs all the things that animals of one sort or another can do much better than he can?”
“He can think.”
“I fed you that answer; no prize for it. Okay, you pass yourself off a man; let’s see you do something. What is the one possible conceivable factor—or factors, if you prefer—which the hypothetical superman could have, by mutation or magic or any means, and which could be added to this advantage which man already has and which has enabled him to dominate this planet against the unceasing opposition of a million other species of fauna? Some factor that would make the domination of man by his successor, as inevitable as your domination over a hound dog? Think, Joe. What is the necessary direction of evolution to the next dominant species?”
Gilead engaged in contemplation for what was for him a long time. There were so many lovely attributes that a man might have: to be able to see both like a telescope and microscope, to see the insides of things, to see throughout the spectrum, to have hearing of the same order, to be immune to disease, to grow a new arm or leg, to fly through the air without bothering with silly gadgets like helicopters or jets, to walk unharmed the ocean bottom, to work without tiring—
Yet the eagle could fly and he was nearly extinct, even though his eyesight was better than man’s. A dog has better smell and hearing; seals swim better, balance better, and furthermore can store oxygen. Rats can survive where men would starve or die of hardship; they are smart and pesky hard to kill. Rats could—
Wait! Could tougher, smarter rats displace man? No, it just wasn’t in them; too small a brain.
“To be able to think better,” Gilead answered almost instantly.
“Hand the man a cigar! Supermen are superthinkers; anything else is a side issue. I’ll allow the possibility of super-somethings which might exterminate or dominate mankind other than by outsmarting him in his own racket—thought. But I deny that it is possible for a man to conceive in discrete terms what such a super-something would be or how this something would win out. New Man will beat out homo sap in homo sap’s own specialty—rational thought, the ability to recognize data, store them, integrate them, evaluate correctly the result, and arrive at a correct decision. That is how man got to be champion; the creature who can do it better is the coming champion. Sure, there are other survival factors, good health, good sense organs, fast reflexes, but they aren’t even comparable, as the long, rough history of mankind has proved over and over—Marat in his bath, Roosevelt in his wheelchair, Caesar with his epilepsy and his bad stomach, Nelson with one eye and one arm, blind Milton; when the chips are down it’s brain that wins, not the body’s tools.”
“Stop a moment,” said Gilead. “How about E.S.P.?”
Baldwin shrugged. “I’m not sneering at extra-sensory perception any more than I would at exceptional eyesight—E.S.P. is not in the same league with the ability to think correctly. E.S.P. is a grab-bag name for the means other than the known sense organs by which the brain may gather data—but the trick that pays off with first prize is to make use of that data, to reason about it. If you would like a telepathic hook up to Shanghai, I can arrange it; we’ve got operators at both ends—but you can get whatever data you might happen to need from Shanghai by phone with less trouble, less chance of a bad connection, and less danger of somebody listening in. Telepaths can’t pick up a radio message; it’s not the same wave band.”
“What wave band is it?”
“Later, later. You’ve got a lot to learn.”
“I wasn’t thinking especially of telepathy. I was thinking of all parapsychological phenomena.”
“Same reasoning. Apportation would be nice, if telekinetics had gotten that far—which it ain’t. But a pick-up truck moves things handily enough. Television in the hands of an intelligent man counts for more than clairvoyance in a moron. Quit wasting my time, Joe.”
“Sorry.”
“We defined thinking as integrating data and arriving at correct answers. Look around you. Most people do that stunt just well enough to get to the corner store and back without breaking a leg. If the average man thinks at all, he does silly things like generalizing from a single datum. He uses one-valued logics. If he is exceptionally bright, he may use two-valued, ‘either-or’ logic to arrive at his wrong answers. If he is hungry, hurt, or personally interested in the answer, he can’t use any sort of logic and will discard an observed fact as blithely as he will stake his life on a piece of wishful thinking. He uses the technical miracles created by superior men without wonder nor surprise, as a kitten accepts a bowl of milk. Far from aspiring to higher reasoning, he is not even aware that higher reasoning exists. He classes his own mental process as being of the same sort as the genius of an Einstein. Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.
“For explanations of a universe that confuses him he seizes onto numerology, astrology, hysterical religions, and other fancy ways to go crazy. Having accepted such glorified nonsense, facts make no impression on him, even if at the cost of his own life. Joe, one of the hardest things to believe is the abysmal depth of human stupidity.
“That is why there is always room at the top, why a man with just a leetle more on the ball can so easily become governor, millionaire, or college president—and why homo sap is sure to be displaced by New Man, because there is so much room for improvement and evolution never stops.
“Here and there among ordinary men is a rare individual who really thinks, can and does use logic in at least one field—he’s often as stupid as the rest outside his study or laboratory—but he can think, if he’s not disturbed or sick or frightened. This rare individual is responsible for all the progress made by the race; the others reluctantly adopt his results. Much as the ordinary man dislikes and distrusts and persecutes the process of thinking he is forced to accept the results occasionally, because thinking is efficient compared with his own mauderings. He may still plant his corn in the dark of the Moon but he will plant better corn developed by better men than he.
“Still rarer is the man who thinks habitually, who applies reason, rather than habit pattern, to all his activity. Unless he masques himself, his is a dangerous life; he is regarded as queer, untrustworthy, subversive of public morals; he is a pink monkey among brown monkeys—a fatal mistake. Unless the pink monkey can dye himself brown before he is caught. The brown monkey’s instinct to kill is correct; such men are dangerous to all monkey customs.
“Rarest of all is the man who can and does reason at all times, quickly, accurately, inclusively, despite hope or fear or bodily distress, without egocentric bias or thalmic disturbance, with correct memory, with clear distinction between fact, assumption, and non-fact. Such men exist, Joe; they are ‘New Man’—human in all respects, indistinguishable in appearance or under the scalpel from homo sap, yet as unlike him in action as the Sun is unlike a single candle.”
Gilead said, “Are you that sort?”
“You will continue to form your own opinions.”
“And you think I may be, too?”
“Could be. I’ll have more data in a few days.”
Gilead laughed until the tears came. “Kettle Belly, if I’m the future hope of the race, they had better send in the second team quick. Sure I’m brighter than most of the jerks I run into, but, as you say, the competition isn’t stiff. But I haven’t any sublime aspirations. I’ve got as lecherous an eye as the next man. I enjoy wasting time over a glass of beer. I just don’t feel like a superman.”
“Speaking of beer, let’s have some.” Baldwin got up and obtained two cans of the brew. “Remember that Mowgli felt like a wolf. Being a New Man does not divorce you from human sympathies and pleasures. There have been New Men all through history; I doubt if most of them suspected that their difference entitled them to call themselves a different breed. Then they went ahead and bred with the daughters of men, diffusing their talents through the racial organism, preventing them from effectuating until chance brought the genetic factors together again.”
“Then I take it that New Man is not a special mutation?”
“Huh? Who isn’t a mutation, Joe? All of us are a collection of millions of mutations. Around the globe hundreds of mutations have taken place in our human germ plasm while we have been sitting here. No, homo novis didn’t come about because great grandfather stood too close to a cyclotron; homo novis was not even a separate breed until he became aware of himself, organized, and decided to hang on to what his genes had handed him. You could mix New Man back into the race today and lose him; he’s merely a variation becoming a species. A million years from now is another matter; I venture to predict that New Man, of that year and model, won’t be able to interbreed with homo sap—no viable offspring.”
“Not necessarily. The dog adapted to man. Probably more dogs now than in umpteen B.C.—and better fed.”
“And man would be New Man’s dog.”
“Again not necessarily. Consider the cat.”
“The idea is to skim the cream of the race’s germ plasm and keep it biologically separate until the two races are permanently distinct. You chaps sound like a bunch of stinkers, Kettle Belly.”
“Monkey talk.”
“Perhaps. The new race would necessarily run things—”
“Do you expect New Man to decide grave matters by counting common man’s runny noses?”
“No, that was my point. Postulating such a new race, the result is inevitable. Kettle Belly, I confess to a monkey prejudice in favor of democracy, human dignity, and freedom. It goes beyond logic; it is the kind of a world I like. In my job I have jungled with the outcasts of society, shared their slumgullion. Stupid they may be, bad they are not—I have no wish to see them become domestic animals.”
For the first time the big man showed concern. His persona as “King of the Kopters”, master merchandiser, slipped away; he sat in brooding majesty, a lonely and unhappy figure. “I know, Joe. They are of us; their little dignities, their nobilities, are not lessened by their sorry state. Yet it must be.”
“Why? New Man will come—granted. But why hurry the process?”
“Ask yourself.” He swept a hand toward the oubliette. “Ten minutes ago you and I saved this planet, all our race. It’s the hour of the knife. Someone must be on guard if the race is to live; there is no one but us. To guard effectively we New Men must be organized, must never fumble any crisis like this—and must increase our numbers. We are few now, Joe; as the crises increase, we must increase to meet them. Eventually—and it’s a dead race with time—we must take over and make certain that baby never plays with matches.”
He stopped and brooded. “I confess to that same affection for democracy, Joe. But it’s like yearning for the Santa Claus you believed in as a child. For a hundred and fifty years or so democracy, or something like it, could flourish safely. The issues were such as to be settled without disaster by the votes of common men, befogged and ignorant as they were. But now, if the race is simply to stay alive, political decisions depend on real knowledge of such things as nuclear physics, planetary ecology, genetic theory, even system mechanics. They aren’t up to it, Joe. With goodness and more will than they possess less than one in a thousand could stay awake over one page of nuclear physics; they can’t learn what they must know.”
Gilead brushed it aside. “It’s up to us to brief them. Their hearts are all right; tell them the score—they’ll come down with the right answers.”
“No, Joe. We’ve tried it; it does not work. As you say, most of them are good, the way a dog can be noble and good. Yet there are bad ones—Mrs. Keithley and company and more like her. Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men. The little man has no way to judge and the shoddy lies are packaged more attractively. There is no way to offer color to a colorblind man, nor is there any way for us to give the man of imperfect brain the canny skill to distinguish a lie from a truth.
“No, Joe. The gulf between us and them is narrow, but it is very deep. We cannot close it.”
“I wish,” said Gilead, “that you wouldn’t class me with your ‘New Man’; I feel more at home on the other side.”
“You will decide for yourself which side you are on, as each of us has done.”
Gilead forced a change in subject. Ordinarily immune to thalamic disturbance this issue upset him; his brain followed Baldwin’s argument and assured him that it was true; his inclinations fought it. He was confronted with the sharpest of all tragedy; two equally noble and valid rights, utterly opposed. “What do you people do, aside from stealing films?”
“Mmm—many things.” Baldwin relaxed, looked again like a jovial sharp businessman. “Where a push here and a touch there will keep things from going to pot, we apply the pressure, by many and devious means. And we scout for suitable material and bring it into the fold when we can—we’ve had our eye on you for ten years.”
“So?”
“Yep. That is a prime enterprise. Through public data we eliminate all but about one tenth of one percent; that thousandth individual we watch. And then there are our horticultural societies.” He grinned.
“Finish your joke.”
“We weed people.”
“Sorry, I’m slow today.”
“Joe, didn’t you ever feel a yen to wipe out some evil, obscene, rotten jerk who infected everything he touched, yet was immune to legal action? We treat them as cancers; we excise them from the body social. We keep a ‘Better Dead’ list; when a man is clearly morally bankrupt we close his account at the first opportunity.”
Gilead smiled. “If you were sure what you were doing, it could be fun.”
“We are always sure, though our methods would be no good in a monkey law court. Take Mrs. Keithley—is there doubt in your mind?”
“None.”
“Why don’t you have her indicted? Don’t bother to answer. For example, two weeks from tonight there will be giant pow-wow of the new, rejuvenated, bigger-and-better-than-ever Ku Klux Klan on a mountain top down Carolina way. When the fun is at its height, when they are mouthing obscenities, working each other up to the pogrom spirit, an act of God is going to wipe out the whole kit and kaboodle. Very sad.”
“Could I get in on that?”
“You aren’t even a cadet as yet.” Baldwin went on. “There is the project to increase our numbers, but that is a thousand-year program; you’d need a perpetual calendar to check it. More important is keeping matches away from baby. Joe, it’s been eighty-five years since we beheaded the last commissar: have you wondered why so little basic progress in science has been made in that time?”
“Eh? There have been a lot of changes.”
“Minor adaptations—some spectacular, almost none of them basic. Of course there was very little progress made under communism; a totalitarian political religion is incompatible with free investigation. Let me digress: the communist interregnum was responsible for the New Men getting together and organizing. Most New Men are scientists, for obvious reasons. When the commissars started ruling on natural laws by political criteria—Lysenkoism and similar nonsense—it did not sit well; a lot of us went underground.
“I’ll skip the details. It brought us together, gave us practice in underground activity, and gave a backlog of new research, carried out underground. Some of it was obviously dangerous; we decided to hang onto it for a while. Since then such secret knowledge has grown, for we never give out an item until it has been scrutinized for social hazards. Since much of it is dangerous and since very few indeed outside our organization are capable of real original thinking, basic science has been almost at a—public!—standstill.
“We hadn’t expected to have to do it that way. We helped to see to it that the new constitution was liberal and—we thought—workable. But the new Republic turned out to be an even poorer thing than the old. The evil ethic of communism had corrupted, even after the form was gone. We held off. Now we know that we must hold off until we can revise the whole society.”
“Kettle Belly,” Joe said slowly, “you speak as if you had been on the spot. How old are you?”
“I’ll tell you when you are the age I am now. A man has lived long enough when he no longer longs to live. I ain’t there yet. Joe, I must have your answer, or this must be continued in our next.”
“You had it at the beginning—but, see here, Kettle Belly, there is one job I want promised to me.”
“Which is?”
“I want to kill Mrs. Keithley.”
“Keep your pants on. When you’re trained, and if she’s still alive then, you’ll be used for that purpose—”
“Thanks!”
“—provided you are the proper tool for it.” Baldwin turned toward the mike, called out, “Gail!” and added one word in the strange tongue.
Gail showed up promptly. “Joe,” said Baldwin, “when this young lady gets through with you, you will be able to sing, whistle, chew gum, play chess, hold your breath, and fly a kite simultaneously—and all this while riding a bicycle under water. Take him, sis, he’s all yours.”
Gail rubbed her hands. “Oh, boy!”
“First we must teach you to see and to hear, then to remember, then to speak, and then to think.”
Joe looked at her. “What’s this I’m doing with my mouth at this moment?”
“It’s not talking, it’s a sort of grunting. Furthermore English is not structurally suited to thinking. Shut up and listen.”
In their underground classroom Gail had available several types of apparatus to record and manipulate light and sound. She commenced throwing groups of figures on a screen, in flashes. “What was it, Joe?”
“Nine-six-oh-seven-two—That was as far as I got.”
“It was up there a full thousandth of a second. Why did you get only the left-hand side of the group?”
“That’s all the farther I had read.”
“Look at all of it. Don’t make an effort of will; just look at it.” She flashed another number.
Joe’s memory was naturally good; his intelligence was high—just how high he did not yet know. Unconvinced that the drill was useful, he relaxed and played along. Soon he was beginning to grasp a nine-digit array as a single gestalt; Gail reduced the flash time.
“What is this magic lantern gimmick?” he inquired.
“It’s a Renshaw tachistoscope. Back to work.”
Around World War II Dr. Samuel Renshaw at the Ohio State University was proving that most people are about one-fifth efficient in using their capacities to see, hear, taste, feel and remember. His research was swallowed in the morass of communist pseudoscience that obtained after World War III, but, after his death, his findings were preserved underground. Gail did not expose Gilead to the odd language he had heard until he had been rather thoroughly Renshawed.
However, from the time of his interview with Baldwin the other persons at the ranch used it in his presence. Sometimes someone—usually Ma Garver—would translate, sometimes not. He was flattered to feel accepted, but graveled to know that it was at the lowest cadetship. He was a child among adults.
Gail started teaching him to hear by speaking to him single words from the odd language, requiring him to repeat them back. “No, Joe. Watch.” This time when she spoke the word it appeared on the screen in sound analysis, by a means basically like one long used to show the deaf-and-dumb their speech mistakes. “Now you try it.”
He did, the two arrays hung side by side. “How’s that, teacher?” he said triumphantly.
“Terrible, by several decimal places. You held the final guttural too long—” She pointed. “—the middle vowel was formed with your tongue too high and you pitched it too low and you failed to let the pitch rise. And six other things. You couldn’t possibly have been understood. I heard what you said, but it was gibberish. Try again. And don’t call me ‘teacher’.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered solemnly.
She shifted the controls; he tried again. This time his analysis array was laid down on top of hers; where the two matched, they cancelled. Where they did not match, his errors stood out in contrasting colors. The screen looked like a sun burst.
“Try again, Joe.” She repeated the word without letting it affect the display.
“Confound it, if you would tell me what the words mean instead of treating me the way Milton treated his daughters about Latin, I could remember them easier.”
She shrugged. “I can’t, Joe. You must learn to hear and to speak first. Speedtalk is a flexible language; the same word is not likely to recur. This practice word means: ‘The far horizons draw no nearer.’ That’s not much help, is it?”
The definition seemed improbable, but he was learning not to doubt her. He was not used to women who were always two jumps ahead of him. He ordinarily felt sorry for the poor little helpless cuddly creatures; this one he often wanted to slug. He wondered if this response were what the romancers meant by “love”; he decided that it couldn’t be.
“Try again, Joe.” Speedtalk was a structurally different speech from any the race had ever used. Long before, Ogden and Richards had shown that eight hundred and fifty words were sufficient vocabulary to express anything that could be expressed by “normal” human vocabularies, with the aid of a handful of special words—a hundred odd—for each special field, such as horse racing or ballistics. About the same time phoneticians had analyzed all human tongues into about a hundred-odd sounds, represented by the letters of a general phonetic alphabet.
On these two propositions Speedtalk was based.
To be sure, the phonetic alphabet was much less in number than the words in Basic English. But the letters representing sound in the phonetic alphabet were each capable of variation several different ways—length, stress, pitch, rising, falling. The more trained an ear was the larger the number of possible variations; there was no limit to variations, but, without much refinement of accepted phonetic practice, it was possible to establish a one-to-one relationship with Basic English so that one phonetic symbol was equivalent to an entire word in a “normal” language, one Speedtalk word was equal to an entire sentence. The language consequently was learned by letter units rather than by word units—but each word was spoken and listened to as a single structured gestalt.
But Speedtalk was not “shorthand” Basic English. “Normal” languages, having their roots in days of superstition and ignorance, have in them inherently and inescapably wrong structures of mistaken ideas about the universe. One can think logically in English only by extreme effort, so bad it is as a mental tool. For example, the verb “to be” in English has twenty-one distinct meanings, every single one of which is false-to-fact.
A symbolic structure, invented instead of accepted without question, can be made similar in structure to the real-world to which it refers. The structure of Speedtalk did not contain the hidden errors of English; it was structured as much like the real world as the New Men could make it. For example, it did not contain the unreal distinction between nouns and verbs found in most other languages. The world—the continuum known to science and including all human activity—does not contain “noun things” and “verb things”; it contains space-time events and relationships between them. The advantage for achieving truth, or something more nearly like truth, was similar to the advantage of keeping account books in Arabic numerals rather than Roman.
All other languages made scientific, multi-valued logic almost impossible to achieve; in Speedtalk it was as difficult not to be logical. Compare the pellucid Boolean logic with the obscurities of the Aristotelean logic it supplanted.
Paradoxes are verbal, do not exist in the real world—and Speedtalk did not have such built into it. Who shaves the Spanish Barber? Answer: follow him around and see. In the syntax of Speedtalk the paradox of the Spanish Barber could not even be expressed, save as a self-evident error.
But Joe Greene-Gilead-Briggs could not learn it until he had learned to hear, by learning to speak. He slaved away; the screen continued to remain lighted with his errors.
Came finally a time when Joe’s pronunciation of a sentence-word blanked out Gail’s sample; the screen turned dark. He felt more triumph over that than anything he could remember.
His delight was short. By a circuit Gail had thoughtfully added some days earlier the machine answered with a flourish of trumpets, loud applause, and then added in a cooing voice, “Mama’s good boy!”
He turned to her. “Woman, you spoke of matrimony. If you ever do manage to marry me, I’ll beat you.”
“I haven’t made up my mind about you yet,” she answered evenly. “Now try this word, Joe—”
Baldwin showed up that evening, called him aside. “Joe! C’mere. Listen, lover boy, you keep your animal nature out of your work, or I’ll have to find you a new teacher.”
“But—”
“You heard me. Take her swimming, take her riding, after hours you are on your own. Work time—strictly business. I’ve got plans for you; I want you to get smarted up.”
“She complained about me?”
“Don’t be silly. It’s my business to know what’s going on.”
“Hmm. Kettle Belly, what is this shopping-for-a-husband she kids about? Is she serious, or is it just intended to rattle me?”
“Ask her. Not that it matters, as you won’t have any choice if she means it. She has the calm persistence of the law of gravitation.”
“Ouch! I had had the impression that the ‘New Men’ did not bother with marriage and such like, as you put it, ‘monkey customs.’ ”
“Some do, some don’t. Me, I’ve been married quite a piece, but I mind a mousy little member of our lodge who had had nine kids by nine fathers—all wonderful genius-plus kids. On the other hand I can point out one with eleven kids—Thalia Wagner—who has never so much as looked at another man, Geniuses make their own rules in such matters, Joe; they always have. Here are some established statistical facts about genius, as shown by Armatoe’s work—”
He ticked them off. “Geniuses are usually long lived. They are not modest, not honestly so. They have infinite capacity for taking pains. They are emotionally indifferent to accepted codes of morals—they make their own rules. You seem to have the stigmata, by the way.”
“Thanks for nothing. Maybe I should have a new teacher, if there is anyone else available who can do it.”
“Any of us can do it, just as anybody handy teaches a baby to talk. She’s actually a biochemist, when she has time for it.”
“When she has time?”
“Be careful of that kid, son. Her real profession is the same as yours—honorable hatchet man. She’s killed upwards of three hundred people.” Kettle Belly grinned. “If you want to switch teachers, just drop me a wink.”
Gilead-Greene hastily changed the subject. “You were speaking of work for me: how about Mrs. Keithley? Is she still alive?”
“Yes, blast her.”
“Remember, I’ve got dibs on her.”
“You may have to go to the Moon to get her. She’s reported to be building a vacation home there. Old age seems to be telling on her; you had better get on with your homework if you want a crack at her.” Moon Colony even then was a center of geriatrics for the rich. The low gravity was easy on their hearts, made them feel young—and possibly extended their lives.
“Okay, I will.”
Instead of asking for a new teacher Joe took a highly polished apple to their next session. Gail ate it, leaving him very little core, and put him harder to work than ever. While perfecting his hearing and pronunciation, she started him on the basic thousand-letter vocabulary by forcing him to start to talk simple three and four-letter sentences, and by answering him in different word-sentences using the same phonetic letters. Some of the vowel and consonant sequences were very difficult to pronounce.
Master them he did. He had been used to doing most things easier than could those around him; now he was in very fast company. He stretched himself and began to achieve part of his own large latent capacity. When he began to catch some of the dinner-table conversation and to reply in simple Speedtalk—being forbidden by Gail to answer in English—she started him on the ancillary vocabularies.
An economical language cannot be limited to a thousand words; although almost every idea can be expressed somehow in a short vocabulary, higher orders of abstraction are convenient. For technical words Speedtalk employed an open expansion of sixty of the thousand-odd phonetic letters. They were the letters ordinarily used as numerals; by preceding a number with a letter used for no other purpose, the symbol was designated as having a word value.
New Men numbered to the base sixty—three times four times five, a convenient, easily factored system, most economical, i.e., the symbol “100” identified the number described in English as thirty-six hundred—yet permitting quick, in-the-head translation from common notation to Speedtalk figures and vice versa.
By using these figures, each prefaced by the indicator—a voiceless Welsh or Burmese “1”—a pool of 215,999 words (one less than the cube of sixty) were available for specialized meaning without using more than four letters including the indicator. Most of them could be pronounced as one syllable. These had not the stark simplicity of basic Speedtalk; nevertheless words such as “ichthyophagous” and “constitutionality” were thus compressed to monosyllables. Such shortcuts can best be appreciated by anyone who has heard a long speech in Cantonese translated into a short speech in English. Yet English is not the most terse of “normal” languages—and expanded Speedtalk is many times more economical than the briefest of “normal” tongues.
By adding one more letter (sixty to the fourth power) just short of thirteen million words could be added if needed—and most of them could still be pronounced as one syllable.
When Joe discovered that Gail expected him to learn a couple hundred thousand new words in a matter of days, he balked. “Damn it, Fancy Pants, I am not a superman. I’m in here by mistake.”
“Your opinion is worthless; I think you can do it. Now listen.”
“Suppose I flunk; does that put me safely off your list of possible victims?”
“If you flunk, I wouldn’t have you on toast. Instead I’d tear your head off and stuff it down your throat. But you won’t flunk; I know. However,” she added, “I’m not sure you would be a satisfactory husband; you argue too much.”
He made a brief and bitter remark in Speedtalk; she answered with one word which described his shortcomings in detail. They got to work.
Joe was mistaken; he learned the expanded vocabulary as fast as he heard it. He had a latent eidetic memory; the Renshawing process now enabled him to use it fully. And his mental processes, always fast, had become faster than he knew.
The ability to learn Speedtalk at all is proof of supernormal intelligence; the use of it by such intelligence renders that mind efficient. Even before World War II Alfred Korzybski had shown that human thought was performed, when done efficiently, only in symbols; the notion of “pure” thought, free of abstracted speech symbols, was merely fantasy. The brain was so constructed as to work without symbols only on the animal level; to speak of “reasoning” without symbols was to speak nonsense.
Speedtalk did not merely speed up communication—by its structures it made thought more logical; by its economy it made thought processes enormously faster, since it takes almost as long to think a word as it does to speak it.
Korzybski’s monumental work went fallow during the communist interregnum; Das Kapital is a childish piece of work, when analyzed by semantics, so the politburo suppressed semantics—and replaced it by ersatz under the same name, as Lysenkoism replaced the science of genetics.
Having Speedtalk to help him learn more Speedtalk, Joe learned very rapidly. The Renshawing had continued; he was now able to grasp a gestalt or configuration in many senses at once, grasp it, remember it, reason about it with great speed.
Living time is not calendar time; a man’s life is the thought that flows through his brain. Any man capable of learning Speedtalk had an association time at least three times as fast as an ordinary man. Speedtalk itself enabled him to manipulate symbols approximately seven times as fast as English symbols could be manipulated. Seven times three is twenty-one; a new man had an effective life time of at least sixteen hundred years, reckoned in flow of ideas.
They had time to become encyclopedic synthesists, something denied any ordinary man by the straitjacket of his sort of time.
When Joe had learned to talk, to read and write and cipher, Gail turned him over to others for his real education. But before she checked him out she played him several dirty tricks.
For three days she forbade him to eat. When it was evident that he could think and keep his temper despite low blood-sugar count, despite hunger reflex, she added sleeplessness and pain—intense, long, continued, and varied pain. She tried subtly to goad him into irrational action; he remained bedrock steady, his mind clicking away at any assigned task as dependably as an electronic computer.
“Who’s not a superman?” she asked at the end of their last session.
“Yes, teacher.”
“Come here, lug.” She grabbed him by the ears, kissed him soundly. “So long.” He did not see her again for many weeks.
His tutor in E.S.P. was an ineffectual-looking little man who had taken the protective coloration of the name Weems. Joe was not very good at producing E.S.P. phenomena. Clairvoyance he did not appear to have. He was better at precognition, but he did not improve with practice. He was best at telekinesis; he could have made a soft living with dice. But, as Kettle Belly had pointed out, from affecting the roll of dice to moving tons of freight was quite a gap—and one possibly not worth bridging.
“It may have other uses, however,” Weems had said softly, lapsing into English. “Consider what might be done if one could influence the probability that a neutron would reach a particular nucleus—or change the statistical probability in a mass.”
Gilead let it ride; it was an outrageous thought.
At telepathy he was erratic to exasperation. He called the Rhine cards once without a miss, then had poor scores for three weeks. More highly structured communication seemed quite beyond him, until one day without apparent cause but during an attempt to call the cards by telepathy, he found himself hooked in with Weems for all of ten seconds—time enough for a thousand words by Speedtalk standards.
—it comes out as speech!
—why not? thought is speech.
—how do we do it?
—if we knew it would not be so unreliable, as it is, some can do it by volition, some by accident, and some never seem to be able to do it. We do know this: while thought may not be of the physical world in any fashion we can now define and manipulate, it is similar to events in continuum in its quantal nature. You are now studying the extension of the quantum concept to all features of the continuum, you know the chronon, the mensum, and the viton, as quanta, as well as the action units of quanta such as the photon. The continuum has not only structure but texture in all its features. The least unit of thought we term the psychon.
—define it. Put salt on its tail.
—some day, some day. I can tell you this; the fastest possible rate of thought is one psychon per chronon; this is a basic, universal constant.
—how close do we come to that?
—less than sixty-to-the-minus-third-power of the possibility.
—! ! ! ! !
—better creatures than ourselves will follow us. We pick pebbles at a boundless ocean.
—what can we do to improve it?
—gather our pebbles with serene minds.
Gilead paused for a long split second of thought.—can psychons be destroyed?
—vitons may be transferred, psychons are—
The connection was suddenly destroyed. “As I was saying,” Weems went on quietly, “psychons are as yet beyond our comprehension in many respects. Theory indicates that they may not be destroyed, that thought, like action, is persistent Whether or not such theory, if true, means that personal identity is also persistent must remain an open question. See the daily papers—a few hundred years from now—or a few hundred thousand.” He stood up.
“I’m anxious to try tomorrow’s session, Doc,” Gilead-Greene almost bubbled. “Maybe—”
“I’m finished with you.”
“But, Doctor Weems that connection was clear as a phone hook-up. Perhaps tomorrow—”
“We have established that your talent is erratic. We have no way to train it to dependability. Time is too short to waste, mine and yours.” Lapsing suddenly into English, he added, “No.”
Gilead left.
During his training in other fields Joe was exposed to many things best described as impressive gadgets. There was an integrating pantograph, a factory-in-a-box, which the New Men planned to turn over to ordinary men as soon as the social system was no longer dominated by economic wolves. It could and did reproduce almost any prototype placed on its stage, requiring thereto only materials and power. Its power came from a little nucleonics motor the size of Joe’s thumb; its theory played hob with conventional notions of entropy. One put in “sausage”; one got out “pig.”
Latent in it was the shape of an economic system as different from the current one as the assembly-line economy differed from the family-shop system—and in such a system lay possibilities of human freedom and dignity missing for centuries, if they had ever existed.
In the meantime New Men rarely bought more than one of anything—a pattern. Or they made a pattern.
Another useful but hardly wonderful gadget was a dictaphone-typewriter-printing-press combination. The machine’s analysers recognized each of the thousand-odd phonetic symbols; there was a typebar for each sound. It produced one or many copies. Much of Gilead’s education came from pages printed by this gadget, saving the precious time of others.
The arrangement, classification, and accessibility of knowledge remain in all ages the most pressing problem. With the New Men, complete and organized memory licked most of the problem and rendered record keeping, most reading and writing—and most especially the time-destroying trouble of rereading—unnecessary. The autoscriber gadget, combined with a “librarian” machine that could “hear” that portion of Speedtalk built into it as a filing system, covered most of the rest of the problem. New Men were not cluttered with endless bits of paper. They never wrote memoranda.
The area under the ranch was crowded with technological wonders, all newer than next week. Incredibly tiny manipulators for micrurgy of all sorts, surgical, chemical, biological manipulation, oddities of cybernetics only less complex than the human brain—the list is too long to describe. Joe did not study all of them; an encyclopedic synthesist is concerned with structured shapes of knowledge; he cannot, even with Speed-talk, study details in every field.
Early in his education, when it was clear that he had had the potential to finish the course, plastic surgery was started to give him a new identity and basic appearance. His height was reduced by three inches; his skull was somewhat changed; his complexion was permanently darkened. Gail picked the facial appearance he was given; he did not object. He rather liked it; it seemed to fit his new inner personality.
With a new face, a new brain, and a new outlook, he was almost in fact a new man. Before he had been a natural genius; now he was a trained genius.
“Joe, how about some riding?”
“Suits.”
“I want to give War Conqueror some gentle exercise. He’s responding to the saddle; I don’t want him to forget.”
“Right with you.”
Kettle Belly and Gilead-Greene rode out from the ranch buildings. Baldwin let the young horse settle to a walk and began to talk. “I figure you are about ready for work son.”
Even in Speedtalk Kettle Belly’s speech retained his own flavor.
“I suppose so, but I still have those mental reservations.”
“Not sure we are on the side of the angels?”
“I’m sure you mean to be. It’s evident that the organization selects for good will and humane intentions quite as carefully as for ability. I wasn’t sure at one time—”
“Yes?”
“That candidate who came here about six months ago, the one who broke his neck in a riding accident.”
“Oh, yes! Very sad.”
“Very opportune, you mean, Kettle Belly.”
“Damn it, Joe, if a bad apple gets in this far, we can’t let him out.” Baldwin reverted to English for swearing purposes; he maintained that it had “more juice.”
“I know it. That’s why I’m sure about the quality of our people.”
“So it’s ‘our people’ now?”
“Yes. But I’m not sure we are on the right track.”
“What’s your notion of the right track?”
“We should come out of hiding and teach the ordinary man what he can learn of what we know. He could learn a lot of it and could use it. Properly briefed and trained, he could run his affairs pretty well. He would gladly kick out the no-goods who ride on his shoulders, if only he knew how. We could show him. That would be more to the point than this business of spot assassination, now and then, here and there—mind you, I don’t object to killing any man who merits killing; I simply say it’s inefficient. No doubt we would have to continue to guard against such crises as the one that brought you and me together, but, in the main, people could run their own affairs if we would just stop pretending that we are so scared we can’t mix with people, come out of our hole, and lend a hand.”
Baldwin reined up. “Don’t say that I don’t mix with the common people, Joe; I sell used ’copters for a living. You can’t get any commoner. And don’t imply that my heart is not with them. We are not like them, but we are tied to them by the strongest bond of all, for we are all, each every one, sickening with the same certainly fatal disease—we are alive.
“As for our killings, you don’t understand the principles of assassination as a political weapon. Read—” He named a Speedtalk library designation. “If I were knocked off, our organization wouldn’t even hiccup, but organizations for bad purposes are different. They are personal empires; if you pick the time and the method, you can destroy such an organization by killing one man—the parts that remain will be almost harmless until assimilated by another leader—then you kill him. It is not inefficient; it’s quite efficient, if planned with the brain and not with the emotions.
“As for keeping ourselves separate, we are about like the U-235 in U-238, not effective unless separated out. There have been potential New Men in every generation, but they were spread too thin.
“As for keeping our existence secret, it is utterly necessary if we are to survive and increase. There is nothing so dangerous as being the Chosen People—and in the minority. One group was persecuted for two thousand years merely for making the claim.”
He again shifted to English to swear. “Damn it, Joe, face up to it. This world is run the way my great aunt Susie flies a ’copter. Speedtalk or no Speedtalk, common man can’t learn to cope with modern problems. No use to talk about the unused potential of his brain, he has not got the will to learn what he would have to know. We can’t fit him out with new genes, so we have to lead him by the hand to keep him from killing himself—and us. We can give him personal liberty, we can give him autonomy in most things, we can give him a great measure of personal dignity—and we will, because we believe that individual freedom, at all levels, is the direction of evolution, of maximum survival value. But we can’t let him fiddle with issues of racial life and death; he ain’t up to it.
“No help for it. Each shape of society develops its own ethic. We are shaping this the way we are inexorably forced to, by the logic of events. We think we are shaping it toward survival.”
“Are we?” mused Greene-Gilead.
“Remains to be seen. Survivors survive. We’ll know—Wup! Meeting’s adjourned.”
The radio on Baldwin’s pommel was shrilling his personal emergency call. He listened, then spoke one sharp word in Speedtalk. “Back to the house, Joel” He wheeled and was away. Joe’s mount came of less selected stock; he was forced to follow.
Baldwin sent for Joe soon after he got back. Joe went in; Gail was already there.
Baldwin’s face was without expression. He said in English, “I’ve work for you, Joe, work you won’t have any doubt about. Mrs. Keithley.”
“Good.”
“Not good.” Baldwin shifted to Speedtalk. “We have been caught flat-footed. Either the second set of films was never destroyed, or there was a third set. We do not know; the man who could tell us is dead. But Mrs. Keithley obtained a set and has been using them.
“This is the situation. The ‘fuse’ of the nova effect has been installed in the New Age Hotel. It has been sealed off and can be triggered only by radio signal from the Moon—her signal. The ‘fuse’ has been rigged so that any attempt to break in, as long as the firing circuit is still armed, will trigger it and set it off. Even an attempt to examine it by penetration wavelengths will set it off. Speaking as a physicist, it is my considered opinion that no plan for tackling the ‘nova’ fuse bomb itself will work unless the arming circuit is first broken on the Moon and that no attempt should be made to get at fuse before then, because of extreme danger to the entire planet.
“The arming circuit and the radio relay to the Earthside trigger are located on the Moon in a building inside her private dome. The triggering control she keeps with her. From the same control she can disarm the arming circuit temporarily; it is a combination dead-man switch and time-clock arrangement. It can be set to disarm for a maximum of twelve hours, to let her sleep, or possibly to permit her to order rearrangements. Unless it is switched off any attempt to enter the building in which the arming circuit is housed will also trigger the ‘Nova’ bomb circuit. While it is disarmed, the housing on the Moon may be broached by force but this will set off alarms which will warn her to rearm and then to trigger at once. The set up is such that the following sequence of events must take place:
“First, she must be killed, and the circuit disarmed.
“Second, the building housing the arming circuit and radio relay to the trigger must be broken open and the circuits destroyed before the time clock can rearm and trigger. This must be done with speed, not only because of guards, but because her surviving lieutenants will attempt to seize power by possessing themselves of the controls.
“Third, as soon as word is received on Earth that the arming circuit is destroyed, the New Age will be attacked in force and the ‘Nova’ bomb destroyed.
“Fourth, as soon as the bomb is destroyed, a general round up must be made of all persons technically capable of setting up the ‘Nova’ effect from plans. This alert must be maintained until it is certain that no plans remain in existence, including the third set of films, and further established by hypno that no competent person possesses sufficient knowledge to set it up without plans. This alert may compromise our secret status; the risk must be taken.
“Any questions?”
“Kettle Belly,” said Joe, “Doesn’t she know that if the Earth becomes a Nova, the Moon will be swallowed up in the disaster?”
“Crater walls shield her dome from line-of-sight with Earth; apparently she believes she is safe. Evil is essentially stupid, Joe; despite her brilliance, she believes what she wishes to believe. Or it may be that she is willing to risk her own death against the tempting prize of absolute power. Her plan is to proclaim power with some pious nonsense about being high priestess of peace—a euphemism for Empress of Earth. It is a typical paranoid deviation; the proof of the craziness lies in the fact that the physical arrangements make it certain—if we do not intervene—that Earth will be destroyed automatically a few hours after her death; a thing that could happen any time—and a compelling reason for all speed. No one has ever quite managed to conquer all of Earth, not even the commissars. Apparently she wishes not only to conquer it, but wants to destroy it after she is gone, lest anyone else ever manage to do so again. Any more questions?”
He went on, “The plan is this:
“You two will go to the Moon to become domestic servants to Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Copley, a rich, elderly couple living at the Elysian Rest Homes, Moon Colony. They are of us. Shortly they will decide to return to Earth; you two will decide to remain, you like it. You will advertise, offering to work for anyone who will post your return bond. About this time Mrs. Keithley will have lost through circumstances that will be arranged, two or more of her servants; she will probably hire you, since domestic service is the scarcest commodity on the Moon. If not, a variation will be arranged for you.
“When you are inside her dome, you’ll maneuver yourselves into positions to carry out your assignments. When both of you are so placed, you will carry out procedures one and two with speed.
“A person named McGinty, already inside her dome, will help you in communication. He is not one of us but is our agent, a telepath. His ability does not extend past that. Your communication hook up will probably be, Gail to McGinty by telepathy, McGinty to Joe by concealed radio.”
Joe glanced at Gail; it was the first that he had known that she was a telepath. Baldwin went on, “Gail will kill Mrs. Keithley; Joe will break into the housing and destroy the circuits. Are you ready to go?”
Joe was about to suggest swapping the assignments when Gail answered, “Ready”; he echoed her.
“Good. Joe, you will carry your assumed I.Q. at about 85, Gail at 95; she will appear to be the dominant member of a married couple—” Gail grinned at Joe. “—but you, Joe, will be in charge. Your personalities and histories are now being made up and will be ready with your identifications. Let me say again that the greatest of speed is necessary; government security forces here may attempt a fool-hardy attack on the New Age Hotel. We shall prevent or delay such efforts, but act with speed. Good luck.”
Operation Black Widow, first phase, went off as planned.
Eleven days later Joe and Gail were inside Mrs. Keithley’s dome on the moon and sharing a room in the servants’ quarters. Gail glanced around when first they entered it and said in Speedtalk, “Now you’ll have to marry me; I’m compromised.”
“Shut that up, idiot! Someone might hear you.”
“Pooh! They’d just think I had asthma. Don’t you think it’s noble of me, Joe, to sacrifice my girlish reputation for home and country?”
“What reputation?”
“Come closer so I can slug you.”
Even the servants’ quarters were luxurious. The dome was a sybarite’s dream. The floor of it was gardened in real beauty save where Mrs. Keithley’s mansion stood. Opposite it, across a little lake—certainly the only lake on the Moon—was the building housing the circuits; it was disguised as a little Doric Grecian shrine.
The dome itself was edge-lighted fifteen hours out of each twenty-four, shutting out the black sky and the harsh stars. At “night” the lighting was gradually withdrawn.
McGinty was a gardener and obviously enjoyed his work. Gail established contact with him, got out of him what little he knew. Joe left him alone save for contacts in character.
There was a staff of over two hundred, having its own social hierarchy, from engineers for dome and equipment, Mrs. Keithley’s private pilot, and so on down to gardeners’ helpers. Joe and Gail were midway, being inside servants. Gail made herself popular as the harmlessly flirtatious but always helpful and sympathetic wife of a meek and older husband. She had been a beauty parlor operator, so it seemed, before she “married” and had great skill in massaging aching backs and stiff necks, relieving headaches and inducing sleep. She was always ready to demonstrate.
Her duties as a maid had not yet brought her into close contact with their employer. Joe, however, had acquired the job of removing all potted plants to the “outdoors” during “night”; Mrs. Keithley, according to Mr. James, the butler, believed that plants should be outdoors at “night.” Joe was thus in a position to get outside the house when the dome was dark; he had already reached the point where the night guard at the Grecian temple would sometimes get Joe to “jigger” for him while the guard snatched a forbidden cigaret.
McGinty had been able to supply one more important fact: in addition to the guard at the temple building, and the locks and armor plate of the building itself, the arming circuit was booby-trapped. Even if it were inoperative as an arming circuit for the ‘Nova’ bomb on Earth, it itself would blow up if tampered with. Gail and Joe discussed it in their room, Gail sitting on his lap like an affectionate wife, her lips close to his left ear. “Perhaps you could wreck it from the door, without exposing yourself.”
“I’ve got to be sure. There is certainly some way of switching that gimmick off. She has to provide for possible repairs or replacements.”
“Where would it be?”
“Just one place that matches the pattern of the rest of her planning. Right under her hand, along with the disarming switch and the trigger switch.” He rubbed his other ear; it contained his short-range radio hook-up to McGinty and itched almost constantly.
“Hmm—then there’s just one thing to be done; I’ll have to wring it out of her before I kill her.”
“We’ll see.”
Just before dinner the following “evening” she found him in their room. “It worked, Joe, it worked!”
“What worked?”
“She fell for the bait. She heard from her secretary about my skill as a masseuse; I was ordered up for a demonstration this afternoon. Now I am under strict instructions to come to her tonight and rub her to sleep.”
“It’s tonight, then.”
McGinty waited in his room, behind a locked door. Joe stalled in the back hall, spinning out endlessly a dull tale to Mr. James.
A voice in his ear said, “She’s in her room now.”
“—and that’s how my brother got married to two women at once,” Joe concluded. “Sheer bad luck. I better get these plants outside before the missus happens to ask about ’em.”
“I suppose you had. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Mr. James.” He picked up two of the pots and waddled out.
He put them down outside and heard, “She says she’s started to massage. She’s spotted the radio switching unit; it’s on the belt that the old gal keeps at her bedside table when she’s not wearing it.”
“Tell her to kill her and grab it.”
“She says she wants to make her tell how to unswitch the booby-trap gimmick first.”
“Tell her not to delay.”
Suddenly, inside his head, clear and sweet as a bell as if they were her own spoken tones, he heard her. —Joe, I can hear you. Can you hear me?
—yes, yes! Aloud he added, “Stand by the phones anyhow, Mac”
—Iwon’t be long. I have her in intense pain; she’ll crack soon.
—hurt her plenty! He began to run toward the temple building—Gail, are you still shopping for a husband?
—I’ve found him.
—marry me and I’ll beat you every Saturday night.
—the man who can beat me hasn’t been born.
—I’d like to try. He slowed down before he came near the guard’s station. “Hi, Jim!”
—it’s a deal.
“Well, if it taint Joey boy! Got a match?”
“Here.” He reached out a hand—then, as the guard fell, he eased him to the ground and made sure that he would stay out.—Gail! It’s got to be now!
The voice in his head came back in great consternation:—Joe! She was too tough, she wouldn’t crack. She’s dead!
—good! Get that belt, break the arming circuit, then see what else you find. I’m going to break in.
He went toward the door of the temple.
—it’s disarmed, Joe. I could spot it; it has a time set on it. I can’t tell about the others; they aren’t marked and they all look alike.
He took from his pocket a small item provided by Baldwin’s careful planning.—twist them all from where they are to the other way. You’ll probably hit it.
—oh, Joe, I hope so!
He had placed the item against the lock; the metal around it turned red and now was melting away. An alarm clanged somewhere.
Gail’s voice came again in his head; there was urgency in it but no fear:—Joe! They’re beating on the door. I’m trapped.
—McGinty! Be our witness! He went on:—I, Joseph, take thee, Gail, to be my lawfully wedded wife—
He was answered in tranquil rhythm:—I, Gail, take thee, Joseph, to be my lawfully wedded husband—
—to have and to hold, he went on.
—to have and to hold, my beloved!
—for better, for worse—
—for better, for worse—
Her voice in his head was singing.—till death do us part. I’ve got it open, darling; I am going in.
—till death do us part! They are breaking down the bedroom door, Joseph my dearest.
—hang on! I’m almost through here.
—they have broken it down, Joe. They are coming toward me. Good-bye my darling! I am very happy. Abruptly her “voice” stopped.
He was facing the box that housed the disarming circuit, alarms clanging in his ears; he took from his pocket another gadget and tried it.
The blast that shattered the box caught him full in the chest. The letters on the metal marker read:
TO THE MEMORY OF
MR. AND MRS. JOSEPH GREENE
WHO, NEAR THIS SPOT,
DIED FOR ALL THEIR FELLOW MEN.
THE END
Do you want more?
I have more stories like this in my fictional story index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Here is the full text of the wonderful Robert Heinlein science fiction story titled “Tunnel in the Sky”. In it, he describes the use of a dimensional portal from which students can use to travel to another planet. In this fictional story, the students enter the portal, but something happens. They get stranded on this strange planet and need to learn how to survive from scratch. It’s a great fun read and easy escapist adventure reading.
Tunnel in the Sky
1. The Marching Hordes
The bulletin board outside lecture hall 1712-Aof Patrick Henry High School showed a flashing red light. Rod Walker pushed his way into a knot of students and tried to see what the special notice had to say. He received an elbow in the stomach, accompanied by: “Hey! Quit shoving!”
“Sorry. Take it easy, Jimmy.” Rod locked the elbow in a bone breaker but put no pressure on, craned his neck to look over Jimmy Throxton’s head. “What’s on the board?” “No class today.”
“Why not?”
Avoice near the board answered him. “Because tomorrow it’s ‘Hail, Caesar, we who are about to die-’”
“So?” Rod felt his stomach tighten as it always did before an examination. Someone moved aside and he managed to read the notice: PATRICK HENRYHIGH SCHOOL
Department of Social Studies
SPECIAL NOTICE to all students Course 410 (elective senior seminar) Advanced Survival, instr. Dr. Matson, 1712-AMWF
There will be no class Friday the 14th.
Twenty-Four Hour Notice is hereby given of final examination in Solo Survival. Students will present themselves for physical check at 0900 Saturday in the dispensary of Templeton Gate and will start passing through the gate at 1000, using three-minute intervals by lot.
TEST CONDITIONS:
ANYplanet, ANYclimate, ANYterrain;
NO rules, ALL weapons, ANYequipment;
TEAMING IS PERMITTED but teams will not be allowed to pass through the gate in company;
TEST DURATION is not less than forty-eight hours, not more than ten days.
Dr. Matson will be available for advice and consultation until 1700 Friday.
Test may be postponed Only on recommendation of examining physician, but any student may withdraw from the course without administrative penalty up until 1000 Saturday.
Good luck and long life to you all!
(s) B. P. Matson, Sc.D. Approved:
J. R. ROERICH, for the Board
Rod Walker reread the notice slowly, while trying to quiet the quiver in his nerves. He checked off the test conditions-why, those were not “conditions” but a total lack of conditions, no limits of any sort! They could dump you through the gate and the next instant you might be facing a polar bear at forty below-or wrestling an Octopus deep in warm salt water.
Or, he added, faced up to some three-headed horror on a planet you had never heard of.
He heard a soprano voice complaining, “‘Twenty-four hour notice!’ Why, it’s less than twenty hours now. That’s not fair.” Another girl answered, “What’s the difference? I wish we were starting this minute. I won’t get a wink of sleep tonight.” “If we are supposed to have twenty-four hours to get ready, then we ought to have them. Fair is fair.”
Another student, a tall, husky Zulu girl, chuckled softly. “Go on in. Tell the Deacon that.”
Rod backed out of the press, taking Jimmy Throxton with him. He felt that he knew what “Deacon” Matson would say … something about the irrelevancy of fairness to survival. He chewed over the bait in paragraph five; nobody would say boo if he dropped the course. After all, “Advanced Survival’ was properly a college. course; he would graduate without it.
But he knew down deep that if he lost his nerve now, he would never take the course later. Jimmy said nervously, “What d’you think of it, Rod?”
“All right, I guess. But I’d like to know whether or not to wear my long-handled underwear. Do you suppose the Deacon would give us a hint?” “Him? Not him! He thinks a broken leg is the height of humor. That man would eat his own grandmother- without salt.”
“Oh, come now! He’d use salt. Say, Jim? You saw what it said about teaming.”
“Yeah… what about it?” Jimmy’s eyes shifted away. Rod felt a moment’s irritation. He was making a suggestion as delicate as a proposal of marriage, an offer to put his own life in the same basket with Jimmy’s. The greatest risk in a solo test was that a fellow just had to sleep sometime … but a team could split it up and stand watch over each other.
Jimmy must know that Rod was better than he was, with any weapon or bare hands; the proposition was to his advantage. Yet here he was hesitating as if he thought Rod might handicap him. “What’s the matter, Jim?” Rod said bleakly. “Figure you’re safer going it alone?”
“Uh, no, not exactly.”
“You mean you’d rather not team with me?” “No, no, I didn’t mean that!”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I meant- Look, Rod, I surely do thank you. I won’t forget it. But that notice said something else, too.” “What?”
“It said we could dump this durned course and still graduate. And I just happened to remember that I don’t need it for the retail clothing business.” “Huh? I thought you had ambitions to become a wideangled lawyer?’
“So exotic jurisprudence loses its brightest jewel… so what do I care? It will make my old man very happy to learn that I’ve decided to stick with the family business.” “You mean you’re scared.”
“Well, that’s one way of putting it. Aren’t you?”
Rod took a deep breath. “Yes. I’m scared.”
“Good! Now let’s both give a classic demonstration of how to survive and stay alive by marching down to the Registrar’s office and bravely signing our names to withdrawal slips.” “Uh, no. You go ahead.”
“You mean you’re sticking?” “I guess so.”
“Look, Rod, have you looked over the statistics on last year’s classes?”
“No. And I don’t want to. So long.” Rod turned sharply and headed for the classroom door, leaving Jimmy to stare after him with a troubled look.
The lecture room was occupied by a dozen or so of the seminar’s students. Doctor Matson, the “Deacon,” was squatting tailor-fashion on one corner of his desk and holding forth informally. He was a small man and spare, with a leathery face, a patch over one eye, and most of three fingers missing from his left hand. On his chest were miniature ribbons, marking service in three famous first expeditions; one carried a tiny diamond cluster that showed him to be the last living member of that group.
Rod slipped into the second row. The Deacon’s eye flicked at him as he went on talking. “I don’t understand the complaints,” he said jovially. “The test conditions say ‘all weapons’ so you can protect yourself any way you like… from a slingshot to a cobalt bomb. I think final examination should be bare hands, not so much as a nail file. But the Board of Education doesn’t agree, so we do it this sissy way instead.” He shrugged and grinned.
“Uh, Doctor, I take it then that the Board knows that we are going to run into dangerous animals?” “Eh? You surely will! The most dangerous animal known.”
“Doctor, if you mean that literally-“ “Oh, I do, I do!”
“Then I take it that we are either being sent to Mithra and will have to watch out for snow apes, or we are going to stay on Terra and be dumped where we can expect leopards. Am I right?” The Deacon shook his head despairingly. “My boy, you had better cancel and take this course over. Those dumb brutes aren’t dangerous.”
“But Jasper says, in Predators and Prey, that the two trickiest, most dangerous-“
“Jasper’s maiden aunt! I’m talking about the real King of the Beasts, the only animal that is always dangerous, even when not hungry. The two-legged brute. Take a look around you!” The instructor leaned forward. “I’ve said this nineteen dozen times but you still don’t believe it. Man is the one animal that can’t be tamed. He goes along for years as peaceful as a cow,
when it suits him. Then when it suits him not to be, he makes a leopard look like a tabby cat. Which goes double for the female of the species. Take another look around you. All friends.
We’ve been on group-survival field tests together; we can depend on each other. So? Read about the Donner Party, or the First Venus Expedition. Anyhow, the test area will have several
other classes in it, all strangers to you.” Doctor Matson fixed his eye on Rod. “I hate to see some of you take this test, I really do. Some of you are city dwellers by nature; I’m afraid I have
not managed to get it through your heads that there are no policemen where you are going. Nor will I be around to give you a hand if you make some silly mistake.”
His eye moved on; Rod wondered if the Deacon meant him. Sometimes he felt that the Deacon took delight in rawhiding him. But Rod knew that it was serious; the course was required for all the Outlands professions for the good reason that the Outlands were places where you were smart – or you were dead. Rod had chosen to take this course before entering college because he hoped that it would help him to get a scholarship – but that did not mean that he thought it was just a formality. He looked around, wondering who would be willing to team with him now that Jimmy had dropped out. There was a couple in front of him, Bob Baxter and Carmen Garcia. He checked them off, as they undoubtedly would team together; they planned to become medical missionaries and intended to marry as soon as they could.
How about Johann Braun? He would make a real partner, all right-strong, fast on his feet, and smart. But Rod did not trust him, nor did he think that Braun would want him. He began to see that he might have made a mistake in not cultivating other friends in the class besides Jimmy.
That big Zulu girl, Caroline something-unpronounceable. Strong as an ox and absolutely fearless. But it would not do to team with a girl; girls were likely to mistake a cold business deal for a romantic gambit. His eyes moved on until at last he was forced to conclude that there was no one there to whom he wished to suggest partnership.
“Prof, how about a hint? Should we take suntan oil? Or chilblain lotion?”
Matson grinned and drawled, “Son, I’ll tell you every bit that I know. This test area was picked by a teacher in Europe… and I picked one for his class. But I don’t know what it is any more than you do. Send me a post card.”
“But-” The boy who had spoken stopped. Then he suddenly stood up. “Prof, this isn’t a fair test. I’m checking out.” “What’s unfair about it? Not that we meant to make it fair.”
“Well, you could dump us any place-“ “That’s right.”
“-the back side of the Moon, in vacuum up to our chins. Or onto a chlorine planet. Or the middle of an ocean. I don’t know whether to take a space suit, or a canoe. So the deuce with it. Real life isn’t like that.”
“It isn’t, eh?” Matson said softly. “That’s what Jonah said when the whale swallowed him.” He added, “But I will give you some hints. We mean this test to be passed by anyone bright enough to deserve it. So we won’t let you walk into a poisonous atmosphere, or a vacuum, without a mask. If you are dumped into water, land won’t be too far to swim. And so on. While I don’t know where you are going, I did see the list of test areas for this year’s classes. Asmart man can survive in any of them. You ought to realize, son, that the Board of Education would have nothing to gain by killing off all its candidates for the key professions.”
The student sat down again as suddenly as he had stood up. The instructor said, “Change your mind again?” “Uh, yes, sir. If it’s a fair test, I’ll take it.”
Matson shook his head. “You’ve already flunked it. You’re excused. Don’t bother the Registrar; I’ll notify him.”
The boy started to protest; Matson inclined his head toward the door. “Out!” There was an embarrassed silence while he left the room, then Matson said briskly, “This is a class in applied philosophy and I am sole judge of who is ready and who is not. Anybody who thinks of the world in terms of what it ‘ought’ to be, rather than what it is, isn’t ready for final examination. You’ve got to relax and roll with the punch … not get yourself all worn out with adrenalin exhaustion at the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Any more questions?”
There were a few more but it became evident that Matson either truthfully did not know the nature of the test area, or was guarding the knowledge; his answers gained them nothing. He refused to advise as to weapons, saying simply that the school armorer would be at the gate ready to issue all usual weapons, while any unusual ones were up to the individual. “Remember, though, your best weapon is between your ears and under your scalp – provided it’s loaded.”
The group started to drift away; Rod got up to leave.
Matson caught his eye and said, “Walker, are you planning to take the test?” “Why, yes, of course, sir.”
“Come here a moment.” He led him into his office, closed the door and sat down. He looked up at Rod, fiddled with a paperweight on his desk and said slowly, “Rod, you’re a good boy
… but sometimes that isn’t enough.”
Rod said nothing.
“Tell me,” Matson continued, “why you want to take this test?”
“Sir?”
“‘Sir’ yourself,” Matson answered grumpily. “Answer my question.”
Rod stared, knowing that he had gone over this with Matson before he was accepted for the course. But he explained again his ambition to study for an Outlands profession. “So I have to qualify in survival. I couldn’t even get a degree in colonial administration without it, much less any of the planetography or planetology specialities.”
“Want to be an explorer, huh?” “Yes, sir.”
“Like me.”
“Yes, Sir. Like you.”
“Hmm… would you believe me if I told you that it was the worst mistake I ever made?” “Huh? No, sir!”
“I didn’t think you would. Son, the cutest trick of all is how to know then what you know now. No way to, of course. But I’m telling you straight: I think you’ve been born into the wrong age. “Sir?”
“I think you are a romantic. Now this is a very romantic age, so there is no room in it for romantics; it calls for practical men. Ahundred years ago you would have made a banker or lawyer or professor and you could have worked out your romanticism by reading fanciful tales and dreaming about what you might have been if you hadn’t had the misfortune to be born into a humdrum period. But this happens to be a period when adventure and romance are a part of daily existence. Naturally it takes very practical people to cope with it.”
Rod was beginning to get annoyed. “What’s the matter with me?”
“Nothing. I like you. I don’t want to see you get hurt. But you are ‘way too emotional, too sentimental to be a real survivor type.”
Matson pushed a hand toward him. “Now keep your shirt on. I know you can make fire by rubbing a couple of dry words together. I’m well aware that you won merit badges in practically everything. I’m sure you can devise a water filter with your bare hands and know which side of the tree the moss grows on. But I’m not sure that you can beware of the Truce of the Bear.”
“‘The Truce of the Bear?’”
“Never mind. Son, I think you ought to cancel this course. If you must, you can repeat it in college.” Rod looked stubborn. Matson sighed. “I could drop you. Perhaps I should.”
“But why, sir?”
“That’s the point. I couldn’t give a reason. On the record, you’re as promising a student as I have ever had.” He stood up and put out his hand. “Good luck. And remember- when it gets down to fundamentals, do what you have to do and shed no tears.”
Rod should have gone straight home. His family lived in an out-county of Greater New York City, located on the Grand Canyon plateau through Hoboken Gate. But his commuting route required him to change at Emigrants’ Gap and he found himself unable to resist stopping to rubberneck.
When he stepped out of the tube from school he should have turned right, taken the rotary lift to the level above, and stepped through to Arizona Strip. But he was thinking about supplies, equipment, and weapons for tomorrow’s examination; his steps automatically bore left, he got on the slideway leading to the great hall of the planetary gates.
He told himself that he would watch for only ten minutes; he would not be late for dinner. He picked his way through the crowd and entered the great hall- not Onto the emigration floor itself, but onto the spectator’s balcony facing the gates. This was the new gate househe was in, the one opened for traffic in ‘68; the original Emigrants’ Gap, now used for Terran traffic and trade with Luna, stood on the Jersey Flats a few kilometers east alongside the pile that powered it.
The balcony faced the six gates. It could seat eighty-six hundred people but was half filled and crowded only in the center. It was here, of course, that Rod wished to
sit so that he might see through all six gates. He wormed his way down the middle aisle, squatted by the railing, then spotted someone leaving a front row seat. Rod grabbed it, earning a dirty look from a man who had started for it from the other aisle.
Rod fed coins into the arm of the seat; it opened out, he sat down and looked around. He was opposite the replica Statue of Liberty, twin to the one that had stood for a century where now was Bedloe Crater. Her torch reached to the distant ceiling; on both her right and her left three great gates let emigrants into the outer worlds.
Rod did not glance at the statue; he looked at the gates. It was late afternoon and heavily overcast at east coast North America, but gate one was open to some planetary spot having glaring noonday sun; Rod could catch glimpses through it of men dressed in shorts and sun hats and nothing else. Gate number two had a pressure lock rigged over it; it carried a big skull & crossbones sign and the symbol for chlorine. Ared light burned over it. While he watched, the red light flickered out and a blue light replaced it; the door slowly opened and a traveling capsule for a chlorine-breather crawled out. Waiting to meet it were eight humans in diplomatic full dress. One carried a gold baton.
Rod considered spending another half pluton to find out who the important visitor was, but his attention was diverted to gate five. An auxiliary gate had been set up on the floor, facing gate five a nd almost under the balcony. Two high steel fences joined the two gates, forming with them an alley as wide as the gates and as long as the space between, about fifteen meters by seventy-five. This pen was packed with humanity moving from the temporary gate toward and through gate five-and onto some planet light-years away. They poured out of nowhere, for the floor back of the auxiliary gate was bare, hurried like cattle between the two fences, spilled through gate five and were gone. Asquad of brawny Mongol policemen, each armed with a staff as tall ashimself, was spread out along each fence. They were using their staves to hurry the emigrants and they were not being gentle. Almost underneath Rod one of them prodded an old coolie so hard that he stumbled and fell. The man had been carrying his belongings, his equipment for a new world, in two bundles supported from a pole balanced on his right shoulder.
The old coolie fell to his skinny knees, tried to get up, fell flat. Rod thought sure he would be trampled, but
somehow he was on his feet again- minus his baggage. He tried to hold his place in the torrent and recover his possessions, but the guard prodded him again and he was forced to move on barehanded. Rod lost sight of him before he had moved five meters.
There were local police outside the fence but they did not interfere. This narrow stretch between the two gates was, for the time, extraterritory; the local police had no jurisdiction. But one of them did seem annoyed at the brutality shown the old man; he put his face to the steel mesh and called out something in lingua terra. The
Mongol cop answered savagely in the same simple language, telling the North American what he could do about it, then went back to shoving and shouting and prodding still more briskly.
The crowd streaming through the pen were Asiatics- Japanese, Indonesians, Siamese, some East Indians, a few Eurasians, but predominantly South Chinese. To Rod they all looked much alike- tiny women with babies on hip or back, or often one on back and one in arms, endless runny-nosed and shaven-headed children, fathers with household goods ill enormous back packs or pushed ahead on barrows. There were a few dispirited ponies dragging two-wheeled carts much too big for them but most of the torrent had only that which they could carry.
Rod had heard an old story which asserted that if all the Chinese on Terra were marched four abreast past a given point the column would never pass that point, as more Chinese would be born fast enough to replace those who had marched past. Rod had taken his slide rule and applied arithmetic to check it- to find, of course, that the story was nonsense; even if one ignored deaths, while counting all births, the last Chinese would pass the reviewing stand in less than four years. Nevertheless, while watching this mob being herded like brutes into a slaughterhouse, Rod felt that the old canard was true even though its mathematics was faulty. There seemed to be no end to them.
He decided to risk that half pluton to find out what was going on. He slid the coin into a slot in the chair’s speaker; the voice of the commentator reached his ears:
“-the visiting minister. The prince royal was met by officials of the Terran Corporation including the Director General himself and now is being escorted to the locks of the Ratoonian enclave. After the television reception tonight staff level conversations will start. Aspokesman close to the Director General has pointed out that, in view of the impossibility of conflict of
interest between oxygen types such as ourselves and the Ratoonians, any outcome of the conference must be to our advantage, the question being to what extent.
“If you will turn your attention again to gate five, we will repeat what we said earlier: gate five is on fortyeight hour loan to the Australasian Republic. The temporary gate you see erected below is hyperfolded to a point in central Australia in the Arunta Desert, where this emigration has been mounting in a great encampment for the past several weeks. His Serene Majesty Chairman Fung Chee Mu of the Australasian Republic has informed the Corporation that his government intends to move in excess of two million people in forty-eight hours, a truly impressive figure, more than forty thousand each hour. The target figure for this year for all planetary emigration gates taken together – Emigrants’ Gap, Peter the Great, and Witwatersrand Gates – is only seventy million emigrants or an average of eight thousand per hour. This movement proposes a rate live times as great using only one gate!”
The commentator continued: “Yet when we watch the speed, efficiency and the, uh- forthrightness with which they are carrying out this evolution it seems likely that they will achieve their goal. Our own figures show them to be slightly ahead of quota for the first nine hours. During those same nine hours there have been one hundred seven births and eighty-two deaths among the emigrants, the high death rate, of course, being incident to the temporary hazards of the emigration.
“The planet of destination, GO-8703-IV, to be called henceforth ‘Heavenly Mountains’ according to Chairman Fung, is classed as a bounty planet and no attempt had been made to colonize it. The Corporation has been assured that the colonists are volunteers.” It seemed to Rod that the announcer’s tone was ironical. “This is understandable when one considers the phenomenal population pressure of the Australasian Republic. Abrief historical rundown may be in order. After the removal of the remnants of the former Australian population to New Zealand, pursuant to the Peiping Peace Treaty, the first amazing effort of the new government was the creation of the great inland sea
Rod muted the speaker and looked back at the floor below. He did not care to hear school-book figures on how the Australian Desert had been made to blossom like the rose … and nevertheless haa been converted into a slum with more people in it than all of North America. Something new was happening at gate four-Gate four had been occupied by a moving cargo belt when he had come in; now the belt had crawled away and lost itself in the bowels of the terminal and an emigration party was lining up to go through.
This was no poverty-stricken band of refugees chivvied along by police; here each family had its own wagon… long, sweeping, boat-tight Conestogas drawn by three-pair teams and housed in sturdy glass canvas square and businesslike Studebakers with steel bodies, high mudcutter wheels, and pulled by one or two-pair teams. The draft animals were Morgans and lordly Clydesdales and jug-headed Missouri mules with strong shoulders and shrewd, suspicious eyes. Dogs trotted between wheels, wagons were piled high with household goods and implements and children, poultry protested the indignities of fate in cages tied on behind, and a little Shetland pony, riderless but carrying his saddle and just a bit too tall to run underneath with the dogs, stayed close to the tailgate of one family’s rig.
Rod wondered at the absence of cattle and stepped up the speaker again. But the announcer was still droning about the fertility of Australasians; he muted it again and watched. Wagons had moved onto the floor and taken up tight echelon position close to the gate, ready to move, with the tail of the train somewhere out of sight below. The gate was not yet ready and drivers were getting down and gathering at the Salvation Army booth under the skirts ot the Goddess of Liberty, for a cup of coffee and some banter. It occurred to Rod that there probably was no coffee where they were going and might not be for years, since Terra never exported food – on the contrary, food and fissionable metals were almost the only permissible imports; until an Outland colony produced a surplus of one or the other it could expect precious little help from Terra.
It was extremely expensive in terms of uranium to keep an interstellar gate open and the people in this wagon train could expect to be out of commercial touch with Earth until such a time as they had developed surpluses valuable enough in trade to warrant reopening the gate at regular intervals. Until that time they were on their own and must make do with what they could take with them … which made horses more practical than helicopters, picks and shovels more useful than bulldozers. Machinery gets out of order and requires a complex technology to keep it going- but good old “hayburners” keep right on breeding, cropping grass, and pulling loads.
Deacon Matson had told the survival class that the real hardships of primitive Outlands were not the lack of plumbing, heating, power, light, nor weather conditioning, but the shortage of simple things like coffee and tobacco.
Rod did not smoke and coffee he could take or let alone; he could not imagine getting fretful over its absence. He scrunched down in his seat, trying to see through the gate to guess the cause of the hold up. He could not see well, as the arching canvas of a prairie schooner blocked his view, but it did seem that the gate operator had a phase error; it looked as if the sky was where the ground ought to be. The extradimensional distortions necessary to match places on two planets many light-years apart were not simply a matter of expenditure of enormous quantities of energy; they were precision problems fussy beyond belief, involving high mathematics and high art-the math was done by machine but the gate operator always had to adjust the last couple of decimal places by prayer and intuition.
In addition to the dozen-odd proper motions of each of the planets involved, motions which could usually be added and canceled out, there was also the rotation of each planet. The problem was to make the last hyperfold so that the two planets were internally tangent at the points selected as gates, with their axes parallel and their rotations in the same direction. Theoretically it was possible to match two points in contra-rotation, twisting the insubstantial fabric of space-time in exact step with “real’ motions; practically such a solution was not only terribly wasteful of energy but almost unworkable- the ground surface beyond the gate tended to skid away like a slidewalk and tilt at odd angles.
Rod did not have the mathematics to appreciate the difficulties. Being only about to finish high school his training had gone no farther than tensor calculus, statistical mechanics, simple transfinities, generalized geometries of six dimensions, and, on the practical side, analysis for electronics, primary cybernetics and robotics, and basic design of analog computers; he had had no advanced mathematics as yet. He was not aware of his ignorance and simply concluded that the gate operator must be thumb-fingered. He looked back at the emigrant party.
The drivers were still gathered at the booth, drinking coffee and munching doughnuts. Most of the men were growing beards; Rod concluded from the beavers that the party had been training for several months. The captain of the party sported a little goatee, mustaches, and rather long hair, but it seemed to Rod that he could not be many years older than Rod himself. He was a professional, of course, required to hold a degree in Outlands arts- hunting, scouting, jackleg mechanics, gunsmithing, farming, first aid, group psychology, survival group tactics, law, and a dozen other things the race has found indispensable when stripped for action.
This captain’s mount was a Palomino mare, lovely as a sunrise, and the captain was dressed as a California don of an earlier century-possibly as a compliment to his horse. Awarning light flashed at the gate’s annunciator panel and he swung into saddle, still eating a doughnut, and cantered down the wagons for a final inspection, riding toward Rod. His back was straight, his seat deep and easy, his bearing confident. Carried low on a fancy belt he wore two razor guns, each in a silver-chased holster that matched the ornate silver of his bridle and saddle.
Rod held his breath until the captain passed out of sight under the balcony, then sighed and considered studying to be like him, rather than for one of the more intellectual Outlands professions. He did not know just what he did want to be … except that he meant to get off Earth as soon as he possibly could and get out there where things were going on!
Which reminded him that the first hurdle was tomorrow; in a few days he would either be eligible to matriculate for whatever it was he decided on, or he would be-but no use worrying about that. He remembered uneasily that it was getting late and he had not even decided on equipment, nor picked his weapons. This party captain carried razor guns; should he carry one? No, this party would fight as a unit, if it had to fight. Its leader carried that type of weapon to enforce his authority-not for solo survival. Well, what should he take?
Asiren sounded and the drivers returned to their wagons. The captain came back at a brisk trot. “Reins up!” he called out. “Reeeeeeiiiins up!” He took station by the gate, facing the head of the train; the mare stood quivering and tending to dance.
The Salvation Army lassie came out from behind her counter carrying a baby girl. She called to the party captain but her voice did not carry to the balcony.
The captain’s voice did carry. “Number four! Doyle! Come get your child!” Ared-headed man with a spade beard climbed down from the fourth wagon and sheepishly reclaimed the youngster to a chorus of cheers and cat calls. He passed the baby up to his wife, who upped its skirt and commenced paddling its bottom. Doyle climbed to his seat and took his reins.
“Call off!” the captain sang out. “One.”
“Tuh!”
“Three!”
“Foah!”
“Five!”
The count passed under the balcony, passed down the chute out of hearing. In a few moments it came back, running down this time, ending with a shouted “ONE!” The captain held up his right arm and watched the lights of the order panel.
Alight turned green. He brought his arm down smartly with a shout of “Roll ‘em! Ho!” The Palomino took off like a race horse, cut under the nose of the nigh lead horse of the first team,
and shot through the gate.
Whips cracked. Rod could hear shouts of “Git, Molly! Git, Ned!” and “No, no, you jugheads!” The train began to roll. By the time the last one on the floor was through the gate and the much larger number which had been in the chute below had begun to show it was rolling at a gallop, with the drivers bracing their feet wide and their wives riding the brakes. Rod tried to count them, made it possibly sixty-three wagons as the last one rumbled through the gate… and was gone, already half a galaxy away.
He sighed and sat back with a warm feeling sharpened with undefined sorrow. Then he stepped up the speaker volume: “-onto New Canaan, the premium planet described by the great Langford as ‘The rose without thorns.’ These colonists have paid a premium of sixteen thousand four hundred per person-not counting exempt or co-opted members-for the privilege of seeking their fortunes and protecting their posterity by moving to New Canaan. The machines predict that the premium will increase for another twenty-eight years; therefore, if you are considering giving your children the priceless boon of citizenship on New Canaan, the time to act is now. For a beautiful projection reel showing this planet send one pluton to ‘Information, Box One, Emigrants’ Gap, New Jersey County, Greater New York.’ For a complete descriptive listing of all planets now open plus a speclal list of those to be opened in the near future add another half pluton. Those seeing this broadcast in person may obtain these items at the information booth in the foyer outside the great hall.”
Rod did not listen. He had long since sent for every free item and most of the non-free ones issued by the Commission for Emigration and Trade. Just now he was wondering why the gate to New Canaan had not relaxed.
He found out at once. Stock barricades rose up out of the floor, forming a fenced passage from gate four to the chute under him. Then a herd of cattle filled the gate and came flooding toward him, bawling and snorting. They were prime Hereford steers, destined to become tender steaks and delicious roasts for a rich but slightly hungry Earth. After them and among them rode New Canaan cowpunchers armed with long goads with which they urged the beasts to greater speed- the undesirability of running weight off the animals was offset by the extreme cost of keeping the gate open, a cost which had to be charged against the cattle.
Rod discovered that the speaker had shut itself off; the half hour he had paid for was finished. He sat up with sudden guilt, realizing that he would have to hurry or he would be late for supper. He rushed out, stepping on feet and mumbling apologies, and caught the slide-way to Hoboken Gate.
This gate, being merdy for Terra-surface commuting, was permanently dilated and required no operator, since the two points brought into coincidence were joined by a rigid frame, the solid Earth. Rod showed his commuter’s ticket to the electronic monitor and stepped through to Arizona, in company with a crowd of neighbors.
“The (almost) solid Earth-” The gate robot took into account tidal distortions but could not anticipate minor seismic variables. As Rod stepped through he felt his feet quiver as if to a
small earthquake, then the terra was again firma. But he was still in an airlock at sea-level pressure. The radiation from massed bodies triggered the mechanism, the lock closed and air
pressure dropped. Rod yawned heavily to adjust to the pressure of Grand Canyon plateau, North Rim, less than three quarters that of New Jersey. But despite the fact that he made the
change twice a day he found himself rubbing his right ear to get rid of an ear ache.
The lock opened, he stepped out. Having come two thousand miles in a split second he now had ten minutes by slide tube and a fifteen minute walk to get home. He decided to dogtrot and be on time after all. He might have made it if there had not been several thousand other people trying to use the same facilities.
2. The Fifth Way
Rocket ships did not conquer space; they merely challenged it. Arocket leaving Earth at seven miles per second is terribly slow for the vast reaches beyond. Only the Moon is reasonably near-four days, more or less. Mars is thirty-seven weeks away, Saturn a dreary six years, Pluto an impossible half century, by the elliptical orbits possible to rockets.
Ortega’s torch ships brought the Solar System within reach. Based on mass conversion, Einstein’s deathless e= Mc2, they could boost for the entire trip at any acceleration the pilot could stand. At an easy one gravity the inner planets were only hours from Earth, far Pluto only eighteen days. It was a change like that from horseback to jet plane.
The shortcoming of this brave new toy was that there was not much anywhere to go. The Solar system, from a human standpoint, is made up of remarkably unattractive real estate-save for lovely Terra herself, lush and green and beautiful. The steel-limbed Jovians enjoy gravity 2.5 times ours and their poisonous air at inhuman pressure keeps them in health. Martians prosper in near vacuum, the rock lizards of Luna do not breathe at all. But these planets are not for men.
Men prosper on an oxygen planet close enough to a G-type star for the weather to cycle around the freezing point of water… that is to say, on Earth.
When you are already there why go anywhere? The reason was babies, too many babies. Malthus pointed it out long ago; food increases by arithmetical progression, people increase by geometrical progression. By World War I half the world lived on the edge of starvation; by World War II Earth’s population was increasing by 55,000 people every day; before World War III, as early as 1954, the increase had jumped to 100,000 mouths and stomachs per day, 35,000,000 additional people each year … and the population of Terra had climbed well beyond that which its farm lands could support.
The hydrogen, germ, and nerve gas horrors that followed were not truly political. The true meaning was more that of beggars fighting over a crust of bread.
The author of Gulliver’s Travels sardonically proposed that Irish babies be fattened for English tables; other students urged less drastic ways of curbing population – none of which made the slightest difference. Life, all life, has the twin drives to survive and to reproduce. Intelligence is an aimless byproduct except as it serves these basic drives.
But intelligence can be made to serve the mindless demands of life. Our Galaxy contains in excess of one hundred thousand Earth-type planets, each as warm and motherly to men as sweet Terra. Ortega’s torch ships could reach the stars. Mankind could colonize, even as the hungry millions of Europe had crossed the Atlantic and raised more babies in the New World.
Some did … hundreds of thousands. But the entire race, working as a team, cannot build and launch a hundred ships a day, each fit for a thousand colonists, and keep it up day after day, year after year, time without end. Even with the hands and the will (which the race never had) there is not that much steel, aluminum, and uranium in Earth’s crust. There is not one hundredth of the necessary amount.
But intelligence can find solutions where there are none. Psychologists once locked an ape in a room, for which they had arranged only four ways of escaping. Then they spied on him to see which of the four he would find.
The ape escaped a fifth way.
Dr. Jesse Evelyn Ramsbotham had not been trying to solve the baby problem; he had been trying to build a time machine. He had two reasons: first, because time machines are an impossibility; second, because his hands would sweat and he would stammer whenever in the presence of a nubile female. He was not aware that the first reason was compensation for the second, in fact he was not aware of the second reason – it was a subject his conscious mind avoided.
It is useless to speculate as to the course of history had Jesse Evelyn Ramsbotham’s parents had the good sense to name their son Bill instead of loading him with two girlish names. He might have become an All-American halfback and ended up selling bonds and adding his quota of babies to a sum already disastrous. Instead he became a mathematical physicist.
Progress in physics is achieved by denying the obvious and accepting the impossible. Any nineteenth century physicist could have given unassailable reasons why atom bombs were impossible if his reason were not affronted at the question; any twentieth century physicist could explain why time travel was incompatible with the real world of space-time. But Ramsbotham began fiddling with the three greatest Einsteinian equations, the two relativity equations for distance and duration and the mass-conversion equation; each contained the velocity of light. “Velocity” is first derivative, the differential of distance with respect to time; he converted those equations into differential equations, then played games with them. He would feed the results to the Rakitiac computer, remote successor to Univac, Eniac and Maniac. While he was doing these things his hands never sweated nor did he stammer, except when he was forced to deal with the young lady who was chief programmer for the giant computer.
His first model produced a time-stasis or low-entropy field no bigger than a football-but a lighted cigarette placed inside with full power setting was still burning a week later. Ramsbotham picked up the cigarette, resumed smoking and thought about it.
Next he tried a day-old chick, with colleagues to witness. Three months later the chick was unaged and no hungrier than chicks usually are. He reversed the phase relation and cut in power for the shortest time he could manage with his bread-boarded hook-up.
In less than a second the newly-hatched chick was long dead, starved and decayed.
He was aware that he had simply changed the slope of a curve, but he was convinced that he was on the track of true time travel. He never did find it, although once he thought that he had-he repeated by request his demonstration with a chick for some of his colleagues; that night two of them picked the lock on his lab, let the
little thing out and replaced it with an egg. Ramsbotham might have been permanently convinced that he had found time travel and then spent the rest of his life in a blind alley had they not cracked the egg and showed him that it was hard-boiled.
But he did not give up. He made a larger model and tried to arrange a dilation, or anomaly (he did not call it a “Gate”) which would let him get in and out of the field himself.
When he threw on power, the space between the curving magnetodes of his rig no longer showed the wall beyond, but a steaming jungle. He jumped to the conclusion that this must be a forest of the Carboniferous Period. It had often occurred to him that the difference between space and time might simply be human prejudice, but this was not one of the times; he believed what he wanted to believe.
He hurriedly got a pistol and with much bravery and no sense crawled between the magnetodes.
Ten minutes later he was arrested for waving firearms around in Rio de Janeiro’s civic botanical gardens. Alack of the Portuguese language increased both his difficulties and the length of time he spent in a tropical pokey, but three days later through the help of the North American consul he was on his way home. He thought and filled notebooks with equations and question marks on the whole trip.
The short cut to the stars had been found.
Ramsbotham’s discoveries eliminated the basic cause of war and solved the problem of what to do with all those dimpled babies. Ahundred thousand planets were no farther away than the other side of the street. Virgin continents, raw wildernesses, fecund jungles, killing deserts, frozen tundras, and implacable mountains lay just beyond the city gates, and the human race was again going out where the street lights do not shine, out where there was no friendly cop on the corner nor indeed a corner, out where there were no well-hung, tender steaks, no boneless hams, no packaged, processed foods suitable for delicate minds and pampered bodies. The biped omnivore again had need of his biting, tearing, animal teeth, for the race was spilling out (as it had so often before) to kill or be killed, eat or be eaten.
But the human race’s one great talent is survival. The race, as always, adjusted to conditions, and the most urbanized, mechanized, and civilized, most upholstered and luxurious culture in all history trained its best children, its potential leaders, in primitive pioneer survival-man naked against nature.
Rod Walker knew about Dr. J. E. Ramsbotham, just as he knew about Einstein, Newton, and Columbus, but he thought about Ramsbotham no oftener than he thought about Columbus. These were figures in books, each larger than life and stuffed with straw, not real. He used the Ramsbotham Gate between Jersey and the Arizona Strip without thinking of its inventor the same way his ancestors used elevators without thinking of the name “Otis.” If he thought about the miracle at all, it was a half-formed irritation that the Arizona side of Hoboken Gate was so far from his parents’ home. It was known as Kaibab Gate on this side and was seven miles north of the Walker residence.
At the time the house had been built the location was at the extreme limit of tube delivery and other city utilities. Being an old house, its living room was above ground, with only bedrooms, pantry, and bombproof buried. The living room had formerly stuck nakedly above ground, an ellipsoid monocoque shell, but, as Greater New York spread, the neighborhood had been zoned for underground apartments and construction above ground which would interfere with semblance of virgin forest had been forbidden.
The Walkers had gone along to the extent of covering the living room with soil and planting it with casual native foliage, but they had refused to cover up their view window. It was the chief charm of the house, as it looked out at the great canyon. The community corporation had tried to coerce them into covering it up and had offered to replace it with a simulacrum window such as the underground apartments used, with a relayed view of the canyon. But Rod’s father was a stubborn man and maintained that with weather, women, and wine there was nothing “just as good.” His window was still intact.
Rod found the family sitting in front of the window, watching a storm work its way up the canyon-his mother, his father, and, to his great surprise, his sister. Helen was ten years older than he and an assault captain in the Amazons; she was seldom home.
The warmth of his greeting was not influenced by his realization that her arrival would probably cause his own lateness to pass with little comment. “Sis! Hey, this is swell- I thought you were on Thule.”
“I was … until a few hours ago.” Rod tried to shake hands; his sister gathered him in a bear hug and bussed him on the mouth, squeezing him against the raised ornaments of her chrome corselet. She was still in uniform, a fact that caused him to think that she had just arrived-on her rare visits home she usually went slopping around in an old bathrobe and go- ahead slippers, her hair caught up in a knot. Now she was still in dress
armor and kilt and had dumped her side arms, gauntlets, and pluined helmet on the floor. She looked him over proudly. “My, but you’ve grown! You’re almost as tall as I am.”
“I’m taller.”
“Want to bet? No, don’t try to wiggle away from me; I’ll twist your arm. Slip off your shoes and stand back to back.” “Sit down, children,” their father said mildly. “Rod, why were you late?”
“Uh …” He had worked out a diversion involving telling about the examination coming up, but he did not use it as his sister intervened. “Don’t heckle him, Pater. Ask for excuses and you’ll get them. I learned that when I was a sublieutenant.”
“Quiet, daughter. I can raise him without your help.” Rod was surprised by his father’s edgy answer, was more surprised by Helen’s answer: “So? Really?” Her tone was odd.
Rod saw his mother raise a hand, seem about to speak, then close her mouth. She looked upset. His sister and father looked at each other; neither spoke. Rod looked from one to the other, said slowly, “Say, what’s all this?”
His father glanced at him. “Nothing. We’ll say no more about it. Dinner is waiting. Coming, dear?” He turned to his wife, handed her up from her chair, offered her his arm. “Just a minute,” Rod said insistently. “I was late because I was hanging around the Gap.”
“Very well. You know better, but I said we would say no more about it.” He turned toward the lift. “But I wanted to tell you something else, Dad. I won’t be home for the next week or so.” “Very well- eh? What did you say?”
“I’ll be away for a while, sir. Maybe ten days or a bit longer.”
His father looked perplexed, then shook his head. “Whatever your plans are, you will have to change them. I can’t let you go away at this time.” “But, Dad-“
“I’m sorry, but that is definite.” “But, Dad, I have to!”
“No.”
Rod looked frustrated. His sister said suddenly, “Pater, wouldn’t it be well to find out why he wants to be away?” “Now, daughter-“
“Dad, I’m taking my solo survival, starting tomorrow morning!”
Mrs. Walker gasped, then began to weep. Her husband said, “There, there, my dear!” then turned to his son and said harshly, “You’ve upset your mother.”
“But, Dad, I…” Rod shut up, thinking bitterly that no one seemed to give a hoot about his end of it. Mter all, he was the one who was going to have to sink or swim. Alot they knew or- “You see, Pater,” his sister was saying. “He does have to be away. He has no choice, because-“
“I see nothing of the sort! Rod, I meant to speak about this earlier, but I had not realized that your test would take place so soon. When I signed permission for you to take that course, I had, I must admit, a mental reservation. I felt that the experience would be valuable later when and if you took the course in college. But I never intended to let you come up against the final test while still in high school. You are too young.
Rod was shocked speechless. But his sister again spoke for him. “Fiddlesticks!” “Eh? Now, daughter, please remember that-“
“Repeat fiddlesticks! Any girl in my company has been up against things as rough and many of them are not much older than Buddy. What are you trying to do, Pater? Break his nerve?” “You have no reason to… I think we had best discuss this later.”
“I think that is a good idea.” Captain Walker took her brother’s arm and they followed their parents down to the refectory. Dinner was on the table, still warm in its delivery containers; they took their places, standing, and Mr. Walker solemnly lighted the Peace Lamp. The family was evangelical Monist by inheritance, each of Rod’s grandfathers having been converted in the second great wave of proselyting that swept out of Persia in the last decade of the previous century, and Rod’s father took seriously his duties as family priest.
As the ritual proceeded Rod made his responses automatically, his mind on this new problem. His sister chimed in heartily but his mother’s answers could hardly be heard. Nevertheless the warm symbolism had its effect; Rod felt himself calming down. By the time his father intoned the last “-one Principle, one family, one flesh!” he felt like eating. He sat
down and took the cover off his plate.
Ayeast cutlet, molded to look like a chop and stripped with real bacon, a big baked potato, and a grilled green lobia garnished with baby’s buttons … Rod’s mouth watered as he reached for the catsup.
He noticed that Mother was not eating much, which surprised him. Dad was not eating much either but Dad often just picked at his food … he became aware with sudden warm pity that Dad was thinner and greyer than ever. How old was Dad?
His attention was diverted by a story his sister was telling: “-and so the Commandant told me I would have to clamp down. And I said to her, ‘Ma’am, girls will be girls. It I have to bust a petty officer everytime one of them does something like that, pretty soon I won’t have anything but privates. And Sergeant Dvorak is the best gunner I have.”’
“Just a second,” her father interrupted. “I thought you said ‘Kelly,’ not ‘Dvorak.’”
“I did and she did. Pretending to misunderstand which sergeant she meant was my secret weapon-for I had Dvorak cold for the same offense, and Tiny Dvorak (she’s bigger than I am) is the Squadron’s white hope for the annual corps-wide competition for best trooper. Of course, losing her stripes would put her, and us, out of the running.
“So I straightened out the ‘mix up’ in my best wide-eyed, thick-headed manner, let the old gal sit for a moment trying not to bite her nails, then told her that I had both women confined to barracks until that gang of college boys was through installing the new ‘scope, and sang her a song about how the quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from
heaven, and made myself responsible for seeing to it that she was not again embarrassed by scandalous-her word, not mine-scandalous incidents … especially when she was showing quadrant commanders around.
“So she grumpily allowed as how the company commander was responsible for her company and she would hold me to it and now would I get out and let her work on the quarterly training report in peace? So I threw her my best parade ground salute and got out so fast I left a hole in the air.”
“I wonder,” Mr. Walker said judicially, “if you should oppose your commanding officer in such matters? After all, she is older and presumably wiser than you are.”
Helen made a little pile of the last of her baby’s buttons, scooped them up and swallowed them. “Fiddlesticks squared and cubed. Pardon me, Pater, but if you had any military service you would know better. I am as tough as blazes to my girls myself… and it just makes them boast about how they’ve got the worst fire-eater in twenty planets. But if they’re in trouble higher up, I’ve got to take care of my kids. There always comes a day when there is something sticky up ahead and I have to stand up and walk toward it. And it will be all right because I’ll have Kelly on my right flank and Dvorak on my left and each of them trying to take care of Maw Walker all by her ownself. I know what I’m doing. ‘Walker’s Werewolves’ are a team.”
Mrs. Walker shivered. “Gracious, darling, I wish you had never taken up a calling so … well, so dangerous.”
Helen shrugged. “The death rate is the same for us as for anybody … one person, one death, sooner or later. What would you want, Mum? With eighteen million more women than men on this continent did you want me to sit and knit until my knight comes riding? Out where I operate, there are more men than women; I’ll wing one yet, old and ugly as I am.
Rod asked curiously, “Sis, would you really give up your commission to get married?”
“Would I! I won’t even count his arms and legs. If he is still warm and can nod his head, he’s had it. My target is six babies and a farm.” Rod looked her over. “I’d say your chances are good. You’re quite pretty even if your ankles are thick.”
“Thanks, pardner. Thank you too much. What’s for dessert, Mum?” “I didn’t look. Will you open it, dear?”
Dessert turned out to be iced mangorines, which pleased Rod. His sister went on talking. “The Service isn’t a bad shake, on active duty. It’s garrison duty that wears. My kids get fat and sloppy and restless and start fighting with each other from sheer boredom. For my choice, barracks casualties are more to be dreaded than combat. I’m hoping that our squadron will be tagged to take part in the pacification of Byer’s Planet.”
Mr. Walker looked at his wife, then at his daughter. “You have upset your mother again, my dear. Quite a bit of this talk has hardly been appropriate under the Light of Peace.” “I was asked questions, I answered.”
“Well, perhaps so.”
Helen glanced up. “Isn’t it time to turn it out, anyway? We all seem to have finished eating.” “Why, if you like. Though it is hardly reverent to hurry.”
“The Principle knows we haven’t all eternity.” She turned to Rod. “How about making yourself scarce, mate? I want to make palaver with the folks.” “Gee, Sis, you act as if I was-“
“Get lost, Buddy. I’ll see you later.”
Rod left, feeling affronted. He saw Helen blow out the pax lamp as he did so. He was still making lists when his sister came to his room. “Hi, kid.”
“Oh. Hello, Sis.”
“What are you doing? Figuring what to take on your solo?” “Sort of.”
“Mind if I get comfortable?” She brushed articles from his bed and sprawled on it. “We’ll go into that later.” Rod thought it over. “Does that mean Dad won’t object?”
“Yes. I pounded his head until he saw the light. But,
as I said, well go into that later. I’ve got something to tell you, youngster.” “Such as?”
“The first thing is this. Our parents are not as stupid as you probably think they are. Fact is, they are pretty bright.” “I never said they were stupid!” Rod answered, comfortably aware of what his thoughts had been.
“No. But I heard what went on before dinner and so did you. Dad was throwing his weight around and not listening. But, Buddy, it has probably never occurred to you that it is hard work to be a parent, maybe the hardest job of all- particularly when you have no talent for it, which Dad hasn’t. He knows it and works hard at it and is conscientious. Mostly he does mighty well. Sometimes he slips, like tonight. But, what you did not know is this: Dad is going to die.”
“What?” Rod looked stricken. “I didn’t know he was ill!”
“You weren’t meant to know. Now climb down off the ceiling; there is a way out. Dad is terribly ill, and he would die in a few weeks at the most- unless something drastic is done. But something is going to be. So relax.”
She explained the situation bluntly: Mr. Walker was suffering from a degenerative disease under which he was slowly starving to death. His condition was incurable by current medical art; he might linger on, growing weaker each day, for weeks or months- but he would certainly die soon.
Rod leaned his head on his hands and chastised himself. Dad dying … and he hadn’t even noticed. They had kept it from him, like a baby, and he had been too stupid to see it.
His sister touched his shoulder. “Cut it out. If there is anything stupider than flogging yourself over something you can’t help, I’ve yet to meet it. Anyhow, we are doing something about it.” “What? I thought you said nothing could be done?”
“Shut up and let your mind coast. The folks are going to make a Ramsbotham jump, five hundred to one, twenty years for two weeks. They’ve already signed a contract with Entropy, Incorporated. Dad has resigned from General Synthetics and is closing up his affairs; they’ll kiss the world good-by this coming Wednesday- which is why he was being sterh about your plans to be away at that time. You’re the apple of his eye- Heaven knows why.”
Rod tried to sort out too many new ideas at once. Atime jump … of course! It would let Dad stay alive another twenty years. But- “Say, Sis, this doesn’t get them anything! Sure, it’s twenty years but it will be just two weeks to them … and Dad will be as sick as ever. I know what I’m talking about; they did the same thing for Hank Robbin’s great grandfather and he died anyhow, right after they took him out of the stasis. Hank told me.”
Captain Walker shrugged. “Probably a hopeless case to start with. But Dad’s specialist, Dr. Hensley, says that he is morally certain that Dad’s case is not hopeless twenty years from now. I don’t know anything about metabolic medicine, but Hensley says that they are on the verge and that twenty years from now they ought to be able to patch Dad up as easily they can graft on a new leg today.”
“You really think so?”
“How should I know? In things like this you hire the best expert you can, then follow his advice. The point is, if we don’t do it, Dad is finished. So we do it.”
“Yeah. Sure, sure, we’ve got to.”
She eyed him closely and added, “All right. Now do you want to talk with them about it?” “Huh?” He was startled by the shift. “Why? Are they waiting for me?”
“No. I persuaded them that it was best to keep it from you until it happened. Then I came straight in and told you. Now you can do as you please- pretend you don’t know, or go have Mum cry over you, and listen to a lot of last-minute, man-to-man advice from Dad that you will never take. About midnight, with your nerves frazzled, you can get back to your preparations for your survival test. Play it your own way- but I’ve rigged it so you can avoid that, if you want to. Easier on everybody. Myself, I like a cat’s way of saying good-by.”
Rod’s mind was in a turmoil. Not to say good-by seemed unnatural, ungrateful, untrue to family sentiment- but the prospect of saying good-by seemed almost unbearably embarrassing. “What’s that about a cat?”
“When a cat greets you, he makes a big operation of it, humping, stropping your legs, buzzing like mischief. But when he leaves, he just walks off and never looks back. Cats are smart.” “Well . .”
“I suggest,” she added, “that you remember that they are doing this for their convenience, not yours. “But Dad has to-“
“Surely, Dad must, if he is to get well.” She considered pointing out that the enormous expense of the time jump would leave Rod practically penniless; she decided that this was better left undiscussed. “But Mum does not have to.”
“But she has to go with Dad!”
“So? Use arithmetic. She prefers leaving you alone for twenty years in order to be with Dad for two weeks. Or turn it around: she prefers having you orphaned to having herself widowed for the same length of time.”
“I don’t think that’s quite fair to Mum,” Rod answered slowly.
“I wasn’t criticizing. She’s making the right decision. Nevertheless, they both have a strong feeling of guilt about you and-“ “About me?”
“About you. I don’t figure into it. If you insist on saying good-by, their guilt will come out as self-justification and self-righteousness and they will find ways to take it out on you and everybody will have a bad time. I don’t want that. You are all my family.”
“Uh, maybe you know best.”
“I didn’t get straight A’s in emotional logic and military leadership for nothing. Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal. Now let’s see what you plan to take with you.” She looked over his lists and equipment, then whistled softly. “Whew! Rod, I never saw so much plunder. You won’t be able to move. Who are you? Tweedledum preparing for battle, or
the White Knight?”
“Well, I was going to thin it down,” he answered uncomfortably. “I should think so!”
“Uh, Sis, what sort of gun should I carry?” “Huh? Why the deuce do you want a gun?”
“Why, for what I might run into, of course. Wild animals and things. Deacon Matson practically said that we could expect dangerous animals.”
“I doubt if he advised you to carry a gun. From his teputation, Dr. Matson is a practical man. See here, infant, on this tour you are the rabbit, trying to escape the fox. You aren’t the fox.” “What do you mean?”
“Your only purpose is to stay alive. Not to be brave, not to fight, not to dominate the wilds- but just stay breathing. One time in a hundred a gnn might save your life; the other ninety-nine it will just tempt you into folly. Oh, no doubt Matson would take one, and I would, too. But we are salted; we know when not to use one. But consider this. That test area is going to be crawling with trigger-happy young squirts. If one shoots you, it won’t matter that you have a gun, too- because you will be dead. But if you carry a gun, it makes you feel cocky; you won’t take proper cover. If you don’t have one, then you’ll know that you are the rabbit. You’ll be careful.”
“Did you take a gun on your solo test?”
“I did. And I lost it the first day. Which saved my life.” “How?”
“Because when I was caught without one I ran away from a Bessmer’s griffin instead of trying to shoot it. You savvy Bessmer’s griffin?” “Uh, Spica V?”
“Spica IV. I don’t know how much outer zoology they are teaching you kids these days-from the ignoramuses we get for recruits I’ve reached the conclusion that this new-fangled ‘functional education’ has abolished studying in favor of developing their cute little personalities.
“Why I had one girl who wanted to- never mind; the thing about the griffin is that it does not really have vital organs. Its nervous system is decentralized, even its assimilation system. To kill it quickly you would have to grind it into hamburger. Shooting merely tickles it. But not know that; if I had had my gun I would have found out the hard way. As it was, it treed me for three days, which did my figure good and gave me time to think over the philosophy, ethics, and pragmatics of self-preservation.”
Rod did not argue, but he still had a conviction that a gun was a handy thing to have around. It made him feel good, taller, stronger and more confident, to have one slapping against his thigh. He didn’t have to use it- not unless he just had to. And he knew enough to take cover; nobody in the class could do a silent sneak the way he could. While Sis was a good soldier, still she didn’t know everything and-
But Sis was still talking. “I know how good a gun feels. It makes you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, three meters tall and covered with hair. You’re ready for anything and kind of hoping you’ll find it. Which is exactly what is dangerous about it-because you aren’t anything of the sort. You are a feeble, hairless embryo, remarkably easy to kill. You could carry an assault gun with two thousand meters precision range and isotope charges that will blow up a hill, but you still would not have eyes in the back of your head like a janus bird, nor be able to see in the dark like the Thetis pygmies. Death can cuddle up behind you while you are drawing a bead on something in front.”
“But, Sis, your own company carries guns.
“Guns, radar, bombs, black scopes, gas, warpers, and some things which we light-heartedly hope are secret. What of it? You aren’t going to storm a city. Buddy, sometimes I send a girl out on an infiltration patrol, object: information-go out, find out, come back alive. How do you suppose I equip her?”
“Never mind. In the first place I don’t pick an eager young recruit; I send some unkillable old-timer. She peels down to her underwear, darkens her skin if it is not dark, and goes out bare- handed and bare-footed, without so much as a fly swatter. I have yet to lose a scout that way. Helpless and unprotected you do grow eye’s in the back of your head, and your nerve ends reach out and feel everything around you. I learned that when I was a brash young j.o., from a salty trooper old enough to be my mother.”
Impressed, Rod said slowly, “Deacon Matson told us he would make us take this test bare-handed, if he could.” “Dr. Matson is a man of sense.
“Well, what would you take?”
“Test conditions again?”
Rod stated them. Captain Walker frowned. “Mmm … not much to go on. Two to ten days probably means about five. The climate won’t be hopelessly extreme. I suppose you own a Baby Bunting?”
“No, but I’ve got a combat parka suit. I thought I would carry it, then if the test area turned out not to be cold, I’d leave it at the gate. I’d hate to lose it; it weighs only half a kilo and cost quite a bit.”
“Don’t worry about that. There is no point in being the best dressed ghost in Limbo. Okay, besides your parka I would make it four kilos of rations, five of water, two kilos of sundries like pills and matches, all in a vest pack … and a knife.”
“‘That isn’t much for five days, much less ten.”
“It is all you can carry and still be light on your feet. “Let’s see your knife, dear.”
Rod had several knives, but one was “his” knife, a lovely all-purpose one with a 21-cm. molysteel blade and a fine balance. He handed it to his sister, who cradled it lightly. “Nice!” she said, and glanced around the room.
“Over there by the outflow.”
“I see.” She whipped it past her ear, let fly, and the blade sank into the target, sung and quivered. She reached down and drew another from her boot top. “This is a good one, too.” She threw and it bit into the target a blade’s width from the first.
She retrieved both knives, stood balancing them, one on each hand. She flipped her own so that the grip was toward Rod. “This is my pet, ‘Lady Macbeth.’ I carried her on my own solo, Buddy. I want you to carry her on yours.
“You want to trade knives? All right.” Rod felt a sharp twinge at parting with “Colonel Bowie” and a feeling of dismay that some other knife might let him down. But it was not an offer that he could refuse, not from Sis.
“My very dear! I wouldn’t deprive you of your own knife, not on your solo. I want you to carry both, Buddy. You won’t starve nor die of thirst, but a spare knife may be worth its weight in thorium.”
“Gee, Sis! But I shouldn’t take your knife, either- you said you were expecting active duty. I can carry a spare of my own”
“I won’t need it. My girls haven’t let me use a knife in years. I want you to have Lady Macbeth on your test.” She removed the scabbard from her boot top, sheathed the blade; and handed it to him. “Wear it in good health, brother.”
3. Through the Tunnel
Rod arrived at templeton gate the next morning feeling not his best. He had intended to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for his ordeal, but his sister’s arrival in conjunction with overwhelming changes in his family had defeated his intention. As with most children Rod had taken his family and home for granted; he had not thought about them much, nor placed a conscious value on them, any more than a fish treasures water. They simply were.
Now suddenly they were not.
Helen and he had talked late. She had begun to have stron~ misgivings about her decision to let him know of the c ange on the eve of his test. She had weighed it, decided. that it was the “right” thing to do, then had learned the ages-old sour truth that right and wrong can sometimes be determined only through hindsight. It had not been fair, she later concluded, to load anything else on his mind just before his test; But it had not seemed fair, either, to let him leave without knowing… to return to an empty house.
The decision was necessarily hers; she had been his guardian since earlier that same day. The papers had been signed and sealed; the court had given approval. Now she found with a sigh that being a “parent” was not unalloyed pleasure; it was more like the soul-searching that had gone into her first duty as member of a court martial.
When she saw that her “baby” was not quieting, she had insisted that he go to bed anyhow, then had given him a long back rub, combining it with hypnotic instructions to sleep, then had gone quietly away when he seemed asleep.
But Rod had not been asleep; he had simply wanted to be alone. His mind raced like an engine with no load for the best part of an hour, niggling uselessly at the matter of his father’s illness, wondering what it was going to be like to greet them again after twenty years- why, he would be almost as old as Mum! – switching over to useless mental preparations for unknown test conditions.
At last he realized that he had to sleep- forced himself to run through mental relaxing exercises, emptying his mind and hypnotizing himself. It took longer than ever before but finally he entered a great, golden, warm cloud and was asleep.
His bed mechanism had to call him twice. He woke bleary-eyed and was still so after a needle shower. He looked in a mirror, decided that shaving did not matter where he was going and anyhow he was late-then decided to shave after all … being painfully shy about his sparse young growth.
Mum was not up, but she hardly ever got up as early as that. Dad rarely ate breakfast these days … Rod recalled why with a twinge. But he had expected Sis to show up. Glumly he opened his tray and discovered that Mum had forgotten to dial an order, something that had not happened twice in his memory. He placed his order and waited for service- another ten minutes lost.
Helen showed up as he was leaving, dressed surprisingly in a dress. “Good morning.”
“Hi, Sis. Say, you’ll have to order your own tucker. Mother didn’t and I didn’t know what you wanted.” “Oh, I had breakfast hours ago. I was waiting to see you off.”
“Oh. Well, so long. I’ve got to run, I’m late.”
“I won’t hold you up.” She came over and embraced him. “Take it easy, mate. That’s the important thing. More people have died from worry than ever bled to death. And if you do have to strike, strike low.”
“Uh, I’ll remember.”
“See that you do. I’m going to get my leave extended today so that I’ll be here when you come back.” She kissed him. “Now run.”
Dr. Matson was sitting at a desk outside the dispensary at Templeton Gate, checking names on his roll. He looked up as Rod arrived. “Why, hello, Walker. I thought maybe you had decided to be smart.”
‘I’m sorry I’m late, sir. Things happened.”
“Don’t fret about it. Knew a man once who didn’t get shot at sunrise because he overslept the appointment.” “Really? Who was he?”
“Young fellow I used to know. Myself.”
“Hunh? You really did, sir? You mean you were-“
“Not a word of truth in it. Good stories are rarely true. Get on in there and take your physical, before you get the docs irritated.”
They thumped him and x-rayed him and made a wavy pattern from his brain and did all the indignities that examining physicians do. The senior examiner listened to his heart and felt his moist hand. “Scared, son?”
“Of course I am!” Rod blurted.
“Of course you are. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t pass you. What’s that bandage on your leg?”
“Uh-” The bandage concealed Helen’s knife “Lady Macbeth.” Rod sheepishly admitted the fact. “Take it off.”
“Sir?”
“I’ve known candidates to pull dodges like that to cover up a disqualification. So let’s have a look.”
Rod started removing it; the physician let him continue until he was sure that it was a cache for a weapon and not a wound dressing. “Get your clothes on. Report to your instructor.
Rod put on his vest pack of rations and sundries, fastened his canteen under it. It was a belt canteen of flexible synthetic divided into half-litre pockets. The weight was taken by shoulder straps and a tube ran up the left suspender, ending in a nipple near his mouth, so that he might drink wit out taking it off. He planned, if possible, to stretch his meager supply through the whole test, avoiding the hazards of contaminated water and the greater hazards of the water hole- assuming that fresh water could be found at all.
He wrapped twenty meters of line, light, strong, and thin, around his waist. Shorts, overshirt, trousers, and boot moccasins completed his costume; he belted “Colonel Bowie” on outside. Dressed, he looked fleshier than he was; only his knife showed. He carried his parka suit over his left arm. It was an efficient garment, hooded, with built-in boots and gloves, and with pressure seams to let him use bare hands when necessary, but it was much too warm to wear until he needed it. Rod had learned early in the game that Eskimos don’t dare to sweat.
Dr. Matson was outside the dispensary door. “The
late Mr. Walker,” he commented, then glanced at the bulkiness of Rod’s torso. “Body armor, son?” “No, sir. Just a vest pack.” “How much penalty you carrying?”
“Eleven kilograms. Mostly water and rations.”
“Mmm . . well, it will get heavier before it gets lighter. No Handy-Dandy Young Pioneer’s Kit? No collapsible patent wigwam?” Rod blushed. “No, sir.”
“You can leave that snow suit. Ill mail it to your home.”
“Uh, thank you, sir.” Rod passed it over, adding, wasn’t sure I’d need it, but I brought it along, just in case.
“You did need it.” “Sir?”
“I’ve already flunked five for showing up without their snuggies… and four for showing up with vacuum suits. Both ways for being stupid. They ought to know that the Board would not dump them into vacuum or chlorine or such without specifying space suits in the test notice. We’re looking for graduates, not casualties. On the other hand, cold weather is within the limits of useful test conditions.”
Rod glanced at the suit he had passed over. “You’re sure I won’t need it, sir?”
“Quite. Except that you would have flunked if you hadn’t fetched it. Now bear a hand and draw whatever pig shooter you favor; the armorer is anxious to close up shop. What gun have you picked?”
Rod gulped. “Uh, I was thinking about not taking one, Deacon- I mean ‘Doctor.’”
“You can call me ‘Deacon’ to my face- ten days from now. But this notion of yours interests me. How did you reach that conclusion?” “Uh, why, you see, sir… well, my sister suggested it.”
“So? I must meet your sister. What’s her name?”
“Assault Captain Helen Walker,” Rod said proudly, “Corps of Amazons.” Matson wrote it down. “Get on in there. They are ready for the drawing.
Rod hesitated. “Sir,” he said with sudden misgiving, “if I did carry a gun, what sort would you advise?”
Matson looked disgusted. “I spend a year trying to spoonfeed you kids with stuff I learned the hard way. Comes examination and you ask me to slip you the answers. I can no more answer that than I would have been justified yesterday in telling you to bring a snow suit.”
“Sorry, sir.
“No reason why you shouldn’t ask; it’s just that I won’t answer. Let’s change the subject. This sister of yours she must be quite a girl.” “Oh, she is, sir.”
“Mmm … maybe if I had met a girl like that I wouldn’t be a cranky old bachelor now. Get in there and draw your number. Number one goes through in six minutes.”
“Yes, Doctor.” His way led him past the school armorer, who had set up a booth outside the door. The old chap was wiping off a noiseless Summerfield. Rod caught his eye. “Howdy, Guns.”
“Hi, Jack. Kind of late, aren’t you? What’ll it be?”
Rod’s eye ran over the rows of beautiful weapons. Maybe just a little needle gun with poisoned pellets . He wouldn’t have to use it .
Then he realized that Dr. Matson had answered his question, with a very broad hint. “Uh, I’m already heeled, Guns. Thanks.” “Okay. Well, good luck, and hurry back.”
“Thanks a lot.” He went into the gate room.
The seminar had numbered more than fifty students; there were about twenty waiting to take the examination. He started to look around, was stopped by a gate attendant who called out, “Over here! Draw your number.”
The lots were capsules in a bowl. Rod reached in, drew one out, and broke it open. “Number seven.” “Lucky seven! Congratulations. Your name, please.”
Rod gave his name and turned away, looking for a seat, since it appeared that he had twenty minutes or so to wait. He walked back, staring with interest at what his schoolmates deemed appropriate for survival, any and all conditions.
Johann Braun was seated with empty seats on each side of him. The reason for the empty seats crouched at his feet- a big, lean, heavily-muscled boxer dog with unfriendly eyes. Slung over Braun’s shoulder was a General Electric Thunderbolt, a shoulder model with telescopic sights and cone-of-fire control; its power pack Braun wore as a back pack. At his belt were binoculars, knife, first aid kit, and three pouches.
Rod stopped and admired the gun, wondering how much the lovely thing had cost. The dog raised his head and growled. Braun put a hand on the dog’s head. “Keep your distance,” he warned. “Thor is a one-man dog.”
Rod gave back a pace. “Yo, you are certainly equipped.”
The big blond youth gave a satisfied smile. “Thor and I are going to live off the country.” “You don’t need him, with that cannon.
“Oh, yes, I do. Thor’s my burglar alarm. With him at my side I can sleep sound. You’d be surprised at the things he can do. Thor’s smarter than most people.” “Shouldn’t wonder.”
“The Deacon gave me some guff that the two of us made a team and should go through separately. I explained to him that Thor would tear the joint apart if they tried to separate us.” Braun caressed the dog’s ears. “I’d rather team with Thor than with a platoon of Combat Pioneers.”
“Say, Yo, how about letting me try that stinger? After we come out, I mean.
“I don’t mind. It really is a honey. You can pick off a sparrow in the air as easily as you can drop a moose at a thousand meters. Say, you’re making Thor nervous. See you later.”
Rod took the hint, moved on and sat down. He looked around, having in mind that he might still arrange a survival team. Near the shuttered arch of the gateway there was a priest with a boy kneeling in front of him, with four others waiting.
The boy who had been receiving the blessing stood up- and Rod stood up hastily. “Hey! Jimmy!”
Jimmy Throxton looked around, caught his eye and grinned, hurried over. “Rod!” he said, “I thought you had ducked out on me. Look, you haven’t teamed?” “Still want to?”
“Huh? Sure.”
“Swell! I can declare the team as I go through as long as you don’t have number two. You don’t, do you?” “No”
“Good! Because I’m-“
“NUMBER ONE!” the gate attendant called out. “‘Throxton, James.’”
Jimmy Throxton looked startled. “Oh, gee!” He hitched at his gun belt and turned quickly away, then called over his shoulder, “See you on the other side!” He trotted toward the gate, now unshuttered.
Rod called out, “Hey, Jimmy! How are we going to find-” But it was too late. Well, if Jimmy had sense enough to drive nails, he would keep an eye on the exit.
“Number two! Mshiyeni, Caroline.” Across the room the big Zulu girl who had occurred to Rod as a possible team mate got up and headed for the gate. She was dressed simply in shirt and shorts, with her feet and legs and hands bare. She did not appear to be armed but she was carrying an overnight bag.
Someone called out, “Hey, Carol! What you got in the trunk?” She threw him a grin. “Rocks.”
“Ham sandwiches, I’ll bet. Save me one. “I’ll save you a rock, sweetheart.”
Too soon the attendant called out, “Number seven- Walker, Roderick L.”
Rod went quickly to the gate. The attendant shoved a paper into his hand, then shook hands. “Good luck, kid. Keep your eyes open.” He gave Rod a slap on the back that urged him through the opening, dilated to man size.
Rod found himself on the other side and, to his surprise, still indoors. But that shock was not as great as immediate unsteadiness and nausea; the gravity acceleration was much less than earth-normal.
He fought to keep from throwing up and tried to figure things out. Where was he? On Luna? On one of Jupiter’s moons? Or somewhere ‘way out there?
The Moon, most likely- Luna. Many of the longer jumps were relayed through Luna because of the danger of mixing with a primary, particularly with binaries. But surely they weren’t going to leave him here; Matson had promised them no airless test areas.
On the floor lay an open valise; he recognized it absent-mindedly as the one Caroline had been carrying. At last he remembered to look at the paper he had been handed. It read:
SOLO SURVIVAL TEST-Recall Instructions
You must pass through the door ahead in the three minutes allowed you before another candidate is started through. An overlapping delay will disqualify you.
Recall will be by standard visual and sound signals. You are warned that the area remains hazardous even after recall is sounded.
The exit gate will not be the entrance gate. Exit may be as much as twenty kilometers in the direction of sunrise.
There is no truce zone outside the gate. Test starts at once. Watch out for stobor. Good luck!
-B. P.M.
Rod was still gulping at low gravity and staring at the paper when a door opened at the far end of the long, narrow room he was in. Aman shouted, “Hurry up! You’ll lose your place.”
Rod tried to hurry, staggered and then recovered too much and almost fell. He had experienced low gravity on field trips and his family had once vacationed on Luna, but he was not used to it; with difficulty he managed to skate toward the far door.
Beyond the door was another gate room. The attendant glanced at the timer over the gate and said, “Twenty seconds. Give me that instruction sheet.”
Rod hung onto it. “I’ll use the twenty seconds.”-as much as twenty kilometers in the direction of sunrise. Anominal eastward direction-call it “east.” But what the deuce was, or were, “stobor”?
“Time! Through you go.” The attendant snatched the paper, shutters rolled back, and Rod was shoved through a dilated gate.
He fell to his hands and knees; the gravity beyond was something close to earth-normal and the change had caught him unprepared. But he stayed down, held perfectly still and made no sound while he quickly looked around him. He was in a wide clearing covered with high grass and containing scattered trees and bushes; beyond was dense forest.
He twisted his neck in a hasty survey. Earth-type planet, near normal acceleration, probably a G-type sun in the sky … heavy vegetation, no fauna in sight- but that didn’t mean anything; there might be hundreds within hearing. Even a stobor, whatever that was.
The gate was behind him, tall dark-green shutters which were in reality a long way off. They stood unsupported in the tall grass, an anomalism unrelated to the primitive scene. Rod considered wriggling around behind the gate, knowing that the tangency was one-sided and that he would be able to see through the locus from the other side, see anyone who came out without himself being seen.
Which reminded him that he himself could be seen from that exceptional point; he decided to move.
Where was Jimmy? Jimmy ought to be behind the gate, watching for him to come out… or watching from some other spy point. The only certain method of rendezvous was for Jimmy to have waited for Rod’s appearance; Rod had no way to find him now.
Rod looked around more slowly and tried to spot anything that might give a hint as to Jimmy’s whereabouts. Nothing … but when his scanning came back to the gate, the gate was no longer there.
Rod felt cold ripple of adrenalin shock trickle down his back and out his finger tips. He forced himself to quiet down and told himself that it was better this way. He had a theory to account for the disappearance of the gate; they were, he decided, refocusing it between each pair of students, scattering them possibly kilometers apart.
No, that could not be true- “twenty kilometers toward sunrise” had to relate to a small area.
Or did it? He reminded himself that the orientation given in the sheet handed him might not be that which appeared in some other student’s instruction sheet. He relaxed to the fact that he did not really know anything… he did not know where he was, nor where Jimmy was, nor any other member of the class, he did not know what he might find here, save that it was a place where a man might stay alive if he were smart- and lucky.
Just now his business was to stay alive, for a period that he might as well figure as ten Earth days. He wiped Jimmy Throxton out of his mind, wiped out everything but the necessity of remaining unceasingly alert to all of his surroundings. He noted wind direction as shown by grass plumes and started crawling cautiously down wind.
The decision to go down wind had been difficult. To go up wind had been his first thought, that being the natural direction for a stalk. But his sister’s advice had already paid off; he felt naked and helpless without a gun and it had reminded him that he was not the hunter. His scent would carry in any case; if he went down wind he stood a chance of seeing what might be stalking him, while his unguarded rear would be comparatively safe.
Something ahead in the grass!
He froze and watched. It had been the tiniest movement; he waited. There it was again, moving slowly from right to left across his front. It looked like a dark spike with a tuft of hair on the tip, a tail possibly, carried aloft.
He never saw what manner of creature owned the tail, if it was a tail. It stopped suddenly at a point Rod judged to be directly down wind, then moved off rapidly and he lost Sight of it. He waited a few minutes, then resumed crawling.
It was extremely hot work and sweat poured down him and soaked his overshirt and trousers. He began to want a drink very badly but reminded himself that five litres of water would not last long if he started drinking the first hour of the test. The sky was overcast with high cirrus haze, but the primary or “sun”- he decided to call it the Sun- seemed to burn through fiercely. It was low in the sky behind him; he wondered what it would be like overhead? Kill a man, maybe. Oh, well, it would be cooler in that forest ahead, or at least not be the same chance of sunstroke.
There was lower ground ahead of him and hawklike birds were circling above the spot, round and round. He held still and watched. Brothers, he said softly, if you are behaving like vultures back home, there is something dead ahead of me and you are waiting to make sure it stays dead before you drop in for lunch. If so, I had better swing wide, for it is bound to attract other things… some of which I might not want to meet.
He started easing to the right, quartering the light breeze. It took him onto higher ground and close to a rock outcropping. Rod decided to spy out what was in the lower place below, making use of cover to let him reach an overhanging rock.
It looked mightily like a man on the ground and a child near him. Rod reached, fumbled in his vest pack, got out a tiny 8-power monocular, took a better look. The man was Johann Braun, the “child” was his boxer dog. There was no doubt but that they were dead, for Braun was lying like a tossed rag doll, with his head twisted around and one leg bent under. His throat and the side of his head were a dark red stain.
While Rod watched, a doglike creature trotted out, sniffed at the boxer, and began tearing at it … then the first of the buzzard creatures landed to join the feast. Rod took the glass from his eye, feeling queasy. Old Yo had not lasted long- jumped by a “stobor” maybe- and his smart dog had not saved him. Too bad! But it did prove that there were carnivores around and it behooved him to be careful if he did not want to have jackals and vultures arguing over the leavings!
He remembered something and put the glass back to his eye. Yo’s proud Thunderbolt gun was nowhere in sight and the corpse was not wearing the power pack that energized it. Rod gave a low whistle in his mind and thought. The only animal who would bother to steal a gun ran around on two legs. Rod reminded himself that a Thunderbolt could kill at almost any line-of-sight range- and now somebody had it who obviously took advantage of the absence of law and order in a survival test area.
Well, the only thing to do was not to be in line of sight. He backed off the rock and slid into the bushes.
The forest had appeared to be two kilometers away, or less, when he had started. He was close to it when he became uncomfortably aware that sunset was almost upon him. He became less cautious, more hurried, as he planned to spend the night in a tree. This called for light to climb by, since he relished a night on the ground inside the forest still less than he liked the idea of crouching helpless in the grass.
It had not taken all day to crawl this far. Although it had been morning when he had left Templeton Gate the time of day there had nothing to do with the time of day here. He had been shoved through into late afternoon; it was dusk when he reached the tall trees.
So dusky that he decided that he must accept a calculated risk for what he must do. He stopped at the edge of the forest, still in the high grass, and dug into his pack for his climbers. His sister had caused him to leave behind most of the gadgets, gimmicks, and special-purpose devices that he had considered bringing; she had not argued at these. They were climbing spikes of a style basically old, but refined, made small and light-the pair weighed less than a tenth of a kilogram- and made foldable and compact, from a titanium alloy, hard and strong.
He unfolded them, snapped them under his arches and around his shins, and locked them in place. Then he eyed the tree he had picked, a tall giant deep enough in the mass to allow the possibility of crossing to another tree if the odds made a back-door departure safer and having a trunk which, in spite of its height, he felt sure he could get his arms around.
Having picked his route, he straightened up and at a fast dogtrot headed for the nearest tree. He went past it, cut left for another tree, passed it and cut right toward the tree he wanted. He was about fifteen meters from it when something charged him.
He closed the gap with instantaneous apportation which would have done credit to a Ramsbotham hyperfold. He reached the first branch, ten meters above ground, in what amounted to levitation. From there on he climbed more conventionally, digging the spurs into the tree’s smooth bark and setting his feet more comfortably on branches when they began to be close enough together to form a ladder.
About twenty meters above ground he stopped and looked down. The branches interfered and it was darker under the trees than it had been out in the open; nevertheless he could see, prowling around the tree, the denizen that had favored him with attention.
Rod tried to get a better view, but the light was failing rapidly. But it looked like… well, if he had not been certain that he was on some uncolonized planet ‘way out behind and beyond, he would have said that it was a lion.
Except that it looked eight times as big as any lion ought to look.
He hoped that, whatever it was, it could not climb trees. Oh, quit fretting, Rod!- if it had been able to climb you would have been lunch meat five minutes ago. Get busy and rig a place to sleep before it gets pitch dark. He moved up the tree, keeping an eye out for the spot he needed.
He found it presently, just as he was beginning to think that he would have to go farther down. He needed two stout branches far enough apart and near enough the same level to let him stretch a hammock. Having found such, he worked quickly to beat the failing light. From a pocket of his vest pack he took out his hammock, a web strong as spider silk and almost as thin and light. Using the line around his waist he stretched it, made sure his lashings would hold and then started to get into it.
Adouble-jointed acrobat with prehensile toes might have found it easy; a slack-wire artist would simply have walked into it and sat down. But Rod found that he needed sky hooks. He almost fell out of the tree.
The hammock was a practical piece of equipment and Rod had slept in it before. His sister had approved it, remarking that it was a better model than the field hammock they gave her girls. “Just don’t sit up in your sleep.”
“I won’t,” Rod had assured her. “Anyway, I always fasten the chest belt.”
But he had never slung it in this fashion. There was nothing to stand on under the hammock, no tree limb above it close enough to let him chin himself into it. After several awkward and breath-catching attempts he began to wonder whether he should perch like a bird the rest of the night, or drape himself in the notch of a limb. He did not consider spending the night on the ground- not with that thing prowling around.
There was another limb higher up almost directly over the hammock. Maybe if he tossed the end of his line over it and used it to steady himself …
He tried it. But it was almost pitch dark now; the only reason he did not lose his line was that one end was bent to the hammock. At last he gave up and made one more attempt to crawl into the hammock by main force and extreme care. Bracing both hands wide on each side of the head rope he scooted his feet out slowly and cautiously. Presently he had his legs inside the hammock, then his buttocks. From there on it was a matter of keeping his center of gravity low and making no sudden moves while he insinuated his body farther down into the cocoon.
At last he could feel himself fully and firmly supported. He took a deep breath, sighed, and let himself relax. It was the first time he had felt either safe or comfortable since passing through the gate.
After a few minutes of delicious rest Rod located the nipple of his canteen and allowed himself two swallows of water, after which he prepared supper. This consisted in digging out a quarter-kilo brick of field ration, eleven hundred calories of yeast protein, fat, starch, and glucose, plus trace requirements. The label on it, invisible in the dark, certified that it was “tasty, tempting and pleasing in texture,” whereas chewing an old shoe would have attracted a gourmet quite as much.
But real hunger gave Rod the best of sauces. He did not let any crumb escape and ended by licking the wrapper. He thought about opening another one, quelled the longing, allowed himself one more mouthful of water, then pulled the insect hood of the hammock down over his face and fastened it under the chest belt. He was immune to most insect-carried Terran diseases and was comfortably aware that humans were not subject to most Outlands diseases, but he did not want the night fliers to use his face as a drinking fountain, nor even as a parade ground.
He was too hot even in his light clothing. He considered shucking down to his shorts; this planet, or this part of this planet, seemed quite tropical. But it was awkward; tonight he must stay as he was, even if it meant wasting a day’s ration of water in sweat. He wondered what planet this was, then tried to peer through the roof of the forest to see if he could recognize stars. But either the trees were impenetrable or the sky was overcast; he could see nothing. He attempted to draw everything out of his mind and sleep.
Ten minutes later he was wider awake than ever. Busy with his hammock, busy with his dinner, he had not paid attention to distant sounds; now he became aware of all the voices of the night. Insects buzzed and sang and strummed, foliage rustled and whispered, something coughed below him. The cough was answered by insane laughter that ran raggedly up, then down, and died in asthmatic choking.
Rod hoped that it was a bird.
He found himself straining to hear every sound, near and far, holding his breath. He told himself angrily to stop it; he was safe from at least nine-tenths of potential enemies. Even a
snake, if this place ran to such, would be unlikely to crawl out to the hammock, still less likely to attack- if he held still. Snakes, button-brained as they were, showed little interest in anything too big to swalow. The chances of anything big enough to hurt him-and interested in hurting him- being in this treetop were slim. So forget those funny noises, pal, and go to sleep. After all, they’re no more important than traffic noises in a city.
He reminded himself of the Deacon’s lecture on alarm reaction, the thesis that most forms of death could be traced to the body’s coming too urgently to battle stations, remaining too long at full alert. Or, as his sister had put it, more people worry themselves to death than bleed to death. He set himself conscientiously to running through the mental routines intended to produce sleep.
He almost made it. The sound that pulled him out of warm drowsiness came from far away; involuntarily he roused himself to hear it. It sounded almost human… no, it was human-the terrible sound of a grown man crying with heartbreak, the deep, retching, bass sobs that tear the chest.
Rod wondered what he ought to do. It was none of his business and everyone there was on his own-but it went against the grain to hear such agony from a fellow human and ignore it. Should he climb down and feel his way through the dark to wherever the poor wretch was? Stumbling into tree roots, he reminded himself, and falling into holes and maybe walking straight into the jaws of something hungry and big.
Well, should he? Did he have any right not to?
It was solved for him by the sobs being answered by more sobs, this time closer and much louder. This new voice did not sound human, much as it was like the first, and it scared him almost out of his hammock. The chest strap saved him.
The second voice was joined by a third, farther away. In a few moments the peace of the night had changed to sobbing, howling ululation of mass fear and agony and defeat unbearable. Rod knew now that this was nothing human, nor anything he had ever heard, or heard of, before. He suddenly had a deep conviction that these were the stobor he had been warned to avoid.
But what were they? How was he to avoid them? The one closest seemed to be higher up than he was and no farther than the next tree … good grief, it might even be this tree! When you meet a stobor in the dark what do you do? Spit in its face? Or ask it to waltz?
One thing was certain: anything that made that much noise in the jungle was not afraid of anything; therefore it behooved him to be afraid of it. But, there being nothing he could do, Rod lay quiet, his fear evidenced only by tense muscles, gooseflesh, and cold sweat. The hellish concert continued with the “stobor” closest to him sounding almost in his pocket. It seemed to have moved closer.
With just a bit more prodding Rod would have been ready to sprout wings and fly. Only at home on the North American continent of Terra had he ever spent a night alone in the wilderness. There the hazards were known and minor … a few predictable bears, an occasional lazy rattlesnake, dangers easily avoided.
But how could he guard against the utterly unknown? That stobor- he decided that he might as well call it that- that stobor might be moving toward him now, sizing him up with night eyes, deciding whether to drag him home, or eat him where it killed him.
Should he move? And maybe move right into the fangs of the stobor? Or should he wait, helpless, for the stobor to pounce? It was possible that the stobor could not attack him in the tree. But it was equally possible that stobor were completely arboreal and his one chance lay in climbing down quickly and spending the night on the ground.
What was a stobor? How did it fight? Where and when was it dangerous? The Deacon evidently expected the class to know what to do about them. Maybe they had studied the stobor those days he was out of school right after New Year’s? Or maybe he had just plain forgotten… and would pay for it with his skin. Rod was good at Outlands zoology-but there was just too much to learn it all. Why, the zoology of Terra alone used to give oldstyle zoologists more than they could handle; how could they expect him to soak up all there was to learn about dozens of planets?
It wasn’t fair!
When Rod heard himself think that ancient and useless protest he had a sudden vision of the Deacon’s kindly, cynical smile. He heard his dry drawl: Fair? You expected this to be fair, son? This is not a game. I tried to tell you that you were a city boy, too soft and stupid for this. You would not listen.
He felt a gust of anger at his instructor; it drove fear out of his mind. Jimmy was right; the Deacon would eat his own grandmother! Acold, heartless fish! All right, what would the Deacon do?
Again he heard his teacher’s voice inside his head, an answer Matson had once given to a question put by another classmate: “There wasn’t anything I could do, so I took a nap.
Rod squirmed around, rested his hand on “Colonel Bowie” and tried to take a nap. The unholy chorus made it almost impossible, but he did decide that the stobor in his tree- or was it the next tree?- did not seem to be coming closer. Not that it could come much closer without breathing on his neck, but at least it did not seem disposed to attack.
After a long time he fell into restless sleep, sleep that was no improvement, for he dreamed that he had a ring of sobbing, ululating stobor around him, staring at him, waiting for him to move. But he was trussed up tight and could not move.
The worst of it was that every time he turned his head to see what a stobor looked like it would fade back into the dark, giving him just a hint of red eyes, long teeth. He woke with an icy shock, tried to sit up, found himself restrained by his chest strap, forced himself to lie back. What was it? What had happened?
In his suddenly-awakened state it took time to realize what had happened: the noise had stopped. He could not hear the cry of a single stobor, near or far. Rod found it more disturbing than their clamor, since a noisy stobor advertised its location whereas a silent one could be anywhere- why, the nearest one could now be sitting on the branch behind his head. He twisted his head around, pulled the insect netting off his face to see better. But it was too dark; stobor might be queued up three abreast for all he could tell.
Nevertheless the silence was a great relief. Rod felt himself relax as he listened to the other night sounds, noises that seemed almost friendly after that devils’ choir. He decided that it must be almost morning and that he would do well to stay awake.
Presently he was asleep.
He awoke with the certainty that someone was looking at him. When he realized where he was and that it was still dark, he decided that it was a dream. He stirred, looked around, and tried to go back to sleep.
Something was looking at him!
His eyes, made sensitive by darkness, saw the thing as a vague shape on the branch at his foot. Black on black, he could not make out its outline- but two faintly luminous eyes stared unwinkingly back into his.
“-nothing I could do, so I took a nap.” Rod did not take a nap. For a time measured in eons he and the thing in the tree locked eyes. Rod tightened his grip on his knife and held still, tried to quell the noise of his pounding heart, tried to figure out how he could fight back from a hammock. The beast did not move, made no sound; it simply stared and seemed prepared to do it all night.
When the ordeal had gone on so long that Rod felt a mounting impulse to shout and get it over, the creature moved with light scratching sounds toward the trunk and was gone. Rod could feel the branch shift; he judged that the beast must weigh as much as he did.
Again he resolved to stay awake. Wasn’t it getting less dark? He tried to tell himself so, but he still could not see his own fingers. He decided to count to ten thousand and bring on the dawn.
Something large went down the tree very fast, followed at once by another, and still a third. They did not stop at Rod’s bedroom but went straight down the trunk. Rod put his knife back and muttered, “Noisy neighbors! You’d think this was Emigrants’ Gap.” He waited but the frantic procession never came back.
He was awakened by sunlight in his face. It made him sneeze; he tried to sit up, was caught by his safety belt, became wide awake and regretted it. His nose was stopped up, his eyes burned, his mouth tasted like a ditch, his teeth were slimy, and his back ached. When he moved to ease it he found that his legs ached, too- and his arms- and his head. His neck refused to turn to the right.
Nevertheless he felt happy that the long night was gone. His surroundings were no longer terrifying, but almost idyllic. So high up that he could not see the ground he was still well below the roof of the jungle and could not see sky; he floated in a leafly cloud. The morning ray that brushed his face was alone, so thoroughly did trees shut out the sky.
This reminded him that he had to mark the direction of sunrise. Hmm … not too simple. Would he be able to see the sun from the floor of the jungle? Maybe he should climb down quickly, get out in the open, and mark the direction while the sun was still Jow. But he noticed that the shaft which had wakened him was framed by a limb notch of another forest giant about fifteen meters away. Very well, that tree was “east” of his tree; he could line them up again when he reached the ground.
Getting out of his hammock was almost as hard as getting in; sore muscles resented the effort. At last he was balanced precariously on one limb. He crawled to the trunk, pulled himself painfully erect and, steadied by the trunk, took half-hearted setting-up exercises to work the knots out. Everything loosened up but his neck, which still had a crick like a toothache.
He ate and drank sitting on the limb with his back to the trunk. He kept no special lookout, rationalizing that night feeders would be bedded down and day feeders would hardly be prowling the tree tops-not big ones, anyway; they would be on the ground, stalking herbivores. The truth was that his green hide-away looked too peaceful to be dangerous.
He continued to sit after he finished eating, considered drinking more of his precious water, even considered crawling back into his hammock. Despite the longest night he had ever had he was bone tired and the day was already hot and sleepy and humid; why not stretch out? His only purpose was to survive; how better than by sleeping and thereby saving food and water?
He might have done so had he known what time it was. His watch told him that it was five minutes before twelve, but he could not make up his mind whether that was noon on Sunday or midnight coming into Monday. He was sure that this planet spun much more slowly than did Mother Earth; the night before had been at least as long as a full Earth day.
Therefore the test had been going on at least twentysix hours and possibly thirty-eight- and recall could be any time after forty-eight hours. Why, it might be today, before sunset, and here he was in fine shape, still alive, still with food and water he could trust.
He felt good about it. What did a stobor have that a man did not have more of and better? Aside from a loud voice, he added.
But the exit gate might be as much as twenty kilometers “east” of where he had come in; therefore it behooved him to reach quickly a point ten kilometers east of where he had come in; he would lay money that that would land him within a kilometer or two of the exit. Move along, hole up, and wait- why, he might sleep at home tonight, after a hot bath!
He started unlashing his hammock while reminding himself that he must keep track of hours between sunrise and sunset today in order to estimate the length of the local day. Then he thought no more about it as he had trouble folding the hammock. It had to be packed carefully to fit into a pocket of his vest pack. The filmy stuff should have been spread on a table, but where he was the largest, flattest area was the palm of his hand.
But he got it done, lumpy but packed, and started down. He paused on the lowest branch, looked around. The oversized and hungry thing that had chased him up the tree did not seem to be around, but the undergrowth was too dense for him to be sure. He made a note that he must, all day long and every day, keep a climbable tree in mind not too far away; a few seconds woolgathering might use up his luck.
Okay, now for orientation- Let’s see, there was the tree he had used to mark “east.” Or was it? Could it be that one over there? He realized that he did not know and swore at himself for not checking it by compass. The truth was that he had forgotten that he was carrying a compass. He got it out now, but it told him nothing,
Since east by compass bore no necessary relation to direction of sunrise on this planet. The rays of the primary did not penetrate where he was; the forest was bathed by a dim religious light unmarked by shadows.
Well, the clearing could not be far away. He would just have to check. He descended by climbing spurs, dropped to spongy ground, and headed the way it should be. He counted his paces while keeping an eye peeled for hostiles.
One hundred paces later he turned back, retracing his own spoor. He found “his” tree; this time he examined it. There was where he had come down; he could see his prints. Which side had he gone up? There should be spur marks.
He found them … and was amazed at his own feat; they started high as his head. “I must have hit that trunk like a cat!” But it showed the direction from which he had come; five minutes later he was at the edge of the open country he had crossed the day before.
The sun made shadows here, which straightened him out and he checked by compass. By luck, east was “east” and he need only follow his compass. It took him back into the forest. He traveled standing up. The belly sneak which he had used the day before was not needed here; he depended on moving noiselessly, using cover, and keeping an eye out behind as
well as in front. He zigzagged in order to stay close to trees neither too big ilor too small but corrected his course frequently by compass.
One part of his mind counted paces. At fifteen hundred broken-country steps to a kilometer Rod figured that fifteen thousand should bring him to his best-guess location for the exit gate, where he planned to set up housekeeping until recall.
But, even with part of his mind counting paces and watching a compass and a much larger part watching for carnivores, snakes, and other hazards, Rod still could enjoy the day and place. He was over his jitters of the night before, feeling good and rather cocky. Even though he tried to be fully alert, the place did not feel dangerous now-stobor or no stobor.
It was, he decided, jungle of semi-rainforest type, not dense enough to require chopping one’s way. It was interlaced with game paths but he avoided these on the assumption that carnivores might lie waiting for lunch to come down the path-Rod had no wish to volunteer.
The place seemed thick with game, mostly of antelope type in many sizes and shapes. They were hard to spot; they faded into the bush with natural camouflage, but the glimpses he got convinced him that they were plentiful. He avoided them as he was not hunting and was aware that even a vegetarian could be dangerous with hooves and horns in self or herd defense.
The world above was inhabited, too, with birds and climbers. He spotted families of what looked like monkeys and speculated that this world would probably have developed its own race of humanoids. He wondered again what planet it was? Terrestrial to several decimal places it certainly seemed to be-except for the inconveniently long day- and probably one just opened, or it would be swarming with colonists. It would be a premium planet certainly; that clearing he had come through yesterday would make good farm land once it was burned off. Maybe he would come back some day and help clean out the stobor.
In the meantime he watched where he put his hands and feet, never walked under a low branch without checking it, and tried to make his eyes and ears as efficient as a rabbit’s. He understood now what his sister had meant about how being unarmed makes a person careful, and realized also how little chance he would have to use a gun if he let himself be surprised.
It was this hyperacuteness that made him decide that he was being stalked.
At first it was just uneasiness, then it became a conviction. Several times he waited by a tree, stood frozen and listened; twice he did a sneak through bushes and doubled back on his tracks. But whatever it was seemed as good as he was at silent movement and taking cover and (he had to admit) a notch better.
He thought about taking to the trees and outwaiting it. But his wish to reach his objective outweighed his caution; he convinced himself that he would be safer if he pushed on. He continued to pay special attention to his rear, but after a while he decided that he was no longer being followed.
When he had covered, by his estimate, four kilometers, he began to smell water. He came to a ravine which sliced across his route. Game tracks led him to think it might lead down to a watering place, just the sort of danger area he wished to avoid, so Rod crossed quickly and went down the shoulder of the ravine instead. It led to a bank overlooking water; he could hear the stream before he reached it.
He took to the bushes and moved on his belly to a point where he could peer out from cover. He was about ten meters higher than the water. The ground dropped off on his right as well as in front; there the ravine joined the stream and an eddy pool formed the watering place he had expected. No animals were in sight but there was plenty of sign; a mud flat was chewed with hoof marks.
But he had no intention of drinking where it was easy; would be too easy to die there. What troubled him was that he must cross the stream to reach the probable recall area. It was a small river or wide brook, not too wide to swim, probably not too deep to wade if he picked his spot. But he would not do either one unless forced- and not then without testing the water by chucking a lure into it … a freshly killed animal. The streams near his home were safe, but a tropical stream must be assumed to have local versions of alligator, pirahna, or even worse.
The stream was too wide to cross through the tree tops. He lay still and considered the problem, then decided that he would work his way upstream and hope that it would narrow, or split into two smaller streams which he could tackle one at a time.
It was the last thing he thought about for some time.
When Rod regained consciousness it was quickly; a jackal-like creature was sniffing at him. Rod lashed out with one hand and reached for his knife with the other. The dog brute backed away, snarling, then disappeared in the leaves.
His knife was gone! The realization brought him groggily alert; he sat up. It made his head swim and hurt. He felt it and his fingers came away bloody. Further gingerly investigation showed a big and very tender swelling on the back of his skull, hair matted with blood, and failed to tell him whether or not his skull was fractured. He gave no thanks that he had been left alive; he was sure that the blow had been intended to kill.
But not only his knife was gone. He was naked, save for his shorts. Gone were his precious water, his vest pack with rations and a dozen other invaluable articles- his antibiotics, his salt, his compass, his climbers, his matches, his hammock … everything.
His first feeling of sick dismay was replaced by anger. Losing food and gear was no more than to be expected, since he had been such a fool as to forget his rear while he looked at the stream- but taking the watch his father had given him, that was stealing; he would make somebody pay for that!
His anger made him feel better. It was not until then that he noticed that the bandage on his left shin was undisturbed.
He felt it. Sure enough! Whoever it was who had hijacked him had not considered a bandage worth stealing; Rod unwrapped it and cradled Lady Macbeth in his hand. Somebody was going to be sorry.
4. Savage
Rod Walker was crouching on a tree limb. He had not moved for two hours, he might not move for as long a time. In a clearing near him a small herd of yearling bachelor buck were cropping grass; if one came close enough Rod intended to dine on buck. He was very hungry.
He was thirsty, too, not having drunk that day. Besides that, he was slightly feverish. Three long, imperfectly healed scratches on his left arm accounted for the fever, but Rod paid fever and scratches no attention – he was alive; he planned to stay alive.
Abuck moved closer to him; Rod became quiveringly alert. But the little buck tossed his head, looked at the branch, and moved away. He did not appear to see Rod; perhaps his mother had taught him to be careful of overhanging branches-or perhaps a hundred thousand generations of harsh survival had printed it in his genes.
Rod swore under his breath and lay still. One of them was bound to make a mistake eventually; then he would eat. It had been days since he had thought about anything but food … food and how to keep his skin intact, how to drink without laying himself open to ambush, how to sleep without waking up in a fellow-denizen’s belly.
The healing wounds on his arm marked how expensive his tuition had been. He had let himself get too far from a tree once too often, had not even had time to draw his knife. Instead he had made an impossible leap and had chinned himself with the wounded arm. The thing that had clawed him he believed to be the same sort as the creature that had treed him the day of his arrival; furthermore he believed it to be a lion. He had a theory about that, but had not yet been able to act on it.
He was gaunt almost to emaciation and had lost track of time. He realized that the time limit of the survival test had probably- almost certainly- passed, but he did not know how long he had lain in the crotch of a tree, waiting for his arm to heal, nor exactly how long it had been since he had come down, forced by thirst and hunger. He supposed that the recall signal had probably been given during one of his unconscious periods, but he did not worry nor even think about it. He was no longer interested in survival tests; he was interested in survival.
Despite his weakened condition his chances were better now than when he had arrived. He was becoming sophisticated, no longer afraid of things he had been afraid of, most acutely wary of others which had seemed harrnless. The creatures with the ungodly voices which he had dubbed “stobor” no longer fretted him; he had seen one, had disturbed it by accident in daylight and it had given voice. It was not as big as his hand, and reminded him of a horned lizard except that it had the habits of a tree toad. Its one talent was its voice; it could blow up a bladder at its neck to three times its own size, then give out with that amazing, frightening sob.
But that was all it could do.
Rod had guessed that it was a love call, then had filed the matter. He still called them “stobor.”
He had learned about a forest vine much like a morning glory, but its leaves carried a sting worse than that of a nettle, toxic and producing numbness. Another vine had large grape-like fruits, deliciously tempting and pleasant to the palate; Rod had learned the hard way that they were a powerful purgative.
He knew, from his own narrow brushes and from kills left half-eaten on the ground, that there were carnivores around even though he had never had a good look at one. So far as he knew there were no carnivorous tree-climbers large enough to tackle a man, but he could not be certain; he slept with one eye open.
The behavior of this herd caused him to suspect that there must be carnivores that hunted as he was now hunting, even though he had had the good fortune not to tangle with one. The little buck had wandered all over the clearing, passed close by lesser trees, yet no one of them had grazed under the tree Rod was in.
Steady, boy … here comes one. Rod felt the grip of “Lady Macbeth,” got ready to drop onto the graceful little creature as it passed under. But five meters away it hesitated, seemed to realize that it was straying from its mates, and started to turn.
Rod let fly.
He could hear the meaty tunk! as blade bit into muscle; he could see the hilt firm against the shoulder of the buck. He dropped to the ground, hit running and moved in to finish the kill. The buck whipped its head up, turned and fled. Rod dived, did not touch it. When he rolled to his feet the clearing was empty. His mind was filled with bitter thoughts; he had promised
himself never to throw his knife when there was any possibility of not being able to recover it, but he did not let regrets slow him; he got to work on the tracking problem.
Rod had been taught the first law of hunting sportsmanship, that a wounded animal must always be tracked down and finished, not left to suffer and die slowly. But there was no trace of “sportsmanship” in his present conduct; he undertook to track the buck because he intended to eat it, and-much more urgently- because he had to recover that knife in order to stay alive.
The buck had not bled at once and its tracks were mixed up with hundreds of other tracks. Rod returned three times to the clearing and started over before he picked up the first blood spoor. After that it was easier but he was far behind now and the stampeded buck moved much faster than he could track. His quarry stayed with the herd until it stopped in a new pasture a half kilometer away. Rod stopped still in cover and looked them over. His quarry did not seem to be among them.
But blood sign led in among them; he followed it and they stampeded again. He had trouble picking it up; when he did he found that it led into brush instead of following the herd. This made it easier and harder- easier because he no longer had to sort one spoor from many, harder because pushing through the brush was hard in itself and much more dangerous, since he must never forget that he himself was hunted as well as hunter, and lastly because the signs were so much harder to spot there. But it cheered him up, knowing that only a weakened animal would leave the herd and try to hide. He expected to find it down before long.
But the beast did not drop; it seemed to have a will to live as strong as his own. He followed it endlessly and was beginning to wonder what he would do if it grew dark before the buck gave up. He had to have that knife.
He suddenly saw that there were two spoors.
Something had stepped beside a fresh, split-hooved track of the little antelope; something had stepped on a drop of blood. Quivering, his subconscious “bush radar” at full power, Rod moved silently forward. He found new marks again … a man!
The print of a shod human foot- and so wild had he become that it gave him no feeling of relief; it made him more wary than ever.
Twenty minutes later he found them, the human and the buck. The buck was down, having died or perhaps been finished off by the second stalker. The human, whom Rod judged to be a boy somewhat younger and smaller than himself, was kneeling over it, slicing its belly open. Rod faded back into the bush. From there he watched and thought. The other hunter seemed much preoccupied with the kill … and that tree hung over the place where the butchering was going on-
Afew minutes later Rod was again on a branch, without a knife but with a long thorn held in his teeth. He looked down, saw that his rival was almost under him, and transferred the thorn to his right hand. Then he waited.
The hunter below him laid the knife aside and bent to turn the carcass. Rod dropped.
He felt body armor which had been concealed by his victim’s shirt. Instantly he transferred his attention to the bare neck, pushing the thorn firmly against vertebrae. “Hold still or you’ve had it!”
The body under him suddenly quit struggling. “That’s better,” Rod said approvingly. “Cry pax?”
No answer. Rod jabbed the thorn again. “I’m not playing games, he said harshly. “I’m giving you one chance stay alive. Cry pax and mean it, and well both eat. Give me any trouble and you’ll never eat again. It doesn’t make the least difference.”
There was a moments hesitation, then a muffled voice said, “Pax.”
Keeping the thorn pressed against his prisoner’s neck, Rod reached out for the knife which had been used to gut the buck. It was, he saw, his own Lady Macbeth. He sheathed it, felt around under the body he rested on, found another where he expected it, pulled it and kept in his hand. He chucked away the thorn and stood up. “You can get up.”
The youngster got up and faced him sullenly. “Give me my knife.” “Later … if you are a good boy.”
“I said ‘Pax.’”
“So you did. Turn around, I want to make sure you don’t have a gun on you.” “I left- I’ve nothing but my knife. Give it to me.”
“Left it where?”
The kid did not answer. Rod said, “Okay, turn around,” and threatened with the borrowed knife. He was obeyed. Rod quickly patted all the likely hiding places, confirmed that the youngster was wearing armor under clothes and over the entire torso. Rod himself was dressed only in tan, scratches, torn and filthy shorts, and a few scars. “Don’t you find that junk pretty hot this weather?” he asked cheerfully. “Okay, you can turn around. Keep your distance.”
The youngster turned around, still with a very sour expression. “What’s your name, bud?” “Uh, Jack.”
“Jack what? Mine’s Rod Walker.” “Jack Daudet.”
“What school, Jack?” “Ponce de Leon Institute.”
“Mine’s Patrick Henry High School.” “Matson’s class?”
“The Deacon himself.”
“I’ve heard of him.” Jack seemed impressed.
“Who hasn’t? Look, let’s quit jawing; we’ll have the whole county around our ears. Let’s eat. You keep watch that way; I’ll keep watch behind you.” “Then give me my knife. I need it to eat.”
“Not so fast. I’ll cut you off a hunk or two. Special Waldorf service.
Rod continued the incision Jack had started, carried it on up and laid the hide back from the right shoulder, hacked off a couple of large chunks of lean. He tossed one to Jack, hunkered down and gnawed his own piece while keeping sharp lookout. “You keeping your eyes peeled?” he asked.
“Sure.”
Rod tore off a rubbery mouthful of warm meat. “Jack, how did they let a runt like you take the test? You aren’t old enough.” “I’ll bet I’m as old as you are!”
“I doubt it.”
“Well … I’m qualified.” “You don’t look it.”
“I’m here, I’m alive.”
Rod grinned. “You’ve made your point. I’ll shut up. Once his portion was resting comfortably inside, Rod got up, split the skull and dug out the brains. “Want a handful?” “Sure.”
Rod passed over a fair division of the dessert. Jack accepted it, hesitated, then blurted out, “Want some salt?” “Salt!” You’ve got salt?”
Jack appeared to regret the indiscretion. “Some. Go easy on it.” Rod held out his handful. “Put some on. Whatever you can spare.”
Jack produced a pocket shaker from between shirt and armor, sprinkled a little on Rod’s portion, then shrugged and made it liberal. “Didn’t you bring salt along?”
“Me?” Rod answered, tearing his eyes from the mouthwatering sight. “Oh, sure! But- Well, I had an accident.” He decided that there was no use admitting that he had been caught off guard.
Jack put the shaker firmly out of sight. They munched quietly, each watching half their surroundings. After a while Rod said softly, “Jackal behind you, Jack.” “Nothing else?”
“No. But it’s time we whacked up the meat and got Out of here; we’re attracting attention. How much can you use?” “Uh, a haunch and a chunk of liver. I can’t carry any more.”
“And you can’t eat more before it spoils, anyway.” Rod started butchering the hind quarters. He cut a slice of hide from the belly, used it to sling his share around his neck. “Well, so long, kid. Here’s your knife. Thanks for the salt.”
“Oh, that’s all right.”
“Tasted mighty good. Well, keep your eyes open.” “Same to you. Good luck.”
Rod stood still. Then he said almost reluctantly, “Uh, Jack, you wouldn’t want to team up, would you?” He regretted it as soon as he said it, remembering how easily he had surprised the kid.
Jack chewed a lip. “Well … I don’t know.”
Rod felt affronted. “What’s the matter? Afraid of me?” Didn’t the kid see that Rod was doing him a favor? “Oh, no! You’re all right, I guess.”
Rod had an unpleasant suspicion. “You think I’m trymg to get a share of your salt, don’t you?” “Huh? Not at all. Look, I’ll divvy some salt with you.”
“I wouldn’t touch it! I just thought-” Rod stopped. He had been thinking that they had both missed recall; it looked like a long pull. “I didn’t mean to make you mad, Rod. You’re right. We ought to team.”
“Don’t put yourself out! I can get along.”
“I’ll bet you can. But let’s team up. Is it a deal?”
“Well … Shake.”
Once the contract was made Rod assumed leadership. There was no discussion; he simply did so and Jack let it stand. “You lead off,” Rod ordered, “and I’ll cover our rear.” “Okay. Where are we heading?”
“That high ground downstream. There are good trees there, better for all night than around here. I want us to have time to settle in before dark-so a quick sneak and no talking.” Jack hesitated. “Okay. Are you dead set on spending the night in a tree?”
Rod curled his lip. “Want to spend it on the ground? How did you stay alive this long?”
“I spent a couple of nights in trees,” Jack answered mildly. “But I’ve got a better place now, maybe.” “Huh? What sort?”
“Asort of a cave.”
Rod thought about it. Caves could be death traps. But the prospect of being able to stretch out swayed him. “Won’t hurt to look, if it’s not too far.” “It’s not far.”
5. The Nova
Jack’s hideaway was in a bluff overlooking the stream by which Rod had been robbed. At this point the bluffs walled a pocket valley and the stream meandered between low banks cut in an alluvial field between the bluffs. The cave was formed by an overhang of limestone which roofed a room water-carved from shale in one bluff. The wall below it was too sheer to climb; the overhanging limestone protected it above and the stream curved in sharply ahnost to the foot of the bluff. The only way to reach it was to descend the bluff farther upstream to the field edging the creek, then make a climbing traverse of the shale bank where it was somewhat less steep just upstream of the cave.
They slanted cautiously up the shale, squeezed under an overhang at the top, and stepped out on a hard slaty floor. The room was open on one side and fairly long and deep, but it squeezed in to a waist-high crawl space; only at the edge was there room to stand up. Jack grabbed some gravel, threw it into the dark hole, waited with knife ready. “Nobody home, I guess.” They dropped to hands and knees, crawled inside. “How do you like it?”
“It’s swell … provided we stand watches. Something could come up the way we did. You’ve been lucky.”
“Maybe.” Jack felt around in the gloom, dragged out dry branches of thorn bush, blocked the pathway, jamming them under the overhang. “That’s my alarm.” “It wouldn’t stop anything that got a whiff of you and really wanted to come in.”
“No. But I would wake up and let it have some rocks in the face. I keep a stack over there. I’ve got a couple of scare-flares, too.” “I thought- Didn’t you say you had a gun?”
“I didn’t say, but I do. But I don’t believe in shooting when you can’t see.”
“It looks all right. In fact it looks good, I guess I did myself a favor when I teamed with you.” Rod looked around. “You’ve had a fire!” “I’ve risked it a couple of times, in daylight. I get so tired of raw meat.”
Rod sighed deeply. “I know. Say, do you suppose?”
“It’s almost dark. I’ve never lighted one when it could show. How about roast liver for breakfast, instead? With salt?”
Rod’s mouth watered. “You’re right, Jack. I do want to get a drink before it is too dark, though. How about coming along and we cover each other?” “No need. There’s a skin back there. Help yourself.”
Rod congratulated himself on having teamed with a perfect housekeeper. The skin was of a small animal, not identifiable when distended with water. Jack had scraped the hide but it was uncured and decidedly unsavory. Rod was not aware that the water tasted bad; he drank deeply, wiped his mouth with his hand and delt at peace.
They did not sleep at once, but sat in the dark and compared notes. Jack’s class had come through one day earlier, but with the same instructions. Jack agreed that recall was long overdue.
“I suppose I missed it while I was off my head,” Rod commented. “I don’t know how long I was foggy… I guess I didn’t miss dying by much.” “That’s not it, Rod.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve been okay and keeping track of the time. There never was any recall.” “You’re sure?”
“How could I miss? The siren can be heard for twenty kilometers, they use a smoke flare by day and a searchlight at night, and the law says they have to keep it up at least a week unless everybody returns… which certainly did not happen this time.”
“Maybe we are out of range. Matter of fact- well, I don’t know about you, but I’m lost. I admit it”
“I’m not. I’m about four kilometers from where they let my class through; I could show you the spot. Rod, let’s face it; something has gone wrong. There is no way of telling how long we are going to be here.” Jack added quiefly, “That’s why I thought it was a good idea to team.”
Rod chewed it over, decided it was time to haul out his theory. “Me, too.”
“Yes. Solo is actually safer, for a few days. But if we are stuck here indefinitely, then-“ “Not what I meant, Jack.”
“Huh?”
“Do you know what planet this is?”
“No. I’ve thought about it, of course. It has to be one of the new list and it is compatible with-“ “I know what one it is.”
“Huh? Which one?”
“It’s Earth. Terra herself.”
There was a long silence. At last Jack said, “Rod, are you all right? Are you still feverish?”
“I’m fine, now that I’ve got a full belly and a big drink of water. Look, Jack, I know it sounds silly, but you just listen and I’ll add it up. We’re on Earth and I think I know about where, too. I don’t think they meant to sound recall; they meant us to figure out where we are and walk out. It’s a twist Deacon Matson would love.”
“But-“
“Keep quiet, can’t you? Yapping like a girl. Terrestrial planet, right?” “Yes, but-“
“Stow it and let me talk. G-type star. Planetary rotation same as Earth.” “But it’s not!”
“I made the same mistake. The first night I thought was a week long. But the truth was I was scared out of my skin and that made it seem endless. Now I know better. The rotation matches.”
“No, it doesn’t. My watch shows it to be about twenty-six hours.”
“You had better have your watch fixed when we get back. You banged it against a tree or something.” “But- Oh, go ahead. Keep talking; it’s your tape.
“You’ll see. Flora compatible. Fauna compatible. I know how they did it and why and where they put us. It’s an economy measure.”
“Awhat?”
“Economy. Too many people complaining about school taxes being too high. Of course, keeping an interstellar gate open is expensive and uranium doesn’t grow on trees. I see their point. But Deacon Matson says it is false economy. He says, sure, it’s expensive- but that the only thing more expensive than a properly trained explorer or pioneer leader is an improperly trained dead one.
“He told us after class one day,” Rod went on, “that the penny-pinchers wanted to run the practices and tests in selected areas on Earth, but the Deacon claims that the essence of survival in the Outlands is the skill to cope with the unknown. He said that if tests were held on Earth, the candidates would just study up on terrestrial environments. He said any Boy Scout could learn the six basic Earth environments and how to beat them out of books … but that it was criminal to call that survival training and then dump a man in an unEarthly environment on his first professional assigninent. He said that it was as ridiculous as just teaching a kid to play chess and then send him out to fight a duel.”
“He’s right,” Jack answered. “Commander Benboe talks the same way.”
“Sure he’s right. He swore that if they went ahead with this policy this would be the last year he would teach. But they pulled a gimmick on him.” “How?”
“It’s a good one. What the Deacon forgot is that any environment is as unknown as any other if you don’t have the slightest idea where you are. So they rigged it so that we could not know. First they shot us to Luna; the Moon gates are always open and that doesn’t cost anything extra. Of course that made us think we were in for a long jump. Besides, it confused us; we wouldn’t know we were being dumped back into the gravity field we had left- for that was what they did next; they shoved us back on Earth. Where? Africa, I’d say. I think they used the
Luna Link to jump us to Witwatersrand Gate outside Johannesburg and there they were all set with a matched-in temporary link to drop us into the bush. Tshaka Memorial Park or some other primitive preserve, on a guess. Everything matches. Awide variety of antelope-type game, carnivores to feed on them- I’ve seen a couple of lions and-“
“You have?”
“Well, they will do for lions until I get a chance to skin one. But they threw in other dodges to confuse us, too. The sky would give the show away, particularly if we got a look at Luna. So they’ve hung an overcast over us. You can bet there are cloud generators not far away. Then they threw us one more curve. Were you warned against ‘stobor’?”
“Yes”
“See any?”
“Well, I’m not sure what stobor are.”
“Neither am I. Nor any of us, I’ll bet. ‘Stobor’ is the bogeyman, chucked in to keep our pretty little heads busy. There aren’t any ‘stobor’ on Terra so naturally we must be somewhere else. Even a suspicious character like me would be misled by that. In fact, I was. I even picked out something I didn’t recognize and called it that, just as they meant me to do.”
“You make it sound logical, Rod.”
“Because it is logical. Once you realize that this is Earth-” He patted the floor of the cave. “-but that they have been trying to keep us from knowing it, everything falls into place. Now here is what we do. I was going to tackle it alone, as soon as I could- I haven’t been able to move around much on account of this bad arm- but I decided to take you along, before you got hurt. Here’s my plan. I think this is Africa, but it might be South America, or anywhere in the tropics. It does not matter, because we simply follow this creek downstream, keeping our eyes open because there really are hazards; you can get just as dead here as in the Outlands. It may take a week, or a month, but one day well come to a bridge. We’ll follow the road it serves until somebody happens along. Once in town we’ll check in with the authorities and get them to flip us home … and we get our solo test certificates. Simple.”
“You make it sound too simple,” Jack said slowly.
“Oh, we’ll have our troubles. But we can do it, now that we know what to do. I didn’t want to bring this up before, but do you have salt enough to cure a few kilos of meat? If we did not have to hunt every day, we could travel faster. Or maybe you brought some Kwik-Kure?”
“I did, but-“
“Good!”
“Wait a minute, Rod. That won’t do.” “Huh? We’re a team, aren’t we?”
“Take it easy. Look, Rod, everything you said is logical, but-“ “No ‘buts’ about it.”
“It’s logical … but it’s all wrong!” “Huh? Now, listen, Jack-“
“You listen. You’ve done all the talking so far.” “But- Well, all right, say your say.”
“You said that the sky would give it away, so they threw an overcast over the area.
“Yes. That’s what they must have done, nights at least. They wouldn’t risk natural weather; it might give the show away.
“What I’m trying to tell you is that it did give the show away. It hasn’t been overcast every night, though maybe you were in deep forest and missed the few times it has been clear. But I’ve seen the night sky, Rod. I’ve seen stars.
“So? Well?”
“They aren’t our stars, Rod. I’m sorry.”
Rod chewed his lip. “You probably don’t know southern constellations very well?” he suggested.
“I knew the Southern Cross before I could read. These aren’t our stars, Rod; I know. There is a pentagon of bright stars above where the sun sets; there is nothing like that to be seen from Earth. And besides, anybody would recognise Luna, if it was there.”
Rod tried to remember what phase the Moon should be in. He gave up, as he had only a vague notion of elapsed time. “Maybe the Moon was down?” “Not a chance. I didn’t see our Moon, Rod, but I saw moons . . two of them, little ones and moving fast, like the moons of Mars.”
“You don’t mean this is Mars?” Rod said scornfully.
“Think I’m crazy? Anyhow, the stars from Mars are exactly like the stars from Earth. Rod, what are we jawing about? It was beginning to clear when the sun went down; let’s crawl out and have a look. Maybe you’ll believe your eyes.
Rod shut up and followed Jack. From inside nothing was visible but dark trees across the stream, but from the edge of the shelf part of the sky could be seen. Rod lookedup and blinked. “Mind the edge,” Jack warned softly.
Rod did not answer. Framed by the ledge above him and by tree tops across the stream was a pattern of six stars, a lopsided pentagon with a star in its center. The six stars were as bright and unmistakable as the seven stars of Earth’s Big Dipper … nor did it take a degree in astrography to know that this constellation had never been seen from Terra.
Rod stared while the hard convictions he had formed fell in ruins. He felt lost and alone. The trees across the way seemed frightening. He turned to Jack, his cocky sophistication gone. “You’ve convinced me,” he said dully. “What do we do now?”
Jack did not answer.
“Well?” Rod insisted. “No good standing here.”
“Rod,” Jack answered, “that star in the middle of the Pentagon-it wasn’t there before.” “Huh? You probably don’t remember.”
“No, no, I’m sure! Rod, you know what? We’re seeing a nova.”
Rod was unable to arouse the pure joy of scientific discovery; his mind was muddled with reorganizing his personal universe. Amere stellar explosion meant nothing. “Probably one of your moonlets.”
“Not a chance. The moons are big enough to show disks. It’s a nova; it has to be. What amazing luck to see one!”
“I don’t see anything lucky about it,” Rod answered moodily. “It doesn’t mean anything to us. It’s probably a hundred light-years away, maybe more.” “Yes, but doesn’t it thrill you?”
“No.” He stooped down and went inside. Jack took another look, then followed. There was silence, moody on Rod’s part. At last Jack said, “Think I’ll turn in.”
“I just can’t see,” Rod answered irrelevantly, “how I could be so wrong. It was a logical certainty.”
“Forget it,” Jack advised. “My analytics instructor says that all logic is mere tautology. She says it is impossible to learn anything through logic that you did not already know.” “Then what use is logic?” Rod demanded.
“Ask me an easy one. Look, partner, I’m dead for sleep; I want to turn in.”
“All right. But, Jack, if this isn’t Africa- and I’ve got to admit it isn’t- what do we do? They’ve gone off and left us.”
“Do? We do what we’ve been doing. Eat, sleep, stay alive. This is a listed planet; if we just keep breathing, someday somebody will show up. It might be just a power breakdown; they may pick us tomorrow.”
“In that case, then-“
“In that case, let’s shut up and go to sleep.”
6. “I Think He Is Dead”
Rod was awakened by heavenly odors. he rolled over, blinked at light streaming under the overhang, managed by great effort to put himself back into the matrix of the day before. Jack, he saw, was squatting by a tiny fire on the edge of the shelf; the wonderful fragrance came from toasting liver.
Rod got to his knees, discovering that he was slightly stiff from having fought dream stobor in his sleep. These nightmare stobor were bug-eyed monsters fit for a planet suddenly strange and threatening. Nevertheless he had had a fine night’s sleep and his spirits could not be daunted in the presence of the tantalizing aroma drifting in.
Jack looked up. “I thought you were going to sleep all day. Brush your teeth, comb your hair, take a quick shower, and get on out here. Breakfast is ready.” Jack looked him over again. “Better shave, too.”
Rod grinned and ran his hand over his chin. “You’re jealous of my manly beard, youngster. Wait a year or two and you’ll find out what a nuisance it is. Shaving, the common cold, and taxes … my old man says those are the three eternal problems the race is never going to lick.” Rod felt a twinge at the thought of his parents, a stirring of conscience that he had not thought of them in he could not remember how long. “Can I help, pal?”
“Sit down and grab the salt. This piece is for you.” “Let’s split it.”
“Eat and don’t argue. I’ll fix me some.” Rod accepted the charred and smoky chunk, tossed it in his hands and blew on it. He looked around for salt. Jack Was slicing a second piece; Rod’s eyes passed over the operation then whipped back.
The knife Jack was using was “Colonel Bowie.”
The realization was accompanied by action; Rod’s hand darted out and caught Jack’s wrist in an anger-hard grip. “You stole my knife!” Jack did not move. “Rod… have you gone crazy?”
“You slugged me and stole my knife.”
Jack made no attempt to fight, nor even to struggle. “You aren’t awake yet, Rod. Your knife is on your belt. This is another knife … mine. Rod did not bother to look down. “The one I’m wearing is Lady Macbeth. I mean the knife you’re using, Colonel Bowie- my knife.”
“Let go my wrist.” “Drop it!”
“Rod… you can probably make me drop this knife. You’re bigger and you’ve got the jump on me. But yesterday you teamed with me. You’re busting that team right now. If you don’t let go right away, the team is broken. Then you’ll have to kill me … because if you don’t, I’ll trail you. I’ll keep on trailing you until I find you asleep. Then you’ve had it.”
They faced each other across the little fire, eyes locked. Rod breathed hard and tried to think. The evidence was against Jack. But had this little runt tracked him, slugged him, stolen everything he had? It looked like it.
Yet it did not feel like it. He told himself that he could handle the kid if his story did not ring true. He let go Jack’s wrist. “All right,” he said angrily, “tell me how you got my knife.”
Jack went on slicing liver. “It’s not much of a story and I don’t know that it is your knife. But it was not mine to start with- you’ve seen mine. I use this one as a kitchen knife. Its balance is wrong.
“Colonel Bowie! Balanced wrong? That’s the best throwing knife you ever saw!”
“Do you want to hear this? I ran across this hombre in the bush, just as the jackals were getting to him. I don’t know what got him-stobor, maybe; he was pretty well clawed and half eaten. He wasn’t one of my class, for his face wasn’t marked and I could tell. He was carrying a Thunderbolt and-“
“Wait a minute. AThunderbolt gun?”
“I said so, didn’t I? I guess he tried to use it and had no luck. Anyhow, I took what I could use- this knife and a couple of other things; I’ll show you. I left the Thunderbolt; the power pack was exhausted and it was junk.”
“Jack, look at me. You’re not lying?”
Jack shrugged. “I can take you to the spot. There might not be anything left of him, but the Thunderbolt ought to be there.” Rod stuck out his hand. “I’m sorry. I jumped to conclusions.”
Jack looked at his hand, did not shake it. “I don’t think you are much of a team mate. We had better call it quits.” The knife flipped over, landed at Rod’s toes. “Take your toadsticker and be on your way.”
Rod did not pick up the knife. “Don’t get sore, Jack. I made an honest mistake.”
“It was a mistake, all right. You didn’t trust me and I’m not likely to trust you again. You can’t build a team on that.” Jack hesitated. “Finish your breakfast and shove off. It’s better that way.” “Jack, I truly am sorry. I apologize. But it was a mistake anybody could make- you haven’t heard my side of the story.”
“You didn’t wait to hear my story!”
“So I was wrong, I said I was wrong.” Rod hurriedly told how he had been stripped of his survival gear. “-so naturally, when I saw Colonel Bowie, I assumed that you must have jumped me. That’s logical, isn’t it?” Jack did not answer; Rod persisted: “Well? Isn’t it?”
Jack said slowly, “You used ‘logic’ again. What you call ‘logic.’ Rod, you use the stuff the way some people use dope. Why don’t you use your head, instead?” Rod flushed and kept still. Jack went on, “If I had swiped your knife, would I have let you see it? For that matter, would I have teamed with you?”
“No, I guess not. Jack, I jumped at a conclusion and lost my temper.”
“Commander Benboe says,” Jack answered bleakly, “that losing your temper and jumping at conclusions is a one-way ticket to the cemetery.” Rod looked sheepish. ”Deacon Matson talks the same way.”
“Maybe they’re right. So let’s not do it again, huh? Every dog gets one bite, but only one.” Rod looked up, saw Jack’s dirty paw stuck out at him. “You mean we’re partners again?”
“Shake. I think we had better be; we don’t have much choice.” They solemnly shook hands. Then Rod picked up Colonel Bowie, looked at it longingly, and handed it hilt first to Jack. “I guess it’s yours, after all.”
“Huh? Oh, no. I’m glad you’ve got it back.”
“No,” Rod insisted. “You came by it fair and square.
“Don’t be silly, Rod. I’ve got ‘Bluebeard’; that’s the knife for me.”
“It’s yours. I’ve got Lady Macbeth.”
Jack frowned. “We’re partners, right?” “Huh? Sure.”
“So We share everything. Bluebeard belongs just as much to you as to me. And Colonel Bowie belongs to both of us. But you are used to it, so it’s best for the team for you to wear it. Does that appeal to your lopsided sense of logic?”
“Well…”
“So shut up and eat your breakfast. Shall I toast you another slice? That one is cold.”
Rod picked up the scorched chunk of liver, brushed dirt and ashes from it. “This is all right.” “Throw it in the stream and have a hot piece. Liver won’t keep anyhow.”
Comfortably stuffed, and warmed by companionship, Rod stretched out on the shelf after breakfast and stared at the sky. Jack put out the fire and tossed the remnants of their meal downstream. Something broke water and snapped at the liver even as it struck. Jack turned to Rod. “Well, what do we do today?”
“Mmm… what we’ve got on hand ought to be fit to eat tomorrow morning. We don’t need to make a kill today.”
“I hunt every second day, usually, since I found this place. Second-day meat is better than first, but by the third … phewy!” “Sure. Well, what do you want to do?”
“Well, let’s see. First I’d like to buy a tall, thick chocolate malted milk- or maybe a fruit salad. Both. I’d eat those-“ “Stop it, you’re breaking my heart!”
“Then I’d have a hot bath and get all dressed up and flip out to Hollywood and see a couple of good shows. That superspectacle that Dirk Manleigh is starring in and then a good adventure show. After that I’d have another malted milk … strawberry, this time, and then-“
“Shut up!’
“You asked me what I wanted to do.”
“Yes, but I expected you to stick to possibilities.”
“Then why didn’t you say so? Is that ‘logical’? I thought you always used logic?” “Say, lay off, will you? I apologized.”
“Yeah, you apologized,” Jack admitted darkly. “But I’ve got some mad I haven’t used up yet.” “Well! Are you the sort of pal who keeps raking up the past?”
“Only when you least expect it. Seriously, Rod, I think we ought to hunt today.”
“But you agreed we didn’t need to. It’s wrong, and dangerous besides, to make a kill you don’t need.” “I think we ought to hunt people.”
Rod pulled his ear. “Say that again.”
“We ought to spend the day hunting people.”
“Huh? Well, anything for fun I always say. What do we do when we find them? Scalp them, or just shout ‘Beaver!’?” “Scalping is more definite. Rod, how long will we be here?”
“Huh? All we know is that something has gone seriously cockeyed with the recall schedule. You say we’ve been here three weeks. I would say it was longer but you have kept a notch calendar and I haven’t. Therefore …” He stopped.
“Therefore what?”
“Therefore nothing. They might have had some technical trouble, which they may clear up and recall us this morning. Deacon Matson and his fun-loving colleagues might have thought it was cute to double the period and not mention it. The Dalai Lama might have bombed the whiskers off the rest of the World and the Gates may be radioactive ruins. Or maybe the three- headed serpent men of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud have landed and have the situation well in hand- for them. When you haven’t data, guessing is illogical. We might be here forever.”
Jack nodded. “That’s my point.”
“Which point? We know we may be marooned; that’s obvious.”
“Rod, a two-man team is just right for a few weeks. But suppose this runs into months? Suppose one of us breaks a leg? Or even if we don’t, how long is that thorn-bush alarm going to work? We ought to wall off that path and make this spot accessible only by rope ladder, With somebody here all the time to let the ladder down. We ought to locate a salt lick and think about curing hides and things like that- that water skin I made is getting high already. For a long pull we ought to have at least four people.”
Rod scratched his gaunt ribs thoughtfully. “I know. I thought about it last night, after you jerked the rug out from under my optimistic theory. But I was waiting for you to bring it up.” “Why?”
“This is your cave. You’ve got all the fancy equipment, a gun and pills and other stuff I haven’t seen. You’ve got salt. All I’ve got is a knife- two knives now, thanks to you. I’d look sweet suggesting that you share four ways.”
“We’re a team, Rod.’
“Mmm… yes. And we both figure the team would be strengthened with a couple of recruits. Well, how many people are there out there?” He gestured at the wall of green across the creek.
“My class put through seventeen boys and eleven girls. Commander Benboe told us there would be four classes in the same test area. “That’s more than the Deacon bothered to tell us. However, my class put through about twenty.”
Jack looked thoughtful. “Around a hundred people, probably.” “Not counting casualties.”
“Not counting casualties. Maybe two-thirds boys, one-third girls. Plenty of choice, if we can find them.” “No girls on this team, Jack.”
“What have you got against girls?”
“Me? Nothing at all. Girls are swell on picnics, they are just right on long winter evenings. I’m one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the female race. But for a hitch like this, they are pure poison.”
Jack did not say anything. Rod went on, “Use your head, brother. You get some pretty little darling on this team and we’ll have more grief inside than stobor, or such, can give us from outside. Quarrels and petty jealousies and maybe a couple of boys knifing each other. It will be tough enough without that trouble.”
“Well,” Jack answered thoughifully, “suppose the first one we locate is a girl? What are you going to do? Tip your hat and say, ‘It’s a fine day, ma’am. Now drop dead and don’t bother me.’?”
Rod drew a pentagon in the ashes, put a star in the middle, then rubbed it out. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Let’s hope we get our team working before we meet any. And let’s hope they set up their own teams.”
“I think we ought to have a policy.”
“I’m clean out of policies. You would just accuse me of trying to be logical. Got any ideas about how to find anybody?” “Maybe. Somebody has been hunting upstream from here.”
“So? Know who it is?”
“I’ve seen him only at a distance. Nobody from my class. Half a head shorter than you are, light hair, pink skin- and a bad sunburn. Sound familiar?” “Could be anybody,” Rod answered, thinking fretfully that the description did sound familiar. “Shall we see if we can pick up some sign of him?”
“I can put him in your lap. But I’m not sure we want him.” “Why not? If he’s lasted this long, he must be competent.”
“Frankly, I don’t see how he has. He’s noisy when he moves and he has been living in one tree for the past week.” “Not necessarily bad technique.”
“It is when you drop your bones and leavings out of the tree. It was jackals sniffing around that tipped me off to where he was living.” “Hmm… well, if we don’t like him, we don’t have to invite him.”
“True.”
Before they set out Jack dug around in the gloomy cave and produced a climbing line. “Rod, could this be yours?” Rod looked it over. “It’s just like the one I had. Why?”
“I got it the way I got Colonel Bowie, off the casualty. If it is not yours, at least it is a replacement.” Jack got another, wrapped it around and over body armor. Rod suspected that Jack had slept in the armor, but he said nothing. If Jack considered such marginal protection more important than agility, that was Jack’s business- each to his own methods, as the Deacon would say.
The tree stood in a semi-clearing but Jack brought Rod to it through bushes which came close to the trunk and made the final approach as a belly sneak. Jack pulled Rod’s head over and whispered in his ear, “If we lie still for three or four hours, I’m betting that he will either come down or go up.
“Okay. You watch our rear.”
For an hour nothing happened. Rod tried to ignore tiny flies that seemed to be all bite. Silently he shifted position to ward off stiffness and once had to kill a sneeze. At last he said, “Pssst!”
“Yeah, Rod?”
“Where those two big branches meet the trunk, could that be his nest?” “Maybe.”
“You see a hand sticking out?”
“Where? Uh, I think I see what you see. It might just be leaves.”
“I think it’s a hand and I think he is dead; it hasn’t moved since we got here.” “Asleep?”
“Person asleep ordinarily doesn’t hold still that long. I’m going up. Cover me. If that hand moves, yell.” “You ought not to risk it, Rod.”
“You keep your eyes peeled.” He crept forward..
The owner of the hand was Jimmy Throxton, as Rod had suspected since hearing the description. Jimmy was not dead, but he was unconscious and Rod could not rouse him.
Jim lay in an aerie half natural, half artificial; Rod could see that Jim had cut small branches and improved the triple crotch formed by two limbs and trunk. He lay cradled in this eagle’s nest, one hand trailing out.
Getting him down was awkward; he weighed as much as Rod did. Rod put a sling under Jim’s armpits and took a turn around a branch, checking the line by friction to lower him- but the hard part was getting Jim out of his musty bed without dropping him.
Halfway down the burden fouled and Jack had to climb and free it. But with much sweat all three reached the ground and Jim was still breathing.
Rod had to carry him. Jack offered to take turns but the disparity in sizes was obvious; Rod said angrily for Jack to cover them, front, rear, all sides; Rod would be helpless if they had the luck to be surprised by one of the pseudo-lions.
The worst part was the climbing traverse over loose shale up to the cave. Rod was fagged from carrying the limp and heavy load more than a kilometer over rough ground; he had to rest before he could tackle it. When he did, Jack said anxiously, “Don’t drop him in the drink! It won’t be worthwhile fishing him out- I know.”
“So do I. Don’t give silly advice.” “Sorry.”
Rod started up, as much worried for his own hide as for Jim’s. He did not know what it was that lived in that stream; he did know that it was hungry. There was a bad time when he reached the spot where the jutting limestone made it necessary to stoop to reach the shelf. He got down as low as possible, attempted it, felt the burden on his back catch on the rock, started to slip.
Jack’s hand steadied him and shoved him from behind. Then they were sprawled safe on the shelf and Rod gasped and tried to stop the trembling of his abused muscles. They bedded Jimmy down and Jack took his pulse. “Fast and thready. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
“What medicines do you have?”
“Two of the neosulfas and verdomycin. But I don’t know what to give him.” “Give him all three and pray.
“He might be allergic to one of them.”
“He’ll be more allergic to dying. I’ll bet he’s running six degrees of fever. Come on.”
Rod supported Jim’s shoulders, pinched his ear lobe, brought him partly out of coma. Between them they managed to get the capsules into Jim’s mouth, got him to drink and wash them down. After that there was nothing they could do but let him rest.
They took turns watching him through the night. About dawn his fever broke, he roused and asked for water. Rod held him while Jack handled the waterskin. Jim drank deeply, then went back to sleep.
They never left him alone. Jack did the nursing and Rod hunted each day, trying to find items young and tender and suited to an invalid’s palate. By the second day Jim, although weak and helpless, was able to talk without drifting off to sleep in the middle. Rod returned in the afternoon with the carcass of a small animal which seemed to be a clumsy cross between a cat and a rabbit. He encountered Jack heading down to fill the water skin. “Hi.”
‘Hi. I see you had luck. Say, Rod, go easy when you skin it. We need a new water bag. Is it cut much?” “Not at all. I knocked it over with a rock.”
“Good!”
“How’s the patient?”
“Healthier by the minute. I’ll be up shortly.” “Want me to cover you while you fill the skin?” “I’ll be careful. Go up to Jim.”
Rod went up, laid his kill on the shelf, crawled inside. “Feeling better?” “Swell. I’ll wrestle you two falls out of three.”
“Next week. Jack taking good care of you?”
“You bet. Say, Rod, I don’t know how to thank you two. If it hadn’t been for-“
“Then don’t try. You don’t owe me anything, ever. And Jack’s my partner, so it’s right with Jack.” “Jack is swell.”
“Jack is a good boy. They don’t come better. He and I really hit it off.”
Jim looked surprised, opened his mouth, closed it suddenly. “What’s the matter?” Rod asked. “Something bite you? Or are you feeling bad again?” “What,” Jim said slowly, “did you say about Jack?”
“Huh? I said they don’t come any better. He and I team up like bacon and eggs. Anumber-one kid, that boy.” Jimmy Throxton looked at him. “Rod … were you born that stupid? Or did you have to study?”
“Huh?”
“Jack is a girl.”
4. ‘I Should Have Baked a Cake”
There followed a long silence. “Well,” said Jim, “close your mouth before something flies in.” “Jimmy, you’re still out of your head.”
“I may be out of my head, but not so I can’t tell a girl from a boy. When that day comes, I won’t be sick; I’ll be dead.” “But …”
Jim shrugged. “Ask her.”
Ashadow fell across the opening; Rod turned and saw Jack scrambling up to the shelf. “Fresh water, Jimmy!” “Thanks, kid.” Jim added to Rod, “Go on, dopy!”
Jack looked from one to the other. “Why the tableau? What are you staring for, Rod?” “Jack,” he said slowly, “what is your name?”
“Huh? Jack Daudet. I told you that.”
“No, no! What’s your full name, your legal name?” Jack looked from Rod to Jimmy’s grinning face and back again. “My full name is… Jacqueline Marie Daudet- if it’s any business of yours. Want to make something of it?”
Rod took a deep breath. “Jacqueline,” he said carefully, “I didn’t know. I-“ “You weren’t supposed to.”
“Look, if I’ve said anything to offend you, I surely didn’t mean to.”
“You haven’t said anything to offend me, you big stupid dear. Except about your knife.” “I didn’t mean that.”
“You mean about girls being poison? Well, did it ever occur to you that maybe boys are pure poison, too? Under these circumstances? No, of course it didn’t. But I don’t mind your knowing now… now that there are three of us.”
“But, Jacqueline-“
“Call me ‘Jack,’ please.” She twisted her shoulders uncomfortably. “Now that you know, I won’t have to wear this beetle case any longer. Turn your backs, both of you. “Uh …” Rod turned his back. Jimmy rolled over, eyes to the wall.
In a few moments Jacqueline said, “Okay.” Rod turned around. In shirt and trousers, without torso armor, her shoulders seemed narrower and she herself was slender now and pleasantly curved. She was scratching her ribs. “I haven’t been able to scratch properly since I met you, Rod Walker,” she said accusingly. “Sometimes I almost died.”
“I didn’t make you wear it.”
“Suppose I hadn’t? Would you have teamed with me?” “Uh… well, it’s like this. I …” He stopped.
“You see?” She suddenly looked worried. “We’re still partners?” “Huh? Oh, sure, sure!”
“Then shake on it again. This time we shake with Jimmy, too. Right, Jim?” “You bet, Jack.”
They made a three-cornered handshake. Jack pressed her left hand over the combined fists and said solemnly, “All for one!” Rod drew Colonel Bowie with his left hand, laid the flat of the blade on the stacked hands. “And one for all!”
“Plus sales tax,” Jimmy added. “Do we get it notarized?”
Jacqueline’s eyes were swimming with tears. “Jimmy Throxton,” she said fiercely, “someday I am going to make you take life seriously!” “I take life seriously,” he objected. “I just don’t want life to take me seriously. When you’re on borrowed time, you can’t afford not to laugh.” “We’re all on borrowed time,” Rod answered him. “Shut up, Jimmy. You talk too much.”
“Look who’s preaching! The Decibel Kid himself.”
“Well… you ought not to make fun of Jacqueiine. She’s done a lot for you. “She has indeed!”
“Then-“
“‘Then’ nothing!” Jacqueline said sharply. “My name is ‘Jack.’ Rod. Forget ‘Jacqueline.’ If either of you starts treating me with gallantry we’ll have all those troubles you warned me about. ‘Pure poison’ was the expression you used, as I recall.”
“But you can reasonably expect-“
“Are you going to be ‘logical’ again? Let’s be practical instead. Help me skin this beast and make a new water bag.”
The following day Jimmy took over housekeeping and Jack and Rod started hunting together. Jim wanted to come along; he ran into a double veto. There was little advantage in hunting as a threesome whereas Jack and Rod paired off so well that a hunt was never hours of waiting, but merely a matter of finding game. Jack would drive and Rod would kill; they would pick their quarry from the fringe of a herd, Jack would sneak around and panic the animals, usually driving one into Rod’s arms.
They still hunted with the knife, even though Jack’s gun was a good choice for primitive survival, being an air gun that threw poisoned darts. Since the darts could be recovered and re- envenomed, it was a gun which would last almost indefinitely; she had chosen it for this reason over cartridge or energy guns.
Rod had admired it but decided against hunting with it. “The air pressure might bleed off and let you down.” “It never has. And you can pump it up again awfully fast.”
“Mmm… yes. But if we use it, someday the last dart will be lost no matter how careful we are … and that might be the day we would need it bad. We may be here a long time, what do you say we save it?”
“You’re the boss, Rod.”
“No, I’m not. We all have equal say.”
“Yes, you are. Jimmy and I agreed on that. Somebody has to boss.”
Hunting took an hour or so every second day; they spent most of daylight hours searching for another team mate, quartering the area and doing it systematically. Once they drove scavengers from a kill which seemed to have been butchered by knife; they followed a spoor from that and determined that it was a human spoor, but were forced by darkness to return to the cave. They tried to pick it up the next day, but it had rained hard in the night; they never found it.
Another time they found ashes of a fire, but Rod judged them to be at least two weeks old.
After a week of fruitless searching they returned one
late afternoon. Jimmy looked up from the fire he had started. “How goes the census?” ‘Don’t ask,” Rod answered, throwing himself down wearily. “What’s for dinner?”
“Raw buck, roast buck, and burned buck. I tried baking some of it in wet clay. It didn’t work out too well, but I’ve got some awfully good baked clay for dessert.” ‘Thanks. If that is the word.”
“Jim,” Jack said, “we ought to try to bake pots with that clay.”
“I did. Big crack in my first effort. But I’ll get the hang it. Look, children,” he went on, “has it ever occurred to your bright little minds that you might be going about this the wrong way?” “What’s wrong with it?” Rod demanded.
“Nothing … if it is exercise you are after. You are and scurrying over the countryside, getting in and nowhere else. Maybe it would be better to sit back and let them come to you.” “How?”
“Send up a smoke signal.”
“We’ve discussed that We don’t want just anybody and we don’t want to advertise where we live. We want people who will strengthen the team.”
“That is what the engineers call a self-defeating criterion. The superior woodsman you want is just the laddy you will never find by hunting for him. He may find you, as you go tramping noisily through the brush, kicking rocks and stepping on twigs and scaring the birds. He may shadow you to see what you are up to. But you won’t find him.”
“Rod, there is something to that,” Jack said.
“We found you easily enough,” Rod said to Jim. “Maybe you aren’t the high type we need.”
“I wasn’t myself at the time,” Jimmy answered blandly. “Wait till I get my strength back and my true nature will show. Ugh-Ugh, the ape man, that’s me. Half Neanderthal and half sleek black leopard.” He beat his chest and coughed.
“Are those the proportions? The Neanderthal strain seems dominant.” “Don’t be disrespectful. Remember, you are my debtor.”
“I think you read the backs of those cards. They are getting to be like waffles.” When rescued, Jimmy had had on him a pack of playing cards, and had later explained that they were survival equipment.
“In the first place,” he had said, “if I got lost I could sit down and play solitaire. Pretty soon somebody would come along and-“ “Tell you to play the black ten on the red jack. We’ve heard that one.”
“Quiet, Rod. In the second place, Jack, I expected to team with old Stoneface here. I can always beat him at cribbage but he doesn’t believe it. I figured that during the test I could win all his next year’s allowance. Survival tactics.”
Whatever his reasoning, Jimmy had had the cards. The three played a family game each evening at a million plutons a point. Jacqueline stayed more or less even but Rod owed Jimmy several hundred millions. They continued the discussion that evening over their game. Rod was still wary of advertising their hide-out.
“We might burn a smoke signal somewhere, though,” he said thoughtfully. “Then keep watch from a safe spot. Cut ‘em, Jim.”
“Consider the relative risks- a five, just what I needed! If you put the fire far enough away to keep this place secret, then it means a trek back and forth at least twice a day. With all that running around you’ll use up your luck; one day you won’t come back. It’s not that I’m fond you, but it would bust up the game. Whose crib?”
“Jack’s. But if we burn it close by and in sight, then we sit up here safe and snug. I’ll have my back to the wall facing the path, with Jack’s phht gun in my lap. If an unfriendly face sticks up- blooie! Long pig for dinner. But if we like them, we cut them into the game.
“Your count.”
“Fifteen-six, fifteen-twelve, a pair, six for jacks and the right jack. That’s going to cost you another million, my friend.” “One of those jacks is a queen,” Rod said darkly.
“Sure enough? You know, it’s getting too dark to play. Want to concede?”
They adopted Jim’s scheme. It gave more time for cribbage and ran Rod’s debt up into billions. The signal fire was kept burning on the shelf at the downstream end, the prevailing wind being such that smoke usually did not blow back into the cave- when the wind did shift was unbearable; they were forced to flee, eyes streaming.
This happened three times in four days. Their advertising had roused no customers and they were all get’ting tired of dragging up dead wood for fuel and green branches for smoke. The third time they fled from smoke Jimmy said, “Rod, I give up. You win. This is not the way to do it.”
“No!”
“Huh? Have a heart, chum. I can’t live on smoke- no vitamins. Let’s run up a flag instead. I’ll contribute my shirt.” Rod thought about it. “We’ll do that.”
“Hey, wait a minute. I was speaking rhetorically. I’m the delicate type. I sunburn easily.”
“You can take it easy and work up a tan. We’ll use your shirt as a signal flag. But we’ll keep the fire going, too. Not up on the shelf, but down there- on that mud flat, maybe.” “And have the smoke blow right back into our summer cottage.”
“Well, farther downstream. We’ll make a bigger fire and a column of smoke that can be seen a long way. The flag we will put up right over the cave.” “Thereby inviting eviction proceedings from large, hairy individuals with no feeling for property rights.”
“We took that chance when we decided to use a smoke signal. Let’s get busy.”
Rod picked a tall tree on the bluff above. He climbed to where the trunk had thinned down so much that it would hardly take his weight, then spent a tedious hour topping it with his knife. He tied the sleeves of Jim’s shirt to it, then worked down, cutting foliage away as he went. Presently the branches became too large to handle with his knife, but the stripped main stem stuck up for several meters; the shirt could be seen for a long distance up and down stream. The shirt caught the wind and billowed; Rod eyed it, tired but satisfied- it was unquestionably a signal flag.
Jimmy and Jacqueline had built a new smudge farther downstream, carrying fire from the shelf for the purpose. Jacqueline still had a few matches and Jim had a pocket torch almost fully charged but the realization that they were marooned caused them to be miserly. Rod went down and joined them. The smoke was enormously greater now that they were not limited in space, and fuel was easier to fetch.
Rod looked them over. Jacqueline’s face, sweaty and none too clean to start with, was now black with smoke, while Jimmy’s pink skin showed the soot even more. “Acouple of pyromaniacs.”
“You ordered smoke,” Jimmy told him. “I plan to make the burning of Rome look like a bonfire. Fetch me a violin and a toga.” “Violins weren’t invented then. Nero played a lyre.”
“Let’s not be small. We’re getting a nice mushroom cloud effect, don’t you think?’
“Come on, Rod,” Jacqueline urged, Wiping her face without improving it. “It’s fun!” She dipped a green branch in the stream, threw it on the pyre. Athick cloud of smoke and steam concealed her. “More dry wood, Jimmy.”
“Coming!”
Rod joined in, soon was as dirty and scorched as the other two and having more fun than he had had since the test started. When the sun dropped below the tree tops they at last quit trying to make the fire bigger and better and smokier and reluctantly headed up to their cave. Only then did Rod realize that he had forgotten to remain alert.
Oh well, he assured himself, dangerous animals would avoid a fire.
While they ate they could see the dying fire still sending up smoke. After dinner Jimmy got out his cards, tried to riffle the limp mass. “Anyone interested in a friendly game? The customary small stakes.”
“I’m too tired,” Rod answered. “Just chalk up my usual losses.”
“That’s not a sporting attitude. Why, you won a game just last week. How about you, Jack?” Jacqueline started to answer; Rod suddenly motioned for silence. “Sssh! I heard something.”
The other two froze and silently got out their knives. Rod put Colonel Bowie in his teeth and crawled out to the edge. The pathway was clear and the thorn barricade was undisturbed. He leaned out and looked around, trying to locate the sound.
“Ahoy below!” a voice called out, not loudly. Rod felt himself tense. He glanced back, saw Jimmy moving diagonally over to cover the pathway. Jacqueline had her dart gun and was hurriedly pumping it up.
Rod answered, “Who’s there?”
There was a short silence. Then the voice answered, “Bob Baxter and Carmen Garcia. Who are you?” Rod sighed with relief. “Rod Walker, Jimmy Throxton. And one other, not our class . . Jack Daudet.” Baxter seemed to think this over. “Uh, can we join you? For tonight, at least?”
“Sure!”
“How can we get down there? Carmen can’t climb very well; she’s got a bad foot.” “You’re right above us?”
“I think so. I can’t see you.”
“Stay there. I’ll come up.” Rod turned, grinned at the others. “Company for dinner! Get a fire going, Jim.” Jimmy clucked mournfully. “And hardly a thing in the house. I should have baked a cake.”
By the time they returned Jimmy had roast meat waitmg. Carmen’s semi-crippled condition had delayed them. It was just a sprained ankle but it caused her to crawl up the traverse on her hands, and progress to that point had been slow and painful.
When she realized that the stranger in the party was another woman she burst into tears. Jackie glared at the males, for no cause that Rod could see, then led her into the remote corner of the cave where she herself slept.
There they whispered while Bob Baxter compared notes with Rod and Jim.
Bob and Carmen had had no unusual trouble until Carmen had hurt her ankle two days earlier… except for the obvious fact that something had gone wrong and they were stranded. “I lost my grip,” he admitted, “when I realized that they weren’t picking us up. But Carmen snapped me out of it. Carmen is a very practical kid.”
‘Girls are always the practical ones,” Jimmy agreed. Now take me- I’m the poetical type.” ‘Blank verse, I’d say,” Rod suggested.
“Jealousy ill becomes you, Rod. Bob, old bean, can I interest you in another slice? Rare, or well carbonized?” “Either way. We haven’t had much to eat the last couple of days. Boy, does this taste good!”
“My own sauce,” Jimmy said modestly. “I raise my own herbs, you know. First you melt a lump of butter slowly in a pan, then you-“
“Shut up, Jimmy. Bob, do you and Carmen want to team with us? As I see it, we can’t count on ever getting back. Therefore we ought to make plans for the future.’ “I think you are right.”
“Rod is always right,” Jimmy agreed. “‘Plans for the future-‘ Hmm, yes… Bob, do you and Carmen play cribbage?” “No”
“Never mind. I’ll teach you.”
5. “Fish, or Cut Bait”
The decision to keep on burning the smoke signal and thereby to call in as many recruits as possible was never voted on; it formed itself. The next morning Rod intended to bring the matter up but Jimmy and Bob rebuilt the smoke fire from its embers while down to fetch fresh water. Rod let the accomplished fact stand; two girls drifted in separately that day.
Nor was there any formal contract to team nor any selection of a team captain; Rod continued to direct operations and Bob Baxter accepted the arrangement. Rod did not think about it as he was too busy. The problems of food, shelter, and safety for their growing population left him no time to worry about it
The arrival of Bob and Carmen cleaned out the larder; it was necessary to hunt the next day. Bob Baxter offered to go, but Rod decided to take Jackie as usual. “You rest today. Don’t let Carmen put her weight on that bad ankle and don’t let Jimmy go down alone to tend the fire. He thinks he is well again but he is not.”
“I see that.”
Jack and Rod went out, made their kill quickly. But Rod failed to kill clean and when Jacqueline moved in to help finish the thrashing, wounded buck she was kicked in the ribs. She insisted that she was not hurt; nevertheless her side was sore the following morning and Bob Baxter expressed the opinion that she had cracked a rib.
In the meantime two new mouths to feed had been added, just as Rod found himself with three on the sick list. But one of the new mouths was a big, grinning one belonging to Caroline Mshiyeni; Rod picked her as his hunting partner.
Jackie looked sour. She got Rod aside and whispered, ‘You haven’t any reason to do this to me. I can hunt. My side is all right, just a little stiff.” “It is, huh? So it slows you down when I need you. I can’t chance it, Jack.”
She glanced at Caroline, stuck out her lip and looked stubborn. Rod said urgently, “Jack, remember what I said about petty jealousies? So help me, you make trouble and I’ll paddle you.” “You aren’t big enough!”
“I’ll get help. Now, look- are we partners?” “Well, I thought so.”
“Then be one and don’t cause trouble.”
She shrugged. “All right. Don’t rub it in- I’ll stay home.”
“I want you to do more than that. Take that old bandage of mine- it’s around somewhere- and let Bob Baxter strap your ribs.” “No!”
“Then let Carmen do it. They’re both quack doctors, sort of.” He raised his voice. “Ready, Carol?” “Quiverin’ and bristlin’.”
Rod told Caroline how he and Jacqueline hunted, explained what he expected of her. They located, and avoided, two family herds; old bulls were tough and poor eating and attempting to kill anything but the bull was foolishly dangerous. About noon they found a yearling herd upwind; they split and placed themselves cross wind for the kill. Rod waited for Caroline to flush the game, drive it to him.
He continued to wait. He was getting fidgets when Caroline showed up, moving silently. She motioned for him to follow. He did so, hard put to keep up with her and still move quietly. Presently she stopped; he caught up and saw that she had already made a kill. He looked at it and fought down the anger he felt.
Caroline spoke. “Nice tender one, I think. Suit you, Rod?” He nodded. “Couldn’t be better. Aclean kill, too. Carol?” “Huh?”
“I think you are better at this than I am.
“Oh, shucks, it was just luck.” She grinned and looked sheepish.
“I don’t believe in luck. Any time you want to lead the hunt, let me know. But be darn sure you let me know.” She looked at his unsmiling face, said slowly, “By any chance are you bawling me out?”
“You could call it that. I’m saying that any time you want to lead the hunt, you tell me. Don’t switch in the middle. Don’t ever. I mean it.” “What’s the matter with you, Rod? Getting your feelings hurt just because I got there first- that’s silly!”
Rod sighed. “Maybe that’s it. Or maybe I don’t like having a girl take the kill away from me. But I’m dead sure about one thing: I don’t like having a partner on a hunt who can’t be depended on. Too many ways to get hurt. I’d rather hunt alone.”
“Maybe I’d rather hunt alone! I don’t need any help.”
“I’m sure you don’t. Let’s forget it, huh, and get this carcass back to camp.”
Caroline did not say anything while they butchered. When they had the waste trimmed away and were ready to pack as much as possible back to the others Rod said, “You lead off. I’ll watch behind.”
“Rod?”
“Huh?” “I’m sorry”
“What? Oh, forget it.”
“I won’t ever do it again. Look, I’ll tell everybody you made the kill.”
He stopped and put a hand on her arm. “Why tell anybody anything? It’s nobody’s business how we organize our hunt as long as we bring home the meat.” “You’re still angry with me.”
“I never was angry,” he lied. “I just don’t want us to get each other crossed up.” “Roddie, I’ll never cross you up again! Promise.”
Girls stayed in the majority to the end of the week. The cave, comfortable for three, adequate for twice that number, was crowded for the number that was daily accumulating. Rod decided to make it a girls’ dormitory and moved the males out into the open on the field at the foot of the path up the shale. The spot was unprotected against weather and animals but it did guard the only access to the cave. Weather was no problem; protection against animals was set up as well as could be managed by organizing a night watch whose duty it was to keep fires burning between the bluff and the creek on the upstream side and in the bottleneck downstream. Rod did not like the arrangements, but they were the best he could do at the time. He sent Bob Baxter and Roy Kilroy downstream to scout for caves and Caroline and Margery Chung upstream for the same purpose. Neither party was successful in the one-day limit he
had imposed; the two girls brought back another straggler.
Agroup of four boys came in a week after Jim’s shirt had been requisitioned; it brought the number up to twenty-five and shifted the balance to more boys than girls. The four newcomers could have been classed as men rather than boys, since they were two or three years older than the average. Three of the four classes in this survival-test area had been about to graduate from secondary schools; the fourth class, which included these four, came from Outlands Arts College of Teller University.
“Adult” is a slippery term. Some cultures have placed adult age as low as eleven years, others as high as thirty-five-and some have not recognized any such age as long as an ancestor remamed alive. Rod did not think of these new arrivals as senior to him. There were already a few from Teller U. in the group, but Rod was only vaguely aware Which ones they were- they fitted in. He was too busy with the snowballing problems of his growing colony to worry about their backgrounds on remote Terra.
The four were Jock McGowan, a brawny youth who seemed all hands and feet, his younger brother Bruce, and Chad Ames and Dick Burke. They had arrived late in the day and Rod had not had time to get acquainted, nor was there time the following morning, as a group of four girls and five boys poured in on them unexpectedly. This had increased his administrative problems almost to the breaking point; the cave would hardly sleep four more females. It was necessary to find, or build, more shelter.
Rod went over to the four young men lounging near the cooking fire. He squatted on his heels and asked, “Any of you know anything about building?” He addressed them all, but the others waited for Jock McGowan to speak. “Some,” Jock admitted. “I reckon I could build anything I wanted to.” “Nothing hard,” Rod explained. “Just stone walls. Ever tried your hand at masonry?”
“Sure. What of it?”
“Well, here’s the idea. We’ve got to have better living arrangements right away- we’ve got people pouring out of our ears. The first thing we are going to do is to throw a wall from the bluff to the creek across this flat area. After that we will build huts, but the first thing is a kraal to stop dangerous animals.”
McGowan laughed. “That will be some wall. Have you seen this dingus that looks like an elongated cougar? One of those babies would go over your wall before you could say ‘scat.’”
“I know about them,” Rod admitted, “and I don’t like them.” He rubbed the long white scars on his left arm. “They probably could go over any wall we could build. So we’ll rig a surprise for them.” He picked up a twig and started drawing in the dirt. “We build the wall and bring it around to here. Then, inside for about six meters, we set up sharpened poles. Anything comes over the wall splits its gut on the poles.”
Jock McGowan looked at the diagram. “Futile.” “Silly,” agreed his brother.
Rod flushed but answered, “Got a better idea?” “That’s beside the point.”
“Well,” Rod answered slowly, “unless somebody comes down with a better scheme, or unless we find really good caves, we’ve got to fortify this spot the best we can … so we’ll do this. I’m going to set the girls to cutting and sharpening stakes. The rest of us will start on the wall. If we tear into it we ought to have a lot of it built before dark. Do you four want to work together? There will be one party collecting rock and another digging clay and making clay mortar. Take your choice.”
Again three of them waited. Jock McGowan lay back and laced his hands under his head. “Sorry. I’ve got a date to hunt today.” Rod felt himself turning red. “We don’t need a kill today,” he said carefully.
“Nobody asked you, youngster.”
Rod felt the cold tenseness he always felt in a hunt He was uncomfortably aware that an audience had gathered. He tried to keep his voice steady and said, “Maybe I’ve made a mistake. I-“
“You have.”
“I thought you four had teamed with the rest of us. Well?” “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“You’ll have to fish or cut bait. If you join, you work like anybody else. If not- well, you’re welcome to breakfast and stop in again some time. But be on your way. I won’t have you lounging around while everybody else, is working.”
Jock McGowan sucked his teeth, dug at a crevice with his tongue. His hands were still locked back of his head. “What you don’t understand, sonny boy, is that nobody gives the McGowans orders. Nobody. Right, Bruce?”
“Right, Jock.”
“Right, Chad? Dick?”
The other two grunted approval. McGowan continued to stare up at the sky. “So,” he said softly, “I go where I want to go and stay as long as I like. The question is not whether we are going to join up with you, but what ones am going to let team with us. But not you, sonny boy; you are still wet behind your ears.
“Get up and get Qut of here!” Rod started to stand up. He was wearing Colonel Bowie, as always, but he did not reach for it. He began to straighten up from squatting.
Jock McGowan’s eyes flicked toward his brother. Rod was hit low… and found himself flat on his face with his breath knocked out. He felt the sharp kiss of a knife against his ribs; he held still. Bruce called out, “How about it, Jock?”
Rod could not see Jock McGowan. But he heard him answer, “Just keep him there.” “Right, Jock.”
Jock McGowan was wearing both gun and knife. Rod now heard him say, “Anybody want to dance? Any trouble out of the rest of you lugs?”
Rod still could not see Jock, but he could figure from the naked, startled expressions of a dozen others that McGowan must have rolled to his feet and covered them with his gun. Everybody in camp carried knives; most had guns as well and Rod could see that Roy Kilroy was wearing his- although most guns were kept when not in use in the cave in a little arsenal which Carmen superintended.
But neither guns nor knives were of use; it had happened too fast, shifting from wordy wrangling to violence with no warning. Rod could see none of his special friends from where he was; those whom he could see did not seem disposed to risk death to rescue him.
Jock McGowan said briskly, “Chad- Dick- got ‘em all covered?” “Right, Skipper.”
“Keep ‘em that way while I take care of this cholo.” His hairy legs appeared in front of Rod’s face. “Pulled his teeth, Bruce?” “Not yet.”
“I’ll do it. Roll over, sonny boy, and let me at your knife. Let him turn over, Bruce.”
Bruce McGowan eased up on Rod and Jock bent down. As he reached for Rod’s knife a tiny steel flower blossomed in Jock’s side below his ribs. Rod heard nothing, not even the small sound it must have made when it struck. Jock straightened up with a shriek, clutched at his side.
Bruce yelled, Jock! What’s the matter?”
“They got me.” He crumpled to the ground like loose clothing.
Rod still had a man with a knife on his back but the moment was enough; he rolled and grabbed in one violent movement and the situation was reversed, with Bruce’s right wrist locked in Rod’s fist, with Colonel Bowie threatening Bruce’s face.
Aloud contralto voice sang out, “Take it easy down there! We got you covered.”
Rod glanced up. Caroline stood on the shelf at the top of the path to the cave, with a rifle at her shoulder. At the downstream end of the shelf Jacqueline sat with her little dart gun in her lap; she was frantically pumping up again. She raised it, drew a bead on some one past Rod’s shoulder.
Rod called out, “Don’t shoot!” He looked around. “Drop it, you two!”
Chad Ames and Dick Burke dropped their guns. Rod added, “Roy! Grant Cowper! Gather up their toys. Get their knives, too.” He turned back to Bruce McGowan, pricked him under the chin. “Let’s have your knife.” Bruce turned it loose; Rod took it and got to his feet.
Everyone who had been up in the cave was swarming down, Caroline in the lead. Jock McGowan was writhing on the ground, face turned blue and gasping in the sort of paralysis induced by the poison used on darts. Bob Baxter hurried up, glanced at him, then said to Rod, “I’ll take care of that cut in your ribs in a moment.” He bent over Jock McGowan.
Caroline said indignantly, “You aren’t going to try to save him?” “Of course.”
“Why? Let’s chuck him in the stream.”
Baxter glanced at Rod. Rod felt a strong urge to order Caroline’s suggestion carried out. But he answered, “Do what you can for him, Bob. Where’s Jack? Jack- you’ve got antidote for your darts, haven’t you? Get it.”
Jacqueline looked scornfully at the figure on the ground. “What for? He’s not hurt.” “Huh?”
“Just a pin prick. Apractice dart- that’s all I keep in Betsey. My hunting darts are put away so that nobody can hurt themselves- and I didn’t have time to get them.” She prodded Jock with a toe. “He’s not poisoned. He’s scaring himself to death.”
Caroline chortled and waved the rifle she carried. “And this one is empty. Not even a good club.” Baxter said to Jackie, “Are you sure? The reactions look typical.”
“Sure I’m sure! See the mark on the end sticking out? Atarget dart.”
Baxter leaned over his patient, started slapping his face. “Snap out of it, McGowan! Stand up. I want to get that dart out of you.”
McGowan groaned and managed to stand. Baxter took the dart between thumb and forefinger, jerked it free; Jock yelled. Baxter slapped him again. “Don’t you faint on me,” he growled. ‘you’re lucky. Let it drain and you’ll be all right.” He turned to Rod. “You’re next.”
“Huh? There’s nothing the matter with me.”
“That stuff on your ribs is paint, I suppose.” He looked around. “Carmen, get my kit.” “I brought it down.”
“Good. Rod, sit down and lean forward. This is going to hurt a little.”
It did hurt. Rod tried to chat to avoid showing that he minded it. “Carol,” he asked, “I don’t see how you and Jackie worked out a plan so fast. That was smooth.”
“Huh? We didn’t work out a plan; we both just did what we could and did it fast.” She turned to Jacqueline and gave her a clap on the shoulder that nearly knocked her over. “This kid is solid, Roddie, solid!”
Jacqueline recovered, looked pleased and tried not to show it. “Aw, Carol!” “Anyway I thank you both.”
“Apleasure. I wish that pea shooter had been loaded. Rod, what are you going to do with them?” “Well … ummph!”
“Whoops!” said Baxter, behind him. “I said it was going to hurt. I had better put one more clip in. I’d like to put a dressing on that, but we can’t, so you lay off heavy work for a while and sleep on your stomach.”
“Unh!” said Rod.
“That’s the last. You can get up now. Take it easy and give it a chance to scab.”
“I still think,” Caroline insisted, “that we ought to make them swim the creek. We could make bets on whether or not any of ‘em make it across.” “Carol, you’re uncivilized.”
“I never claimed to be civilized. But I know which end wags and which end bites.”
Rod ignored her and went to look at the prisoners. Roy Kilroy had caused them to lie down one on top of the other; it rendered them undignified and helpless. “Let them sit up.” Kilroy and Grant Cowper had been guarding them. Cowper said, “You heard the Captain. Sit up.” They unsnarled and sat up, looking glum.
Rod looked at Jock McGowan. “What do you think we ought to do with you?”
McGowan said nothing. The puncture in his side was oozing blood and he was pale. Rod said slowly, “Some think we ought to chuck you in the stream. That’s the same as condemning you to death- but if we are going to, we ought to shoot you or hang you. I don’t favor letting anybody be eaten alive. Should we hang you?”
Bruce McGowan blurted out, “We haven’t done anything.”
“No. But you sure tried. You aren’t safe to have around other people.”
Somebody called out, “Oh, let’s shoot them and get it over with!” Rod ignored it. Grant Cowper came close to Rod and said, “We ought to vote on this. They ought to have a trial.” Rod shook his head. “No.” He went on to the prisoners,
I don’t favor punishing you- this is personal. But we can’t risk having you around either.” He turned to Cowper. “Give them their knives.” “Rod? You’re not going to fight them?”
“Of course not.” He turned back. “You can have your knives; we’re keeping your guns. When we turn you loose, head downstream and keep going. Keep going for at least a week. If you ever show your faces again, you won’t get a chance to explain. Understand me?’
Jock McGowan nodded. Dick Burke gulped and said, “But turning us out with just knives is the same as killing us.
“Nonsense! No guns. And remember, if you turn back this way, even to hunt, it’s once too many. There may be somebody trailing you- with a gun.
“Loaded this time!” added Caroline. “Hey, Roddie, I want that job. Can I? Please?” “Shut up, Carol. Roy, you and Grant start them on their way.”
As exiles and guards, plus sightseers, moved off they ran into Jimmy Throxton coming back into camp. He stopped and stared. “What’s the procession? Rod what have you done to your ribs, boy? Scratching yourself again?”
Several people tried to tell him at once. He got the gist of it and shook his head mournfully. “And there I was, good as gold, looking for pretty rocks for our garden wall. Every time there’s a party people forget to ask me. Discrimination.”
“Stow it, Jim. It’s not funny.”
“That’s what I said. It’s discrimination.”
Rod got the group started on the wall with an hour or more of daylight wasted. He tried to work on the wall despite Bob Baxter’s medical orders, but found that he was not up to it; not only was his wound painful but also he felt shaky with reaction.
Grant Cowper looked him up during the noon break. “Skipper, can I talk with you? Privately?” Rod moved aside with him. “What’s on your mind?”
“Mmm … Rod, you were lucky this morning. You know that, don’t you? No offense intended.” “Sure, I know. What about it?”
“Uh, do you know why you had trouble?”
“What? Of course I know- now. I trusted somebody when I should not have.”
Cowper shook his head. “Not at all. Rod, what do you know about theory of government?” Rod looked surprised. “I’ve had the usual civics courses. Why?”
“I doubt if I’ve mentioned it, but the course I’m majoring in at Teller U. is colonial administration. One thing we study is how authority comes about in human society and how it is maintained. I’m not criticizing but to be blunt, you almost lost your life because you’ve never studied such things.”
Rod felt annoyed. “What are you driving at?”
“Take it easy. But the fact remains that you didn’t have any authority. McGowan knew it and wouldn’t take orders. Everybody else knew it, too. When it came to a showdown, nobody knew whether to back you up or not. Because you don’t have a milligram of real authority.”
“Just a moment! Are you saying I’m not leader of this team?”
“You are de facto leader, no doubt about it. But you’ve never been elected to the job. That’s your weakness.” Rod chewed this over. “I know,” he said slowly. “It’s just that we have been so confounded busy.”
“Sure, I know. I’d be the last person to criticize. But a captain ought to be properly elected.”
Rod sighed. “I meant to hold an election but I thought getting the wall built was more urgent. All right, let’s call them together.” “Oh, you don’t need to do it this minute.”
“Why not? The sooner the better, apparently.” “Tonight, when it’s too dark to work, is soon enough.” “Well … okay.”
When they stopped for supper Rod announced that there would be an organization and planning meeting. No one seemed surprised, although he himself had mentioned it to no one.
He felt annoyed and had to remind himself that there was nothing secret about it; Grant had been under no obligation to keep it quiet. He set guards and fire tenders, then came back into
the circle of firelight and called out, “Quiet, everybody! Let’s get started. If you guys on watch can’t hear, be sure to speak up” He hesitated. “We’re going to hold an election. Somebody
pointed out that I never have been elected captain of this survival team. Well, if any of you have your noses out of joint, I’m sorry. I was doing the best I could. But you are entitled to elect a
captain. All right, any nominations?”
Jiminy Throxton shouted, “I nominate Rod Walker!” Caroline’s voice answered, “I second it! Move the nominations be closed.” Rod said hastily, “Carol, your motion is out of order.”
“Why?”
Before he could answer Roy Kilroy spoke up. “Rod, can I have the floor a moment? Privileged question.” Rod turned, saw that Roy was squatting beside Grant Cowper. “Sure. State your question.”
“Matter of procedure. The first thing is to elect a temporary chairman.”
Rod thought quickly. “I guess you’re right. Jimmy, your nomination is thrown out. Nominations for temporary chairman are in order.” “Rod Walker for temporary chairman!”
“Oh, shut up, Jimmy! I don’t want to be temporary chairman.”
Roy Kilroy was elected. He took the imaginary gavel and announced, “The chair recognizes Brother Cowper for a statement of aims and purposes of this meeting.” Jimmy Throxton called out, “What do we want any speeches for? Let’s elect Rod and go to bed. I’m tired- and I’ve got a two-hour watch coming up.”
“Out of order. The chair recognizes Grant Cowper.” Cowper stood up. The firelight caught his handsome features and curly, short beard. Rod rubbed the scraggly growth on his own chin and wished that he looked like Cowper. The young man was dressed only in walking shorts and soft bush shoes but he carried himself with the easy dignity of a distinguished speaker before some important body. “Friends,” he said, “brothers and sisters, we are gathered here tonight not to elect a survival-team captain, but to found a new nation.”
He paused to let the idea sink in. “You know the situation we are in. We fervently hope to be rescued, none more so than I. I will even go so far as to say that I think we will be rescued … eventually. But we have no way of knowing, we have no data on which to base an intelligent guess, as to when we will be rescued.
“It might be tomorrow … it might be our descendants a thousand years from now.” He said the last very solemnly.
“But when the main body of our great race re-establishes contact with us, it is up to us, this little group here tonight, whether they find a civilized society or flea-bitten animals without language, without arts, with the light of reason grown dim … or no survivors at all, nothing but bones picked clean.”
“Not mine!” called out Caroline. Kilroy gave her a dirty look and called for order.
“Not yours, Caroline,” Cowper agreed gravely. “Nor mine. Not any of us. Because tonight we will take the step that will keep this colony alive. We are poor in things; we will make what we need. We are rich in knowledge; among us we hold the basic knowledge of our great race. We must preserve it … we will!”
Caroline cut through Cowper’s dramatic pause with a stage whisper. “Talks pretty, doesn’t he? Maybe I’ll marry him.”
He did not try to fit this heckling into his speech. “What is the prime knowledge acquired by our race? That without which the rest is useless? What flame must we guard like vestal virgins?”
Some one called out, “Fire.” Cowper shook his head. “Writing!”
“The decimal system.” “Atomics!”
“The wheel, of course.
“No, none of those. They are all important, but they are not the keystone. The greatest invention of mankind is government. It is also the hardest of all. More individualistic than cats, nevertheless we have learned to cooperate more efficiently than ants or bees or termites. Wilder, bloodier, and more deadly than sharks, we have learned to live together as peacefully as lambs. But these things are not easy. That is why that which we do tonight will decide our future … and perhaps the future of our children, our children’s children, our descendants far
into the womb of time. We are not picking a temporary survival leader; we are setting up a government. We must do it with care. We must pick a chief executive for our new nation, a mayor of our city-state. But we must draw up a constitution, sign articles binding us together. We must organize and plan.”
“Hear, hear!”
“Bravo!”
“We must establish law, appoint judges, arrange for orderly administration of our code. Take for example, this morning-” Cowper turned to Rod and gave him a friendly smile. “Nothing personal, Rod, you understand that. I think you acted with wisdom and I was happy that you tempered justice with mercy. Yet no one could have criticized if you had yielded to your impulse and killed all four of those, uh … anti-social individuals. But justice should not be subject to the whims of a dictator. We can’t stake our lives on your temper … good or bad. You see that, don’t you?”
Rod did not answer He felt that he was being accused of bad temper, of being a tyrant and dictator, of being a danger to the group. But he could not put his finger on it. Grant Cowper’s remarks had been friendly … yet they felt intensely personal and critical.
Cowper insisted on an answer. “You do see that, Rod? Don’t you? You don’t want to continue to have absolute power over the lives and persons of our community? You don’t want that? Do you?” He waited.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure! I mean, I agree with you.”
“Good! I was sure you would understand. And I must ay that I think you have done a very good job in getting us together. I don’t agree with any who have criticized you. You were doing your best and we should let bygones be bygones.” Cowper grinned that friendly grin and Rod felt as if he were being smothered with kisses.
Cowper turned to Kilroy. “That’s all I have to say, Mr. Chairman.” He flashed his grin and added as he sat down, “Sorry I talked so long, folks. I had to get it off my chest.” Kilroy clapped his hands once. “The chair will entertam nominations for- Hey, Grant, if we don’t call it ‘captain,’ then what should we call it?”
“Mmm …” Cowper said judicially. “‘President’ seems a little pompous. I think ‘mayor’ would be about right-mayor of our city-state, our village.” “The chair will entertain nominations for mayor.
“Hey!” demanded Jimmy Throxton. “Doesn’t anybody else get to shoot off his face?” “Out of order.”
“No,” Cowper objected, “I don’t think you should rule Jimmy out of order, Roy. Anyone who has something to contribute should be encouraged to speak. We mustn’t act hastily.” “Okay, Throxton, speak your piece.”
“Oh, I didn’t want to sound off. I just didn’t like the squeeze play.”
“All right, the chair stands corrected. Anybody else? If not, we will entertain-“ “One moment, Mr. Chairman!”
Rod saw that it was Arthur Nielsen, one of the Teller University group. He managed to look neat even in these circumstances but he had strayed into camp bereft of all equipment, without even a knife. He had been quite hungry.
Kilroy looked at him. “You want to talk, Waxie?” “Nielsen is the name. Or Arthur. As you know. Yes.” “Okay. Keep it short.”
“I shall keep it as short as circumstances permit. Fellow associates, we have here a unique opportunity, probably one which has not occurred before in history. As Cowper pointed out, we must proceed with care. But, already we have set out on the wrong foot. Our object should be to found the first truly scientific community. Yet what do I find? You are proposing to
select an executive by counting noses! Leaders should not be chosen by popular whim; they should be determined by rigorous scientific criteria. Once selected, those leaders must have full scientific freedom to direct the bio-group in accordance with natural law, unhampered by such artificial anachronisms as statutes, constitutions, and courts of law. We have here an adequate supply of healthy females; we have the means to breed scientifically a new race, a super race, a race which, if I may say so-“
Ahandful of mud struck Nielsen in the chest; he stopped suddenly. “I saw who did that!” he said angrily. Just the sort of nincompoop who always-“ “Order, order, please!” Kilroy shouted. “No mudsling or I’ll appoint a squad of sergeants-at-arms. Are you through, Waxie?”
“I was just getting started.”
“Just a moment,” put in Cowper. “Point of order Mr. Chairman. Arthur has a right to be heard. But I think he speaking before the wrong body. We’re going to have a constitutional committee, I’m sure. He should present his arguments to them. Then, if we like them, we can adopt his ideas.”
“You’re right, Grant. Sit down, Waxie.” “Huh? I appeal!”
Roy Kilroy said briskly, “The chair has ruled this out of order at this time and the speaker has appealed to the house, a priority motion not debatable. All in favor of supporting the chair’s ruling, which is for Waxie to shut up, make it known by saying ‘Aye.’”
There was a shouted chorus of assent. “Opposed: ‘No.’ Sit down, Waxie.” Kilroy looked around. “Anybody else?”
“Yes”
“I can’t see. Who is it?”
“Bill Kennedy, Ponce de Leon class. I don’t agree with Nielsen except on one point: we are fiddling around with the wrong things. Sure, we need a group captain but, aside from whatever it takes to eat, we shouldn’t think about anything but how to get back. I don’t want a scientific society; I’d settle for a hot bath and decent food.”
There was scattered applause. The chairman said, “I’d like a bath, too … and I’d fight anybody for a dish of cornflakes. But, Bill, how do you suggest that we go about it?”
“Huh? We set up a crash-priority project and build a gate. Everybody works on it.”
There was silence, then several talked at once: “Crazy! No uranium.” – “We might find uranium.” – “Where do we get the tools? Shucks, I don’t even have a screwdriver.” – “But where are we?” – “It is just a matter of-“
“Quiet!” yelled Kilroy. “Bill, do you know how to build a gate?” “No”
“I doubt if anybody does.”
“That’s a defeatist attitude. Surely some of you educated blokes from Teller have studied the subject. You should get together, pool what you know, and put us to work. Sure, it may take a long time. But that’s what we ought to do.”
Cowper said, just a minute, Roy. Bill, I don’t dispute what you say; every idea should be explored. We’re bound to set up a planning committee. Maybe we had better elect a mayor, or a captain, or whatever you want to call him-and then dig into your scheme when we can discuss it in detail. I think it has merit and should be discussed at length. What do you think?”
“Why, sure, Grant. Let’s get on with the election. I just didn’t want that silly stuff about breeding a superman to be the last word.” “Mr. Chairman! I protest-“
“Shut up, Waxie. Are you ready with nominations for mayor? If there is no objection, the chair rules debate closed and will entertain nominations.” “I nominate Grant Cowper!”
“Second!”
“I second the nomination.” “Okay, I third it!”
“Let’s make it unanimous! Question, question!”
Jimmy Throxton’s voice cut through the shouting, “I NOMINATE ROD WALKER!” Bob Baxter stood up. “Mr. Chairman?”
“Quiet, everybody. Mr. Baxter.” “I second Rod Walker.”
“Okay. Two nominations, Grant Cowper and Rod Walker. Are there any more?”
There was a brief silence. Then Rod spoke up. “Just a second, Roy.” He found that his voice was trembling and he took two deep breaths before he went on. “I don’t want it. I’ve had all the grief I want for a while and I’d like a rest. Thanks anyhow, Bob. Thanks, Jimmy.”
“Any further nominations?”
“Just a sec, Roy … point of personal privilege.” Grant Cowper stood up. “Rod, I know how you feel. Nobody in his right mind seeks public office … except as a duty, willingness to serve. If you withdraw, I’m going to exercise the same privilege; I don’t want the headaches any more than you do.”
“Now wait a minute, Grant. You-“
“You wait a minute. I don’t think either one of us should withdraw; we ought to perform any duty that is handed to us, just as we stand a night watch when it’s our turn. But I think we ought to have more nominations.” He looked around. “Since that mix-up this morning we have as many girls as men . . yet both of the candidates are male. That’s not right. Uh, Mr. Chairman, I nominate Caroline Mshiyeni.”
“Huh? Hey, Grant, don’t be silly. I’d look good as a lady mayoress, wouldn’t I? Anyhow, I’m for Roddie.”
“That’s your privilege, Caroline. But you ought to let yourself be placed before the body, just like Rod and myself.” “Nobody’s going to vote for me!”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m going to vote for you. But we still ought to have more candidates.” “Three nominations before the house,” Kilroy announced. “Any more? If not, I declare the-“
“Mr. Chairman!”
“Huh? Okay, Waxie, you want to nominate somebody?” “Yes.”
“Who?” “Me”
“You want to nominate yourself?”
“I certainly do. What’s funny about that? I am running on a platform of strict scientific government. I want the rational minds in this group to have someone to vote for.” Kilroy looked puzzled. “I’m not sure that is correct parliamentary procedure. I’m afraid I’ll have to over-“
“Never mind, never mind!” Caroline chortled. “I nominate him. But I’m going to vote for Roddie,” she added. Kilroy sighed. “Okay, four candidates. I guess we’ll have to have a show of hands. We don’t have anything for ballots.” Bob Baxter stood up. “Objection, Mr. Chairman. I call for a secret ballot. We can find some way to do it.”
Away was found. Pebbles would signify Rod, a bare twig was a note for Cowper, a green leaf meant Caroline, while one of Jimmy’s ceramic attempts was offered as a ballot box. “How about Nielsen?” Kilroy asked.
Jimmy spoke up. “Uh, maybe this would do: I made another pot the same time I made this one, only it busted. Ill get chunks of it and all the crackpots are votes for Waxie.” “Mr. Chairman, I resent the insinua-“
“Save it, Waxie. Pieces of baked clay for you, pebbles for Walker, twigs for Grant, leaves for Carol. Get your votes, folks, then file past and drop them in the ballot box. Shorty, you and Margery act as tellers.”
The tellers solemnly counted the ballots by firelight. There were five votes for Rod, one for Nielsen, none for Caroline, and twenty-two for Cowper. Rod shook hands with Cowper and faded back into the darkness so that no one would see his face. Caroline looked at the results and said, “Hey, Grant! You promised to vote for me. What happened? Did you vote for yourself? Huh? How about that?”
Rod said nothing. He had voted for Cowper and was certain that the new mayor had not returned the compliment … he was sure who his five friends were. Dog take it!-he had seen it coming; why hadn’t Grant let him bow out?
Grant ignored Caroline’s comment. He briskly assumed the chair and said, “Thank you. Thank you all. know you want to get to sleep, so I will limit myself tonight to appointing a few committees-“
Rod did not get to sleep at once. He told himself that there was no disgrace in losing an election- shucks, hadn’t his old man lost the time he had run for community corporation board? He told himself, too, that trying to ride herd on those apes was enough to drive a man crazy and he was well out of it- he had never wanted the job! Nevertheless there was a lump in his middle and a deep sense of personal failure.
It seemed that he had just gone to sleep … his father was looking at him saying, “You know we are proud of you, son. Still, if you had had the foresight to-” when someone touched his arm.
He was awake, alert, and had Colonel Bowie out at once.
“Put away that toothpick,” Jimmy whispered, “before you hurt somebody. Me, I mean.” “What’s up?”
“I’m up, I’ve. got the fire watch. You’re about to be, because we are holding a session of the inner sanctum.” “Huh?”
“Shut up and come along. Keep quiet, people are asleep.”
The inner sanctum turned out to be Jimmy, Caroline, Jacqueline, Bob Baxter, and Carmen Garcia. They gathered inside the ring of fire but as far from the sleepers as possible. Rod looked around at his friends.
“What’s this all about?”
“It’s about this,” Jimmy said seriously. “You’re our Captain. And we like that election as much as I like a crooked deck of cards.” “That’s right,” agreed Caroline. “All that fancy talk!”
“Huh? Everybody got to talk. Everybody got to vote.” “Yes,” agreed Baxter. “Yes … and no.”
“It was all proper. I have no kick.”
“I didn’t expect you to kick, Rod. Nevertheless well, I don’t know how much politicking you’ve seen, Rod. I haven’t seen much myself, except in church matters and we Quakers don’t do things that way; we wait until the Spirit moves. But, despite all the rigamarole, that was a slick piece of railroading. This morning you would have been elected overwhelmingly; tonight you did not stand a chance.”
“The point is,” Jimmy put in, “do we stand for it?” “What can we do?”
“What can we do? We don’t have to stay here. We’ve still got our own group; we can walk out and find another place … a bigger cave maybe.” ‘Yes, sir!” agreed Caroline. “Right tonight.”
Rod thought about it. The idea was tempting; they didn’t need the others … guys like Nielsen- and Cowper. The discovery that his friends were loyal to him, loyal to the extent that they would consider exile rather than let him down choked him up. He turned to Jacqueline. “How about you, Jackie?”
“We’re partners, Rod. Always.”
“Bob- do you want to do this? You and Carmen?” “Yes. Well . .
“‘Well’ what?”
“Rod, we’re sticking with you. This election is all very well- but you took us in when we needed it and teamed with us. We’ll never forget it. Furthermore I think that you make a sounder team captain than Cowper is likely to make. But there is one thing.”
“Yes.”
“If you decide that we leave, Carmen and I will appreciate it if you put it off a day.” “Why?” demanded Caroline. “Now is the time.”
“Well- they’ve set this up as a formal colony, a village with a mayor. Everybody knows that a regularly elected mayor can perform weddings.” “Oh!” said Caroline. “Pardon my big mouth.”
“Carmen and I can take care of the religious end- it’s not very complicated in our church. But, just in case we ever are rescued, we would like it better and our folks would like it if the civil requirements were all perfectly regular and legal. You see?”
Rod nodded. “I see.”
“But if you say to leave tonight …”
“I don’t,” Rod answered with sudden decision. “We’ll stay and get you two properly married. Then-“ “Then we all shove off in a shower of rice,” Caroline finished.
“Then we’ll see. Cowper may turn out to be a good mayor. We won’t leave just because I lost an election.” He looked around at their faces. “But … but I certainly do thank you. I-“ He could not go on. Carmen stepped forward and kissed him quickly. “Goodnight, Rod. Thanks.”
4. “A Joyful Omen”
Mayor Cowper got off to a good start. He approved, took over, and embellished a suggestion that Carmen and Bob should have their own quarters. He suspended work on the wall and set the whole village to constructing a honeymoon cottage. Not until his deputy, Roy Kilroy, reminded him did he send out hunting parties.
He worked hard himself, having set the wedding for that evening and having decreed that the building must be finished by sundown. Finished it was by vandalizing part of the wall to supply building stone when the supply ran short Construction was necessarily simple since they had no tools, no mortar but clay mud, no way to cut timbers. It was a stone box as tall as a man and a couple of meters square, with a hole for a door. The roof was laid up from the heaviest poles that could be cut from a growth upstream of giant grass much like bamboo- the colonists simply called it “bamboo.” This was thatched and plastered with mud; it sagged badly.
But it was a house and even had a door which could be closed- a woven grass mat stiffened with bamboo. It neither hinged nor locked but it filled the hole and could be held in place with a stone and a pole. The floor was clean sand covered with fresh broad leaves.
As a doghouse for a St. Bernard it would have been about right; as a dwelling for humans it was not much. But it was better than that which most human beings had enjoyed through the history and prehistory of the race. Bob and Carmen did not look at it critically.
When work was knocked off for lunch Rod selfconsciously sat down near a group around Cowper. He had wrestled with his conscience for a long time in the night and had decided that the only thing to do was to eat sour grapes and pretend to like them. He could start by not avoiding Cowper.
Margery Chung was cook for the day; she cut Rod a chunk of scorched meat. He thanked her and started to gnaw it. Cowper was talking. Rod was not trying to overhear but there seemed to be no reason not to listen.
“-which is the only way we will get the necessary discipline into the group. I’m sure you agree. Cowper glanced up, caught Rod’s eye, looked annoyed, then grinned. “Hello, Rod.” “Hi, Grant.”
“Look, old man, we’re having an executive committee meeting. Would you mind finding somewhere else to eat lunch?” Rod stood up blushing. “Oh! Sure.”
Cowper seemed to consider it. “Nothing private, of course- just getting things done. On second thought maybe you should sit in and give us your advice.” “Huh? Oh, no! I didn’t know anything was going on.” Rod started to move away.
Cowper did not insist. “Got to keep working, lots to do. See you later, then. Any time.” He grinned and turned away.
Rod wandered off, feeling conspicuous. He heard himself hailed and turned gratefully, joined Jimmy Throxton. “Come outside the wall,” Jimmy said quietly. “The Secret Six are having a picnic. Seen the happy couple?”
“You mean Carmen and Bob?”
“Know any other happy couples? Oh, there they are- staring hungrily at their future mansion. See you outside.”
Rod went beyond the wall, found Jacqueline and Caroline sitting near the water and eating. From habit he glanced around, sizing up possible cover for carnivores and figuring escape routes back into the kraal, but his alertness was not conscious as there seemed no danger in the open so near other people. He joined the girls and sat down on a rock. “Hi, kids.”
“Hello, Rod.”
“H’lo, Roddie,” Caroline seconded. “‘What news on the Rialto?’”
“None, I guess. Say, did Grant appoint an executive committee last night?”
“He appointed about a thousand committees but no executive committee unless he did it after we adjourned. Why an executive committee? This gang needs one the way I need a bicycle.”
“Who is on it, Rod?” asked Jacqueline.
Rod thought back and named the faces he had seen around Cowper. She looked thoughtful. “Those are his own special buddies from Teller U.” “Yes, I guess so.
“I don’t like it,” she answered. “What’s the harm?”
“Maybe none … maybe. It is about what we could expect. But I’d feel better if all the classes were on it, not just that older bunch. You know.” “Shucks, Jack, you’ve got to give him some leeway.”
“I don’t see why, put in Caroline. “That bunch you named are the same ones Hizzonor appointed as chairmen of the other committees. It’s a tight little clique. You notice none of us unsavory characters got named to any important cominittee- I’m on waste disposal and camp sanitation, Jackie is on food preparation, and you aren’t on any. You should have been on the constitution, codification, and organization committee, but he made himself chairman and left you out. Add it up.”
Rod did not answer. Caroline went on, “I’ll add it if you won’t. First thing you know there will be a nominating committee. Then we’ll find that only those of a certain age, say twenty-one, can hold office. Pretty soon that executive committee will turn into a senate (called something else, probably) with a veto that can be upset only by a three-quarters majority that we will never get. That’s the way my Uncle Phil would have rigged it.”
“Your Uncle Phil?”
“Boy, there was a politician! I never liked him- he had kissed so many babies his lips were puckered. I used to hide when he came into our house. But I’d like to put him up against Hizzonor. It’ud be a battle of dinosaurs. Look, Rod, they’ve got us roped and tied; I say we should fade out right after the wedding.” She turned to Jacqueline. “Right… pardner?”
“Sure … if Rod says so.”
“Well, I don’t say so. Look, Carol, I don’t like the situation. To tell the truth … well, I was pretty sour at being kicked out of the captaincy. But I can’t let the rest of you pull out on that account. There aren’t enough of us to form another colony, not safely.”
“Why, Roddie, there are three times as many people still back in those trees as there are here in camp. This time we’ll build up slowly and be choosy about whom we take. Six is a good start. We’ll get by.”
“Not six, Carol. Four.”
“Huh? Six! We shook on it last night before Jimmy woke you.”
Rod shook his head. “Carol, how can we expect Bob and Carmen to walk out … right after the rest have made them a wedding present of a house of their own?” “Well … darn it, we’d build them another house!”
“They would go with us, Carol- but it’s too much to ask.”
“I think,” Jacqueline said grudgingly, “that Rod has something, Carol.”
The argument was ended by the appearance of Bob, Carmen, and Jimmy. They had been delayed, explained Jimmy, by the necessity of inspecting the house. “As if I didn’t know every rock in it. Oh, my back!”
“I appreciate it, Jim,” Carmen said softly. “I’ll rub your back.” “Sold!” Jimmy lay face down.
“Hey!” protested Caroline. “I carried more rocks than he did. Mostly he stood aromid and bossed.” “Supervisory work is exceptionally tiring,” Jimmy said smugly. “You get Bob to rub your back.”
Neither got a back rub as Roy Kilroy called to them from the wall. “Hey! You down there- lunch hour is over. Let’s get back to work.” “Sorry, Jimmy. Later.” Carmen turned away.
Jimmy scrambled to his feet. “Bob, Carmen- don’t go ‘way yet. I want to say something.” They stopped. Rod waved to Kilroy. “With you in a moment!” He turned back to the others.
Jimmy seemed to have difficulty in choosing words. “Uh, Carmen … Bob. The future Baxters. You know we think a lot of you. We think it’s swell that you are going to get married- every family ought to have a marriage. But … well, shopping isn’t what it might be around here and we didn’t know what to get you. So we talked it over and decided to give you this. It’s from all of us. Awedding present.” Jimmy jammed a hand in his pocket, hauled out his dirty, dog-eared playing cards and handed them to Carmen.
Bob Baxter looked startled. “Gosh, Jimmy, we can’t take your cards-your only cards.” “I- we want you to have them.”
“But-“
“Be quiet, Bob!” Carmen said and took the cards. “Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you very much. Thank you all.” She looked around. “Our getting married isn’t going to make any difference, you know. It’s still one family. We’ll expect you all … to come play cards … at our house just as-” She stopped suddenly and started to cry, buried her head on Bob’s shoulder. He patted it. Jimmy looked as if he wanted to cry and Rod felt nakedly embarrassed.
They started back, Carmen with an arm around Jimmy and the other around her bethrothed. Rod hung back with the other two. “Did Jimmy,” he whispered, “say anything to either of you about this?”
“No,” Jacqueline answered.
“Not me,” Caroline agreed. “I was going to give ‘em my stew pan, but now I’ll wait a day or two.” Caroline’s “bag of rocks” had turned out to contain an odd assortment for survival- among other things, a thin-page diary, a tiny mouth organ, and a half-litre sauce pan. She produced other unlikely but useful items from time to time. Why she had picked them and how she had managed to hang on to them after she discarded the bag were minor mysteries, but, as Deacon Matson had often told the class: “Each to his own methods. Survival is an art, not a science.” It was undeniable that she had appeared at the cave healthy, well fed, and with her clothing surprisingly neat and clean in view of the month she had been on the land.
“They won’t expect you to give up your stew pan, Caroline.”
“I can’t use it now that the crowd is so big, and they can set up housekeeping with it. Anyhow, I want to.”
“I’m going to give her two needles and some thread. Bob made her leave her sewing kit behind in favor of medical supplies. But I’ll wait a while, too.” “I haven’t anything I can give them,” Rod said miserably.
Jacqueline turned gentle eyes on him. “You can make them a water skin for their house, Rod,” she said softly. “They would like that. We can use some of my KwikKure so that it will last.” Rod cheered up at once. “Say, that’s a swell idea!”
“We are gathered here,” Grant Cowper said cheerfully, “to join these two people in the holy bonds of matrimony. I won’t give the usual warning because we all know that no impediment exists to this union. In fact it is the finest thing that could happen to our little community, a joyful omen of things to come, a promise for the future, a guarantee that we are firmly resolved to keep the torch of civilization, now freshly lighted on this planet, forever burning in the future. It means that-“
Rod stopped listening. He was standing at the groom’s right as best man. His duties had not been onerous but now he found that he had an overwhelming desire to sneeze. He worked his features around, then in desperation rubbed his upper lip violently and overcame it. He sighed silently and was glad for the first time that Grant Cowper had this responsibility. Grant seemed to know the right words and he did not.
The bride was attended by Caroline Mshiyeni. Both girls carried bouquets of a flame-colored wild bloom. Caroline was in shorts and shirt as usual and the bride was dressed in the conventional blue denim trousers and overshirt. Her hair was arranged en brosse; her scrubbed face shone in the firelight and she was radiantly beautiful.
“Who giveth this woman?”
Jimmy Throxton stepped forward and said hoarsely, “I do!” “The ring, please.”
Rod had it on his little finger; with considerable fumbling he got it off. It was a Ponce de Leon senior-class ring, borrowed from Bill Kennedy. He handed it to Cowper. “Carmen Eleanora, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?” “I do.”
“Robert Edward, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? Will you keep her and cherish her, cleaving unto her only, until death do you part?” “I do. I mean, I will. Both.”
“Take her hand in yours. Place the ring on her finger. Repeat after me- Rod’s sneeze was coming back again; he missed part of it.
“-so, by authority vested in me as duly elected Chief Magistrate of this sovereign community, I pronounce you man and wife! Kiss her, chum, before I beat you to it.”
Carol and Jackie both were crying; Rod wondered what had gone wrong. He missed his turn at kissing the bride, but she turned to him presently, put an arm around his neck and kissed him. He found himself shaking hands with Bob very solemnly. “Well, I guess that does it. Don’t forget you are supposed to carry her through the door.”
“I won’t forget.”
“Well, you told me to remind you. Uh, may the Principle bless you both.”
5. “I So Move”
There was no more talk of leaving. Even Caroline dropped the subject.
But on other subjects talk was endless. Cowper held a town meeting every evening. These started with committee reports- the committee on food resources and natural conservation, the committees on artifacts and inventory, on waste disposal and camp sanitation, on exterior security, on human resources and labor allotment, on recruitment and immigration, on conservation of arts and sciences, on constitution, codification, and justice, on food preparation, on housing and city planning- Cowper seemed to enjoy the endless talk and Rod was forced to admit that the others appeared to have a good time, too- he surprised himself by discovering that he too looked forward to the evenings. It was the village’s social life, the only recreation. Each session produced wordy battles, personal remarks and caustic criticisms; what was lacking in the gentlemanly formality found in older congresses was made up in spice. Rod liked to sprawl on the ground with his ear near Jimmy Throxton and listen to Jimmy’s slanderous asides about the intelligence, motives, and ancestry of each speaker. He waited for Caroline’s disorderly heckling.
But Caroline was less inclined to heckle now; Cowper had appointed her Historian on discovering that she owned a diary and could take shorthand. “It is extremely important,” he informed her in the presence of the village, “that we have a full record of these pioneer days for posterity. You’ve been writing in your diary every day?”
“Sure. That’s what it’s for.”
“Good! From here on it will be an official account. I want you to record the important events of each day.” “All right. It doesn’t make the tiniest bit of difference, I do anyhow.”
“Yes, yes, but in greater detail. I want you to record our proceedings, too. Historians will treasure this document, Carol.” “I’ll bet!”
Cowper seemed lost in thought. “How many blank leaves left in your diary?” “Couple of hundred, maybe.”
“Good! That solves a problem I had been wondering about. Uh, we will have to requisition half of that supply for official use- public notices, committee transactions, and the like. You know.”
Caroline looked wide-eyed. “That’s a lot of paper, isn’t it? You had better send two or three big husky boys to carry it.” Cowper looked puzzled. “You’re joking.”
“Better make it four big huskies. I could probably manage three … and somebody is likely to get hurt.”
“Now, see here, Caroline, it is just a temporary requisition, in the public interest. Long before you need all of your diary we will devise other writing materials.” “Go ahead and devise! That’s my diary.”
Caroline sat near Cowper, diary in her lap and style in her hand, taking notes. Each evening she opened proceedings by reading the minutes of the previous meeting. Rod asked her if she took down the endless debates.
“Goodness no!”
“I wondered. It seemed to me that you would run out of paper. Your minutes are certainly complete.” She chuckled. “Roddie, want to know what I really write down? Promise not to tell.”
“Of course I won’t.”
“When I ‘read the minutes’ I just reach back in my mind and recall what the gabble was the night before-I’ve got an awfully good memory. But what I actually dirty the paper with … well, here-” She took her diary from a pocket. “Here’s last night: ‘Hizzoner called us to disorder at half-past burping time. The committee on cats and dogs reported. No cats, no dogs. The shortage was discussed. We adjourned and went to sleep, those who weren’t already.’”
Rod grinned. “Agood thing Grant doesn’t know shorthand.”
“Of course, if anything real happens, I put it down. But not the talk, talk, talk.”
Caroline was not adamant about not sharing her supply of paper when needed. Amarriage certificate, drawn up in officialese by Howard Goldstein, a Teller law student, was prepared for the Baxters and signed by Cowper, the couple themselves, and Rod and Caroline as witnesses. Caroline decorated it with flowers and turtle doves before delivering it.
There were others who seemed to feel that the new government was long on talk and short on results. Among them was Bob Baxter, but the Quaker couple did not attend most of the meetings. But when Cowper had been in office a week, Shorty Dumont took the floor after the endless committee reports:
“Mr. Chairman!”
“Can you hold it, Shorty? I have announcements to make before we get on to new business.” “This is still about committee reports. When does the committee on our constitution report?” “Why, I made the report myself.”
“You said that a revised draft was being prepared and the report would be delayed. That’s no report. What I want to know is: when do we get a permanent set-up? When do we stop floating in air, getting along from day to day on ‘temporary executive notices’?”
Cowper flushed. “Do you object to my executive decisions?”
“Won’t say that I do, won’t say that I don’t. But Rod was let out and you were put in on the argument that we needed constitutional governinent, not a dictatorship. That’s why I voted for you. All right, where’s our laws? When do we vote on them?”
“You must understand,” Cowper answered carefully, “that drawing up a constitution is not done overnight. Many considerations are involved.”
“Sure, sure- but it’s time we had some notion of what sort of a constitution you are cooking up. How about a bill of rights? Have you drawn up one?” “All in due time.”
“Why wait? For a starter let’s adopt the Virginia Bill of Rights as article one. I so move. “You’re out of order. Anyhow we don’t even have a copy of it.”
“Don’t let that bother you; I know it by heart. You ready, Carol? Take this down . “Never mind,” Caroline answered. “I know it, too. I’m writing it.”
“You see? These things aren’t any mystery, Grant; most of us could quote it. So let’s quit stalling.” Somebody yelled, “Whoopee! That’s telling him, Shorty. I second the motion.”
Cowper shouted for order. He went on, “This is not the time nor the place. When the committee reports, you will find that all proper democratic freedoms and safeguards have been included- modified only by the stern necessities of our hazardous position.” He flashed his smile. “Now let’s get on with business. I have an announcement about hunting parties.
Hereafter each hunting party will be expected to-“
Dumont was still standing. “I said no more stalling, Grant. You argued that what we needed was laws, not a captain’s whim. You’ve been throwing your weight around quite a while now and I don’t see any laws. What are your duties? How much authority do you have? Are you both the high and the low justice? Or do the rest of us have rights?”
“Shut up and sit down!”
“How long is your term of office?”
Cowper made an effort to control himself. “Shorty, if you have suggestions or, such things, you must take them up with the committee. “Oh, slush! Give me a straight answer.”
“You are out of order.”
“I am not out of order. I’m insisting that the committee on drawing up a constitution tell us what they are doing. I won’t surrender the floor until I get an answer. This is a town meeting and I have as much right to talk as anybody.”
Cowper turned red. “I wouldn’t be too sure,” he said ominously. just how old are you, Shorty?”
Dumont stared at him. “Oh, so that’s it? And the cat is out of the bag!” He glanced around. “I see quite a few here who are younger than I am. See what he’s driving at, folks? Second- class citizens. He’s going to stick an age limit in that so-called constitution. Aren’t you, Grant? Look me in the eye and deny it.”
“Roy! Dave! Grab him and bring him to order.”
Rod had been listening closely; the show was better than usual. Jimmy had been adding his usual flippant commentary. Now Jimmy whispered, “That tears it. Do we choose up sides or do we fade back and watch the fun?”
Before he could answer Shorty made it clear that he needed no immediate help. He set his feet wide and snapped, “Touch me and somebody gets hurt!” He did not reach for any weapon but his attitude showed that he was willing to fight.
He went on, “Grant, I’ve got one thing to say, then I’ll shut up.” He turned and spoke to all. “You can see that we don’t have any rights and we don’t know where we stand- but we are already organized like a straitjacket. Committees for this, committees for that- and what good has it done? Are we better off than we were before all these half-baked committees were appointed? The wall is still unfinished, the camp is dirtier than ever, and nobody knows what he is supposed to do. Why, we even let the signal fire go out yesterday. When a roof leaks, you don’t appoint a committee; you fix the leak. I say give the job back to Rod, get rid of these silly committees, and get on with fixing the leaks. Anybody with me? Make some noise!”
They made plenty of noise. The shouts may have come from less than half but Cowper could see that he was losing his grip on them. Roy Kilroy dropped behind Shorty Dumont and looked questioningly at Cowper; Jiminy jabbed Rod in the ribs and whispered, “Get set, boy.”
But Cowper shook his head at Roy. “Shorty,” he said quietly, “are you through making your speech?” “That wasn’t a speech, that was a motion. And you had better not tell me it’s out of order.”
“I did not understand your motion. State it.”
“You understood it. I’m moving that we get rid of you and put Rod back in.” Kilroy interrupted. “Hey, Grant, he can’t do that. That’s not according to-“ “Hold it, Roy. Shorty, your motion is not in order.”
“I thought you would say that!”
“And it is really two motions. But I m not going to bother with trifles. You say people don’t like the way I’m doing things, so we’ll find out.” He went on briskly, “Is there a second to the motion?”
“Second!”
“I second it.”
“Moved and seconded. The motion is to recall me and put Rod in office. Any remarks?”
Adozen people tried to speak. Rod got the floor by outshouting the others. “Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman! Privileged question!” “The chair recognizes Rod Walker.”
“Point of personal privilege. I have a statement to make.” “Well? Go ahead.”
“Look, Grant, I didn’t know Shorty planned to do this. Tell him, Shorty.” “That’s right.”
“Okay, okay,” Cowper said sourly. “Any other remarks? Don’t yell, just stick up your hands.” “I’m not through,” insisted Rod.
“Well?”
“I not only did not know, I’m not for it. Shorty, I want you to withdraw your motion.” “No!”
“I think you should. Grant has only had a week; you can’t expect miracles in that time- I know; I’ve had grief enough with this bunch of wild men. You may not like the things he’s done- I don’t myself, a lot of them. That’s to be expected. But if you let that be an excuse to run him out of office, then sure as daylight this gang will break up.”
“I’m not busting it up- he is! He may be older than I am but if he thinks that makes the least difference when it comes to having a say- well… he’d better think twice. I’m warning him. You hear that, Grant?”
“I heard it. You misunderstood me.” “Like fun I did!”
“Shorty,” Rod persisted, “will you drop this idea? I’m asking you please.”
Shorty Dumont looked stubborn. Rod looked helplessly at Cowper, shrugged and sat down. Cowper turned away and growled, “Any more debate? You back there… Agnes? You’ve got the floor.”
Jimmy whispered, “Why did you pull a stunt like that, Rod? Nobility doesn’t suit you.” “I wasn’t being noble. I knew what I was doing,” Rod answered in low tones.
“You messed up your chances to be re-elected.”
“Stow it.” Rod listened; it appeared that Agnes Fries had more than one grievance. Jim?”
“Huh?”
“Jump to your feet and move to adjourn.”
“What? Ruin this when it’s getting good? There is going to be some hair pulled … I hope.” “Don’t argue; do it!- or I’ll bang your heads together.”
“Oh, all right. Spoilsport.” Jimmy got reluctantly to his feet, took a breath and shouted, “I move we adjourn!” Rod bounced to his feet. “SECOND THE MOTION!” Cowper barely glanced at them. “Out of order. Sit down.”
“It is not out of order,” Rod said loudly. “Amotion to adjourn is always in order, it takes precedence, and it cannot be debated. I call for the question.”
“I never recognized you. This recall motion is going to be voted on it it is the last thing I do.” Cowper’s face was tense with anger. “Are you through, Agnes? Or do you want to discuss my table manners, too?”
“You can’t refuse a motion to adjourn,” Rod insisted. “Question! Put the question.”
Several took up the shout, drowning out Agnes Fries, preventing Cowper from recognizing another speaker. Boos and catcalls rounded out the tumult. Cowper held up both hands for silence, then called out, “It has been moved and seconded that we adjourn. Those in favor say, ‘Aye.’”
“AYE!!”
“Opposed?”
“No,” said Jimmy.
“The meeting is adjourned.” Cowper strode out of the circle of firelight.
Shorty Dumont came over, planted himself in front of Rod and looked up. “Afine sort of a pal you turned out to be!” He spat on the ground and stomped off.
“Yeah,” agreed Jimmy, “what gives? Schizophrenia? Your nurse drop you on your head? That noble stuff in the right doses might have put us back in business. But you didn’t know when to stop.”
Jacqueline had approached while Jimmy was speaking. “I wasn’t pulling any tricks,” Rod insisted. “I meant what I said. Kick a captain out when he’s had only a few days to show himself and you’ll bust us up into a dozen little groups. I wouldn’t be able to hold them together. Nobody could.”
“Bosh! Jackie, tell the man.”
She frowned. “Jimmy, you’re sweet, but you’re not bright.” “Et tu, Jackie?”
“Never mind, Jackie will take care of you. Agood job, Rod. By tomorrow everybody will realize it. Some of them are a little stirred up tonight.” “What I don’t see,” Rod said thoughtfully, “is what got Shorty stirred up in the first place?”
“Hadn’t you heard? Maybe it was while you were out hunting. I didn’t see it, but he got into a row with Roy, then Grant bawled him out in front of everybody. I think Shorty is self-conscious about his height,” she said seriously. “He doesn’t like to take orders.”
“Does anybody?”
The next day Grant Cowper acted as if nothing had happened. But his manner had more of King Log and less of King Stork. Late in the afternoon he looked up Rod. “Walker? Can you spare me a few minutes?”
“Let’s go where we can talk.” Grant led him to a spot out of earshot. They sat on the ground and Rod waited. Cowper seemed to have difficulty in finding words. Finally he said, “Rod, I think I can depend on you.” He threw in his grin, but it looked forced.
“Why?” asked Rod.
“Well… the way you behaved last night.”
“So? Don’t bank on it, I didn’t do it for you.” Rod paused, then added, “Let’s get this straight. I don’t like you.”
For once Cowper did not grin. “That makes it mutual. I don’t like you a little bit. But we’ve got to get along and I think I can trust you. “Maybe.”
“I’ll risk it.”
“I agree with every one of Shorty’s gripes. I just didn’t agree with his soltition.”
Cowper gave a wry smile unlike his usual expression. For an instant Rod found himself almost liking him. “The sad part is that I agree with his gripes myself.” “Huh?”
“Rod, you probably think I’m a stupid jerk but the fact is I do know quite a bit about theory of government. The hard part is to apply it in a… a transitional period like this. We’ve got fifty people here and not a one with any practical experience in government- not even myself. But every single one considers himself an expert. Take that bill-of-rights motion; I couldn’t let that stand. I know enough about such things to know that the rights and duties needed for a co-operative colony like this can’t be taken over word for word from an agrarian democracy, and they are still different from those necessary for an industrial republic.” He looked worried. “It is true that we had considered limiting the franchise.”
“You do and they’ll toss you in the creek!”
“I know. That’s one reason why the law committee hasn’t made a report. Another reason is- well, confound it, how can you work out things like a constitution when you practically haven’t any writing paper? Ifs exasperating. But about the franchise: the oldest one of us is around twenty-two and the youngest is about sixteen. The worst of it is that the youngest are the most precocious, geniuses or near-geniuses.” Cowper looked up. “I don’t mean you.
“Oh, no,” Rod said hastily. “I’m no genius!”
“You’re not sixteen, either. These brilliant brats worry me. ‘Bush lawyers,’ every blessed one, with always a smart answer and no sense. We thought with an age limit- a reasonable one- the older heads could act as ballast while they grow up. But it won’t work.”
“No. It won’t.”
“But what am I to do? That order about hunting teams not being mixed- that wasn’t aimed at teams like you and Carol, but she thought it was and gave me the very deuce. I was just trying to take care of these kids. Confound it, I wish they were all old enough to marry and settle down- the Baxters don’t give me trouble.”
“I wouldn’t worry. In a year or so ninety per cent of the colony will be married.” “I hope so! Say … are you thinking about it?”
“Me?” Rod was startled. “Farthest thing from my mind.”
“Um? I thought- Never mind; I didn’t get you out here to ask about your private affairs. What Shorty had to say was hard to swallow- but I’m going to make some changes. I’m abolishing most of the committees.”
“So?”
“Yes. Blast them, they don’t do anything; they just produce reports. I’m going to make one girl boss cook- and one man boss hunter. I want you to be chief of police.” “Huh? Why in Ned do you want a chief of police?”
“Well … somebody has to see that orders are carried out. You know, camp sanitation and such. Somebody has to keep the signal smoking- we haven’t accounted for thirty-seven people, aside from known dead. Somebody has to assign the night watch and check on it. The kids run hog wild if you don’t watch them. You are the one to do it.”
“Why?”
“Well … let’s be practical, Rod. I’ve got a following and so have you. We’ll have less trouble if everybody sees that we two stand together. It’s for the good of the community.”
Rod realized, as clearly as Grant did, that the group had to pull together. But Cowper was asking him to shore up his shaky administration, and Rod not only resented him but thought that Cowper was all talk and no results.
It was not just the unfinished wall, he told himself, but a dozen things. Somebody ought to search for a salt lick, every day. There ought to be a steady hunt for edible roots and berries and things, too- he, for one, was tired of an all-meat diet. Sure, you could stay healthy if you didn’t stick just to lean meat, but who wanted to eat nothing but meat, maybe for a life time? And there were those stinking hides … Grant had ordered every kill skinned, brought back for use.
“What are you going to do with those green hides?” he asked suddenly. “Huh? Why?”
“They stink. If you put me in charge, I’m going to chuck them in the creek.” “But we’re going to need them. Half of us are in rags now.
“But we’re not short on hides; tanning is what we need. Those hides won’t sun-cure this weather.” “We haven’t got tannin. Don’t be silly, Rod.”
“Then send somebody out to chew bark till they find some. You can’t mistake the puckery taste. And get rid of those hides!” “If I do, will you take the job?”
“Maybe. You said, ‘See that orders are carried out.’ Whose orders? Yours? Or Kilroy’s?” “Well, both. Roy is my deputy.”
Rod shook his head. “No, thanks. You’ve got him, so you don’t need me. Too many generals, not enough privates.” “But, Rod, I do need you. Roy doesn’t get along with the younger kids. He rubs them the wrong way.”
“He rubs me the wrong way, too. Nothing doing, Grant. Besides, I don’t like the title anyhow. It’s silly.”
“Pick your own. Captain of the Guard… City Manager. I don’t care what you call it; I want you to take over the night guard and see that things run smoothly around camp- and keep an eye on the younger kids. You can do it and it’s your duty.”
“What will you be doing?”
“I’ve got to whip this code of laws into shape. I’ve got to think about long-range planning. Heavens, Rod, I ve got a thousand things on my mind. I can’t stop to settle a quarrel just because some kid has been teasing the cook. Shorty was right; we can’t wait. When I give an order I want a law to back it and not have to take lip from some young snotty. But I can’t do it all, I need help.”
Cowper put it on grounds impossible to refuse, nevertheless … “What about Kilroy?”
“Eh? Confound it, Rod, you can’t ask me to kick out somebody else to make room for you.”
“I’m not asking for the job!” Rod hesitated. He needed to say that it was a matter of stubborn pride to him to back up the man who had beaten him, it was that more than any public- spiritedness. He could not phrase it, but he did know that Cowper and Kilroy were not the same case.
“I won’t pull Kilroy’s chestnuts out of the fire. Grant, I’ll stooge for you; you were elected. But I won’t stooge for a stooge.” “Rod, be reasonable! If you got an order from Roy, it would be my order. He would simply be carrying it out.”
Rod stood up. “No deal.”
Cowper got angrily to his feet and strode away.
There was no meeting that night, for the first time. Rod was about to visit the Baxters when Cowper called him aside. “You win. I’ve made Roy chief hunter.” “Huh?”
“You take over as City Manager, or Queen of the May, or whatever you like. Nobody has set the night watch. So get busy.” “Wait a minute! I never said I would take the job.”
“You made it plain that the only thing in your way was Roy. Okay, you get your orders directly from me.
Rod hesitated. Cowper looked at him scornfully and said, “So you can’t co-operate even when you have it all your own way?” “Not that, but-“
“No ‘buts.’ Do you take the job? Astraight answer: yes, or no. “Uh… yes.
“Okay.” Cowper frowned and added, “I almost wish you had turned it down.” “That makes two of us.”
Rod started to set the guard and found that every boy he approached was convinced that he had had more than his share of watches. Since the exterior security committee had kept no records- indeed, had had no way to- it was impossible to find out who was right and who was shirking. “Stow it!” he told one. “Starting tomorrow we’ll have an alphabetical list, straight rotation. I’ll post it even if we have to scratch it on a rock.” He began to realize that there was truth in what Grant had said about the difficulty of getting along without writing paper.
“Why don’t you put your pal Baxter on watch?”
“Because the Mayor gave him two weeks honeymoon, as you know. Shut up the guff. Charlie will be your relief; make sure you know where he sleeps.” “I think I’ll get married. I could use two weeks of loafing.”
“I’ll give you five to one you can’t find a girl that far out of her mind. You’re on from midnight to two.”
Most of them accepted the inevitable once they were assured of a square deal in the future, but Peewee Schneider, barely sixteen and youngest in the community, stood on his “rights”- he had stood a watch the night before, he did not rate another for at least three nights, and nobody could most colorfully make him.
Rod told Peewee that he would either stand his watch, or Rod would slap his ears loose- and then he would still stand his watch. To which he added that if he heard Peewee use that sort of language around camp again he would wash Peewee’s mouth out with soap.
Schneider shifted the argument. “Yah! Where are you going to find soap?”
“Until we get some, I’ll use sand. You spread that word, Peewee: no more rough language around camp. We’re going to be civilized if it kills us. Four to six, then, and show Kenny where you sleep.” As he left Rod made a mental note that they should collect wood ashes and fat; while he had only a vague idea of how to make soap probably someone knew how… and soap was needed for other purposes than curbing foul-mouthed pip squeaks. He had felt a yearning lately to be able to stand upwind of himself … he had long ago thrown away his socks.
Rod got little sleep. Everytime he woke he got up and inspected the guard, and twice he was awakened by watchmen who thought they saw something prowling outside the circle of firelight. Rod was not sure, although it did seem once that he could make out a large, long shape drifting past in the darkness. He stayed up a while each time, another gun in case the prowler risked the wall or the fires in the gap. He felt great temptation to shoot at the prowling shadows, but suppressed it. To carry the attack to the enemy would be to squander their scanty ammunition without making a dent in the dangerous beasts around them. There were prowlers every night; they had to live with it.
He was tired and cranky the next morning and wanted to slip away after breakfast and grab a nap in the cave. He had not slept after four in the morning, but had checked on Peewee Schneider at frequent intervals. But there was too much to do; he promised himself a nap later and sought out Cowper instead. “Two or three things on my mind, Grant.”
“Spill it.”
“Any reason not to put girls on watch?” “Eh? I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why not? These girls don’t scream at a mouse. Everyone of them stayed alive by her own efforts at least a month before she joined up here. Ever seen Caroline in action?” “Mmm … no.
“You should. It’s a treat. Sudden death in both hands, and eyes in the back of her head. If she were on watch, I would sleep easy. How many men do we have now?” “Uh, twenty-seven, with the three that came in yesterday.”
“All right, out of twenty-seven who doesn’t stand watch?” “Why, everybody takes his turn.”
“You?”
“Eh? Isn’t that carrying it pretty far? I don’t expect you to take a watch; you run it and check on the others.” “That’s two off. Roy Kilroy?”
“Uh, look, Rod, you had better figure that he is a department head as chief hunter and therefore exempt. You know why- no use looking for trouble.” “I know, all right. Bob Baxter is off duty, too.”
“Until next week.”
“But this is this week. The committee cut the watch down to one at a time; I’m going to boost it to two again. Besides that I want a sergeant of the guard each night. He will be on all night and sleep all next day … then I don’t want to put him on for a couple of days. You see where that leaves me? I need twelve watchstanders every night; I have less than twenty to draw from.”
Cowper looked worried. “The committee didn’t think we had to have more than one guard at a time.”
“Committee be hanged!” Rod scratched his scars and thought about shapes in the dark. “Do you want me to run this the way I think it has to be run? Or shall I just go through the motions?”
“Well . .
“One man alone either gets jittery and starts seeing shadows- or he dopes off and is useless. I had to wake one last night- I won’t tell you who; I scared him out of his pants; he won’t do it again. I say we need a real guard, strong enough in case of trouble to handle things while the camp has time to wake up. But if you want it your way, why not relieve me and put somebody else in?”
“No, no, you keep it. Do what you think necessary.”
“Okay, I’m putting the girls on. Bob and Carmen, too, And you.” “Huh?”
“And me. And Roy Kilroy. Everybody. That’s the only way you will get people to serve without griping; that way you will convince them that it is serious, a first obligation, even ahead of hunting.”
Cowper picked at a hangnail, “Do you honestly think I should stand watch? And you?”
“I do. It would boost morale seven hundred percent. Besides that, it would be a good thing, uh, politically.” Cowper glanced up, did not smile. “You’ve convinced me. Let me know when it’s my turn.”
“Another thing. Last night there was barely wood to keep two fires going.” “Your problem. Use anybody not on the day’s hunting or cooking details.”
“I will. You’ll hear some beefs. Boss, those were minor items; now I come to the major one. Last night I took a fresh look at this spot. I don’t like it, not as a permanent camp. We’ve been lucky.”
“Eh? Why?”
“This place is almost undefendable. We’ve got a stretch over fifty meters long between shale and water on the upstream side. Downstream isn’t bad, because we build a fire in the bottleneck. But upstream we have walled off less than half and we need a lot more stakes behind the wall. Look,” Rod added, pointing, “you could drive an army through there- and last night I had only two little bitty fires. We ought to finish that wall.”
“We will.”
“But we ought to make a real drive to find a better place. This is makeshift at best. Before you took over I as trying to find more caves- but I didn’t have time to explore very far. Ever been to Mesa Verde?”
“In Colorado? No.”
“Cliff dwellings, you’ve seen pictures. Maybe somewhere up or down stream-more likely down- we will find pockets like those at Mesa Verde where we can build homes for the whole colony. You ought to send a team out for two weeks or more, searching. I volunteer for it.”
“Maybe. But you can’t go; I need you.”
“In a week I’ll have this guard duty lined up so that it will run itself. Bob Baxter can relieve me; they respect him… .. .” He thought for a moment. Jackie? Jimmy? “I’ll team with Carol.” “Rod, I told you I want you here. But are you and Caroline planning to marry?”
“Huh? What gave you that notion?”
“Then you can’t team with her in any case. We are trying to re-introduce amenities around here.” “Now see here, Cowper!”
“Forget it.”
“Unh … all right. But the first thing- the very first- is to finish that wall. I want to put everybody to work nght away.” “Mmm …” Cowper said. “I’m sorry. You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because we are going to build a house today. Bill Kennedy and Sue Briggs are getting married tonight.” “Huh? I hadn’t heard.”
“I guess you are the first to hear. They told me about it privately, at breakfast.”
Rod was not surprised, as Bill and Sue preferred each other’s company. “Look, do they have to get married to-night? That wall is urgent, Grant; I’m telling you.” “Don’t be so intense, Rod. You can get along a night or two with bigger fires. Remember, there are human values more important than material values.”
6. The Beach of Bones
“July 29- Bill and Sue got married tonight. Hizzoner never looked lovelier. He made a mighty pretty service out of it- I cried and so did the other girls. If that boy could do the way he can talk! I played Mendelssohn’s Wedding March on my harmonica with tears running down my nose and gumming up the reeds- that’s a touch I wanted to put into darling Carmen’s wedding but I couldn’t resist being bridesmaid. The groom got stuck carrying his lady fair over the threshold of their ‘house’- if I may call it that- and had to put her down and shove her in ahead of him. The ceiling is lower than it ought to be which is why he got stuck, because we ran out of rock and Roddie raised Cain when we started to use part of the wall. Hizzoner was leading the assault on the wall and both of them got red in the face and shouted at each other. But Hizzoner backed down after Roddie got him aside and said something- Bill was pretty sore at Roddie but Bob sweet-talked him and offered to swap houses and Roddie promised Bill that we would take the roof off and bring the walls up higher as soon as the wall is finished. That might not be as soon as he thinks, though- usable rock is getting hard to find. I’ve broken all my nails trying to pry out pieces we could use. But I agree with Roddie that we ought to finish that wall and I sleep a lot sounder now that he is running the watch and I’ll sleep sounder yet when that wall is tight and the pincushion back of it finished. Of course we girls sleep down at the safe end but who wants to wake up and find a couple of our boys missing? It is not as if we had them to spare, bless their silly little hearts. Nothing like a man around the house, Mother always said, to give a home that lived-in look.
“July 30- I’m not going to write in this unless something happens. Hizzoner talks about making papyrus like the Egyptians but I’ll believe it when I see it.
“Aug 5- I was sergeant of the guard last night and Roddie was awake practically all night. I turned in after breakfast and slept until late afternoon- when I woke up there was Roddie, red- eyed and cross, yelling for more rocks and more firewood. Sometimes Roddie is a little hard to take.
“Aug 9- the salt lick Alice found is closer than the one Shorty found last week, but not as good.
“Aug 14- Jackie finally made up her mind to marry Jim and I think Roddie is flabbergasted- but I could have told him a month ago. Roddie is stupid about such things. I see another house & wall crisis coming and Roddie will get a split personality because he will want Jimmy and Jacqueline to have a house right away and the only decent stone within reach is built into the wall.
“Aug 15- Jimmy and Jackie, Agnes and Curt, were married today in a beautiful double ceremony. The Throxtons have the Baxter house temporarily and the Pulvermachers have the Kennedy’s doll house while we partition the cave into two sets of married quarters and a storeroom.
“Sep 1- the roots I dug up didn’t poison me, so I served a mess of them tonight. The shield from power pack of that Thunderbolt gun we salvaged- Johann’s, it must have been- made a big enough boiler to cook a little helping for everybody. The taste was odd, maybe because Agnes had been making soap in it- it wasn’t very good soap, either. I’m going to call these things yams because they look like yams although they taste more like parsnips. There are a lot of them around. Tomorrow I m going to try boiling them with greens, a strip of side ineat, and plenty of salt. Yum, yum! I’m going to bake them in ashes, too.
“Sep 16- Chad Ames and Dick Burke showed up with their tails tucked in; Hizzoner got soft-hearted and let em stay. They say Jock McGowan is crazy. I can believe it.
“Sep 28- Philip Schneider died today, hunting. Roy carried him in, but he was badly clawed and lost a lot of blood and was D.O.A. Roy resigned as boss hunter and Hizzoner appointed Cliff. Roy is broken up about it but nobody blames him. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.
“Oct 7- I’ve decided to marry M.
“Oct 10- seems I was mistaken- M. is going to marry Margery Chung. Well, they are nice kids and if we ever get out of this I’ll be glad I’m single since I want to buck for a commission in the Amazons. Note: be a little more standoffish, Caroline. Well, try!
“Oct 20- Carmen???? “Oct 21- Yes.
“Nov 1- well Glory be! I’m the new City Manager. Little Carol, the girl with two left feet Just a couple of weeks, temporary and acting while Roddie is away, but say ‘sir’ when you speak to me. Hizzoner finally let Roddie make the down-river survey he has been yipping about, accompanying it with a slough of advice and injunctions that Roddie will pay no attention to once he is out of sight-if I know Roddie. It’s a two-man team and Roddie picked Roy as his teamer. They left this morning.
“Nov 5- being City Manager is not all marshmallow sundae. I wish Roddie would get back.
“Nov 11 – Hizzoner wants me to copy off in here the ‘report of the artifacts committee’! Mick Mahmud has been keeping it in his head which strikes me as a good place. But Hizzoner has been very jumpy since Roddie and Roy left, so I guess I will humor him- here it is:
“12 spare knives (besides one each for everybody)
“53 firearms and guns of other sorts- but only about half of them with even one charge left. “6 Testaments
“2 Peace of the Flame “1 Koran
“1 Book of Mormon
“1 Oxford Book of English Verse, Centennial Edition “1 steel bow and 3 hunting arrows
“1 boiler made from a wave shield and quite a bit of metal and plastic junk (worth its weight in uranium, I admit) from the Thunderbolt Jackie salvaged. “1 stew pan (Carmen’s)
“1 pack playing cards with the nine of hearts missing
“13 matches, any number of pocket flamers no longer working, and 27 burning glasses “1 small hand ax
“565 meters climbing line, some of it chopped up for other uses “91 fishhooks (and no fish fit to eat!)
“61 pocket compasses, some of them broken
“19 watches that still run (4 of them adjusted to our day) “2 bars of scented soap that Theo has been hoarding “2 boxes Kwik-Kure and part of a box of Tan-Fast
“Several kilos of oddments that I suppose we will find a use for but I won’t list. Mick has a mind like a pack rat.
“Lots of things we have made and can make more of- pots, bows and arrows, hide scrapers, a stone-age mortar & pestle we can grind seeds on if you don’t mind grit in your teeth, etc. Hizzoner says the Oxford Verse is the most valuable thing we have and I agree, but not for his reasons. He wants me to cover all the margins with shorthand, recording all special knowledge that any of us have- everything from math to pig-raising. Cliff says go ahead as long as we don’t deface the verses. I don’t see when I’m going to find time. I’ve hardly been out of the settlement since Roddie left and sleep is something I just hear about.
“Nov 13- only two more days. ‘For this relief, much thanks…’
“Nov 16- I didn’t think they would be on time.
“Nov 21- We finally adopted our constitution and basic code today, the first town meeting we’ve had in weeks. It covers the flyleaves of two Testaments, Bob’s and Georgia’s. If anybody wants to refer to it, which I doubt, that’s where to look.
“Nov 29- Jimmy says old Rod is too tough to kill. I hope he’s right. Why, oh, why didn’t I twist Hizzoner’s arm and make him let me go? “Dec 15- there’s no use kidding ourselves any longer.
“Dec 21- The Throxtons and Baxters and myself and Grant gathered privately in the Baxter house tonight and Grant recited the service for the dead. Bob said a prayer for both of them and then we sat quietly for a long time, Quaker fashion. Roddie always reminded me of my brother Rickie, so I privately asked Mother to take care of him, and Roy, too- Mother had a lap big enough for three, any time.
“Grant hasn’t made a public announcement; officially they are just ‘overdue.’ “Dec 25- Christmas”
Rod and Roy traveled light and fast downstream, taking turns leading and covering. Each carried a few kilos of salt meat but they expected to eat off the land. In addition to game they now knew of many edible fruits and berries and nuts; the forest was a free cafeteria to those who knew it. They carried no water since they expected to follow the stream. But they continued to treat the water with respect; in addition to ichthyosaurs that sometimes pulled down a drinking buck there were bloodthirsty little fish that took very small bites- but they traveled in schools and could strip an animal to bones in minutes.”
Rod carried both Lady Macbeth and Colonel Bowie; Roy Kilroy carried his Occam’s Razor and a knife borrowed from Carmen Baxter. Roy had a climbing rope wrapped around his waist. Each had a hand gun strapped to his hip but these were for extremity; one gun had only three charges. But Roy carried Jacqueline Throxton’s air pistol, with freshly envenomed darts; they expected it to save hours of hunting, save time for travel.
Three days downstream they found a small cave, found living in it a forlorn colony of five girls. They powwowed, then headed on down as the girls started upstream to find the settlement. The girls had told them of a place farther down where the creek could be crossed. They found it, a wide rocky shallows with natural stepping stones … then wasted two days on the far side before crossing back.
By the seventh morning they had found no cave other than one the girls had occupied. Rod said to Roy, “Today makes a week. Grant said to be back in two weeks.” “That’s what the man said. Yes, sir!”
“No results.” “Nope. None.”
“We ought to start back.”
Roy did not answer. Rod said querulously, “Well, what do you think?”
Kilroy was lying down, watching the local equivalent of an ant. He seemed in no hurry to do anything else. Finally he answered, “Rod, you are bossing this party. Upstream, downstream- just tell me.”
“Oh, go soak your head.”
“On the other hand, a bush lawyer like Shorty might question Grant’s authority to tell us to return at a given time. He might use words like ‘free citizen’ and ‘sovereign autonomy.’ Maybe he’s got something- this neighborhood looks awfully far ‘West of the Pecos.’”
“Well… we could stretch it a day, at least?. We won’t be taking that side trip going back.” “Obviously. Now, if I were leading the party- but I’m not.”
“Cut the double talk! I asked for advice.”
“Well, I say we are here to find caves, not to keep a schedule.” Rod quit frowning. “Up off your belly. Let’s go.”
They headed downstream.
The terrain changed from forest valley to canyon country as the stream cut through a plateau. Game became harder to find and they used some of their salt meat. Two days later they came to the first of a series of bluffs carved eons earlier into convolutions, pockets, blank dark eyes. “This looks like it.”
“Yes,” agreed Roy. He looked around. “It might be even better farther down.” “It might be.”
They went on.
In time the stream widened out, there were no more caves, and the canyons gave way to a broad savannah, treeless except along the banks of the river. Rod sniffed. “I smell salt.” “You ought to. There’s ocean over there somewhere.”
“I don’t think so.” They went on.
They avoided the high grass, kept always near the trees. The colonists had listed more than a dozen predators large enough to endanger a man, from a leonine creature twice as long as the biggest African lion down to a vicious little scaly thing which was dangerous if cornered. It was generally agreed that the leonine monster was the “stobor” they had been warned against, although a minority favored a smaller carnivore which was faster, trickier, and more likely to attack a man.
One carnivore was not considered for the honor. It was no larger than a jack rabbit, had an oversize head, a big jaw, front legs larger than hind, and no tail. It was known as “dopy joe” from the silly golliwog expression it had and its clumsy, slow movements when disturbed. It was believed to live by waiting at burrows of field rodents for supper to come out. Its skin cured readily and made a good water bag. Grassy fields such as this savannah often were thick with them.
They camped in a grove of trees by the water. Rod said, “Shall I waste a match, or do it the hard way?” “Suit yourself. I’ll knock over something for dinner.”
“Watch yourself. Don’t go into the grass.
“I’ll work the edges. Cautious Kilroy they call me, around the insurance companies.
Rod counted his three matches, hoping there would be four, then started making fire by friction. He had just succeeded, delayed by moss that was not as dry as it should have been, when Roy returned and dropped a small carcass. “The durnedest thing happened.”
The kill was a dopy joe; Rod looked at it with distaste. “Was that the best you could do? They taste like kerosene.” “Wait till I tell you. I wasn’t hunting him; he was hunting me.”
“Don’t kid me!”
“Truth. I had to kill him to keep him from snapping my ankles. So I brought him in.
Rod looked at the small creature. “Never heard the like. Must be insanity in his family.”
“Probably.” Roy started skinning it.
Next morning they reached the sea, a glassy body untouched by tide, unruffled by wind. It was extremely briny and its shore was crusted with salt They concluded that it was probably a dead sea, not a true ocean. But their attention was not held by the body of water. Stretching away along the shore apparently to the horizon were millions on heaping millions of whitened bones. Rod stared. “Where did they all come from?”
Roy whistled softly. “Search me. But if we could sell them at five pence a metric ton, we’d be millionaires.” “Billionaires, you mean.
“Let’s not be fussy.” They walked out along the beach, forgetting to be cautious, held by the amazing sight. There were ancient bones, cracked by sun and sea, new bones with gristle clinging, big bones of the giant antelope the colonists never hunted, tiny bones of little buck no larger than terriers, bones without number of all sorts. But there were no carcasses.
They inspected the shore for a couple of kilometers, awed by the mystery. When they turned they knew that they were turning back not just to camp but to head home. This was as far as they could go.
On the trip out they had not explored the caves. On their way back Rod decided that they should try to pick the best place for the colony, figuring game, water supply, and most importantly, shelter and ease of defense.
They were searching a series of arched galleries water-carved in sandstone cliff. The shelf of the lowest gallery was six or seven meters above the sloping stand of soil below. The canyon dropped rapidly here; Rod could visualize a flume from upstream, bringing running water right to the caves… not right away, but when they had time to devise tools and cope with the problems. Someday, someday- but in the meantime here was plenty of room for the colony in a spot which almost defended itself. Not to mention, he added, being in out of the rain. Roy was the better Alpinist; he inched up, flat to the rock, reached the shelf and threw down his line to Rod- snaked him up quickly. Rod got an arm over the edge, scrambled to his knees, stood up- and gasped, “What the deuce!”
“That,” said Roy, “is why I kept quiet. I thought you would think I was crazy.
“I think we both are.” Rod stared around. Filling the depth of the gallery, not seen from below, was terrace on terrace of cliff dwellings.
They were not inhabited, nor had they ever been by men. Openings which must have been doors were no higher than a man’s knee, not wide enough for shoulders. But it was clear that they were dwellings, not merely formations carved by water. There were series of rooms arranged in half a dozen low stories from floor to ceiling of the gallery. The material was a concrete of dried mud, an adobe, used with wood.
But there was nothing to suggest what had built them.
Roy started to stick his head into an opening; Rod shouted, “Hey! Don’t do that!” “Why not? It’s abandoned.”
“You don’t know what might be inside. Snakes, maybe.” “There are no snakes. Nobody’s ever seen one.
“No … but take it easy.”
“I wish I had a torch light.”
“I wish I had eight beautiful dancing girls and a Cadillac copter. Be careful. I don’t want to walk back alone.”
They lunched in the gallery and considered the matter. “Of course they were intelligent,” Roy declared. “We may find them elsewhere. Maybe really civilized now- these look like ancient ruins.”
“Not necessarily intelligent,” Rod argued. “Bees make more complicated homes.” “Bees don’t combine mud and wood the way these people did. Look at that lintel.” “Birds do. I’ll concede that they were bird-brained, no more.
“Rod, you won’t look at the evidence.”
“Where are their artifacts? Show me one ash tray marked ‘Made in Jersey City.’” “I might find some if you weren’t so jumpy.”
“All in time. Anyhow, the fact that they found it safe shows that we can live here.” “Maybe. What killed them? Or why did they go away?”
They searched two galleries after lunch, found more dwellings. The dwellers had apparently formed a very large community. The fourth gallery they explored was almost empty, containing a beginning of a hive in one corner. Rod looked it over. “We can use this. If may not
be the best, but we can move the gang in and then find the best at our leisure.” “We’re heading back?”
“Uh, in the morning. This is a good place to sleep and tomorrow we’ll travel from ‘can’ to ‘can’t’- I wonder what’s up there?” Rod was looking at a secondary shelf inside the main arch. Roy eyed it. “Ill let you know in a moment.”
“Don’t bother. It’s almost straight up. We’ll build ladders for spots like that.” “My mother was a human fly, my father was a mountain goat. Watch me.
The shelf was not much higher than his head. Roy had a hand over- when a piece of rock crumbled away. He did not fall far. Rod ran to him. “You all right, boy?”
Roy grunted, “I guess so,” then started to get up. He yelped. “What’s the matter?”
“My right leg. I think… ow! I think it’s broken.” Rod examined the break, then went down to cut splints. With a piece of the line Roy carried, used economically, for he needed most of it as a ladder, he bound the leg, padding it with leaves. It was a simple break of the tibia, with no danger of infection.
They argued the whole time. “Of course you will,” Roy was saying. “Leave me a fresh kill and what salt meat there is. You can figure some way to leave water.” “Come back and find your chawed bones!”
“Not at all. Nothing can get at me. If you hustle, you can make it in three days.”
“Four, or five more likely. Six days to lead a party back. Then you want to go back in a stretcher? How would you like to be helpless when a stobor jumps us?” “But I wouldn’t go back. The gang would be moving down here.”
“Suppose they do? Eleven days, more likely twelve- Roy, you didn’t just bang your shin; you banged your head, too.”
The stay in the gallery while Roy’s leg repaired was not difficult nor dangerous; it was merely tedious. Rod would have liked to explore all the caves, but the first time he was away longer than Roy thought necessary to make a kill Rod returned to find his patient almost hysterical. He had let his imagination run away, visioning Rod as dead and thinking about his own death, helpless, while he starved or died of thirst. After that Rod left him only to gather food and water. The gallery was safe from all dangers; no watch was necessary, fire was needed only for cooking. The weather was getting warmer and the daily rains dropped off.
They discussed everything from girls to what the colony needed, what could have caused the disaster that had stranded them, what they would have to eat if they could have what they wanted, and back to girls again. They did not discuss the possibility of rescue; they took it for granted that they were there to stay. They slept much of the time and often did nothing, in animal-like torpor.
Roy wanted to start back as soon as Rod removed the splints, but it took him only seconds to discover that he no longer knew how to walk. He exercised for days, then grew sulky when Rod still insisted that he was not able to travel; the accumulated irritations of invalidism spewed out in the only quarrel they had on the trip.
Rod grew as angry as he was, threw Roy’s climbing
rope at him and shouted, “Go ahead! See how far you get on that gimp leg!”
Five minutes later Rod was arranging a sling, half dragging Roy, white and trembling and thoroughly subdued, back up onto the shelf. Thereafter they spent ten days getting Roy’s muscles into shape, then started back.
Shorty Dumont was the first one they ran into as they approached the settlement. His jaw dropped and he looked scared, then he ran to greet them, ran back to alert those in camp. “Hey, everybody! They’re back!”
Caroline heard the shout, outdistanced the others in great flying leaps, kissed and hugged them both. “Hi, Carol,” Rod said. “What are you bawling about?” “Oh, Roddie, you bad, bad boy!”
7. “It Won’t Work, Rod”
In the midst of jubilation Rod had time to notice many changes. There were more than a dozen new buildings, including two long shedlike affairs of bamboo and mud. One new hut was of sunbaked brick; it had windows. Where the cooking fire had been was a barbecue pit and by it a Dutch oven. Near it a stream of water spilled out of bamboo pipe, splashed through a rawhide net, fell into a rock bowl, and was led away to the creek … he hardly knew whether to be pleased or irked at this anticipation of his own notion.
He caught impressions piecemeal, as their triumphal entry was interrupted by hugs, kisses; and bone-jarring slaps on the back, combined with questions piled on questions. “No, no trouble- except that Roy got mad and busted his leg … yeah, sure, we found what we went after; wait till you see … no … yes … Jackie! … Hi, Bob!- it’s good to see you, too, boy! Where’s Carmen… Hi, Grant!”
Cowper was grinning widely, white teeth splitting his beard. Rod noticed with great surprise that the man looked old- why, shucks, Grant wasn’t more than twenty-two, twenty-three at the most. Where did he pick up those lines?
“Rod, old boy! I don’t know whether to have you two thrown in the hoosegow or decorate your brows with laurel.” “We got held up.”
“So it seems. Well, there is more rejoicing for the strayed lamb than for the ninety and nine. Come on up to the city hall.” “The what?”
Cowper looked sheepish. “They call it that, so I do. Better than ‘Number Ten, Downing Street’ which it started off with. It’s just the hut where I sleep- it doesn’t belong to me,” he added. “When they elect somebody else, I’ll sleep in bachelor hall.” Grant led them toward a little building apart from the others and facing the cooking area.
The wall was gone.
Rod suddenly realized what looked strange about the upstream end of the settlement; the wall was gone completely and in its place was a thornbush barricade. He opened his mouth to make a savage comment- then realized that it really did not matter. Why kick up a row when the colony would be moving to the canyon of the Dwellers? They would never need walls again; they would be up high at night, with their ladders pulled up after them. He picked another subject.
“Grant, how in the world did you guys get the inner partitions out of those bamboo pipes?”
“Eh? Nothing to it. You tie a knife with rawhide to a thinner bamboo pole, then reach in and whittle. All it takes is patience. Waxie worked it out. But you haven’t seen anything yet. We’re going to have iron.
“Huh?”
“We’ve got ore; now we are experimenting. But I do wish we could locate a seam of coal. Say, you didn’t spot any, did you?”
Dinner was a feast, a luau, a celebration to make the weddings look pale. Rod was given a real plate to eat on- unglazed, lopsided, ungraceful, but a plate. As he took out Colonel Bowie, Margery Chung Kinksi put a wooden spoon in his hand. “We don’t have enough to go around, but the guests of honor rate them tonight.” Rod looked at it curiously. It felt odd in his hand.
Dinner consisted of boiled greens, some root vegetables new to him, and a properly baked haunch served in thin slices. Roy and Rod were served little unleavened cakes like tortillas. No one else had them, but Rod decided that it was polite not to comment on that. Instead he made a fuss over eating bread again.
Margery dimpled. “We’ll have plenty of bread some day. Maybe next year.
There were tart little fruits for dessert, plus a bland, tasteless sort which resembled a dwarf banana with seeds. Rod ate too much.
Grant called them to order and announced that he was going to ask the travelers to tell what they had experienced. “Let them get it all told- then they won’t have to tell it seventy times over. Come on, Rod. Let’s see your ugly face.”
“Aw, let Roy. He talks better than I do.”
“Take turns. When your voice wears out, Roy can take over.
Between them they told it all, interrupting and supplementing each other. The colonists were awed by the beach of a billion bones, still more interested in the ruins of the Dwellers. “Rod and I are still arguing,” Roy told them. “I say that it was a civilization. He says that it could be just instinct. He’s crazy with the heat; the Dwellers were people. Not humans, of course, but people.”
“Then where are they now?”
Roy shrugged. “Where are the Selenites, Dora? What became of the Mithrans?”
“Roy is a romanticist,” Rod objected. “But you’ll be able to form your own opinions when we get there.” “That’s right, Rod,” Roy agreed.
“That covers everything,” Rod went on. “The rest was just waiting while Roy’s leg healed. But it brings up the main subject. How quickly can we move? Grant, is there any reason not to start at once? Shouldn’t we break camp tomorrow and start trekking? I’ve been studying it- how to make the move, I mean- and I would say to send out an advance party at daybreak. Roy or I can lead it. We go downstream an easy day’s journey, pick a spot, make a kill, and have fire and food ready when the rest arrive. We do it again the next day. I think we can be safe and snug in the caves in five days.”
“Dibs on the advance party!” “Me, too!”
There were other shouts but Rod could not help but realize that the response was not what he had expected. Jimmy did not volunteer and Caroline merely looked thoughtful. The Baxters he could not see; they were in shadow.
He turned to Cowper. “Well, Grant? Do you have a better idea?”
“Rod,” Grant said slowly, “your plan is okay … but you’ve missed a point.” “Why do you assume that we are going to move?”
“Huh? Why, that’s what we were sent for! To find a better place to live. We found it- you could hold those caves against an army. What’s the hitch? Of course we move!”
Cowper examined his nails. “Rod, don’t get sore. I don’t see it and I doubt if other people do. I’m not saying the spot you and Roy found is not good. It may be better than here- the way this place used to be. But we are doing all right here- and we’ve got a lot of time and effort invested. Why move?”
“Why, I told you. The caves are safe, completely safe. This spot is exposed … it’s dangerous.”
“Maybe. Rod, in the whole time we’ve been here, nobody has been hurt inside camp. We’ll put it to a vote, but you can’t expect us to abandon our houses and everything we have worked for to avoid a danger that may be imaginary.”
“Imaginary? Do you think that a stobor couldn’t jump that crummy barricade?” Rod demanded, pointing.
“I think a stobor would get a chest full of pointed stakes if he tried it,” Grant answered soberly. “That crummy barricade’ is a highly efficient defense. Take a better look in the morning.” “Where we were you wouldn’t need it. You wouldn’t need a night watch. Shucks, you wouldn’t need houses. Those caves are better than the best house here!”
“Probably. But, Rod, you haven’t seen all we’ve done, how much we would have to abandon. Let’s look it over in the daylight, fellow, and then talk.”
“Well … no, Grant, there is only one issue: the caves are safe; this place isn’t. I call for a vote.” “Easy now. This isn’t a town meeting. It’s a party in your honor. Let’s not spoil it.”
“Well … I’m sorry. But we’re all here; let’s vote.”
“No.” Cowper stood up. “There will be a town meeting on Friday as usual. Goodnight, Rod. Goodnight, Roy. We’re awfully glad you’re back. Goodnight all.”
The party gradually fell apart. Only a few of the younger boys seemed to want to discuss the proposed move. Bob Baxter came over, put a hand on Rod and said, “See you in the morning, Rod. Bless you.” He left before Rod could get away from a boy who was talking to him.
Jimmy Throxton stayed, as did Caroline. When he got the chance Rod said, Jimmy? Where do you stand?”
“Me? You know me, pal. Look, I sent Jackie to bed; she wasn’t feeling well. But she told me to tell you that we were back of you a hundred percent, always.” “Thanks. I feel better.”
“See you in the morning? I want to check on Jackie.” “Sure. Sleep tight.”
He was finally left with Caroline. “Roddie? Want to inspect the guard with me? You’ll do it after tonight, but we figured you could use a night with no worries. “Wait a minute. Carol… you’ve been acting funny.”
“Me? Why, Roddie!”
“Well, maybe not. What do you think of the move? I didn’t hear you pitching in.”
She looked away. “Roddie,” she said, “if it was just me, I’d say start tomorrow. I’d be on the advance party.”
“Good! What’s got into these people? Grant has them buffaloed but I can’t see why.” He scratched his head. “I’m tempted to make up my own party- you, me, Jimmy and Jack, the Baxters, Roy, the few who were rarin’ to go tonight, and anybody else with sense enough to pound sand.”
She sighed. “It won’t work, Roddie.” “Huh? Why not?”
“I’ll go. Some of the youngsters would go for the fun of it. Jimmy and Jack would go if you insisted… but they would beg off if you made it easy for them. The Baxters should not and I doubt if Bob would consent. Carmen isn’t really up to such a trip.”
8. Unkillable
The matter never came to a vote. Long before Friday Rod knew how a vote would go- about fifty against him, less than half that for him, with his friends voting with him through loyalty rather than conviction or possibly against him in a showdown.
He made an appeal in private to Cowper. “Grant, you’ve got me licked. Even Roy is sticking with you now. But you could swing them around.”
“I doubt it. What you don’t see, Rod, is that we have taken root. You may have found a better place … but it’s too late to change. After all, you picked this spot.” “Not exactly, it … well, it just sort of happened.”
“Lots of things in life just sort of happen. You make the best of them.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do! Grant, admitted that the move is hard; we could manage it. Set up way stations with easy jumps, send our biggest huskies back for what we don’t want to abandon. Shucks, we could move a person on a litter if we had to- using enough guards.”
“If the town votes it, I’ll be for it. But I won’t try to argue them into it. Look, Rod, you’ve got this fixed idea that this spot is dangerously exposed. The facts don’t support you. On the other hand see what we have. Running water from upstream, waste disposal downstream, quarters comfortable and adequate for the climate. Salt- do you have salt there?”
“We didn’t look for it-but it would be easy to bring it from the seashore.”
“We’ve got it closer here. We’ve got prospects of metal. You haven’t seen that ore outcropping yet, have you? We’re better equipped every day; our standard of living is going up. We have a colony nobody need be ashamed of and we did it with bare hands; we were never meant to be a colony. Why throw up what we have gained to squat in caves like savages?”
Rod sighed. “Grant, this bank may be flooded in the rainy season- aside from its poor protection now.”
“It doesn’t look it to me, but if so, we’ll see it in time. Right now we are going into the dry season. So let’s talk it over a few months from now.
Rod gave up. He refused to resume as “City Manager” nor would Caroline keep it when Rod turned it down. Bill Kennedy was appointed and Rod went to work under Cliff as a hunter, slept in the big shed upstream with the bachelors, and took his turn at night watch. The watch had been reduced to one man, whose duty was simply to tend fires. There was talk of cutting out the night fires, as fuel was no longer easy to find nearby and many seemed satisfied that the thorn barrier was enough.
Rod kept his mouth shut and stayed alert at night.
Game continued to be plentiful but became skittish. Buck did not come out of cover the way they had in rainy weather; it was necessary to search and drive them out. Carnivores seemed to have become scarcer. But the first real indication of peculiar seasonal habits of native fauna came from a very minor carnivore. Mick Mahmud returned to camp with a badly chewed foot; Bob Baxter patched him up and asked about it.
“You wouldn’t believe it.” “Try me.”
“Well, it was just a dopy joe. I paid no attention to it, of course. Next thing I knew I was flat on my back and trying to shake it loose. He did all that to me before I got a knife into him. Then I had to cut his jaws loose.”
“Lucky you didn’t bleed to death.”
When Rod heard Mick’s story, he told Roy. Having had one experience with a dopy joe turned aggressive, Roy took it seriously and had Cliff warn all hands to watch out; they seemed to have turned nasty.
Three days later the migration of animals started.
At first it was just a drifting which appeared aimless except that it was always downstream. Animals had long since ceased to use the watering place above the settlement and buck rarely appeared in the little valley; now they began drifting into it, would find themselves baffled by the thorn fence, and would scramble out. Nor was it confined to antelope types; wingless birds with great “false faces,” rodents, rooters, types nameless to humans, all joined the migration. One of the monstrous leonine predators they called stobor approached the barricade in broad daylight, looked at it, lashed his tail, then clawed his way up the bluff and headed downstream again.
Cliff called off his hunting parties; there was no need to hunt when game walked into camp.
Rod found himself more edgy than usual that night as it grew dark. He left his seat near the barbecue pit and went over to Jimmy and Jacqueline. “What’s the matter with this place? It’s spooky.”
Jimmy twitched his shoulders. “I feel it. Maybe it’s the funny way the animals are acting. Say, did you hear they killed a joe inside camp?” “I know what it is,” Jacqueline said suddenly. “No ‘Grand Opera.’”
“Grand Opera” was Jimmy’s name for the creatures with the awful noises, the ones which had turned Rod’s first night into a siege of terror. They serenaded every evening for the first hour of darkness. Rod’s mind had long since blanked them out, heeded them no more than chorusing cicadas. He had not consciously heard them for weeks.
Now they failed to wail on time; it upset him.
He grinned sheepishly. “That’s it, Jack. Funny how you get used to a thing. Do you suppose they are on strike?” “More likely a death in the family,” Jimmy answered. “They’ll be back in voice tomorrow.”
Rod had trouble getting to sleep. When the night watch gave an alarm he was up and out of bachelors’ barracks at once, Colonel Bowie in hand. “What’s up?”
Arthur Nielsen had the watch. “It’s all right now,” he answered nervously. “Abig buffalo buck crashed the fence. And this got through.” He indicated the carcass of a dopy joe. “You’re bleeding.”
“Just a nip.”
Others gathered around. Cowper pushed through, sized the situation and said, “Waxie, get that cut attended to. Bill … where’s Bill? Bill, put somebody else on watch. And let’s get that gap fixed as soon as it’s light.”
It was greying in the east. Margery suggested, “We might as well stay up and have breakfast. I’ll get the fire going.” She left to borrow flame from a watch fire.
Rod peered through the damaged barricade. Abig buck was down on the far side and seemed to have at least six dopy joes clinging to it. Cliff was there and said quietly, “See a way to get at them?”
“Only with a gun.”
“We can’t waste ammo on that.”
“No.” Rod thought about it, then went to a pile of bamboo poles, cut for building. He selected a stout one a head shorter than himself, sat down and began to bind Lady Macbeth to it with rawhide, forming a crude pike spear.
Caroline came over and squatted down. “What are you doing?” “Making a joe-killer.”
She watched him. “I’m going to make me one,” she said suddenly and jumped up.
By daylight the animals were in full flight downstream as if chased by forest fire. As the creek had shrunk with the dry season a miniature beach, from a meter to a couple of meters wide, had been exposed below the bank on which the town had grown. The thorn kraal had been extended to cover the gap, but the excited animals crushed through this weak point and now streamed along the water past the camp.
After a futile effort no attempt was made to turn them back. They were pouring into the valley; they had to go somewhere, and the route between water and bank made a safety valve. It kept them from shoving the barricade aside by sheer mass. The smallest animals came through it anyhow, kept going, paid no attention to humans.
Rod stayed at the barricade, ate breakfast standing up. He had killed six joes since dawn while Caroline’s score was still higher. Others were making knives into spears and joining them. The dopy joes were not coming through in great numbers; most of them continued to chase buck along the lower route past camp. Those who did seep through were speared; meeting them with a knife gave away too much advantage.
Cowper and Kennedy, inspecting defenses, stopped by Rod; they looked worried. “Rod,” said Grant “how long is this going to last?”
“How should I know? When we run out of animals. It looks like- get him, Shorty! It looks as if the joes were driving the others, but I don’t think they are. I think they’ve all gone crazy.” “But what would cause that?” demanded Kennedy. “Don’t ask me. But I think I know where all those bones on that beach came from. But don’t ask why. Why does a chicken cross the
road? Why do lemmings do what they do? What makes a plague of locusts? Behind you! Jump!”
Kennedy jumped, Rod finished off a joe, and they went on talking. “Better detail somebody to chuck these into the water, Bill, before they stink. Look, Grant, we’re okay now, but I know what I would do.”
“What? Move to your caves? Rod, you were right-but it’s too late.”
“No, no! That’s spilt milk; forget it. The thing that scares me are these mean little devils. They are no longer dopy; they are fast as can be and nasty … and they can slide through the fence. We can handle them now-but how about when it gets dark? We’ve got to have a solid line of fire inside the fence and along the bank. Fire is one thing they can’t go through … I hope.”
“That’ll take a lot of wood.” Grant looked through the barricade and frowned.
“You bet it will. But it will get us through the night. See here, give me the ax and six men with spears. I’ll lead the party.” Kennedy shook his head. “It’s my job.”
“No, Bill,” Cowper said firmly. “I’ll lead it. You stay here and take care of the town.”
Before the day was over Cowper took two parties out and Bill and Rod led one each. They tried to pick lulls in the spate of animals but Bill’s party was caught on the bluff above, where it had been cutting wood and throwing it down past the cave. They were treed for two hours. The little valley had been cleaned out of dead wood months since; it was necessary to go into the forest above to find wood that would burn.
Cliff Pawley, hunter-in-chief, led a fifth party in the late afternoon, immediately broke the handle of the little ax. They returned with what they could gather with knives. While they were away one of the giant buck they called buffalo stampeded off the bluff, fell into camp, broke its neck. Four dopy joes were clinging to it. They were easy to kill as they would not let go.
Jimmy and Rod were on pike duty at the barricade. Jimmy glanced back at where a couple of girls were disposing of the carcasses. “Rod,” he said thoughtfully, we got it wrong. Those are stobor … the real stobor.”
“Huh?”
“The big babies we’ve been calling that aren’t ‘stobor.’ These things are what the Deacon warned us against.” “Well … I don’t care what you call them as long as they’re dead. On your toes, boy; here they come again.”
Cowper ordered fires laid just before dark and was studying how to arrange one stretch so as not to endanger the flume when the matter was settled; the structure quivered and water ceased to flow. Upstream something had crashed into it and broken the flimsy pipe line.
The town had long since abandoned waterskins. Now they were caught with only a few liters in a pot used by the cooks, but it was a hardship rather than a danger; the urgent need was to get a ring of fire around’ them. There had already been half a dozen casualties- no deaths but bites and slashings, almost all from the little carnivores contemptuously known as dopy joes. The community’s pool of antiseptics, depleted by months of use and utterly irreplaceable, had sunk so low that Bob Baxter used it only on major wounds.
When fuel had been stretched ready to burn in a long arc inside the barricade and down the bank to where it curved back under the cave, the results of a hard day’s work looked small; the stockpile was not much greater than the amount already spread out. Bill Kennedy looked at it. “It won’t last the night, Grant.”
“It’s got to, Bill. Light it.”
“If we pulled back from the fence and the bank, then cut over to the bluff- what do you think?”
Cowper tried to figure what might be saved by the change. “It’s not much shorter. Uh, don’t light the downstream end unless they start curving back in on us. But let’s move; it’s getting dark.” He hurried to the cooking fire, got a brand and started setting the chain of fire. Kennedy helped and soon the townsite was surrounded on the exposed sides by blaze. Cowper chucked his torch into the fire and said, “Bill, better split the men into two watches and get the women up into the cave- they can crowd in somehow.”
“You’ll have trouble getting thirty-odd women in there, Grant.”
“They can sit up all night. But send them up. Yes, and the wounded men, too.”
“Can do.” Kennedy started passing the word. Caroline came storming up, spear in hand
“Grant, what’s this nonsense about the girls having to go up to the cave? If you think you’re going to cut me out of the fun you had better think again!” Cowper looked at her wearily. “Carol, I haven’t time to monkey. Shut your face and do as you are told.”
Caroline opened her mouth, closed it, and did as she was told. Bob Baxter claimed Cowper’s attention; Rod noticed that he looked very upset. “Grant? You ordered all the women up to the cave?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry but Carmen can’t.”
“You’ll have to carry her. She is the one I had most on my mind when I decided on the move.
“But-” Baxter stopped and urged Grant away from the others. He spoke insistently but quietly. Grant shook his head. “It’s not safe, Grant,” Baxter went on, raising his voice. “I don’t dare risk it. The interval is nineteen minutes now. “Well… all right. Leave a couple of women with her. Use Caroline, will you? That’ll keep her out of my hair.”
“Okay.” Baxter hurried away.
Kennedy took the first watch with a dozen men spread out along the fire line; Rod was on the second watch commanded by Cliff Pawley. He went to the Baxter house to find out how Carmen was doing, was told to beat it by Agnes. He then went to the bachelors’ shed and tried to sleep.
He was awakened by yells, in time to see one of the leonine monsters at least five meters long go bounding through the camp and disappear downstream. It had jumped the barrier, the stakes behind it, and the fire behind that, all in one leap.
Rod called out, “Anybody hurt?”
Shorty Dumont answered. “No. It didn’t even stop to wave.” Shorty was bleeding from a slash in his left calf; he seemed unaware of it. Rod crawled back inside tried again to sleep. He was awakened again by the building shaking. He hurried out. “What’s up?”
“That you, Rod? I didn’t know anybody was inside. Give me a hand; we’re going to burn it.” The voice was Baxter’s; he was prying at a corner post and cutting rawhide strips that held it.
Rod put his spear where it would not be stepped on, resheathed Colonel Bowie, and started to help. The building was bamboo and leaves, with a mud-and-thatch roof; most of it would burn. “How’s Carmen?”
“Okay. Normal progress. I can do more good here. Besides they don’t want me.” Baxter brought the corner of the shed down with a crash, gathered a double armful of wreckage and hurried away. Rod picked up a load and followed him.
The reserve wood pile was gone; somebody was tearing the roof off the “city hall” and banging pieces on the ground to shake clay loose. The walls were sunbaked bricks, but the roof would burn. Rod came closer, saw that it was Cowper who was destroying this symbol of the sovereign community. He worked with the fury of anger. “Let me do that, Grant. Have you had any rest?”
“Huh? No.”
“Better get some. It’s going to be a long night. What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Midnight, maybe.” Fire blazed up and Cowper faced it, wiping his face with his hand. “Rod, take charge of the second watch and relieve Bill. Cliff got clawed and I sent him up.”
“Okay. Burn everything that will burn-right?”
“Everything but the roof of the Baxter house. But don’t use it up too fast; it’s got to last till morning.”
“Got it.” Rod hurried to the fire line, found Kennedy. Okay, Bill, I’ll take over- Grant’s orders. Get some sleep. Anything getting through?”
‘Not much. And not far.” Kennedy’s spear was dark with blood in the firelight. “I’m not going to sleep, Rod. Find yourself a spot and help out.” Rod shook his head. “You’re groggy. Beat it. Grant’s orders.”
“No!”
“Well… look, take your gang and tear down the old maids’ shack. That’ll give you a change, at least.”
“Uh- all right.” Kennedy left, almost staggering. There was a lull in the onrush of animals; Rod could see none beyond the barricade. It gave him time to sort out his crew, send away those who had been on duty since sunset, send for stragglers. He delegated Doug Sanders and Mick Mahmud as firetenders, passed the word that no one else was to put fuel on the fires.
He returned from his inspection to find Bob Baxter, spear in hand, holding his place at the center of the line. Rod put a hand on his shoulder. “The medical officer doesn’t need to fight. We aren’t that bad off.”
Baxter shrugged. “I’ve got my kit, what there is left of it. This is where I use it.” “Haven’t you enough worries?”
Baxter grinned wanly. “Better than walking the floor. Rod, they’re stirring again. Hadn’t we better build up the fires?” “Mmm … not if we’re going to make it last. I don’t think they can come through that.”
Baxter did not answer, as a joe came through at that instant. It ploughed through the smouldering fire and Baxter speared it. Rod cupped his hands and shouted, “Build up the fires! But go easy.
“Behind you, Rod!”
Rod jumped and whirled, got the little devil. “Where did that one come from? I didn’t see it.”
Before Bob could answer Caroline came running out of darkness. “Bob! Bob Baxter! rve got to find Bob Baxter!” “Over here!” Rod called.
Baxter was hardly able to speak. “Is she- is she?” His face screwed up in anguish. “No, no!” yelled Caroline. “She’s all right, she’s fine. It’s a girl!”
Baxter quietly fainted, his spear falling to the ground. Caroline grabbed him and kept him from falling into the fire. He opened his eyes and said, “Sorry. You scared me. You’re sure Carmen is all right?”
“Right as rain. The baby, too. About three kilos. Here, give me that sticker- Carmen wants you.”
Baxter stumbled away and Caroline took his place. She grinned at Rod. “I feel swell! How’s business, Roddie? Brisk? I feel like getting me eight or nine of these vermin. Cowper came up a few minutes later. Caroline called out, “Grant, did you hear the good news?”
“Yes. I just came from there.” He ignored Caroline’s presence at the guard line but said to Rod, “We’re making a stretcher out of pieces of the flume and they’re going to haul Carmen up. Then they’ll throw the stretcher down and you can burn it.”
“Good.”
“Agnes is taking the baby up. Rod, what’s the very most we can crowd into the cave?” “Gee!” Rod glanced up at the shelf. “They must be spilling off the edge now.
“I’m afraid so. But we’ve just got to pack them in. I want to send up all married men and the youngest boys. The bachelors will hold on here.”
“I’m a bachelor!” Caroline interrupted. Cowper ignored her. “As soon as Carmen is safe we do it- we can’t keep fires going much longer.” He turned away, headed up to the cave. Caroline whistled softly. “Roddie, we’re going to have fun.”
“Not my idea of fun. Hold the fort, Carol. I’ve got to line things up.” He moved down the line, telling each one to go or to stay. Jimmy scowled at him. “I won’t go, not as long as anybody stays. I couldn’t look Jackie in the face.”
“You’ll button your lip and do as Grant says- or I’ll give you a mouthful of teeth. Hear me?” “I hear you. I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it, just do it. Seen Jackie? How is she?”
“I snuck up a while ago. She’s all right, just queasy. But the news about Carmen makes her feel so good she doesn’t care.”
Rod used no age limit to determine who was expendable. With the elimination of married men, wounded, and all women he had little choice; he simply told those whom he considered
too young or not too skilled that they were to leave when word was passed. It left him with half a dozen, plus himself, Cowper, and- possibly- Caroline. Trying to persuade Caroline was a task he had postponed.
He returned and found Cowper. “Carmen’s gone up,” Cowper told him. “You can send the others up now. “Then we can burn the roof of the Baxter house.”
“I tore it down while they were hoisting her.” Cowper looked around. “Carol! Get on up. She set her feet. “I won’t!”
Rod said softly, “Carol, you heard him. Go up- right now!”
She scowled, stuck out her lip, then said, “All right for you, Roddie Walker!”- turned and fled up the path. Rod cupped his hands and shouted, “All right, everybody! All hands up but those I told to stay. Hurry!”
About half of those leaving had started up when Agnes called down, “Hey! Take it slow! Somebody will get pushed over the edge if you don’t quit shoving.” The queue stopped. Jimmy called out, “Everybody exhale. That’ll do it.”
Somebody called back, “Throw Jimmy off… that will do it.” The line moved again, slowly. In ten minutes they accomplished the sardine-packing problem of fitting nearly seventy people into a space comfortable for not more than a dozen. It could not even be standing room since a man could stand erect only on the outer shelf. The girls were shoved inside, sitting or squatting, jammed so that they hardly had air to breathe. The men farthest out could stand but were in danger of stepping off the edge in the dark, or of being elbowed off.
Grant said, “Watch things, Rod, while I have a look.” He disappeared up the path, came back in a few minutes. “Crowded as the bottom of a sack,” he said. “Here’s the plan. They can scrunch back farther if they have to. It will be uncomfortable for the wounded and Carmen may have to sit up- she’s lying down- but it can be done. When the fires die out, we’ll shoehorn the rest in. With spears poking out under the overhang at the top of the path we ought to be able to hold out until daylight. Check me?”
“Sounds as good as can be managed.”
“All right. When the time comes, you go up next to last, I go up last.” “Unh … I’ll match you.”
Cowper answered with surprising vulgarity and added, “I’m boss; I go last. We’ll make the rounds and pile anything left on the fires, then gather them all here. You take the bank, I take the fence.”
It did not take long to put the remnants on the fires, then they gathered around the path and waited- Roy, Kenny, Doug, Dick, Charlie, Howard, and Rod and Grant. Another wave of senseless migration was rolling but the fires held it, bypassed it around by the water.
Rod grew stiff and shifted his spear to his left hand. The dying fires were only glowing coals in spots. He looked for signs of daylight in the east. Howard Goldstein said, “One broke through at the far end.”
“Hold it, Goldie,” Cowper said. “We won’t bother it unless it comes here.” Rod shifted his spear back to his right hand.
The wall of fire was now broken in many places. Not only could joes get through, but worse, it was hard to see them, so little light did the embers give off. Cowper turned to Rod and said, “All right, everybody up. You tally them.” Then he shouted, “Bill! Agnes! Make room, I’m sending them up.”
Rod threw a glance at the fence, then turned. “Okay, Kenny first. Doug next, don’t crowd. Goldie and then Dick. Who’s left? Roy-” He turned, uneasily aware that something had changed. Grant was no longer behind him. Rod spotted him bending over a dying fire. “Hey, Grant!”
“Be right with you.” Co’wper selected a stick from the embers, waved it into flame. He hopped over the coals, picked his way through sharpened stakes, reached the thornbush barrier, shoved his torch into it. The dry branches flared up. He moved slowly away, picking his way through the stake trap.
“I’ll help you!” Rod shouted. “I’ll fire the other end.” Cowper turned and light from the burning thorn showed his stern, bearded face. “Stay back. Get the others up. That’s an order!” f The movement upward had stopped. Rod snarled, “Get on up, you lunkheads! Move!” He jabbed with the butt of his spear, then turned around.
Cowper had set the fire in a new place. He straightened up, about to move farther down, suddenly turned and jumped over the dying line of fire. He stopped and jabbed at something in the darkness … then screamed.
“Grant!” Rod jumped down, ran toward him. But Grant was down before he reached him, down with a joe worrying each leg and more coming. Rod thrnst at one, jerked his spear out, and jabbed at the other, trying not to stab Grant. He felt one grab his leg and wondered that it did not hurt.
Then it did hurt, terribly, and he realized that he was down and his spear was not in his hand. But his hand found his knife without asking; Colonel Bowie finished off the beast clamped to his ankle.
Everything seemed geared to nightmare slowness. Other figures were thrusting leisurely at shapes that hardly crawled. The thornbush, flaming high, gave him light to see and stab a dopy joe creeping toward him. He got it, rolled over and tried to get up.
He woke with daylight in his eyes, tried to move and discovered that his left leg hurt. He looked down and saw a compress of leaves wrapped with a neat hide bandage. He was in the cave and there were others lying parallel to him. He got to one elbow. “Say, what-“
“Sssh!” Sue Kennedy crawled over and knelt by him. “The baby is asleep.” “Oh…”
“I’m on nurse duty. Want anything?”
“I guess not. Uh, what did they name her?”
“Hope. Hope Roberta Baxter. Apretty name. I’ll tell Caroline you are awake.” She turned away.
Caroline came in, squatted and looked scornfully at his ankle. “That’ll teach you to have a party and not invite me. “I guess so. Carol, what’s the situation?”
“Six on the sick list. About twice that many walking wounded. Those not hurt are gathering wood and cutting thorn. We fixed the ax.” “Yes, but… we’re not having to fight them off?”
“Didn’t Sue tell you? Afew buck walking around as if they were dazed. That’s all.” “They may start again.”
“If they do, we’ll be ready.”
“Good.” He tried to raise up. “Where’s Grant? How bad was he hurt?” She shook her head. “Grant didn’t make it, Roddie.”
“Huh?”
“Bob took off both legs at the knee and would have taken off one arm, but he died while he was operating.” She made a very final gesture. “In the creek.”
Rod started to speak, turned his head and buried his face. Caroline put a hand on him. “Don’t take it hard, Roddie. Bob shouldn’t have tried to save him. Grant is better off.” Rod decided that Carol was right- no frozen limb banks on this planet. But it did not make him feel better. “We didn’t appreciate him,” he muttered.
“Stow it!” Caroline whispered fiercely. “He was a fool.” “Huh? Carol, I’m ashamed of you.”
He was surprised to see tears rolling down her cheeks. “You know he was a fool, Roddie Walker. Most of us knew… but we loved him anyhow. I would ‘uv married him, but he never asked me.” She wiped at tears. “Have you seen the baby?”
“No.”
Her face lit up. “I’ll fetch her. She’s beautiful.” “Sue said she was asleep.”
“Well … all right. But what I came up for is this: what do you want us to do?” “Huh?” He tried to think. Grant was dead. “Bill was his deputy. Is Bill laid up?” “Didn’t Sue tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“You’re the mayor. We elected you this morning. Bill and Roy and I are just trying to hold things together.” Rod felt dizzy. Caroline’s face kept drawing back, then swooping in; he wondered if he were going to faint..
“-plenty of wood,” she was saying, “and we’ll have the kraal built by sundown. We don’t need meat; Margery is butchering that big fellow that fell off the bluff and busted his neck. We can’t trek out until you and Carmen and the others can walk, so we’re trying to get the place back into shape temporarily. Is there anything you want us to do now?”
He considered it. “No. Not now.
“Okay. You’re supposed to rest.” She backed out, stood up. “I’ll look in later.” Rod eased his leg and turned over. After a while he quieted and went to sleep.
Sue brought broth in a bowl, held his head while he drank, then fetched Hope Baxter and held her for him to see. Rod said the usual inanities, wondering if all new babies looked that way.
Then he thought for a long time.
Caroline showed up with Roy. “How’s it going, Chief?” Roy said. “Ready to bite a rattlesnake.”
“That’s a nasty foot, but it ought to heal. We boiled the leaves and Bob used sulfa.” “Feels all right. I don’t seem feverish.”
“Jimmy always said you were too mean to die,” added Caroline. “Want anything, Roddie? Or to tell us anything?” “Yes.”
“What?”
“Get me out of here. Help me down the path.” Roy said hastily, “Hey, you can’t do that. You’re not in shape.” “Can’t I? Either help, or get out of my way. And get everybody together. We’re going to have a town meeting.”
They looked at each other and walked out on him. He had made it to the squeeze at the top when Baxter showed up. “Now, Rod! Get back and lie down.” “Out of my way.”
“Listen, boy, I don’t like to get rough with a sick man. But I will if you make me.” “Bob… how bad is my ankle?”
“It’s going to be all right … if you behave. If you don’t- well, have you ever seen gangrene? When it turns black and has that sweetish odor?” “Quit trying to scare me. Is there any reason not to put a line under my arms and lower me?”
“Well…”
They used two lines and a third to keep his injured leg free, with Baxter supervising. They caught him at the bottom and carried him to the cooking space, laid him down. “Thanks,” he grunted. “Everybody here who can get here?”
“I think so, Roddie. Shall I count?”
“Never mind. I understand you folks elected me cap- I mean ‘mayor’- this morning?” “That’s right,” agreed Kennedy.
“Uh, who else was up? How many votes did I get?” “Huh? It was unanimous.
Rod sighed. “Thanks. I’m not sure I would have held still for it if I’d been here. I gathered something else. Do I understand that you expect me to take you down to the caves Roy and I found? Caroline said something…”
Roy looked surprised. “We didn’t vote it, Rod, but that was the idea. After last night everybody knows we can’t stay here.”
Rod nodded. “I see. Are you all where I can see you? I’ve got something to say. I hear you adopted a constitution and things while Roy and I were away. I’ve never read them, so I don’t know whether this is legal or not. But if I’m stuck with the job, I expect to run things. If somebody doesn’t like what I do and we’re both stubborn enough for a showdown, then you will vote. You back me up, or you turn me down and elect somebody else. Will that work? How about it, Goldie? You were on the law committee, weren’t you?”
Howard Goldstein frowned. “You don’t express it very well, Rod.” “Probably not. Well?”
“But what you have described is the parliamentary vote-of-confidence. That’s the backbone of our constitution. We did it that way to keep it simple and still democratic. It was Grant’s notion.”
“I’m glad,” Rod said soberly. “I’d hate to think that I had torn up Grant’s laws after he worked so hard on them. I’ll study them, I promise, first chance I get. But about moving to the caves- we’ll have a vote of confidence right now.”
Goldstein smiled. “I can tell you how it will come out. We’re convinced.”
Rod slapped the ground. “You don’t understand! If you want to move, move … but get somebody else to lead you. Roy can do it. Or Cliff, or Bill. But if you leave it to me, no dirty little beasts, all teeth and no brains, are going to drive us out. We’re men… and men don’t have to be driven out, not by the likes of those. Grant paid for this land- and I say stay here and keep it for him!”
4. Civilization
The Honorable Roderick L. Walker, Mayor of Cowpertown, Chief of State of the sovereign planet GO-7390 1-Il (Lima Catalog), Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Chief Justice, and Defender of Freedoms, was taking his ease in front of the Mayor’s Palace. He was also scratching and wondering if he should ask somebody to cut his hair again-he suspected lice only this planet did not have lice.
His Chief of Government, Miss Caroline Beatrice Mshiyeni, squatted in front of him. “Roddie, I’ve told them and told them and told them … and it does no good. That family makes more filth than everybody else put together. You should have seen it this morning. Garbage in front of their door … flies!”
“I saw it.”
“Well, what do I do? If you would let me rough him up a little. But you’re too soft”
“I guess I am.” Rod looked thoughtfully at a slab of slate erected in the village square. It read: To the Memory Of
ULYSSES GRANT COWPER,
First Mayor
– who died for his city
The carving was not good; Rod had done it.
“Grant told me once,” he added, “that government was the art of getting along with people you don’t like.” “Well, I sure don’t like Bruce and Theo!”
“Neither do I. But Grant would have figured out a way to keep them in line without getting rough.”
“You figure it out, I can’t. Roddie, you should never have let Bruce come back. That was bad enough. But when he married that little … well!” “They were made for each other,” Rod answered. “Nobody else would have married either of them.”
“It’s no joke. It’s almost- Hope! Quit teasing Grantie!” She bounced up.
Miss Hope Roberta Baxter, sixteen months, and Master Grant Roderick Throxton, thirteen months, stopped what they were doing, which was, respectively, slapping and crying. Both were naked and very dirty. It was “clean” dirt; each child had been bathed by Caroline an hour earlier, and both were fat and healthy.
Hope turned up a beaming face. “‘Ood babee!” she asserted.
“I saw you.” Caroline upended her, gave her a spat that would not squash a fly, then picked up Grant Throxton. “Give her to me,” Rod said.
“You’re welcome to her,” Caroline said. She sat down with the boy in her lap and rocked him. “Poor baby! Show Auntie Carol where it hurts.” “You shouldn’t talk like that. You’ll make a sissy of him.”
“Look who’s talking! Wishy-Washy Walker.”
Hope threw her arms around Rod, part way, and cooed, “Woddie!” adding a muddy kiss. He returned it. He considered her deplorably spoiled; nevertheless he contributed more than his share of spoiling.
“Sure,” agreed Carol. “Everybody loves Uncle Roddie. He hands out the medals and Aunt Carol does the dirty work.” “Carol, I’ve been thinking.”
“Warm day. Don’t strain any delicate parts.” “About Bruce and Theo. I’ll talk to them.” “Talk!”
“The only real punishment is one we never use- and I hope we never have to. Kicking people out, I mean. The McGowans do as they please because they don’t think we would. But I would love to give them the old heave-ho… and if it comes to it, I’ll make an issue of it before the town- either kick them out or I quit.”
“They’d back you. Why, I bet he hasn’t taken a bath this week!”
“I don’t care whether they back me or not. I’ve ridden out seven confidence votes; someday I’ll be lucky and retire. But the problem is to convince Bruce that I am willing to face the issue, for then I won’t have to. Nobody is going to chance being turned out in the woods, not when they’ve got it soft here. But he’s got to be convinced.”
“Uh, maybe if he thought you were carrying a grudge about that slice in the ribs he gave you?” “And maybe I am. But I can’t let it be personal, Carol; I’m too stinkin’ proud.”
“Uh … Turn it around. Convince him that the town is chompin’ at the bit- which isn’t far wrong- and you are trying to restrain them.” “Um, that’s closer. Yes, I think Grant would have gone for that. I’ll think it over.”
“Do that.” She stood up. “I’m going to give these children another bath. I declare I don’t know where they find so much dirt.”
She swung away with a child on each hip, heading for the shower sheds. Rod watched her lazily. She was wearing a leather bandeau and a Maori grass skirt, long leaves scraped in a pattern, curled, and dried. It was a style much favored and Caroline wore it around town, although when she treated herself to a day’s hunting she wore a leather breechclout such as the men wore.
The same leaf fibre could be retted and crushed, combed and spun, but the cloth as yet possessed by the colony was not even enough for baby clothes. Bill Kennedy had whittled a loom for Sue and it worked, but neither well nor fast and the width of cloth was under a half meter. Still, Rod mused, it was progress, it was civilization. They had come a long way.
The town was stobor-tight now. An adobe wall too high and sheer for any but the giant lions covered the upstream side and the bank, and any lion silly enough to jump it landed on a bed of stakes too wide now for even their mighty leaps-the awning under which Rod lolled was the hide of one that had made that mistake. The wall was pierced by stobor traps, narrow tunnels just big enough for the vicious little beasts and which gave into deep pits, where they could chew on each other like Kilkenny cats- which they did.
It might have been easier to divert them around the town, but Rod wanted to kill them; he would not be content until their planet was rid of those vermin.
In the meantime the town was safe. Stobor continued to deserve the nickname “dopy joe” except during the dry season and then they did not become dangerous until the annual berserk migration- the last of which had passed without loss of blood; the colony’s defenses worked, now that they understood what to defend against. Rod had required mothers and children to sit out the stampede in the cave; the rest sat up two nights and stayed on guard… but no blade was wet.
Rod thought sleepily that the next thing they needed was paper; Grant had been right… even a village was hard to run without writing paper. Besides, they must avoid losing the habit of writing. He wanted to follow up Grant’s notion of recording every bit of knowledge the gang possessed. Take logarithms- logarithms might not be used for generations, but when it came time to log a couple of rhythms, then… he went to sleep.
“You busy, Chief?”
Rod looked up at Arthur Nielsen. “Just sleeping a practice I heartily recommend on a warm Sabbath afternoon. What’s up, Art? Are Shorty and Doug pushing the bellows alone?”
“No. Confounded plug came out and we lost our fire. The furnace is ruined.” Nielsen sat down wearily. He was hot, very red in the face, and looked discouraged. He had a bad burn on a forearm but did not seem to know it. “Rod, what are we doing wrong? Riddle me that.”
“Talk to one of the brains. If you didn’t know more about it than I do, we’d swap jobs.”
“I wasn’t really asking. I know two things that are wrong. We can’t build a big enough installation and we don’t have coal. Rod, we’ve got to have coal; for cast iron or steel we need coal. Charcoal won’t do for anything but spongy wrought iron.”
“What do you expect to accomplish overnight, Art? Miracles? You are years ahead of what anybody could ask. You’ve turned out metal, whether it’s wrought iron or uranium. Since you made that spit for the barbecue pit, Margery thinks you are a genius.”
“Yes, yes, we’ve made iron-but it ought to be lots better and more of it. This ore is wonderful … the real Lake Superior hematite. Nobody’s seen such ore in commercial quantity on Terra in centuries. You ought to be able to breathe on it and make steel. And I could, too, if I had coal. We’ve got clay, we’ve got limestone, we’ve got this lovely ore- but I can’t get a hot enough fire.”
Rod was not fretted; the colony was getting metal as fast as needed. But Waxie was upset. “Want to knock off and search for coal?” “Uh … no, I don’t. I want to rebuild that furnace.” Nielsen gave a bitter description of the furnace’s origin, habits, and destination. “Who knows most about geology?”
“Uh, I suppose I do.” “Who knows next most?” “Why, Doug I guess.
“Let’s send him out with a couple of boys to find coal. You can have Mick in his place on the bellows- no, wait a minute. How about Bruce?” “Bruce? He won’t work.”
“Work him. If you work him so hard he runs away and forgets to come back, we won’t miss him. Take him, Art, as a favor to me. “Well … . okay, if you say so.
“Good. You get one bonus out of losing your batch. You won’t miss the dance tonight. Art, you shouldn’t start a melt so late in the week; you need your day of rest … and so do Shorty and Doug.”
“I know. But when it’s ready to go I want to fire it off.
Working the way we do is discouraging; before you can make anything you have to make the thing that makes it- and usually you have to make something else to make that. Futile!” “You don’t know what ‘futile’ means. Ask our ‘Department of Agriculture.’ Did you take a look at the farm before you came over the wall?”
“Well, we walked through it.”
“Better not let Cliff catch you, or he’ll scalp you. I might hold you for him.” “Humph! Alot of silly grass! Thousands of hectares around just like it.”
“That’s right. Some grass and a few rows of weeds. The pity is that Cliff will never live to see it anything else. Nor little Cliff. Nevertheless our great grandchildren will eat white bread, Art. But you yourself will live to build precision machinery- you know it can be done, which, as Bob Baxter says, is two-thirds of the battle. Cliff can’t live long enough to eat a slice of light, tasty bread. It doesn’t stop him.”
“You should have been a preacher, Rod.” Art stood up and sniffed himself. “I’d better get a bath, or the girls won’t dance with me.” “I was just quoting. You’ve heard it before. Save me some soap.”
Caroline hit two bars of Arkansas Traveler, Jimmy slapped his drum, and Roy called, “Square ‘em up, folks!” He waited, then started in high, nasal tones: “Honor y’r partners!
“Honor y’r corners!
“Now all jump up and when y’ come down-“
Rod was not dancing; the alternate set would be his turn. The colony formed eight squares, too many for a caller, a mouth organ, and a primitive drum all unassisted by amplifying equipment. So half of them babysat and gossiped while the other half danced. The caller and the orchestra were relieved at each intermission to dance the other sets.
Most of them had not known how to square-dance. Agnes Pulvermacher had put it over almost single-handed, in the face of kidding and resistance- training callers, training dancers, humming tunes to Caroline, cajoling Jimmy to carve and shrink a jungle drum. Now she had nine out of ten dancing.
Rod had not appreciated it at first (he was not familiar with the history of the Mormon pioneers) and had regarded it as a nuisance which interfered with work. Then he saw the colony, which had experienced a bad letdown after the loss in one night of all they had built, an apathy he had not been able to lift- he saw this same colony begin to smile and joke and work hard simply from being exposed to music and dancing.
He decided to encourage it. He had trouble keeping time and could not carry a tune, but the bug caught him, too; he danced not well but with great enthusiasm.
The village eventually limited dances to Sabbath nights, weddings, and holidays- and made them “formal” … which meant that women wore grass skirts. Leather shorts, breechclouts, and slacks (those not long since cut up for rags) were not acceptable. Sue talked about making a real square dance dress as soon as she got far enough ahead in her weaving, and a cowboy shirt for her husband … but the needs of the colony made this a distant dream.
Music stopped, principals changed, Caroline tossed her mouth organ to Shorty, and came over. “Come on, Roddie, let’s kick some dust.”
“I asked Sue,” he said hastily and truthfully. He was careful not to ask the same girl twice, never to pay marked attention to any female; he had promised himself long ago that the day he decided to marry should be the day he resigned and he was not finding it hard to stay married to his job. He liked to dance with Caroline; she was a popular partner- except for a tendency to swing her partner instead of letting him swing her- but he was careful not to spend much social time with her because she was his right hand, his alter ego.
Rod went over and offered his arm to Sue. He did not think about it; the stylized amenities of civilization were returning and the formal politenesses of the dance made them seem natural. He led her out and assisted in making a botch of Texas Star.
Later, tired, happy, and convinced that the others in his square had made the mistakes and he had straightened them out, Rod returned Sue to Bill, bowed and thanked him, and went back to the place that was always left for him. Margery and her assistants were passing out little brown somethings on wooden skewers. He accepted one. “Smells good, Marge. What are they?”
“Mock Nile birds. Smoked baby-buck bacon wrapped around hamburger. Salt and native sage, pan broiled. You’d better like it; it took us hours.” “Mmmm! I do! How about another?”
“Wait and see. Greedy.”
“But I need more. I work hardest. I have to keep up my strength.”
“That was work I saw you doing this afternoon?” She handed him another. “I was planning. The old brain was buzzing away.
“I heard the buzzing. Pretty loud, when you lie on your back.”
He snagged a third as she turned away, looked up to catch Jacqueline smiling; he winked and grinned. “Happy, Rod?”
“Yes indeedy. How about you, Jackie?”
“I’ve never been happier,” she said seriously.
Her husband put an arm around her. “See what the love of a good man can do, Rod?” Jimmy said. “When I found this poor child she was beaten, bedraggled, doing your cooking and afraid to admit her name. Now look at her!- fat and sassy.”
“I’m not that fat!” “Pleasingly plump.”
Rod glanced up at the cave. “Jackie, remember the night I showed up?” “I’m not likely to forget.”
“And the silly notion I had that this was Africa? Tell me- if you had it to do over, would you rather I had been right?” “I never thought about it. I knew it was not.”
“Yes, but ‘if’? You would have been home long ago.”
Her hand took her husband’s. “I would not have met James.”
“Oh, yes, you would. You had already met me. You could not have avoided it- my best friend.” “Possibly. But I would not change it. I have no yearning to go ‘home,’ Rod. This is home.”
“Me neither,” asserted Jimmy. “You. know what? This colony gets a little bigger- and it’s getting bigger fast- Goldie and I are going to open a law office. We won’t have any competition and can pick our clients. He’ll handle the criminal end, I’ll specialize in divorce, and we’ll collaborate on corporate skulduggery. We’ll make millions. I’ll drive a big limousine drawn by eight spanking buck, smoking a big cigar and sneering at the peasants.” He called out, “Right, Goldie?”
“Precisely, colleague. I’m making us a shingle: ‘Goldstein & Throxton-Get bailed, not jailed!’” “Keerect. But make that: ‘Throxton & Goldstein.’”
“I’m senior. I’ve got two more years of law.”
“Aquibble. Rod, are you going to let this Teller U. character insult an old Patrick Henry man?”
“Probably. Jimmy, I don’t see how you are going to work this. I don’t think we have a divorce law. Let’s ask Caroline.” “Atrifle. You perform the marriages, Rod; I’ll take care of the divorces.”
“Ask Caroline what?” asked Caroline. “Do we have a divorce law?”
“Huh? We don’t even have a getting-married law.”
“Unnecessary,” explained Goldstein. “Indigenous in the culture. Besides, we ran out of paper. “Correct, Counselor,” agreed Jimmy.
“Why ask?” Caroline demanded. “Nobody is thinking about divorce or I would know before they would.”
“We weren’t talking about that,” Rod explained. “Jackie said that she had no wish to go back to Terra and Jimmy was elaborating. Uselessly, as usual.” Caroline stared. “Why would anybody want to go back?”
“Sure,” agreed Jimmy. “This is the place. No income tax. No traffic, no crowds, no commercials, no telephones. Seriously, Rod, every one here was aiming for the Outlands or we wouldn’t have been taking a survival test. So what difference does it make? Except that we’ve got everything sooner.” He squeezed his wife’s hand. “I was fooling about that big cigar; I’m rich now, boy, rich!”
Agnes and Curt had drawn into the circle, listening. Agnes nodded and said, “For once you aren’t joking, Jimmy. The first months we were here I cried myself to sleep every night, wondering if they would ever find us. Now I know they never will- and I don’t care! I wouldn’t go back if I could; the only thing I miss is lipstick.”
Her husband’s laugh boomed out. “There you have the truth, Rod. The fleshpots of Egypt … put a cosmetics counter across this creek and every woman here will walk on water.” “That’s not fair, Curt! Anyhow, you promised to make lipstick.”
“Give me time.”
Bob Baxter came up and sat down by Rod. “Missed you at the meeting this morning, Rod.” “Tied up. I’ll make it next week.”
“Good.” Bob, being of a sect which did not require ordination, had made himself chaplain as well as medical officer simply by starting to hold meetings. His undogmatic ways were such that Christian, Jew, Monist, or Moslem felt at ease; his meetings were well attended.
“Bob, would you go back?” “Go where, Caroline?” “Back to Terra.”
“Yes”
Jimmy looked horrified. “Boil me for breakfast! Why?”
“Oh, I’d want to come back! But I need to graduate from medical school.” He smiled shyly. “I may be the best surgeon in the neighborhood, but that isn’t saying much.” “Well…” admitted Jimmy, “I see your point. But you already suit us. Eh, Jackie?”
“Yes, Jimmy.”
“It’s my only regret,” Bob went on. “I’ve lost ones I
should have saved. But it’s a hypothetical question. ‘Here we rest.’”
The question spread. Jimmy’s attitude was overwhelmingly popular, even though Bob’s motives were respected. Rod said goodnight; he heard them still batting it around after he had gone to bed; it caused him to discuss it with himself.
He had decided long ago that they would never be in touch with Earth; he had not thought of it for- how long?- over a year. At first it had been mental hygiene, protection of his morale. Later it was logic: a delay in recall of a week might be a power failure, a few weeks could be a technical difficulty- but months on months was cosmic disaster; each day added a cipher to the infinitesimal probability that they would ever be in touch again.
He was now able to ask himself: was this what he wanted?
Jackie was right; this was home. Then he admitted that he liked being big frog in a small puddle, he loved his job. He was not meant to be a scientist, nor a scholar, he had never wanted to be a businessman- but what he was doing suited him … and he seemed to do it well enough to get by.
“‘Here we rest!’”
He went to sleep in a warm glow.
Cliff wanted help with the experimental crops. Rod did not take it too seriously; Cliff always wanted something; given his head he would have everybody working dawn to dark on his farm. But it was well to find out what he wanted- Rod did not underrate the importance of domesticating plants; that was basic for all colonies and triply so for them. It was simply that he did not know much about it.
Cliff stuck his head into the mayor’s hut. “Ready?”
“Sure.” Rod got his spear. It was no longer improvised but bore a point patiently sharpened from steel salvaged from Braun’s Thunderbolt. Rod had tried wrought iron but could not get it to hold an edge. “Let’s pick up a couple of boys and get a few stobor.”
“Okay”
Rod looked around. Jimmy was at his potter’s wheel, kicking the treadle and shaping clay with his thumb. Jim! Quit that and grab your pike. We’re going to have some fun.” Throxton wiped at sweat. “You’ve talked me into it.” They added Kenny and Mick, then Cliff led them upstream. “I want you to look at the animals.”
“All right,” agreed Rod. “Cliff, I had been meaning to speak to you. If you are going to raise those brutes inside the wall, you’ll have to be careful about their droppings. Carol has been muttering.”
“Rod, I can’t do everything! And you can’t put them outside, not if you expect them to live.” “Sure, sure! Well, we’ll get you more help, that’s the only- Just a second!”
They were about to pass the last hut; Bruce McGowan was stretched in front of it, apparently asleep. Rod did not speak at once; he was fighting down rage. He wrestIed with himself, aware that the next moment could change his future, damage the entire colony. But his rational self was struggling in a torrent of anger, bitter and self-righteous. He wanted to do away with this parasite, destroy it. He took a deep breath and tried to keep his mouth from trembling.
“Bruce!” he called softly.
McGowan opened his eyes. “Huh?” “Isn’t Art working his plant today?” “Could be,” Bruce admitted.
“Well?”
“‘Well’ what? I’ve had a week and it’s not my dish. Get somebody else.”
Bruce wore his knife, as did each of them; a colonist was more likely to be caught naked than without his knife. It was the all-purpose tool, for cutting leather, preparing food, eating, whittling, building, basketmaking, and as make-do for a thousand other tools; their wealth came from knives, arrows were now used to hunt- but knives shaped the bows and arrows.
But a knife had not been used by one colonist against another since that disastrous day when Bruce’s brother had defied Rod. Over the same issue, Rod recalled; the wheel had turned full circle. But today he would have immediate backing if Bruce reached for his knife.
But he knew that this must not be settled by five against one; he alone must make this dog come to heel, or his days as leader were numbered.
It did not occur to Rod to challenge Bruce to settle it with bare hands. Rod had read many a historical romance in which the hero invited someone to settle it man to man, in a stylized imitation fighting called “boxing.” Rod had enjoyed such stories but did not apply them to himself any more than he considered personally the sword play of The Three Musketeers; nevertheless, he knew what “boxing” meant- they folded their hands and struck certain restricted blows with fists. Usually no one was hurt.
The fighting that Rod was trained in was not simply strenuous athletics. It did not matter whether they were armed; if he and Bruce fought bare hands or otherwise, someone would be killed or badly hurt. The only dangerous weapon was man himself.
Bruce stared sullenly. “Bruce,” Rod said, striving to keep his voice steady, “a long time ago I told you that people worked around here or got out. You and your brother didn’t believe me so we had to chuck you out. Then you crawled back with a tale about how Jock had been killed and could you please join up? You were a sorry sight. Remember?”
McGowan scowled. “You promised to be a little angel,” Rod went on. “People thought I was foolish- and I was. But I thought you might behave.” Bruce pulled a blade of grass, bit it. “Bub, you remind me of Jock. He was always throwing his weight around, too.
“Bruce, get up and get out of town! I don’t care where, but if you are smart, you will shag over and tell Art you’ve made a mistake- then start pumping that bellows. I’ll stop by later. If sweat isn’t pouring off you when I arrive … then you’ll never come back. You’ll be banished for life.”
McGowan looked uncertain. He glanced past Rod, and Rod wondered what expressions the others wore. But Rod kept his eyes on Bruce. “Get moving. Get to work, or don’t come back.” Bruce got a sly look. “You can’t order me kicked out. It takes a majority vote.”
Jimmy spoke up. “Aw, quit taking his guff, Rod. Kick him out now.
Rod shook his head. “No. Bruce, if that is your answer, I’ll call them together and we’ll put you in exile before lunch- and I’ll bet my best knife that you won’t get three votes to let you stay. Want to bet?”
Bruce sat up and looked at the others, sizing his chances. He looked back at Rod. “Runt,” he said slowly, you aren’t worth a hoot without stooges… or a couple of girls to do your fighting.” Jimmy whispered, “Watch it, Rod!” Rod licked dry lips, knowing that it was too late for reason, too late for talk. He would have to try to take him … he was not sure he could.
“I’ll fight you,” he said hoarsely. “Right now!” Cliff said urgently, “Don’t, Rod. We’ll manage him.” “No. Come on, McGowan.” Rod added one unforgivable word. McGowan did not move. “Get rid of that joe sticker”
Rod said, “Hold my spear, Cliff.”
Cliff snapped, “Now wait! I’m not going to stand by and watch this. He might get lucky and kill you, Rod.” “Get out of the way, Cliff.”
“No.” Cliff hesitated, then added, “Bruce, throw your knife away. Go ahead- or so help me I’ll poke a joe- sticker in your belly myself. Give me your knife, Rod.”
Rod looked at Bruce, then drew Colonel Bowie and handed it to Cliff. Bruce straightened up and flipped his knife at Cliff’s feet. Cliff rasped, “I still say not to, Rod. Say the word and we’ll take him apart.”
“Back off. Give us room.
“Well- no bone breakers. You hear me, Bruce? Make a mistake and you’ll never make another.”
“‘No bone breakers,’” Rod repeated, and knew dismally that the rule would work against him; Bruce had him on height and reach and weight. “Okay,” McGowan agreed. “Just cat clawing. I am going to show this rube that one McGowan is worth two of him.”
Cliff sighed. “Back off, everybody. Okay- get going!” Crouched, they sashayed around, not touching. Only the preliminaries could use up much time; the textbook used in most high schools and colleges listed twenty-seven ways to destroy or disable a man hand to hand; none of the methods took as long as three seconds once contact was made. They chopped at each other, feinting with their hands, too wary to close.
Rod was confused by the injunction not to let the fight go to conclusion. Bruce grinned at him. “What’s the matter? Scared? I’ve been waiting for this, you loudmouthed pimple- now you’re going to get it!” He rushed him.
Rod gave back, ready to turn Bruce’s rush into his undoing. But Bruce did not carry it through; it had been a feint and Rod had reacted too strongly. Bruce laughed. “Scared silly, huh? You had better be.”
Rod realized that he was scared, more scared than he had ever been. The conviction flooded over him that Bruce intended to kill him … the agreement about bonebreakers meant nothing; this ape meant to finish him.
He backed away, more confused than ever… knowing that he must forget rules if he was to live through it … but knowing, too, that he had to abide by the silly restriction even if it meant the end of him. Panic shook him; he wanted to run.
He did not quite do so. From despair itself he got a cold feeling of nothing to lose and decided to finish it. He exposed his groin to a savate attack.
He saw Bruce’s foot come up in the expected kick; with fierce joy he reached in the proper shinobi counter. He showed the merest of hesitation, knowing that a full twist would break Bruce’s ankle.
Then he was flying through air; his hands had never touched Bruce. He had time for sick realization that Bruce had seen the gambit, countered with another- when he struck ground and Bruce was on him.
* * * * *
“Can you move your arm, Rod?”
He tried to focus his eyes, and saw Bob Baxter’s face floating over him. “I licked him?”
Baxter did not answer. An angry voice answered, “Cripes, no! He almost chewed you to pieces.” Rod stirred and said thickly, “Where is he? I’ve got to whip him.”
Baxter said sharply, “Lie still!” Cliff added, “Don’t worry, Rod. We fixed him.” Baxter insisted, “Shut up. See if you can move your left arm.”
Rod moved the arm, felt pain shoot through it, jerked and felt pain everywhere. “It’s not broken,” Baxter decided. “Maybe a green-stick break. We’ll put it in sling. Can you sit up? I’ll help.” “I want to stand.” He made it with help, stood swaying. Most of the villagers seemed to be there; they moved jerkily. It made him dizzy and he blinked.
“Take it easy, boy,” he heard Jimmy say. “Bruce pretty near ruined you. You were crazy to give him the chance.” “I’m all right,” Rod answered and winced. “Where is he?”
“Behind you. Don’t worry, we fixed him.”
“Yes,” agreed Cliff. “We worked him over. Who does he think he is? Trying to shove the Mayor around!” He spat angrily. Bruce was face down, features hidden in one arm; he was sobbing. “How bad is he hurt?” Rod asked.
“Him?” Jimmy said scornfully. “He’s not hurt. I mean, he hurts all right- but he’s not hurt. Carol wouldn’t let us.
Caroline squatted beside Bruce, guarding him. She got up. “I should have let ‘em,” she said angrily. “But I knew you would be mad at me if I did.” She put hands on hips. “Roddie Walker, when are you going to get sense enough to yell for me when you’re in trouble? These four dopes stood around and let it happen.”
“Wait a minute, Carol,” Cliff protested. “I tried to stop it. We all tried, but-“ “But I wouldn’t listen,” Rod interrupted. “Never mind, Carol, I flubbed it.” “If you would listen to me-
“Never mind!” Rod went to McGowan, prodded him. “Turn over.”
Bruce slowly rolled over. Rod wondered if he himself looked as bad. Bruce’s body was dirt and blood and bruises; his face looked as if someone had tried to file the features off. “Stand up.
Bruce started to speak, then got painfully to his feet. Rod said, “I told you to report to Art, Bruce. Get over the wall and get moving.” McGowan looked startled. “Huh?”
“You heard me. I can’t waste time playing games. Check in with Art and get to work. Or keep moving and don’t come back. Now move!”
Bruce stared, then hobbled toward the wall. Rod turned and said, “Get back to work, folks. The fun is over. Cliff, you were going to show me the animals.” “Huh? Look Rod, it’ll keep.”
“Yes, Rod,” Baxter agreed. “I want to put a sling on that arm. Then you should rest.”
Rod moved his arm gingerly. “I’ll try to get along without it. Come on, Cliff. Just you and me- we’ll skip the stobor hunt.”
He had trouble concentrating on what Cliff talked about … something about gelding a pair of fawns and getting them used to harness. What use was harness when they had no wagons? His head ached, his arm hurt and his brain felt fuzzy. What would Grant have done?
He had failed … but what should he have said, or not said? Some days it wasn’t worth it. “-so we’ve got to. You see, Rod?”
“Huh? Sure, Cliff.” He made a great effort to recall what Cliff had been saying. “Maybe wooden axles would do. I’ll see if Bill thinks he can build a cart” “But besides a cart, we need-“
Rod stopped him. “Cliff, if you say so, we’ll try it. I think I’ll take a shower. Uh, we’ll look at the field tomorrow.
Ashower made him feel better and much cleaner, although the water spilling milk-warm from the flume seemed too hot, then icy cold. He stumbled back to his hut and lay down. When he woke he found Shorty guarding his door to keep him from being disturbed.
It was three days before he felt up to inspecting the farm. Neilsen reported that McGowan was working, although sullenly. Caroline reported that Theo was obeying sanitary regulations and wearing a black eye. Rod was self-conscious about appearing in public, had even considered one restless night the advisability of resigning and letting someone who had not lost face take over the responsibility. But to his surprise his position seemed firmer than ever. Aminority from Teller University, which he had thought of wryly as “loyal opposition,” now no longer seemed disposed to be critical. Curt Pulvermacher, their unofficial leader, looked Rod up and offered help. “Bruce is a bad apple, Rod. Don’t let him get down wind again. Let me know instead.”
“Thanks, Curt.”
“I mean it. It’s hard enough to get anywhere around here if we all pull together. We can’t have him riding roughshod over us. But don’t stick your chin out. We’ll teach him.”
Rod slept well that night. Perhaps he had not handled it as Grant would have, but it had worked out. Cowper-town was safe. Oh, there would be more troubles but the colony would sweat through them. Someday there would be a city here and this would be Cowper Square. Upstream would be the Nielsen Steel Works. There might even be a Walker Avenue…
He felt up to looking over the farm the next day. He told Cliff so and gathered the same party, Jimmy, Kent, and Mick. Spears in hand they climbed the stile at the wall and descended the ladder on the far side. Cliff gathered up a handful of dirt, tasted it. “The soil is all right. Alittle acid, maybe. We won’t know until we can run soil chemistry tests. But the structure is good. If you tell that dumb Swede that the next thing he has to make is a plough …
“Waxie isn’t dumb. Give him time. Hell make you ploughs and tractors, too.”
“I’ll settle for a hand plough, drawn by a team of buck. Rod, my notion is this. We weed and it’s an invitation to the buck to eat the crops. If we built another wall, all around and just as high-“
“Awall! Any idea how many man-hours that would take, Cliff?” “That’s not the point.”
Rod looked around the alluvial flat, several times as large as the land enclosed in the city walls. Athorn fence, possibly, but not a wall, not yet … Cliff’s ambitions were too big. “Look, let’s comb the field for stobor, then send the others back. You and I can figure out afterwards what can be done.”
“All right. But tell them to watch where they put their big feet.”
Rod spread them in skirmish line with himself in the
center. “Keep dressed up,” he warned, “and don’t let any get past you. Remember, every one we kill now means six less on S-Day.”
They moved forward. Kenny made a kill, Jimmy immediately made two more. The stobor hardly tried to escape, being in the “dopy joe” phase of their cycle. Rod paused to spear one and looked up to speak to the man on his right. But there was no one there. “Hold it! Where’s Mick?”
“Huh? Why, he was right here a second ago.”
Rod looked back. Aside from a shimmer over the hot field, there was nothing where Mick should have been. Something must have sneaked up in the grass, pulled him down- “Watch it, everybody! Something’s wrong. Close in … and keep your eyes peeled.” He turned back, moved diagonally toward where Mick had disappeared.
Suddenly two figures appeared in front of his eyes- Mick and a stranger.
Astranger in coveralls and shoes… The man looked around, called over his shoulder, “Okay, Jake! Put her on automatic and clamp it.” He glanced toward Rod but did not seem to see him, walked toward him, and disappeared.
With heart pounding Rod began to run. He turned and found himself facing into an open gate… and down a long, closed corridor.
The man in the coveralls stepped into the frame. “Everybody back off,” he ordered. “We’re going to match in with the Gap. There may be local disturbance.”
5. In Achilles’ Tent
It had been a half hour since Mick had stumbled through the gate as it had focused, fallen flat in the low gravity of Luna. Rod was trying to bring order out of confusion, trying to piece together his own wits. Most of the villagers were out on the field, or sitting on top of the wall, watching technicians set up apparatus to turn the locus into a permanent gate, with controls and communications on both sides. Rod tried to tell one that they were exposed, that they should not run around unarmed; without looking up the man had said, “Speak to Mr. Johnson.”
He found Mr. Johnson, tried again, was interrupted. Will you kids please let us work? We’re glad to see you but we’ve got to get a power fence around this area. No telling what might be in that tall grass.”
Oh,” Rod answered. “Look, I’ll set guards. We know what to expect. I’m in ch-“ ‘Beat it, will you? You kids mustn’t be impatient.”
So Rod went back inside his city, hurt and angry. Several strangers came in, poked around as if they owned the place, spoke to the excited villagers, went out again. One stopped to look at Jimmy’s drum, rapped it and laughed. Rod wanted to strangle him.
“Rod?”
“Uh?” He whirled around. “Yes, Margery?”
“Do I cook lunch, or don’t I? All my girls have left and Mel says its silly because we’ll all be gone by lunch time- and I don’t know what to do.” “Huh? Nobody’s leaving … that I know of.”
“Well, maybe not but that’s the talk.”
He was not given time to consider this as one of the ubiquitous strangers came up and said briskly, “Can you tell me where to find a lad named Roderick Welker?” “Walker,” Rod corrected. “I’m Rod Walker. What do you want?”
“My name is Sansom, Clyde B. Sansom- Administrative Officer in the Emigration Control Service. Now, Welker, I understand you are group leader for these students. You can-“ “I am Mayor of Cowpertown,” Rod said stonily. “What do you want?”
“Yes, yes, that’s what the youngster called you. ‘Mayor.’” Sansom smiled briefly and went on. “Now, Walker, we want to keep things orderly. I know you are anxious to get out of your predicament as quickly as possible- but we must do things systematically. We are going to make it easy- just delousing and physical examination, followed by psychological tests and a relocation interview. Then you will all be free to return to your homes- after signing a waiver-of-liability form, but the legal officer will take care of that. If you will have your little band line up alphabetically- uh, here in this open space, I think, then I will-” He fumbled with his briefcase.
“Who the deuce are you to give orders around here?”
Sansom looked surprised. “Eh? I told you. If you want to be technical, I embody the authority of the Terran Corporation. I put it as a request- but under field conditions I can compel co- operation, you know.”
Rod felt himself turn red. “I don’t know anything of the sort! You may be a squad of angels back on Terra but you are in Cowpertown.” Mr. Sansom looked interested but not impressed. “And what, may I ask, is Cowpertown?”
“Huh? This is Cowpertown, a Sovereign nation, with its own constitution, its own laws- and its own territory.” Rod took a breath. “If the Terran Corporation wants anything, they can send somebody and arrange it. But don’t tell us to line up alphabetically!”
“Atta boy, Roddie!”
Rod said, “Stick around, Carol,” then added to Sansom, “Understand me?”
“Do I understand,” Sansom said slowly, “that you are suggesting that the Corporation should appoint an ambassador to your group?” “Well … that’s the general idea.”
“Mmmm … an interesting theory, Welker.”
“‘Walker.’ And until you do, you can darn well clear the sightseers out- and get out yourself. We aren’t a zoo.”
Sansom looked at Rod’s ribs, glanced at his dirty, calloused feet and smiled. Rod said, “Show him out, Carol. Put him out, if you have to.” “Yes, sirr’ She advanced on Sansom, grinning.
“Oh, I’m leaving,” Sansom said quickly. “Better a delay than a mistake in protocol. An ingenious theory, young man. Good-by. We shall see each other later. Uh … a word of advice? May I?”
Huh? All right.”
“Don’t take yourself too seriously. Ready, young lady?”
Rod stayed in his hut. He wanted badly to see what was going on beyond the wall, but he did not want to run into Sansom. So he sat and gnawed his thumb and thought. Apparently some weak sisters were going back -wave a dish of ice cream under their noses and off they would trot, abandoning their land, throwing away all they had built up. Well, he wouldn’t! This was home, his place, he had earned it; he wasn’t going back and maybe wait half a lifetime for a chance to move to some other planet probably not as good.
Let them go! Cowpertown would be better and stronger without them.
Maybe some just wanted to make a visit, show off grandchildren to grandparents, then come back. Probably . . in which case they had better make sure that Sansom or somebody gave them written clearance to come back. Maybe he ought to warn them.
But he didn’t have anyone to visit. Except Sis- and Sis might be anywhere- unlikely that she was on Terra.
Bob and Carmen, carrying Hope, came in to say good-by. Rod shook hands solemnly. “You’re coming back, Bob, when you get your degree … aren’t you?” “Well, we hope so, if possible. If we are permitted to.”
“Who’s going to stop you? It’s your right. And when you do, you’ll find us here. In the meantime we’ll try not to break legs.” Baxter hesitated. “Have you been to the gate lately, Rod?”
“No. Why?”
“Uh, don’t plan too far ahead. I believe some have already gone back.” “How many?”
“Quite a number.” Bob would not commit himself further. He gave Rod the addresses of his parents and Carmen’s, soberly wished him a blessing, and left.
Margery did not come back and the fire pit remained cold. Rod did not care, he was not hungry. Jimmy came in at what should have been shortly after lunch, nodded and sat down. Presently he said, “I’ve been out at the gate.”
“So?”
“Yup. You know, Rod, a lot of people wondered why you weren’t there to say good-by.” “They could come here to say good-by!”
“Yes, so they could. But the word got around that you didn’t approve. Maybe they were embarrassed.”
“Me?” Rod laughed without mirth. “I don’t care how many city boys run home to mama. It’s a free country.” He glanced at Jim. “How many are sticking?” “Uh, I don’t know.”
“I’ve been thinking. If the group gets small, we might move back to the cave just to sleep, I mean. Until we get more colonists.” “Maybe.”
“Don’t be so glum! Even if it got down to just you and me and Jackie and Carol, we’d be no worse off than we once were. And it would just be temporary. There’d be the baby, of course- I almost forgot to mention my god-son.
“There’s the baby,” Jimmy agreed.
“What are you pulling a long face about? Jim . you’re not thinking of leaving?”
Jimmy stood up. Jackie said to tell you that we would stick by whatever you thought was best.” Rod thought over what Jimmy had not said. “You mean she wants to go back? Both of you do.” “Now, Rod, we’re partners. But I’ve got the kid to think about. You see that?”
“Yes. I see.”
“Well-“
Rod stuck out his hand. “Good luck, Jim. Tell Jackie good-by for me. “Oh, she’s waiting to say good-by herself. With the kid.”
“Uh, tell her not to. Somebody once told me that saying good-by was a mistake. Be seeing you.” “Well-so long, Rod. Take care of yourself.”
“You, too. If you see Caroline, tell her to come in. Caroline was slow appearing; he guessed that she had been at the gate. He said bluntly, “How many are left?” “Not many,” she admitted.
“How many?”
“You and me- and a bunch of gawkers.” “Nobody else?”
“I checked them off the list. Roddie, what do we do now?” “Huh? It doesn’t matter. Do you want to go back?”
“You’re boss, Roddie. You’re the Mayor.”
“Mayor of what? Carol, do you want to go back?” “Roddie, I never thought about it. I was happy here. But-“ “But what?”
“The town is gone, the kids are gone- and I’ve got only a year if I’m ever going to be a cadet Amazon.” She blurted out the last, then added, “But I’ll stick if you do.” “No.”
“I will so!”
“No. But I want you to do something when you go back.” “What?”
“Get in touch with my sister Helen. Find out where she is stationed. Assault Captain Helen Walker- got it? Tell her I’m okay … and tell her I said to help you get into the Corps.” “Uh … Roddie, I don’t want to go!”
“Beat it. They might relax the gate and leave you behind.” “You come, too.”
“No. I’ve got things to do. But you hurry. Don’t say good-by. Just go.” “You’re mad at me, Roddie?”
“Of course not. But go, please, or you’ll have me bawling, too.”
She gave a choked cry, grabbed his head and smacked his cheek, then galloped away, her sturdy legs pounding. Rod went into his shack and lay face down. After a while he got up and began to tidy Cowpertown. It was littered, dirtier than it had been since the morning of Grant’s death.
It was late afternoon before anyone else came into the village. Rod heard and saw them long before they saw him-two men and a woman. The men were dressed in city garb; she was wearing shorts, shirt, and smart sandals. Rod stepped out and said, “What do you want?” He was carrying his spear.
The woman squealed, then looked and added, “Wonderful!”
One man was carrying a pack and tripod which Rod recognized as multi-recorder of the all-purpose sightsmell-sound-touch sort used by news services and expeditions. He said nothing, set his tripod down, plugged in cables and started fiddling with dials. The other man, smaller, ginger haired, and with a terrier mustache, said, “You’re Walker? The one the others call ‘the Mayor’?”
“Yes.”
“Kosmic hasn’t been in here?” “Cosmic what?”
“Kosmic Keynotes, of course. Or anybody? LIFETIME-SPACE? Galaxy Features?”
“I don’t know what you mean. There hasn’t been anybody here since morning.”
The stranger twitched his mustache and sighed. “That’s all I want to know. Go into your trance, Ellie. Start your box, Mac.” “Wait a minute,” Rod demanded. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“Eh? I’m Evans of Empire … Empire Enterprises.” “Pulitzer Prize,” the other man said and went on working;
“With Mac’s help,” Evans added quickly. “The lady is Ellie Ellens herself.”
Rod looked puzzled. Evans said, “You don’t know? Son, where have you-never mind. She’s the highest paid emotional writer in the system. Shell interpret you so that every woman reader from the Outlands Overseer to the London Times will cry over you and want to comfort you. She’s a great artist.”
Miss Ellens did not seem to hear the tribute. She wandered around with a blank face, stopping occasionally to look or touch. She turned and said to Rod, “Is this where you held your primitive dances?”
“What? We held square dances here, once a week.”
“‘Square dances’ … Well, we can change that.” She went back into her private world.
“The point is, brother,” Evans went on, “we don’t want just an interview. Plenty of that as they came through. That’s how we found out you were here- and dropped everything to see you. I’m not going to dicker; name your own price- but it’s got to be exclusive, news, features, commercial rights, everything. Uh …” Evans looked around. “Advisory service, too, when the actors arrive.
“Actors?!”
“Of course. If the Control Service had the sense to sneeze, they would have held you all here until a record was shot. But we can do it better with actors. I want you at my elbow every minute- we’ll have somebody play your part. Besides that-“
“Wait a minute!” Rod butted in. “Either I’m crazy or you are. In the first place I don’t want your money. “Huh? You signed with somebody? That guard let another outfit in ahead of us?”
“What guard? I haven’t seen anybody.”
Evans looked relieved. “We’ll work it out. The guard they’ve got to keep anybody from crossing your wall- I thought he might have both hands out. But don’t say you don’t need money; that’s immoral.”
“Well, I don’t. We don’t use money here.”
“Sure, sure … but you’ve got a family, haven’t you? Families always need money. Look, let’s not fuss. We’ll treat you right and you can let it pile up in the bank. I just want you to get signed up.”
“I don’t see why I should.” “Binder,” said Mac.
“Mmm … yes, Mac. See here, brother, think it over. Just let us have a binder that you won’t sign with anybody else. You can still stick us for anything your conscience will let you. Just a binder, with a thousand plutons on the side.”
“I’m not going to sign with anybody else.” “Got that, Mac?”
“Canned.”
Evans turned to Rod. “You don’t object to answering questions in the meantime, do you? And maybe a few pictures?” “Uh, I don’t care.” Rod was finding them puzzling and a little annoying, but they were company and he was bitterly lonely.
“Fine!” Evans drew him out with speed and great skill. Rod found himself telling more than he realized he knew. At one point Evans asked about dangerous animals. “I understand they are pretty rough here. Much trouble?”
“Why, no,” Rod answered with sincerity. “We never had real trouble with animals. What trouble we had was with people … and not much of that.” “You figure this will be a premium colony?”
“Of course. The others were fools to leave. This place is like Terra, only safer and richer and plenty of land. In a few years- say!” “Say what?”
“How did it happen that they left us here? We were only supposed to be here ten days.” “Didn’t they tell you?”
“Well … maybe the others were told. I never heard.” “It was the supernova, of course. Delta, uh-“
“Delta Gamma one thirteen,” supplied Mac.
“That’s it. Space-time distortion, but I’m no mathematician.” “Fluxion,” said Mac.
“Whatever that is. They’ve been fishing for you ever since. As I understand it, the wave front messed up their figures for this whole region. Incidentally, brother, when you go back-“ ”I’m not going back.”
“Well, even on a visit. Don’t sign a waiver. The Board is trying to call it an ‘Act of God’ and duck responsibility. So let me put a bug in your ear: don’t sign away your rights. Afriendly hint, huh?”
“Thanks. I won’t- well, thanks anyhow.”
“Now how about action pix for the lead stories?” “Well … okay.”
“Spear,” said Mac.
“Yeah, I believe you had some sort of spear. Mind holding it?”
Rod got it as the great Ellie joined them. “Wonderful!” she breathed. “I can feel it. It shows how thin the line is between man and beast. Ahundred cultured boys and girls slipping back to illiteracy, back to the stone age, the veneer sloughing away … reverting to savagery. Glorious!”
“Look here!” Rod said angrily. “Cowpertown wasn’t that way at all! We had laws, we had a constitution, we kept clean. We-” He stopped; Miss Ellens wasn’t listening.
“Savage ceremonies,” she said dreamily. “Avillage witch doctor pitting ignorance and superstition against nature. Primitive fertility rites-” She stopped and said to Mac in a businesslike voice, “We’ll shoot the dances three times. Cover ‘em a little for ‘A’ list; cover ‘em up a lot for the family list-and peel them down for the ‘B’ list. Got it?”
“Got it,” agreed Mac.
“I’ll do three commentaries she added. “It will be worth the trouble.” She reverted to her trance. “Wait a minute!” Rod protested. “If she means what
I think she means, there won’t be any pictures, with or without actors.”
“Take it easy,” Evans advised. “I said you would be technical supervisor, didn’t I? Or would you rather we did it without you? Ellie is all right, brother. What you don’t know- and she does- is that you have to shade the truth to get at the real truth, the underlying truth. You’ll see.
“But-“
Mac stepped up to him. “Hold still.”
Rod did so, as Mac raised his hand. Rod felt the cool touch of an air brush. “Hey! What are you doing?”
“Make up.” Mac returned to his gear.
“Just a little war paint,” Evans explained. “The pic needs color. It will wash off.”
Rod opened his mouth and eyes in utter indignation; without knowing it he raised his spear. “Get it, Mac!” Evans ordered. “Got it,” Mac answered calmly.
Rod fought to bring his anger down to where he could talk. “Take that tape out,” he said softly. “Throw it on the ground. Then get out.” “Slow down,” Evans advised. “You’ll like that pic. We’ll send you one.
“Take it out. Or I’ll bust the box and anybody who gets in my way!” He aimed his spear at the multiple lens. Mac slipped in front, protected it with his body. Evans called out, “Better look at this.”
Evans had him covered with a small but businesslike gun. “We go a lot of funny places, brother, but we go prepared. You damage that recorder, or hurt one of us, and you’ll be sued from here to breakfast. It’s a serious matter to interfere with a news service, brother. The public has rights, you know.” He raised his voice. “Ellie! We’re leaving.”
“Not yet,” she answered dreamily. “I must steep my-self in-“ “Right now! It’s an ‘eight-six’ with the Reuben Steuben!” “Okay!” she snapped in her other voice.
Rod let them go. Once they were over the wall he went;back to the city hall, sat down, held his knees and shook.
Later he climbed the stile and looked around. Aguard was on duty below him; the guard looked up but said nothing. The gate was relaxed to a mere control hole but a loading platform had been set up and a power fence surrounded it and joined the wall. Someone was working at a control board set up on a flatbed truck; Rod decided that they must be getting ready for major immigration. He went back and prepared a solitary meal, the poorest he had eaten in more than a year. Then he went to bed and listened to the jungle “Grand Opera” until he went to sleep.
“Anybody home?”
Rod came awake instant!y, realized that it was morning- and that not all nightmares were dreams. “Who’s there?” “Friend of yours.” B. P. Matson stuck his head in the door. “Put that whittler away. I’m harmless.”
Rod bounced up. “Deacon! I mean ‘Doctor.’”
“‘Deacon,’” Matson corrected. “I’ve got a visitor for you.” He stepped aside and Rod saw his sister.
Some moments later Matson said mildly, “If you two can unwind and blow your noses, we might get this on a coherent basis.”
Rod backed off and looked at his sister. “My, you look wondeful, Helen.” She was in mufti, dressed in a gay tabard and briefs. “You’ve lost weight.” “Not much. Better distributed, maybe. You’ve gained, Rod. My baby brother is a man.”
“How did you-” Rod stopped, struck by suspicion. “You didn’t come here to talk me into going back? If you did, you can save your breath.”
Matson answered hastily. “No, no, no! Farthest thought from our minds. But we heard about your decision and we wanted to see you-s o I did a little politickmg and got us a pass.” He added, “Nominally I’m a temporary field agent for the service.
“Oh. Well, I’m certainly glad to see you … as long as that is understood.”
“Sure, sure!” Matson took out a pipe, stoked and fired it. “I admire your choice, Rod. First time I’ve been on Tangaroa.” “On what?”
“Huh? Oh. Tangaroa. Polynesian goddess, I believe. Did you folks give it another name?” Rod considered it. “To tell the truth, we never got around to it. It … well, it just was.”
Matson nodded. “Takes two of anything before you need names. But it’s lovely, Rod. I can see you made a lot of progress. “We would have done all right,” Rod said bitterly, “if they hadn’t jerked the rug out.” He shrugged. “Like to look around?”
“I surely would.”
“All right. Come on, Sis. Wait a minute- I haven’t had breakfast; how about you?” “Well, when we left the Gap is was pushing lunch time. I could do with a bite. Helen?” “Yes, indeed.”
Rod scrounged in Margery’s supplies. The haunch on which he had supped was not at its best. He passed it to Matson. “Too high?” Matson sniffed it. “Pretty gamy. I can eat it if you can.
“We should have hunted yesterday, but … things happened.” He frowned. “Sit tight. I’ll get cured meat.” He ran up to the cave, found a smoked side and some salted strips. When he got back Matson had a fire going. There was nothing else to serve; no fruit had been gathered the day before. Rod was uneasily aware that their breakfasts must have been very different.
But he got over it in showing off how much they had done- potter’s wheel, Sue’s loom with a piece half finished, the flume with the village fountain and the showers that ran continuously,
iron artifacts that Art and Doug had hammered out. “I’d like to take you up to Art’s iron works but there is no telling what we might run into.”
“Come now, Rod, I’m not a city boy. Nor is your sister helpless.”
Rod shook his head. “I know this country; you don’t. I can go up there at a trot. But the only way for you would be a slow sneak, because I can’t cover you both.” Matson nodded. “You’re right. It seems odd to have one of my students solicitous over my health. But you are right. We don’t know this set up.
Rod showed them the stobor traps and described the annual berserk migration. “Stobor pour through those holes and fall in the pits. The other animals swarm past, as solid as city traffic for hours.”
“Catastrophic adjustment,” Matson remarked.
“Huh? Oh, yes, we figured that out. Cyclic catastrophic balance, just like human beings. If we had facilities, we could ship thousands of carcasses back to Earth every dry season. He considered it. “Maybe we will, now.
“Probably.”
“But up to now it has been just a troublesome nuisance. These stobor especially- I’ll show you one out in the field when- say!” Rod looked thoughtful. “These are stobor, aren’t they? Little carnivores heavy in front, about the size of a tom cat and eight times as nasty?”
“Why ask me?”
“Well, you warned us against stobor. All the classes were warned.”
“I suppose these must be stobor,” Matson admitted, “but I did not know what they looked like.” “Huh?”
“Rod, every planet has its ‘stobor’ … all different. Sometimes more than one sort.” He stopped to tap his pipe. “You remember me telling the class that every planet has unique dangers, different from every other planet in the Galaxy?”
“Yes…”
“Sure, and it meant nothing, a mere intellectual concept. But you have to be afraid of the thing behind the concept, if you are to stay alive. So we personify it … but we don’t tell you what it is. We do it differently each year. It is to warn you that the unknown and deadly can lurk anywhere … and to plant it deep in your guts instead of in your head.”
“Well, I’ll be a- Then there weren’t any stobor! There never were!” “Sure there were. You built these traps for them, didn’t you?”
* * * * *
When they returned, Matson sat on the ground and said, “We can’t stay long, you know.
“I realize that. Wait a moment.” Rod went into his hut, dug out Lady Macbeth, rejoined them. “Here’s your knife, Sis. It saved my skin more than once. Thanks.”
She took the knife and caressed it, then cradled it and looked past Rod’s head. It flashed by him, went tuckspong! in a corner post. She recovered it, came back and handed it to Rod. “Keep it, dear, wear it always in safety and health.”
“Gee, Sis, I shouldn’t. I’ve had it too long now.”
“Please. I’d like to know that Lady Macbeth is watching over you, wherever you are. And I don’t need a knife much now.” “Huh? Why not?”
“Because I married her,” Matson answered.
Rod was caught speechless. His sister looked at him and said, “What’s the matter, Buddy? Don’t you approve?”
“Huh? Oh, sure! It’s …” He dug into his memory, fell back on quoted ritual: “‘May the Principle make you one. May your union be fruitful.’” “Then come here and kiss me.”
Rod did so, remembered to shake hands with the Deacon. It was all right, he guessed, but- well, how old were they? Sis must be thirtyish and the Deacon … why the Deacon was old- probably past forty. It did not seem quite decent.
But he did his best to make them feel that he approved. After he thought it over he decided that if two people, with their lives behind them, wanted company in their old age, why, it was probably a good thing.
“So you see,” Matson went on, “I had a double reason to look you up. In the first place, though I am no longer teaching, it is vexing to mislay an entire class. In the second place, when one of them is your brother-in-law it is downright embarrassing.”
“You’ve quit teaching?”
“Yes. The Board and I don’t see eye to eye on policy. Secondly, I’m leading a party out … and this time your sister and I are going to settle down and prove a farm.” Matson looked at him. “Wouldn’t be interested, would you? I need a salted lieutenant.”
“Huh? Thanks, but as I told you, this is my place. Uh, where are you going?” “Territa, out toward the Hyades. Nice place- they are charging a stiff premium.” Rod shrugged. “Then I couldn’t afford it.”
“As my lieutenant, you’d be exempt. But I wasn’t twisting your arm; I just thought you ought to have a chance to turn it down. I have to get along with your sister, you know.” Rod glanced at Helen. “Sorry, Sis.”
“It’s all right, Buddy. We’re not trying to live your life.”
“Mmm … no. Matson puffed hard; then went on. “However, as your putative brother and former teacher I feel obligated to mention a couple of things. I’m not trying to sell you anything, but I’ll appreciate it if you’ll listen. Okay?”
“Well … go ahead.”
“This is a good spot. but you might go back to school, you know. Acquire recognized professional status. If you refuse recall, here you stay … forever. You won’t see the rest of the Outlands. They won’t give you free passage back later. But a professional gets around, he sees the world. Your sister and I have been on some fifty planets. School does not look attractive now- you’re a man and it will be hard to wear boy’s shoes. But-” Matson swept an arm, encompassed all of Cowpertown, “-this counts. You can skip courses, get field credit. I have some drag with the Chancellor of Central Tech. Hmmm?”
Rod sat with stony face, then shook his head. “Okay,” said Matson briskly. “No harm done.”
“Wait. Let me tell you.” Rod tried to think how to explain how he felt … “Nothing, I guess,” he said gruffly. Matson smoked in silence. “You were leader here,” he said at last.
“Mayor,” Rod corrected. “Mayor of Cowpertown. I was the Mayor, I mean.”
“You are the Mayor. Population one, but you are still boss. And even those bureaucrats in the control service wouldn’t dispute that you’ve proved the land. Technically you are an autonomous colony- I hear you told Sansom that.” Matson grinned. “You’re alone, however. You can’t live alone, Rod … not and stay human.”
“Well, yes- but aren’t they going to settle this planet?”
“Sure. Probably fifty thousand this year, four times that many in two years. But, Rod, you would be part of the mob. Theyll bring their own leaders.” “I don’t have to be boss! I just- well, I don’t want to give up Cowpertown.”
“Rod, Cowpertown is safe in history, along with Plymouth Rock, Botany Bay, and Dakin’s Colony. The citizens of Tangaroa will undoubtedly preserve it as a historical shrine. Whether you stay is another matter. Nor am I trying to persuade you. I was simply pointing out alternatives.” He stood up. “About time we started, Helen.”
“Yes, dear.” She accepted his hand and stood up.
“Wait a minute!” insisted Rod. “Deacon … Sis! I know I sound like a fool. I know this is gone … the town, and the kids, and everything. But I can’t go back.” He added, “It’s not that I don’t want to.”
Matson nodded. “I understand you.” “I don’t see how. I don’t.”
“Maybe I’ve been there. Rod, everyone of us is beset by two things: a need to go home, and the impossibility of doing it. You are at the age when these hurt worst. You’ve been thrown into a situation that makes the crisis doubly acute. You- don’t interrupt me- you’ve been a man here, the old man of the tribe, the bull of the herd. That is why the others could go back but you can’t. Wait, please! I suggested that you might find it well to go back and be an adolescent for a while … and it seems unbearable. I’m not surprised. It would be easier to be a small child. Children are another race and adults deal with them as such. But adolescents are neither adult nor child. They have the impossible, unsolvable, tragic problems of all fringe cultures. They don’t belong, they are second-class citizens, economically and socially insecure. It is a difficult period and I don’t blame you for not wanting to return to it. I simply think it might pay. But you have been king of a whole world; I imagine that term papers and being told to wipe your feet and such are out of the question. So good luck. Coming, dear?”
“Deacon,” his wife said, “Aren’t you going to tell him?”
“It has no bearing. It would be an unfair way to influence his judgment.” “You men! I’m glad I’m not male!”
“So am I,” Matson agreed pleasantly.
“I didn’t mean that. Men behave as if logic were stepping on crack in a sidewalk. I’m going to tell him.” “On your head be it.”
“Tell me what?” demanded Rod.
“She means,” said Matson, “that your parents are back.” “What?”
“Yes, Buddy. They left stasis a week ago and Daddy came out of the hospital today. He’s well. But we haven’t told him all about you- we haven’t known what to say.”
The facts were simple, although Rod found them hard to soak up. Medical techniques had developed in two years, not a pessimistic twenty; it had been possible to relax the stasis, operate, and restore Mr. Walker to the world. Helen had known for months that such outcome was likely, but their father’s physician had not approved until he was sure. It had been mere coincidence that Tangaroa had been located at almost the same time. To Rod one event was as startling as the other; his parents had been dead to him for a long time.
“My dear,” Matson said sternly, “now that you have thrown him into a whingding, shall we go?”
“Yes. But I had to tell him.” Helen kissed Rod quickly, turned to her husband. They started to walk away. Rod watched them, his face contorted in an agony of indecision.
Suddenly he called out, “Wait! I’m coming with you.”
“All right,” Matson answered. He turned his good eye toward his wife and drooped the lid in a look of satisfaction that was not quite a wink. “If you are sure that is what you want to do, I’ll help you get your gear together.”
“Oh, I haven’t any baggage. Let’s go.”
Rod stopped only long enough to free the penned animals.
4. The Endless Road
Matson chaperoned him through Emigrants’ Gap, saved from possible injury a functionary who wanted to give Rod psychological tests, and saw to it that he signed no waivers. He had him bathed, shaved, and barbered, then fetched him clothes, before he let him be exposed to the Terran world. Matson accompanied them only to Kaibab Gate. “I’m supposed to have a lodge dinner, or something, so that you four can be alone as a family. About nine, dear. See you, Rod.” He kissed his wife and left.
“Sis? Dad doesn’t know I’m coming?”
Helen hesitated. “He knows. I screened him while Deacon was primping you.” She added, “Remember, Rod, Dad has been ill … and the time has been only a couple of weeks to him.” “Oh, that’s so, isn’t it?” Used all his life to Ramsbotham anomalies, Rod nevertheless found those concerned with time confusing- planet-hopping via the gates did not seem odd.
Besides, he was extremely edgy without knowing why, the truth being that he was having an attack of fear of crowds. The Matsons had anticipated it but had not warned him lest they
make him worse.
The walk through tall trees just before reaching home calmed him. The necessity for checking all cover for dangerous animals and keeping a tree near him always in mind gave his subconscious something familiar to chew on. He arrived home almost cheerful without being aware either that he had been frightened by crowds or soothed by non-existent dangers of an urban forest.
His father looked browned and healthy- but shorter and smaller. He embraced his son and his mother kissed him and wept. “It’s good to have you home, son. I understand you had quite a trip.”
“It’s good to be home, Dad.”
“I think these tests are much too strenuous, I really do.”
Rod started to explain that it really had not been a test, that it had not been strenuous, and that Cowpertown- Tangaroa, rather- had been a soft touch. But he got mixed up and was disturbed by the presence of “Aunt” Nora Peascoat- no relation but a childhood friend of his mother. Besides, his father was not listening.
But Mrs. Peascoat was listening, and looking-peering with little eyes through folds of flesh. “Why, Roderick Walker, I knew that couldn’t have been a picture of you.” “Eh?” asked his father. “What picture?”
“Why, that wild-man picture that had Roddie’s name on it. You must have seen it; it was on facsimile and Empire Hour both. I knew it wasn’t him. I said to Joseph, ‘Joseph,’ I said, ‘that’s not a picture of Rod Walker-its a fake.’”
“I must have missed it. As you know, I-“
“I’ll send it to you; I clipped it. I knew it was a fake. It’s a horrible thing, a great naked savage with pointed teeth and a fiendish grin and a long spear and war paint all over its ugly face. I said to Joseph-“
“As you know, I returned from hospital just this morning, Nora. Rod, there was no picture of you on the news services, surely?” “Uh, yes and no. Maybe.”
“I don’t follow you. Why should there be a picture of you?” “There wasn’t any reason. This bloke just took it.”
“Then there was a picture?”
“Yes.” Rod saw that “Aunt” Nora was eyeing him avidly: “But it was a fake- sort of.” “I still don’t follow you.
“Please, Pater,” Helen intervened. “Rod had a tiring trip. This can wait.” “Oh, surely. I don’t see how a picture can be ‘a sort of a fake.’”
“Well, Dad, this man painted my face when I wasn’t looking. I-” Rod stopped, realizing that it sounded ridiculous. “Then it was your picture?” “Aunt” Nora insisted.
“I’m not going to say any more.
Mr. Walker blinked. “Perhaps that is best.”
“Aunt” Nora looked ruffled. “Well, I suppose anything can happen ‘way off in those odd places. From the teaser on Empire Hour I understand some very strange things did happen … not all of them nice.”
She looked as if daring Rod to deny it. Rod said nothing. She went on, “I don’t know what you were thinking of, letting a boy do such things. My father always said that if the Almighty had intended us to use those gate things instead of rocket ships He would have provided His own holes in the sky.”
Helen said sharply, “Mrs. Peascoat, in what way is a rocket ship more natural than a gate?” “Why, Helen Walker! I’ve been ‘Aunt Nora’ all your life. ‘Mrs. Peascoat’ indeed!”
Helen shrugged. “And my name is Matson, not Walker- as you know.”
Mrs. Walker, distressed and quite innocent, broke in to ask Mrs. Peascoat to stay for dinner. Mr. Walker added, “Yes, Nora, join us Under the Lamp.” Rod counted to ten. But Mrs. Peascoat said she was sure they wanted to be alone, they had so much to talk about … and his father did not insist.
Rod quieted during ritual, although he stumbled in responses and once left an awkward silence. Dinner was wonderfully good, but he was astonished by the small portions; Terra must be under severe rationing. But everyone seemed happy and so he was.
“I’m sorry about this mix-up,” his father told him. “I suppose it means that you will have to repeat a semester at Patrick Henry.” “On the contrary, Pater,” Helen answered, “Deacon is sure that Rod can enter Central Tech with advanced standing.”
“Really? They were more strict in my day.”
“All of that group will get special credit. What they learned cannot be learned in classrooms.”
Seeing that his father was inclined to argue Rod changed the subject. “Sis, that reminds me. I gave one of the girls your name, thinking you were still in the Corps- she wants to be appointed cadet, you see. You can still help her, can’t you?”
“I can advise her and perhaps coach her for the exams. Is this important to you, Buddy?”
“Well, yes. And she is number-one officer material. She’s a big girl, even bigger than you are- and she looks
a bit like you. She is smart like you, too, around genius, and always good-natured and willing- but strong and fast and incredibly violent when you need it … sudden death in all directions.”
“Roderick.” His father glanced at the lamp.
“Uh, sorry, Dad. I was just describing her.”
“Very well. Son … when did you start picking up your meat with your fingers?” Rod dropped the tidbit and blushed. “Excuse me. We didn’t have forks.”
Helen chuckled. “Never mind, Rod. Pater, it’s perfectly natural. Whenever we paid off any of our girls we always put them through reorientation to prepare them for the perils of civil life. And fingers were made before forks.”
“Mmm . . no doubt. Speaking of reorientation, there is something we must do, daughter, before this family will be organized again.” “So?”
“Yes. I mean the transfer of guardianship. Now that I am well, by a miracle, I must reassume my responsibilities.”
Rod’s mind slipped several cogs before it penetrated that Dad was talking about him. Guardian? Oh … Sis was his guardian, wasn’t she? But it didn’t mean anything. Helen hesitated. “I suppose so, Pater,” she said, her eyes on Rod, “if Buddy wants to.”
“Eh? That is not a factor, daughter. Your husband won’t want the responsibility of supervising a young boy- and it is my obligation … and privilege.” Helen looked annoyed. Rod said, “I can’t see that it matters, Dad. I’ll be away at college-and after all I am nearly old enough to vote.”
His mother looked startled. “Why, Roddie dear!”
“Yes,” agreed his father. “I’m afraid I can’t regard a gap of three years as negligible.” “What do you mean, Dad? I’ll be of age in January.”
Mrs. Walker clasped a hand to her mouth. “Jerome we’ve forgotten the time lag again. Oh, my baby boy!”
Mr. Walker looked astonished, muttered something about “-very difficult” and gave attention to his plate. Presently he looked up. “You’ll pardon me, Rod. Nevertheless, until you are of age I must do what I can; I hardly think I want you to live away from home while at college.”
“Sir? Why not?”
“Well- I feel that we have drifted apart, and not all for the best. Take this girl you spoke of in such surprising terms. Am I correct in implying that she was, eh a close chum?” Rod felt himself getting warm. “She was my city manager,” he said flatly.
“Your what?”
“My executive officer. She was captain of the guard, chief of police, anything you want to call her. She did everything. She hunted, too, but that was just because she liked to. Carol is, uh- well, Carol is swell.”
“Roderick, are you involved with this girl?”
“Me? Gosh, no! She was more like a big sister. Oh, Carol was sweet on half a dozen fellows, one time or another, but it never lasted.” “I am very glad to hear that you are not serously interested in her. She does not sound like desirable companionship for a young boy.” “Dad- you don’t know what you are saying!”
“Perhaps. I intend to find out. But what is this other matter? ‘City Manager!’ What were you?” “I,” Rod said proudly, “was Mayor of Cowpertown.”
His father looked at him, then shook his head. “We’ll speak of this later. Possibly you need, eh- medical help.” He looked at Helen. “We’ll attend to the change in guardianship tomorrow. I can see that there is much I must take care of.”
Helen met his eyes. “Not unless Buddy consents.” “Daughter!”
“The transfer was irrevocable. He will have to agree or I won’t do it!”
Mr. Walker looked shocked, Mrs. Walker looked stricken. Rod got up and left the room … the first time anyone had ever done so while the Lamp of Peace was burning. He heard his father call after him but he did not turn back.
He found Matson in his room, smoking and reading. “I grabbed a bite and let myself in quietly,” Matson explained. He inspected Rod’s face. “I told you,” he said slowly, “that it would be rough. Well, sweat it out, son, sweat it out.”
“I can’t stand it!” “Yes, you can.
In Emigrants’ Gap the sturdy cross-country wagons were drawn up in echelon, as they had been so often before and would be so many times again. The gate was not ready; drivers gathered at the booth under Liberty’s skirts, drinking coffee and joking through the nervous wait. Their professional captain was with them, a lean, homely young man with deep lines in his face, from sun and laughing and perhaps some from worry. But he did not seem to be worrying now; he was grinning and drinking coffee and sharing a doughnut with a boy child. He was dressed in fringed buckskin, in imitation of a very old style; he wore a Bill Cody beard and rather long hair. His mount was a little pinto, standing patiently by with reins hanging. There was a boot scabbard holding a hunting rifle on the nigh side of the saddle, but the captain carried no guns on his person; instead he wore two knives, one on each side.
Asiren sounded and a speaker above the Salvation Army booth uttered: “Captain Walker, ready with gate four.”
Rod waved at the control booth and shouted, “Call off!” then turned back to Jim and Jacqueline. “Tell Carol I’m sorry she couldn’t get leave. I’ll be seeing you.” “Might be sooner than you think,” asserted Jim. “My firm is going to bid this contract.”
“Your firm? Where do you get that noise? Have they made him a partner, Jackie?”
“No,” she answered serenely, “but I’m sure they will as soon as he is admitted to the Outlands bar. Kiss Uncle Rod good-by, Grant.” “No,” the youngster answered firmly.
“Just like his father,” Jimmy said proudly. “Kisses women only.”
The count was running back down; Rod heard it and swung into saddle. “Take it easy, kids.” The count passed him, finished with a shouted, “ONE!”
“Reins up! Reeeiins UP!” He waited with arm raised and glanced through the fully-dilated gate past rolling prairie at snow-touched peaks beyond. His nostrils widened.
The control light turned green. He brought his arm down hard and shouted, “Roll ‘em! Ho!” as he squeezed and released the little horse with his knees. The pinto sprang forward, cut in front of the lead wagon, and Captain Walker headed out on his long road.
The End
Do you want some more?
I have more stories in my Fictional Story Index. You can visit it here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
This is the full text, for free, of the Robert Heinlein novel titled “Starship Troopers”. You can read it here directly. You do not have to “register for free” with your credit card, click through a dozen affiliate links, join a “membership”, or download some kind of “pass”. This website is not monetized, and that means that “free” actually means “free”.
Not like the “other” websites on the internet that promise you “free” with a catch…
It’s all “free” just go ahead and give the website your credit card number, and agree to pay some “minor” fees and give them your email address and answer some “minor” questions.
Yeah. It’s all “free” right? Yeah like fucking Hell, it’s free. Most everything in the United States is tied to making money. And you, my dear reader as just a pawn, a debt sheep to serve your greedy masters. But not here.
Sounds legit, eh? Safe and Secure, eh?
Here it is really free. Here I don’t want your fucking credit card, or God-damn banking information. I do not expect you to make a “future purchase. I don’t want anything from ya. Just enjoy a great read. It’s my way, a little one, of making the world a better place, step by step.
Here it is in all it’s glory.
Brief Introduction
If you think that the Hollywood movie version of this novel was accurate, let me dispel that misconception. The movie does not, in any way, resemble the novel. This novel is great, and something worthy of posting on my blog.
I first read this book years ago as a child, and in many ways it shaped my entire world view; it quite literally changed my life.
I recently retired after 27 years of Naval service, and as silly as it may seem to some, this book was the foundation of my success; in military service, in the lives of countless young Sailors, and in my new role as a civilian.
It shaped the character of who I was as a leader of men and women at war.
Heinlein may have authored "better" books (according to the critics) but having read virtually all of them, none of the others ever quite so captured the essence of what it means to be both in military service and what those of us fortunate enough to have served all know in our hearts: the true value and moral responsibility of citizenship.
-Amazon Customer
I’ve read this novel three or four times over the last fifty years. It’s a wonderful adventure, but far far more than that.
This is a book about morality: what does the individual ‘owe’ to society (as represented by the state), if anything? Heinlein was a libertarian, so you might think that his answer would, effectively, be …. nothing. His The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, another classic, is closer to that view.
This is a classic SF futuristic warfare novel that was (may be still) on the reading list at the USAF Command and Staff College where it first got my attention.
Written in or around 1959, Heinlein's views on duty, honor, selfless service, dignity, combat unit cohesiveness, future infantry tactics and weaponry, society, women in combat, politics, and even parenting are magnificently woven into a fast read novel written at the high school level (at least the 1959 high school level).
A must read for any junior officer or NCO. Great for a military professional development discussion or class. Heinlein was a prolific SF writer. And, I have read a number of his books. But, Starship Troopers is by far the best.
If you saw the movie.... I provide you my regrets, although it had a number of budding stars. About the only thing the novel and the movie share besides title is that the protagonist is named Johnnie and the antagonists are bugs.
-EIA!
But in my opinion this book has a sounder view. It’s also brilliantly written — okay, it’s not Updike, but it’s very good juvenile fiction. Two things will interest readers with a sense of history: first, this was written BEFORE the ‘Sixties Revolution’ — and Heinlein was NEVER Politically Correct.
But this book, like almost all his novels written from the 1950s onward, includes very effective, if subtle, arguments against what nowadays are called ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’.
Secondly, it’s interesting to see how far-seeing science fiction authors almost completely missed the revolution in micro-miniaturisation and digital electronics, which makes some of their predictions about the evolution of technology way off the mark. But no one reading the book should feel superior — it just shows that the future is not predictable.
A great book for teenage boys — I don’t know if girls will appreciate it. Lots of bang-bang, but underlying the adventure, and the identifiable-with central character, are deep lessons in how to be a good person.
Best WAR story ever written, past, present or future. It is NOT what you saw in the movie, it is SOOOOO much better!!!
Heinlein lays out his vision for inter-galactic warfare, but it is really a book about how a boy becomes a man and a person becomes a worthy citizen.
Accused by the Hippies of its era for being "Too Fascist" this libertarian fantasy portrays a future where society really is a liberal-globalist paradise run on a capitalist economy, but with the right to vote limited to those who volunteer for military service.
It is a future society with total freedom and total responsibility.
All wars are in outer space where human colonies run into hostile societies, especially the "Bugs." We get to follow Johnny Rico, a very typical recent high school graduate, as he goes through basic training and enters combat in a wild tech-warrior mech-suit (first imagined in this book) as a member of the Mobile Infantry. if you like HALO, this is where the game world and tech came from.
But, it is really a story about a new a better society and how to find meaning for your life through service to humanity. The best scenes are short, but all take place in a classroom, where "Moral Ethics and History" are taught by a veteran with a missing arm.
So, ignore the movie, ignore the controversy; just buy this space adventure and ponder why we don't live in Heinlein's perfect society . . . . yet!!
"Do you apes want to live forever!!"
-Erik S Rurikson
The story follows the career of Johnnie Rico as a Trooper for the federation in a far off fascist future. Despite being a military sci-fi novel it has a surprising amount of political commentary running throughout adding an interesting layer of depth that a lot of modern military sci-fi novels really lack. In the future the only people that can vote have to have worked for the federation to earn citizenship, they have to have earned the right and put the good of the whole above the individual but it’s not that simple as Johnnie finds out.
Can't believe I waited this long to read it. I have been a Sci-Fi fan for many years. My die-hard friends always recommended "Starship Troopers" and the Forever War as two classics that all Sci-Fi fans have to have read.Well.... I saw the abysmal movie years ago so was not interested. What a dolt. Robert Heinlein's book is, I now agree, a must read classic for all Sci-Fi fans. I can now see the influence he had with current writers of the genre. Between him and Asimov their influence is seen everywhere. Really glad I finally read it. Not as much action as I had hoped for but the other areas where he explores human nature, government and society and an individuals role in all of that was enjoyable and well worth the read. You have to answer those same questions for yourself as you read Rico's experiences and journey from late teen into adulthood.
-Squall Line
Though Rico’s reason for joining started as a political choice it soon turns into the look at the life of a mobile infantry trooper, over half the book is about his training alone, about what really makes a soldier in the future. Most of the cadets don’t make it through training, nevermind to serve their term to be citizens.
Starship Troopers
By Robert Heinlein
Come on, you apes! You wanta live forever?
—Unknown platoon sergeant, 1918
I always get the shakes before a drop. I’ve had the injections, of course, and hypnotic preparation, and it stands to reason that I can’t really be afraid. The ship’s psychiatrist has checked my brain waves and asked me silly questions while I was asleep and he tells me that it isn’t fear, it isn’t anything important—it’s just like the trembling of an eager race horse in the starting gate.
I couldn’t say about that; I’ve never been a race horse. But the fact is: I’m scared silly, every time.
At D-minus-thirty, after we had mustered in the drop room of the Rodger Young, our platoon leader inspected us. He wasn’t our regular platoon leader, because Lieutenant Rasczak had bought it on our last drop; he was really the platoon sergeant, Career Ship’s Sergeant Jelal. Jelly was a Finno-Turk from Iskander around Proxima—a swarthy little man who looked like a clerk, but I’ve seen him tackle two berserk privates so big he had to reach up to grab them, crack their heads together like coconuts, step back out of the way while they fell.
Off duty he wasn’t bad—for a sergeant. You could even call him “Jelly” to his face. Not recruits, of course, but anybody who had made at least one combat drop.
But right now he was on duty. We had all each inspected our combat equipment (look, it’s your own neck—see?), the acting platoon sergeant
had gone over us carefully after he mustered us, and now Jelly went over us again, his face mean, his eyes missing nothing. He stopped by the man in front of me, pressed the button on his belt that gave readings on his physicals. “Fall out!”
“But, Sarge, it’s just a cold. The Surgeon said—”
Jelly interrupted. “‘But Sarge!’” he snapped. “The Surgeon ain’t making no drop—and neither are you, with a degree and a half of fever. You think
I got time to chat with you, just before a drop? Fall out! ”
Jenkins left us, looking sad and mad—and I felt bad, too. Because of the Lieutenant buying it, last drop, and people moving up, I was assistant
section leader, second section, this drop, and now I was going to have a hole in my section and no way to fill it. That’s not good; it means a man can run into something sticky, call for help and have nobody to help him.
Jelly didn’t downcheck anybody else. Presently he stepped out in front of us, looked us over and shook his head sadly. “What a gang of apes!” he growled. “Maybe if you’d all buy it this drop, they could start over and build the kind of outfit the Lieutenant expected you to be. But probably not— with the sort of recruits we get these days.” He suddenly straightened up, shouted, “I just want to remind you apes that each and every one of you has cost the gov’ment, counting weapons, armor, ammo, instrumentation, and training, everything, including the way you overeat—has cost, on the hoof, better’n half a million. Add in the thirty cents you are actually worth and that runs to quite a sum.” He glared at us. “So bring it back! We can spare you, but we can’t spare that fancy suit you’re wearing. I don’t want any heroes in this outfit; the Lieutenant wouldn’t like it. You got a job to do, you go down, you do it, you keep your ears open for recall, you show up for retrieval on the bounce and by the numbers. Get me?”
He glared again. “You’re supposed to know the plan. But some of you ain’t got any minds to hypnotize so I’ll sketch it out. You’ll be dropped in two skirmish lines, calculated two-thousand-yard intervals. Get your bearing on me as soon as you hit, get your bearing and distance on your squad mates, both sides, while you take cover. You’ve wasted ten seconds already, so you smash-and-destroy whatever’s at hand until the flankers hit dirt.” (He was talking about me—as assistant section leader I was going to be left flanker, with nobody at my elbow. I began to tremble.)
“Once they hit—straighten out those lines!—equalize those intervals! Drop what you’re doing and do it! Twelve seconds. Then advance by leapfrog, odd and even, assistant section leaders minding the count and guiding the envelopment.” He looked at me. “If you’ve done this properly— which I doubt—the flanks will make contact as recall sounds . . . at which time, home you go. Any questions?”
There weren’t any; there never were. He went on, “One more word—This is just a raid, not a battle. It’s a demonstration of firepower and frightfulness. Our mission is to let the enemy know that we could have destroyed their city—but didn’t—but that they aren’t safe even though we refrain from total bombing. You’ll take no prisoners. You’ll kill only when you can’t help it. But the entire area we hit is to be smashed. I don’t want to see any of you loafers back aboard here with unexpended bombs. Get me?” He glanced at the time. “Rasczak’s Roughnecks have got a reputation
to uphold. The Lieutenant told me before he bought it to tell you that he will always have his eye on you every minute . . . and that he expects your names to shine!”
Jelly glanced over at Sergeant Migliaccio, first section leader. “Five minutes for the Padre,” he stated. Some of the boys dropped out of ranks,
went over and knelt in front of Migliaccio, and not necessarily those of his creed, either—Moslems, Christians, Gnostics, Jews, whoever wanted a word with him before a drop, he was there. I’ve heard tell that there used to be military outfits whose chaplains did not fight alongside the others, but I’ve never been able to see how that could work. I mean, how can a chaplain bless anything he’s not willing to do himself? In any case, in the Mobile
Infantry, everybody drops and everybody fights—chaplain and cook and the Old Man’s writer. Once we went down the tube there wouldn’t be a Roughneck left aboard—except Jenkins, of course, and that not his fault.
I didn’t go over. I was always afraid somebody would see me shake if I did, and, anyhow, the Padre could bless me just as handily from where he was. But he came over to me as the last stragglers stood up and pressed his helmet against mine to speak privately. “Johnnie,” he said quietly, “this is your first drop as a non-com.”
“Yeah.” I wasn’t really a non-com, any more than Jelly was really an officer.
“Just this, Johnnie. Don’t buy a farm. You know your job; do it. Just do it. Don’t try to win a medal.” “Uh, thanks, Padre. I shan’t.”
He added something gently in a language I don’t know, patted me on the shoulder, and hurried back to his section. Jelly called out, “Tenn . . .
shut!” and we all snapped to. “Platoon!”
“Section!” Migliaccio and Johnson echoed.
“By sections—port and starboard—prepare for drop!”
“Section! Man your capsules! Move! ”
“Squad!”—I had to wait while squads four and five manned their capsules and moved on down the firing tube before my capsule showed up on
the port track and I could climb into it. I wondered if those old-timers got the shakes as they climbed into the Trojan Horse? Or was it just me? Jelly checked each man as he was sealed in and he sealed me in himself. As he did so, he leaned toward me and said, “Don’t goof off, Johnnie. This is just like a drill.”
The top closed on me and I was alone. “Just like a drill,” he says! I began to shake uncontrollably.
Then, in my earphones, I heard Jelly from the center-line tube: “Bridge! Rasczak’s Roughnecks . . . ready for drop!”
“Seventeen seconds, Lieutenant!” I heard the ship captain’s cheerful contralto replying—and resented her calling Jelly “Lieutenant.” To be sure, our lieutenant was dead and maybe Jelly would get his commission . . . but we were still “Rasczak’s Roughnecks.”
She added, “Good luck, boys!” “Thanks, Captain.”
“Brace yourselves! Five seconds.”
I was strapped all over—belly, forehead, shins. But I shook worse than ever.
It’s better after you unload. Until you do, you sit there in total darkness, wrapped like a mummy against the acceleration, barely able to breathe— and knowing that there is just nitrogen around you in the capsule even if you could get your helmet open, which you can’t—and knowing that the capsule is surrounded by the firing tube anyhow and if the ship gets hit before they fire you, you haven’t got a prayer, you’ll just die there, unable to move, helpless. It’s that endless wait in the dark that causes the shakes—thinking that they’ve forgotten you . . . the ship has been hulled and stayed in orbit, dead, and soon you’ll buy it, too, unable to move, choking. Or it’s a crash orbit and you’ll buy it that way, if you don’t roast on the way down.
Then the ship’s braking program hit us and I stopped shaking. Eight gees, I would say, or maybe ten. When a female pilot handles a ship there is nothing comfortable about it; you’re going to have bruises every place you’re strapped. Yes, yes, I know they make better pilots than men do; their
reactions are faster, and they can tolerate more gee. They can get in faster, get out faster, and thereby improve everybody’s chances, yours as well
as theirs. But that still doesn’t make it fun to be slammed against your spine at ten times your proper weight.
But I must admit that Captain Deladrier knows her trade. There was no fiddling around once the Rodger Young stopped braking. At once I heard her snap, “Center-line tube … fire!” and there were two recoil bumps as Jelly and his acting platoon sergeant unloaded—and immediately: “Port and starboard tubes—automatic fire! ” and the rest of us started to unload.
Bump! and your capsule jerks ahead one place—bump! and it jerks again, precisely like cartridges feeding into the chamber of an old-style automatic weapon. Well, that’s just what we were . . . only the barrels of the gun were twin launching tubes built into a spaceship troop carrier and each cartridge was a capsule big enough (just barely) to hold an infantryman with all field equipment.
Bump!—I was used to number three spot, out early; now I was Tail-End Charlie, last out after three squads. It makes a tedious wait, even with a capsule being fired every second; I tried to count the bumps—bump! (twelve) bump! (thirteen) bump! (fourteen—with an odd sound to it, the empty one Jenkins should have been in) bump!—
And clang!—it’s my turn as my capsule slams into the firing chamber—then WHAMBO! the explosion hits with a force that makes the Captain’s braking maneuver feel like a love tap.
Then suddenly nothing.
Nothing at all. No sound, no pressure, no weight. Floating in darkness . . . free fall, maybe thirty miles up, above the effective atmosphere, falling weightlessly toward the surface of a planet you’ve never seen. But I’m not shaking now; it’s the wait beforehand that wears. Once you unload, you can’t get hurt—because if anything goes wrong it will happen so fast that you’ll buy it without noticing that you’re dead, hardly.
Almost at once I felt the capsule twist and sway, then steady down so that my weight was on my back . . . weight that built up quickly until I was at my full weight (0.87 gee, we had been told) for that planet as the capsule reached terminal velocity for the thin upper atmosphere. A pilot who is a real artist (and the Captain was) will approach and brake so that your launching speed as you shoot out of the tube places you just dead in space relative to the rotational speed of the planet at that latitude. The loaded capsules are heavy; they punch through the high, thin winds of the upper atmosphere without being blown too far out of position—but just the same a platoon is bound to disperse on the way down, lose some of the perfect formation in which it unloads. A sloppy pilot can make this still worse, scatter a strike group over so much terrain that it can’t make rendezvous for retrieval, much less carry out its mission. An infantryman can fight only if somebody else delivers him to his zone; in a way I suppose pilots are just as essential as we are.
I could tell from the gentle way my capsule entered the atmosphere that the Captain had laid us down with as near zero lateral vector as you could ask for. I felt happy—not only a tight formation when we hit and no time wasted, but also a pilot who puts you down properly is a pilot who is smart and precise on retrieval.
The outer shell burned away and sloughed off—unevenly, for I tumbled. Then the rest of it went and I straightened out. The turbulence brakes of the second shell bit in and the ride got rough . . . and still rougher as they burned off one at a time and the second shell began to go to pieces. One of the things that helps a capsule trooper to live long enough to draw a pension is that the skins peeling off his capsule not only slow him down, they also fill the sky over the target area with so much junk that radar picks up reflections from dozens of targets for each man in the drop, any one of which could be a man, or a bomb, or anything. It’s enough to give a ballistic computer nervous breakdowns—and does.
To add to the fun your ship lays a series of dummy eggs in the seconds immediately following your drop, dummies that will fall faster because they don’t slough. They get under you, explode, throw out “window,” even operate as transponders, rocket sideways, and do other things to add to the confusion of your reception committee on the ground.
In the meantime your ship is locked firmly on the directional beacon of your platoon leader, ignoring the radar “noise” it has created and following you in, computing your impact for future use.
When the second shell was gone, the third shell automatically opened my first ribbon chute. It didn’t last long but it wasn’t expected to; one good, hard jerk at several gee and it went its way and I went mine. The second chute lasted a little bit longer and the third chute lasted quite a while; it began to be rather too warm inside the capsule and I started thinking about landing.
The third shell peeled off when its last chute was gone and now I had nothing around me but my suit armor and a plastic egg. I was still strapped inside it, unable to move; it was time to decide how and where I was going to ground. Without moving my arms (I couldn’t) I thumbed the switch for a proximity reading and read it when it flashed on in the instrument reflector inside my helmet in front of my forehead.
A mile and eight-tenths—A little closer than I liked, especially without company. The inner egg had reached steady speed, no more help to be gained by staying inside it, and its skin temperature indicated that it would not open automatically for a while yet—so I flipped a switch with my other thumb and got rid of it.
The first charge cut all the straps; the second charge exploded the plastic egg away from me in eight separate pieces—and I was outdoors,
sitting on air, and could see! Better still, the eight discarded pieces were metal-coated (except for the small bit I had taken proximity reading through) and would give back the same reflection as an armored man. Any radar viewer, alive or cybernetic, would now have a sad time sorting me out from the junk nearest me, not to mention the thousands of other bits and pieces for miles on each side, above, and below me. Part of a mobile infantryman’s training is to let him see, from the ground and both by eye and by radar, just how confusing a drop is to the forces on the ground— because you feel awful naked up there. It is easy to panic and either open a chute too soon and become a sitting duck (do ducks really sit?—if so, why?) or fail to open it and break your ankles, likewise backbone and skull.
So I stretched, getting the kinks out, and looked around . . . then doubled up again and straightened out in a swan dive face down and took a good look. It was night down there, as planned, but infrared snoopers let you size up terrain quite well after you are used to them. The river that cut diagonally through the city was almost below me and coming up fast, shining out clearly with a higher temperature than the land. I didn’t care which side of it I landed on but I didn’t want to land in it; it would slow me down.
I noticed a flash off to the right at about my altitude; some unfriendly native down below had burned what was probably a piece of my egg. So I fired my first chute at once, intending if possible to jerk myself right off his screen as he followed the targets down in closing range. I braced for the shock, rode it, then floated down for about twenty seconds before unloading the chute—not wishing to call attention to myself in still another way by not falling at the speed of the other stuff around me.
It must have worked; I wasn’t burned.
About six hundred feet up I shot the second chute . . . saw very quickly that I was being carried over into the river, found that I was going to pass about a hundred feet up over a flat-roofed warehouse or some such by the river . . . blew the chute free and came in for a good enough if rather bouncy landing on the roof by means of the suit’s jump jets. I was scanning for Sergeant Jelal’s beacon as I hit.
And found that I was on the wrong side of the river; Jelly’s star showed up on the compass ring inside my helmet far south of where it should have been—I was too far north. I trotted toward the river side of the roof as I took a range and bearing on the squad leader next to me, found that he was over a mile out of position, called, “Ace! Dress your line,” tossed a bomb behind me as I stepped off the building and across the river. Ace answered as I could have expected—Ace should have had my spot but he didn’t want to give up his squad; nevertheless he didn’t fancy taking orders from me.
The warehouse went up behind me and the blast hit me while I was still over the river, instead of being shielded by the buildings on the far side as I should have been. It darn near tumbled my gyros and I came close to tumbling myself. I had set that bomb for fifteen seconds . . . or had I? I suddenly realized that I had let myself get excited, the worst thing you can do once you’re on the ground. “Just like a drill,” that was the way, just as Jelly had warned me. Take your time and do it right, even if it takes another half second.
As I hit I took another reading on Ace and told him again to realign his squad. He didn’t answer but he was already doing it. I let it ride. As long as Ace did his job, I could afford to swallow his surliness—for now. But back aboard ship (if Jelly kept me on as assistant section leader) we would eventually have to pick a quiet spot and find out who was boss. He was a career corporal and I was just a term lance acting as corporal, but he was under me and you can’t afford to take any lip under those circumstances. Not permanently.
But I didn’t have time then to think about it; while I was jumping the river I had spotted a juicy target and I wanted to get it before somebody else noticed it—a lovely big group of what looked like public buildings on a hill. Temples, maybe . . . or a palace. They were miles outside the area we were sweeping, but one rule of a smash & run is to expend at least half your ammo outside your sweep area; that way the enemy is kept confused as to where you actually are—that and keep moving, do everything fast. You’re always heavily outnumbered; surprise and speed are what saves you.
I was already loading my rocket launcher while I was checking on Ace and telling him for the second time to straighten up. Jelly’s voice reached
me right on top of that on the all-hands circuit: “Platoon! By leapfrog! For ward! ” My boss, Sergeant Johnson, echoed, “By leapfrog! Odd numbers! Advance! ”
That left me with nothing to worry about for twenty seconds, so I jumped up on the building nearest me, raised the launcher to my shoulder, found
the target and pulled the first trigger to let the rocket have a look at its target—pulled the second trigger and kissed it on its way, jumped back to the
ground. “Second section, even numbers!” I called out . . . waited for the count in my mind and ordered, “Advance! ”
And did so myself, hopping over the next row of buildings, and, while I was in the air, fanning the first row by the river front with a hand flamer.
They seemed to be wood construction and it looked like time to start a good fire—with luck, some of those warehouses would house oil products, or even explosives. As I hit, the Y-rack on my shoulders launched two small H.E. bombs a couple of hundred yards each way to my right and left flanks but I never saw what they did as just then my first rocket hit—that unmistakable (if you’ve ever seen one) brilliance of an atomic explosion. It was just a peewee, of course, less than two kilotons nominal yield, with tamper and implosion squeeze to produce results from a less-than-critical mass—but then who wants to be bunk mates with a cosmic catastrophe? It was enough to clean off that hilltop and make everybody in the city take shelter against fallout. Better still, any of the local yokels who happened to be outdoors and looking that way wouldn’t be seeing anything else for a
couple of hours—meaning me. The flash hadn’t dazzled me, nor would it dazzle any of us; our face bowls are heavily leaded, we wear snoopers over our eyes—and we’re trained to duck and take it on the armor if we do happen to be looking the wrong way.
So I merely blinked hard—opened my eyes and stared straight at a local citizen just coming out of an opening in the building ahead of me. He
looked at me, I looked at him, and he started to raise something—a weapon, I suppose—as Jelly called out, “Odd numbers! Advance! ”
I didn’t have time to fool with him: I was a good five hundred yards short of where I should have been by then. I still had the hand flamer in my left
hand; I toasted him and jumped over the building he had been coming out of, as I started to count. A hand flamer is primarily for incendiary work but it is a good defensive anti-personnel weapon in tight quarters; you don’t have to aim it much.
Between excitement and anxiety to catch up I jumped too high and too wide. It’s always a temptation to get the most out of your jump gear—but
don’t do it! It leaves you hanging in the air for seconds, a big fat target. The way to advance is to skim over each building as you come to it, barely clearing it, and taking full advantage of cover while you’re down—and never stay in one place more than a second or two, never give them time to target in on you. Be somewhere else, anywhere. Keep moving.
This one I goofed—too much for one row of buildings, too little for the row beyond it; I found myself coming down on a roof. But not a nice flat one where I might have tarried three seconds to launch another peewee A-rocket; this roof was a jungle of pipes and stanchions and assorted ironmongery—a factory maybe, or some sort of chemical works. No place to land. Worse still, half a dozen natives were up there. These geezers are humanoid, eight or nine feet tall, much skinnier than we are and with a higher body temperature; they don’t wear any clothes and they stand out in a set of snoopers like a neon sign. They look still funnier in daylight with your bare eyes but I would rather fight them than the arachnids—those Bugs make me queazy.
If these laddies were up there thirty seconds earlier when my rocket hit, then they couldn’t see me, or anything. But I couldn’t be certain and didn’t want to tangle with them in any case; it wasn’t that kind of a raid. So I jumped again while I was still in the air, scattering a handful of ten-second fire pills to keep them busy, grounded, jumped again at once, and called out, “Second section! Even numbers! . . . Advance!” and kept right on going to close the gap, while trying to spot, every time I jumped, something worth expending a rocket on. I had three more of the little A-rockets and I
certainly didn’t intend to take any back with me. But I had had pounded into me that you must get your money’s worth with atomic weapons—it was only the second time that I had been allowed to carry them.
Right now I was trying to spot their waterworks; a direct hit on it could make the whole city uninhabitable, force them to evacuate it without directly killing anyone—just the sort of nuisance we had been sent down to commit. It should—according to the map we had studied under hypnosis—be about three miles upstream from where I was.
But I couldn’t see it; my jumps didn’t take me high enough, maybe. I was tempted to go higher but I remembered what Migliaccio had said about not trying for a medal, and stuck to doctrine. I set the Y-rack launcher on automatic and let it lob a couple of little bombs every time I hit. I set fire to things more or less at random in between, and tried to find the waterworks, or some other worth-while target.
Well, there was something up there at the proper range—waterworks or whatever, it was big. So I hopped on top of the tallest building near me, took a bead on it, and let fly. As I bounced down I heard Jelly: “Johnnie! Red! Start bending in the flanks.”
I acknowledged and heard Red acknowledge and switched my beacon to blinker so that Red could pick me out for certain, took a range and bearing on his blinker while I called out, “Second Section! Curve in and envelop! Squad leaders acknowledge!”
Fourth and fifth squads answered, “Wilco”; Ace said, “We’re already doin’ it—pick up your feet.”
Red’s beacon showed the right flank to be almost ahead of me and a good fifteen miles away. Golly! Ace was right; I would have to pick up my feet or I would never close the gap in time—and me with a couple of hundred-weight of ammo and sundry nastiness still on me that I just had to find time to use up. We had landed in a V formation, with Jelly at the bottom of the V and Red and myself at the ends of the two arms; now we had to close it into a circle around the retrieval rendezvous . . . which meant that Red and I each had to cover more ground than the others and still do our full share of damage.
At least the leapfrog advance was over with once we started to encircle; I could quit counting and concentrate on speed. It was getting to be less healthy to be anywhere, even moving fast. We had started with the enormous advantage of surprise, reached the ground without being hit (at least I hoped nobody had been hit coming in), and had been rampaging in among them in a fashion that let us fire at will without fear of hitting each other while they stood a big chance of hitting their own people in shooting at us—if they could find us to shoot at, at all. (I’m no games-theory expert but I doubt if any computer could have analyzed what we were doing in time to predict where we would be next.)
Nevertheless the home defenses were beginning to fight back, co-ordinated or not. I took a couple of near misses with explosives, close enough to rattle my teeth even inside armor, and once I was brushed by some sort of beam that made my hair stand on end and half paralyzed me for a moment—as if I had hit my funny bone, but all over. If the suit hadn’t already been told to jump, I guess I wouldn’t have got out of there.
Things like that make you pause to wonder why you ever took up soldiering—only I was too busy to pause for anything. Twice, jumping blind over buildings, I landed right in the middle of a group of them—jumped at once while fanning wildly around me with the hand flamer.
Spurred on this way, I closed about half of my share of the gap, maybe four miles, in minimum time but without doing much more than casual damage. My Y-rack had gone empty two jumps back; finding myself alone in sort of a courtyard I stopped to put my reserve H.E. bombs into it while I took a bearing on Ace—found that I was far enough out in front of the flank squad to think about expending my last two A-rockets. I jumped to the top of the tallest building in the neighborhood.
It was getting light enough to see; I flipped the snoopers up onto my forehead and made a fast scan with bare eyes, looking for anything behind us worth shooting at, anything at all; I had no time to be choosy.
There was something on the horizon in the direction of their spaceport—administration & control, maybe, or possibly even a starship. Almost in line and about half as far away was an enormous structure which I couldn’t identify even that loosely. The range to the spaceport was extreme but I let the rocket see it, said, “Go find it, baby!” and twisted its tail—slapped the last one in, sent it toward the nearer target, and jumped.
That building took a direct hit just as I left it. Either a skinny had judged (correctly) that it was worth one of their buildings to try for one of us, or one of my own mates was getting mighty careless with fireworks. Either way, I didn’t want to jump from that spot, even a skimmer; I decided to go through the next couple of buildings instead of over. So I grabbed the heavy flamer off my back as I hit and flipped the snoopers down over my eyes, tackled a wall in front of me with a knife beam at full power. A section of wall fell away and I charged in.
And backed out even faster.
I didn’t know what it was I had cracked open. A congregation in church—a skinny flophouse—maybe even their defense headquarters. All I knew was that it was a very big room filled with more skinnies than I wanted to see in my whole life.
Probably not a church, for somebody took a shot at me as I popped back out—just a slug that bounced off my armor, made my ears ring, and staggered me without hurting me. But it reminded me that I wasn’t supposed to leave without giving them a souvenir of my visit. I grabbed the first thing on my belt and lobbed it in—and heard it start to squawk. As they keep telling you in Basic, doing something constructive at once is better than figuring out the best thing to do hours later.
By sheer chance I had done the right thing. This was a special bomb, one each issued to us for this mission with instructions to use them if we found ways to make them effective. The squawking I heard as I threw it was the bomb shouting in skinny talk (free translation): “I’m a thirty-second bomb! I’m a thirty-second bomb! Twenty-nine! . . . twenty-eight! . . . twenty-seven!—”
It was supposed to frazzle their nerves. Maybe it did; it certainly frazzled mine. Kinder to shoot a man. I didn’t wait for the countdown; I jumped,
while I wondered whether they would find enough doors and windows to swarm out in time.
I got a bearing on Red’s blinker at the top of the jump and one on Ace as I grounded. I was falling behind again—time to hurry.
But three minutes later we had closed the gap; I had Red on my left flank a half mile away. He reported it to Jelly. We heard Jelly’s relaxed growl to the entire platoon: “Circle is closed, but the beacon is not down yet. Move forward slowly and mill around, make a little more trouble—but mind
the lad on each side of you; don’t make trouble for him. Good job, so far—don’t spoil it. Platoon! By sections . . . Muster! ”
It looked like a good job to me, too; much of the city was burning and, although it was almost full light now, it was hard to tell whether bare eyes
were better than snoopers, the smoke was so thick.
I echoed, “Squads four, five, and six—call off and report!” The assortment of safe circuits we had available in the new model comm units certainly speeded things up; Jelly could talk to anybody or to his section leaders; a section leader could call his whole section, or his non-coms; and the platoon could muster twice as fast, when seconds matter. I listened to the fourth squad call off while I inventoried my remaining firepower and
lobbed one bomb toward a skinny who poked his head around a corner. He left and so did I—“Mill around,” the boss man had said.
The fourth squad bumbled the call off until the squad leader remembered to fill in with Jenkins’ number; the fifth squad clicked off like an abacus and I began to feel good . . . when the call off stopped after number four in Ace’s squad. I called out, “Ace, where’s Dizzy?”
“Shut up,” he said. “Number six! Call off!” “Six!” Smith answered.
“Seven!”
“Sixth squad, Flores missing,” Ace completed it. “Squad leader out for pickup.” “One man absent,” I reported to Johnson. “Flores, squad six.”
“Missing or dead?”
“I don’t know. Squad leader and assistant section leader dropping out for pickup.” “Johnnie, you let Ace take it.”
But I didn’t hear him, so I didn’t answer. I heard him report to Jelly and I heard Jelly cuss. Now look, I wasn’t bucking for a medal—it’s the
assistant section leader’s business to make pickup; he’s the chaser, the last man in, expendable. The squad leaders have other work to do. As you’ve no doubt gathered by now the assistant section leader isn’t necessary as long as the section leader is alive.
Right that moment I was feeling unusually expendable, almost expended, because I was hearing the sweetest sound in the universe, the beacon the retrieval boat would land on, sounding our recall. The beacon is a robot rocket, fired ahead of the retrieval boat, just a spike that buries itself in the ground and starts broadcasting that welcome, welcome music. The retrieval boat homes in on it automatically three minutes later and you had better be on hand, because the bus can’t wait and there won’t be another one along.
But you don’t walk away on another cap trooper, not while there’s a chance he’s still alive—not in Rasczak’s Roughnecks. Not in any outfit of the Mobile Infantry. You try to make pickup.
I heard Jelly order: “Heads up, lads! Close to retrieval circle and interdict! On the bounce!”
And I heard the beacon’s sweet voice: “—to the everlasting glory of the infantry, shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young!” and I wanted to head for it so bad I could taste it.
Instead I was headed the other way, closing on Ace’s beacon and expending what I had left of bombs and fire pills and anything else that would weigh me down. “Ace! You got his beacon?”
“Yes. Go back, Useless!”
“I’ve got you by eye now. Where is he?”
“Right ahead of me, maybe quarter mile. Scram! He’s my man.”
I didn’t answer; I simply cut left oblique to reach Ace about where he said Dizzy was.
And found Ace standing over him, a couple of skinnies flamed down and more running away. I lit beside him. “Let’s get him out of his armor—the boat’ll be down any second!”
“He’s too bad hurt!”
I looked and saw that it was true—there was actually a hole in his armor and blood coming out. And I was stumped. To make a wounded pickup you get him out of his armor . . . then you simply pick him up in your arms—no trouble in a powered suit—and bounce away from there. A bare man
weighs less than the ammo and stuff you’ve expended. “What’ll we do?”
“We carry him,” Ace said grimly. “Grab ahold the left side of his belt.” He grabbed the right side, we manhandled Flores to his feet. “Lock on! Now
. . . by the numbers, stand by to jump—one—two! ”
We jumped. Not far, not well. One man alone couldn’t have gotten him off the ground; an armored suit is too heavy. But split it between two men
and it can be done.
We jumped—and we jumped—and again, and again, with Ace calling it and both of us steadying and catching Dizzy on each grounding. His gyros seemed to be out.
We heard the beacon cut off as the retrieval boat landed on it—I saw it land . . . and it was too far away. We heard the acting platoon sergeant call out: “In succession, prepare to embark!”
And Jelly called out, “Belay that order!”
We broke at last into the open and saw the boat standing on its tail, heard the ululation of its take-off warning—saw the platoon still on the ground around it, in interdiction circle, crouching behind the shield they had formed.
Heard Jelly shout, “In succession, man the boat—move! ”
And we were still too far away! I could see them peel off from the first squad, swarm into the boat as the interdiction circle tightened. And a single figure broke out of the circle, came toward us at a speed possible only to a command suit.
Jelly caught us while we were in the air, grabbed Flores by his Y-rack and helped us lift.
Three jumps got us to the boat. Everybody else was inside but the door was still open. We got him in and closed it while the boat pilot screamed
that we had made her miss rendezvous and now we had all bought it! Jelly paid no attention to her; we laid Flores down and lay down beside him. As the blast hit us Jelly was saying to himself, “All present, Lieutenant. Three men hurt—but all present!”
I’ll say this for Captain Deladrier: they don’t make any better pilots. A rendezvous, boat to ship in orbit, is precisely calculated. I don’t know how,
but it is, and you don’t change it. You can’t.
Only she did. She saw in her scope that the boat had failed to blast on time; she braked back, picked up speed again—and matched and took
us in, just by eye and touch, no time to compute it. If the Almighty ever needs an assistant to keep the stars in their courses, I know where he can look.
Flores died on the way up.
CH:02
It scared me so, I hooked it off, Nor stopped as I remember,off, Nor stopped as I remember, Nor turned about till I got home, Locked up in mother’s chamber. Yankee Doodle, keep it up, Yankee Doodle dandy the step, Mind the music and the step, And with the girls be handy.
I never really intended to join up.
And certainly not the infantry! Why, I would rather have taken ten lashes in the public square and have my father tell me that I was a disgrace to a proud name.
Oh, I had mentioned to my father, late in my senior year in high school, that I was thinking over the idea of volunteering for Federal Service. I suppose every kid does, when his eighteenth birthday heaves into sight—and mine was due the week I graduated. Of course most of them just think about it, toy with the idea a little, then go do something else—go to college, or get a job, or something. I suppose it would have been that way with me . . . if my best chum had not, with dead seriousness, planned to join up.
Carl and I had done everything together in high school—eyed the girls together, double-dated together, been on the debate team together, pushed electrons together in his home lab. I wasn’t much on electronic theory myself, but I’m a neat hand with a soldering gun; Carl supplied the skull sweat and I carried out his instructions. It was fun; anything we did together was fun. Carl’s folks didn’t have anything like the money that my father had, but it didn’t matter between us. When my father bought me a Rolls copter for my fourteenth birthday, it was Carl’s as much as it was mine; contrariwise, his basement lab was mine.
So when Carl told me that he was not going straight on with school, but would serve a term first, it gave me to pause. He really meant it; he seemed to think that it was natural and right and obvious.
So I told him I was joining up, too.
He gave me an odd look. “Your old man won’t let you.”
“Huh? How can he stop me?” And of course he couldn’t, not legally. It’s the first completely free choice anybody gets (and maybe his last); when a boy, or a girl, reaches his or her eighteenth birthday, he or she can volunteer and nobody else has any say in the matter.
“You’ll find out.” Carl changed the subject.
So I took it up with my father, tentatively, edging into it sideways.
He put down his newspaper and cigar and stared at me. “Son, are you out of your mind?” I muttered that I didn’t think so.
“Well, it certainly sounds like it.” He sighed. “Still . . . I should have been expecting it; it’s a predictable stage in a boy’s growing up. I remember when you learned to walk and weren’t a baby any longer—frankly you were a little hellion for quite a while. You broke one of your mother’s Ming vases—on purpose, I’m quite sure . . . but you were too young to know that it was valuable, so all you got was having your hand spatted. I recall the day you swiped one of my cigars, and how sick it made you. Your mother and I carefully avoided noticing that you couldn’t eat dinner that night and I’ve never mentioned it to you until now—boys have to try such things and discover for themselves that men’s vices are not for them. We watched when you turned the corner on adolescence and started noticing that girls were different—and wonderful.”
He sighed again. “All normal stages. And the last one, right at the end of adolescence, is when a boy decides to join up and wear a pretty uniform. Or decides that he is in love, love such as no man ever experienced before, and that he just has to get married right away. Or both.” He smiled grimly. “With me it was both. But I got over each of them in time not to make a fool of myself and ruin my life.”
“But, Father, I wouldn’t ruin my life. Just a term of service—not career.”
“Let’s table that, shall we? Listen, and let me tell you what you are going to do—because you want to. In the first place this family has stayed out of politics and cultivated its own garden for over a hundred years—I see no reason for you to break that fine record. I suppose it’s the influence of that fellow at your high school—what’s his name? You know the one I mean.”
He meant our instructor in History and Moral Philosophy—a veteran, naturally. “Mr. Dubois.”
“Hmmph, a silly name—it suits him. Foreigner, no doubt. It ought to be against the law to use the schools as undercover recruiting stations. I think
I’m going to write a pretty sharp letter about it—a taxpayer has some rights!”
“But, Father, he doesn’t do that at all! He—” I stopped, not knowing how to describe it. Mr. Dubois had a snotty, superior manner; he acted as if
none of us was really good enough to volunteer for service. I didn’t like him. “Uh, if anything, he discourages it.”
“Hmmph! Do you know how to lead a pig? Never mind. When you graduate, you’re going to study business at Harvard; you know that. After that,
you will go on to the Sorbonne and you’ll travel a bit along with it, meet some of our distributors, find out how business is done elsewhere. Then you’ll come home and go to work. You’ll start with the usual menial job, stock clerk or something, just for form’s sake—but you’ll be an executive before you can catch your breath, because I’m not getting any younger and the quicker you can pick up the load, the better. As soon as you’re able and willing, you’ll be boss. There! How does that strike you as a program? As compared with wasting two years of your life?”
I didn’t say anything. None of it was news to me; I’d thought about it. Father stood up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Son, don’t think I don’t sympathize with you; I do. But look at the real facts. If there were a war, I’d be the first to cheer you on—and to put the business on a war footing. But there isn’t, and praise God there never will be again. We’ve outgrown wars. This planet is now peaceful and happy and we enjoy good enough relations with other planets. So what is this so-called ‘Federal Service’? Parasitism, pure and simple. A functionless organ, utterly obsolete, living on the taxpayers. A decidedly expensive way for inferior people who otherwise would be unemployed to live at public expense for a term of years,
then give themselves airs for the rest of their lives. Is that what you want to do?” “Carl isn’t inferior!”
“Sorry. No, he’s a fine boy . . . but misguided.” He frowned, and then smiled. “Son, I had intended to keep something as a surprise for you—a graduation present. But I’m going to tell you now so that you can put this nonsense out of your mind more easily. Not that I am afraid of what you might do; I have confidence in your basic good sense, even at your tender years. But you are troubled, I know—and this will clear it away. Can you guess what it is?”
“Uh, no.”
He grinned. “A vacation trip to Mars.”
I must have looked stunned. “Golly, Father, I had no idea—”
“I meant to surprise you and I see I did. I know how you kids feel about travel, though it beats me what anyone sees in it after the first time out. But this is a good time for you to do it—by yourself; did I mention that?—and get it out of your system . . . because you’ll be hard-pressed to get in even a week on Luna once you take up your responsibilities.” He picked up his paper. “No, don’t thank me. Just run along and let me finish my paper— I’ve got some gentlemen coming in this evening, shortly. Business.”
I ran along. I guess he thought that settled it . . . and I suppose I did, too. Mars! And on my own! But I didn’t tell Carl about it; I had a sneaking suspicion that he would regard it as a bribe. Well, maybe it was. Instead I simply told him that my father and I seemed to have different ideas about it.
“Yeah,” he answered, “so does mine. But it’s my life.” I thought about it during the last session of our class in History and Moral Philosophy. H. &
M. P. was different from other courses in that everybody had to take it but nobody had to pass it—and Mr. Dubois never seemed to care whether he
got through to us or not. He would just point at you with the stump of his left arm (he never bothered with names) and snap a question. Then the argument would start.
But on the last day he seemed to be trying to find out what we had learned. One girl told him bluntly: “My mother says that violence never settles
anything.”
“So?” Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. “I’m sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that. Why doesn’t your mother tell them so?
Or why don’t you?”
They had tangled before—since you couldn’t flunk the course, it wasn’t necessary to keep Mr. Dubois buttered up. She said shrilly, “You’re
making fun of me! Everybody knows that Carthage was destroyed!”
“You seemed to be unaware of it,” he said grimly. “Since you do know it, wouldn’t you say that violence had settled their destinies rather thoroughly? However, I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea—a practice I shall always follow. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue—and thoroughly immoral—doctrine that ‘violence never settles anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.”
He sighed. “Another year, another class—and, for me, another failure. One can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think.” Suddenly he pointed his stump at me. “You. What is the moral difference, if any, between the soldier and the civilian?”
“The difference,” I answered carefully, “lies in the field of civic virtue. A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not.”
“The exact words of the book,” he said scornfully. “But do you understand it? Do you believe it?” “Uh, I don’t know, sir.”
“Of course you don’t! I doubt if any of you here would recognize ‘civic virtue’ if it came up and barked in your face!” He glanced at his watch. “And that is all, a final all. Perhaps we shall meet again under happier circumstances. Dismissed.”
Graduation right after that and three days later my birthday, followed in less than a week by Carl’s birthday—and I still hadn’t told Carl that I wasn’t joining up. I’m sure he assumed that I would not, but we didn’t discuss it out loud—embarrassing. I simply arranged to meet him the day after his birthday and we went down to the recruiting office together.
On the steps of the Federal Building we ran into Carmencita Ibañez, a classmate of ours and one of the nice things about being a member of a race with two sexes. Carmen wasn’t my girl—she wasn’t anybody’s girl; she never made two dates in a row with the same boy and treated all of us with equal sweetness and rather impersonally. But I knew her pretty well, as she often came over and used our swimming pool, because it was Olympic length—sometimes with one boy, sometimes with another. Or alone, as Mother urged her to—Mother considered her “a good influence.” For once she was right.
She saw us and waited, dimpling. “Hi, fellows!”
“Hello, Ochee Chyornya,” I answered. “What brings you here?” “Can’t you guess? Today is my birthday.”
“Huh? Happy returns!” “So I’m joining up.”
“Oh . . .” I think Carl was as surprised as I was. But Carmencita was like that. She never gossiped and she kept her own affairs to herself. “No foolin’?” I added, brilliantly.
“Why should I be fooling? I’m going to be a spaceship pilot—at least I’m going to try for it.”
“No reason why you shouldn’t make it,” Carl said quickly. He was right—I know now just how right he was. Carmen was small and neat, perfect health and perfect reflexes—she could make competitive diving routine look easy and she was quick at mathematics. Me, I tapered off with a “C” in algebra and a “B” in business arithmetic; she took all the math our school offered and a tutored advance course on the side. But it had never occurred to me to wonder why. Fact was, little Carmen was so ornamental that you just never thought about her being useful.
“We—uh, I,” said Carl, “am here to join up, too.”
“And me,” I agreed. “Both of us.” No, I hadn’t made any decision; my mouth was leading its own life. “Oh, wonderful!”
“And I’m going to buck for space pilot, too,” I added firmly.
She didn’t laugh. She answered very seriously, “Oh, how grand! Perhaps in training we’ll run into each other. I hope so.” “Collision courses?” asked Carl. “That’s a no-good way to pilot.”
“Don’t be silly, Carl. On the ground, of course. Are you going to be a pilot, too?”
“Me? ” Carl answered. “I’m no truck driver. You know me—Starside R&D, if they’ll have me. Electronics.”
“‘Truck driver’ indeed! I hope they stick you out on Pluto and let you freeze. No, I don’t—good luck! Let’s go in, shall we?”
The recruiting station was inside a railing in the rotunda. A fleet sergeant sat at a desk there, in dress uniform, gaudy as a circus. His chest was loaded with ribbons I couldn’t read. But his right arm was off so short that his tunic had been tailored without any sleeve at all . . . and, when you came up to the rail, you could see that he had no legs.
It didn’t seem to bother him. Carl said, “Good morning. I want to join up.” “Me, too,” I added.
He ignored us. He managed to bow while sitting down and said, “Good morning, young lady. What can I do for you?” “I want to join up, too.”
He smiled. “Good girl! If you’ll just scoot up to room 201 and ask for Major Rojas, she’ll take care of you.” He looked her up and down. “Pilot?” “If possible.”
“You look like one. Well, see Miss Rojas.”
She left, with thanks to him and a see-you-later to us; he turned his attention to us, sized us up with a total absence of the pleasure he had shown in little Carmen. “So?” he said. “For what? Labor battalions?”
“Oh, no!” I said. “I’m going to be a pilot.”
He stared at me and simply turned his eyes away. “You?”
“I’m interested in the Research and Development Corps,” Carl said soberly, “especially electronics. I understand the chances are pretty good.” “They are if you can cut it,” the Fleet Sergeant said grimly, “and not if you don’t have what it takes, both in preparation and ability. Look, boys,
have you any idea why they have me out here in front?” I didn’t understand him. Carl said, “Why?”
“Because the government doesn’t care one bucket of swill whether you join or not! Because it has become stylish, with some people—too many people—to serve a term and earn a franchise and be able to wear a ribbon in your lapel which says that you’re a vet’ran . . . whether you’ve ever
seen combat or not. But if you want to serve and I can’t talk you out of it, then we have to take you, because that’s your constitutional right. It says that everybody, male or female, shall have his born right to pay his service and assume full citizenship—but the facts are that we are getting hard pushed to find things for all the volunteers to do that aren’t just glorified K.P. You can’t all be real military men; we don’t need that many and most of the volunteers aren’t number-one soldier material anyhow. Got any idea what it takes to make a soldier?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Most people think that all it takes is two hands and two feet and a stupid mind. Maybe so, for cannon fodder. Possibly that was all that Julius Caesar required. But a private soldier today is a specialist so highly skilled that he would rate ‘master’ in any other trade; we can’t afford stupid ones. So for those who insist on serving their term—but haven’t got what we want and must have—we’ve had to think up a whole list of dirty, nasty, dangerous jobs that will either run ’em home with their tails between their legs and their terms uncompleted . . . or at the very least make them remember for the rest of their lives that their citizenship is valuable to them because they’ve paid a high price for it. Take that young lady who was here—wants to be a pilot. I hope she makes it; we always need good pilots, not enough of ’em. Maybe she will. But if she misses, she may wind up in Antarctica, her pretty eyes red from never seeing anything but artificial light and her knuckles callused from hard, dirty work.”
I wanted to tell him that the least Carmencita could get was computer programmer for the sky watch; she really was a whiz at math. But he was talking.
“So they put me out here to discourage you boys. Look at this.” He shoved his chair around to make sure that we could see that he was legless.
“Let’s assume that you don’t wind up digging tunnels on Luna or playing human guinea pig for new diseases through sheer lack of talent; suppose
we do make a fighting man out of you. Take a look at me—this is what you may buy . . . if you don’t buy the whole farm and cause your folks to receive a ‘deeply regret’ telegram. Which is more likely, because these days, in training or in combat, there aren’t many wounded. If you buy at all, they likely throw in a coffin—I’m the rare exception; I was lucky . . . though maybe you wouldn’t call it luck.”
He paused, then added, “So why don’t you boys go home, go to college, and then go be chemists or insurance brokers or whatever? A term of service isn’t a kiddie camp; it’s either real military service, rough and dangerous even in peacetime . . . or a most unreasonable facsimile thereof. Not a vacation. Not a romantic adventure. Well?”
Carl said, “I’m here to join up.” “Me, too.”
“You realize that you aren’t allowed to pick your service?” Carl said, “I thought we could state our preferences?”
“Certainly. And that’s the last choice you’ll make until the end of your term. The placement officer pays attention to your choice, too. First thing he does is to check whether there’s any demand for left-handed glass blowers this week—that being what you think would make you happy. Having reluctantly conceded that there is a need for your choice—probably at the bottom of the Pacific—he then tests you for innate ability and preparation.
About once in twenty times he is forced to admit that everything matches and you get the job . . . until some practical joker gives you dispatch orders to do something very different. But the other nineteen times he turns you down and decides that you are just what they have been needing to field-test survival equipment on Titan.” He added meditatively, “It’s chilly on Titan. And it’s amazing how often experimental equipment fails to work. Have to have real field tests, though—laboratories just never get all the answers.”
“I can qualify for electronics,” Carl said firmly, “if there are jobs open in it.” “So? And how about you, bub?”
I hesitated—and suddenly realized that, if I didn’t take a swing at it, I would wonder all my life whether I was anything but the boss’s son. “I’m going to chance it.”
“Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. Got your birth certificates with you? And let’s see your IDs.”
Ten minutes later, still not sworn in, we were on the top floor being prodded and poked and fluoroscoped. I decided that the idea of a physical
examination is that, if you aren’t ill, then they do their darnedest to make you ill. If the attempt fails, you’re in.
I asked one of the doctors what percentage of the victims flunked the physical. He looked startled. “Why, we never fail anyone. The law doesn’t permit us to.”
“Huh? I mean, excuse me, Doctor? Then what’s the point of this goose-flesh parade?”
“Why, the purpose is,” he answered, hauling off and hitting me in the knee with a hammer (I kicked him, but not hard), “to find out what duties you are physically able to perform. But if you came in here in a wheel chair and blind in both eyes and were silly enough to insist on enrolling, they would find something silly enough to match. Counting the fuzz on a caterpillar by touch, maybe. The only way you can fail is by having the psychiatrists decide that you are not able to understand the oath.”
“Oh. Uh . . . Doctor, were you already a doctor when you joined up? Or did they decide you ought to be a doctor and send you to school?”
“Me? ” He seemed shocked. “Youngster, do I look that silly? I’m a civilian employee.” “Oh. Sorry, sir.”
“No offense. But military service is for ants. Believe me. I see ’em go, I see ’em come back—when they do come back. I see what it’s done to them. And for what? A purely nominal political privilege that pays not one centavo and that most of them aren’t competent to use wisely anyhow. Now if they would let medical men run things—but never mind that; you might think I was talking treason, free speech or not. But, youngster, if you’ve got savvy enough to count ten, you’ll back out while you still can. Here, take these papers back to the recruiting sergeant—and remember what I said.”
I went back to the rotunda. Carl was already there. The Fleet Sergeant looked over my papers and said glumly, “Apparently you both are almost insufferably healthy—except for holes in the head. One moment, while I get some witnesses.” He punched a button and two female clerks came out, one old battle-ax, one kind of cute.
He pointed to our physical examination forms, our birth certificates, and our IDs, said formally: “I invite and require you, each and severally, to examine these exhibits, determine what they are and to determine, each independently, what relation, if any, each document bears to these two men standing here in your presence.”
They treated it as a dull routine, which I’m sure it was; nevertheless they scrutinized every document, they took our fingerprints—again!—and the cute one put a jeweler’s loupe in her eye and compared prints from birth to now. She did the same with signatures. I began to doubt if I was myself.
The Fleet Sergeant added, “Did you find exhibits relating to their present competence to take the oath of enrollment? If so, what?”
“We found,” the older one said, “appended to each record of physical examination a duly certified conclusion by an authorized and delegated board of psychiatrists stating that each of them is mentally competent to take the oath and that neither one is under the influence of alcohol, narcotics, other disabling drugs, nor of hypnosis.”
“Very good.” He turned to us. “Repeat after me— “I, being of legal age, of my own free will—”
“‘I,’” we each echoed, “‘being of legal age, of my own free will—’”
“—without coercion, promise, or inducement of any sort, after having been duly advised and warned of the meaning and consequences of this oath—
“—do now enroll in the Federal Service of the Terran Federation for a term of not less than two years and as much longer as may be required by the needs of the Service—”
(I gulped a little over that part. I had always thought of a “term” as two years, even though I knew better, because that’s the way people talk about
it. Why, we were signing up for life.)
“I swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the Federation against all its enemies on or off Terra, to protect and defend the Constitutional
liberties and privileges of all citizens and lawful residents of the Federation, its associated states and territories, to perform, on or off Terra, such duties of any lawful nature as may be assigned to me by lawful direct or delegated authority—
“—and to obey all lawful orders of the Commander-in-Chief of the Terran Service and of all officers or delegated persons placed over me— “—and to require such obedience from all members of the Service or other persons or non-human beings lawfully placed under my orders— “—and, on being honorably discharged at the completion of my full term of active service or upon being placed on inactive retired status after
having completed such full term, to carry out all duties and obligations and to enjoy all privileges of Federation citizenship including but not limited to the duty, obligation and privilege of exercising sovereign franchise for the rest of my natural life unless stripped of honor by verdict, finally sustained, of court of my sovereign peers.”
(Whew!) Mr. Dubois had analyzed the Service oath for us in History and Moral Philosophy and had made us study it phrase by phrase—but you don’t really feel the size of the thing until it comes rolling over you, all in one ungainly piece, as heavy and unstoppable as Juggernaut’s carriage.
At least it made me realize that I was no longer a civilian, with my shirttail out and nothing on my mind. I didn’t know yet what I was, but I knew what
I wasn’t.
“So help me God!” we both ended and Carl crossed himself and so did the cute one.
After that there were more signatures and fingerprints, all five of us, and flat colorgraphs of Carl and me were snapped then and there and embossed into our papers. The Fleet Sergeant finally looked up. “Why, it’s’way past the break for lunch. Time for chow, lads.”
“Could I flash my folks from here? Tell them what I—Tell them how it came out?” “We can do better than that.”
“Sir?”
“You go on forty-eight hours leave now.” He grinned coldly. “Do you know what happens if you don’t come back?” “Uh . . . court-martial?”
“Not a thing. Not a blessed thing. Except that your papers get marked, Term not completed satisfactorily, and you never, never, never get a second chance. This is our cooling-off period, during which we shake out the overgrown babies who didn’t really mean it and should never have taken the oath. It saves the government money and it saves a power of grief for such kids and their parents—the neighbors needn’t guess. You don’t even have to tell your parents.” He shoved his chair away from his desk. “So I’ll see you at noon day after tomorrow. If I see you. Fetch your personal effects.”
It was a crumbly leave. Father stormed at me, then quit speaking to me; Mother took to her bed. When I finally left, an hour earlier than I had to, nobody saw me off but the morning cook and the houseboys.
I stopped in front of the recruiting sergeant’s desk, thought about saluting and decided I didn’t know how. He looked up. “Oh. Here are your papers. Take them up to room 201; they’ll start you through the mill. Knock and walk in.”
Two days later I knew I was not going to be a pilot. Some of the things the examiners wrote about me were:—insufficient intuitive grasp ofspatial relationships . . . insufficient mathematical talent . . . deficient mathematical preparation . . . reaction time adequate . . . eyesight good.
I’m glad they put in those last two; I was beginning to feel that counting on my fingers was my speed.
The placement officer let me list my lesser preferences, in order, and I caught four more days of the wildest aptitude tests I’ve ever heard of. I mean to say, what do they find out when a stenographer jumps on her chair and screams, “Snakes!” There was no snake, just a harmless piece of plastic hose.
The written and oral tests were mostly just as silly, but they seemed happy with them, so I took them. The thing I did most carefully was to list my preferences. Naturally I listed all of the Space Navy jobs (other than pilot) at the top; whether I went as power-room technician or as cook, I knew that I preferred any Navy job to any Army job—I wanted to travel.
Next I listed Intelligence—a spy gets around, too, and I figured that it couldn’t possibly be dull. (I was wrong, but never mind.) After that came a long list; psychological warfare, chemical warfare, biological warfare, combat ecology (I didn’t know what it was, but it sounded interesting), logistics corps (a simple mistake; I had studied logic for the debate team and “logistics” turns out to have two entirely separate meanings), and a dozen others. Clear at the bottom, with some hesitation, I put K-9 Corps, and Infantry.
I didn’t bother to list the various non-combatant auxiliary corps because, if I wasn’t picked for a combat corps, I didn’t care whether they used me as an experimental animal or sent me as a laborer in the Terranizing of Venus—either one was a booby prize.
Mr. Weiss, the placement officer, sent for me a week after I was sworn in. He was actually a retired psychological-warfare major, on active duty for procurement, but he wore mufti and insisted on being called just “Mister” and you could relax and take it easy with him. He had my list of preferences and the reports on all my tests and I saw that he was holding my high school transcript—which pleased me, for I had done all right in school; I had stood high enough without standing so high as to be marked as a greasy grind, having never flunked any courses and dropped only one, and I had been rather a big man around school otherwise; swimming team, debate team, track squad, class treasurer, silver medal in the annual literary contest, chairman of the homecoming committee, stuff like that. A well-rounded record and it’s all down in the transcript.
He looked up as I came in, said, “Sit down, Johnnie,” and looked back at the transcript, then put it down. “You like dogs?” “Huh? Yes, sir.”
“How well do you like them? Did your dog sleep on your bed? By the way, where is your dog now?”
“Why, I don’t happen to have a dog just at present. But when I did—well, no, he didn’t sleep on my bed. You see, Mother didn’t allow dogs in the house.”
“But didn’t you sneak him in?”
“Uh—” I thought of trying to explain Mother’s not-angry-but-terribly-terribly-hurt routine when you tried to buck her on something she had her mind made up about. But I gave up. “No, sir.”
“Mmm . . . have you ever seen a neodog?”
“Uh, once, sir. They exhibited one at the Macarthur Theater two years ago. But the S.P.C.A. made trouble for them.” “Let me tell you how it is with a K-9 team. A neodog is not just a dog that talks.”
“I couldn’t understand that neo at the Macarthur. Do they really talk?”
“They talk. You simply have to train your ear to their accent. Their mouths can’t shape ‘b,’ ‘m,’ ‘p,’ or ‘v’ and you have to get used to their equivalents—something like the handicap of a split palate but with different letters. No matter, their speech is as clear as any human speech. But a neodog is not a talking dog; he is not a dog at all, he is an artificially mutated symbiote derived from dog stock. A neo, a trained Caleb, is about six times as bright as a dog, say about as intelligent as a human moron—except that the comparison is not fair to the neo; a moron is a defective, whereas a neo is a stable genius in his own line of work.”
Mr. Weiss scowled. “Provided, that is, that he has his symbiote. That’s the rub. Mmm . . . you’re too young ever to have been married but you’ve seen marriage, your own parents at least. Can you imagine being married to a Caleb?”
“Huh? No. No, I can’t.”
“The emotional relationship between the dog-man and the man-dog in the K-9 team is a great deal closer and much more important than is the emotional relationship in most marriages. If the master is killed, we kill the neodog—at once! It is all that we can do for the poor thing. A mercy killing. If the neodog is killed . . . well, we can’t kill the man even though it would be the simplest solution. Instead we restrain him and hospitalize him and slowly put him back together.” He picked up a pen, made a mark. “I don’t think we can risk assigning a boy to K-9 who didn’t outwit his mother to have his dog sleep with him. So let’s consider something else.”
It was not until then that I realized that I must have already flunked every choice on my list above K-9 Corps—and now I had just flunked it, too. I was so startled that I almost missed his next remark. Major Weiss said meditatively, with no expression and as if he were talking about someone else, long dead and far away: “I was once half of a K-9 team. When my Caleb became a casualty, they kept me under sedation for six weeks, then rehabilitated me for other work. Johnnie, these courses you’ve taken—why didn’t you study something useful?”
“Sir?”
“Too late now. Forget it. Mmm . . . your instructor in History and Moral Philosophy seems to think well of you.” “He does?” I was surprised. “What did he say?”
Weiss smiled. “He says that you are not stupid, merely ignorant and prejudiced by your environment. From him that is high praise—I know him.” It didn’t sound like praise to me! That stuck-up stiff-necked old—
“And,” Weiss went on, “a boy who gets a ‘C-minus’ in Appreciation of Television can’t be all bad. I think we’ll accept Mr. Dubois’ recommendation. How would you like to be an infantryman?”
I came out of the Federal Building feeling subdued yet not really unhappy. At least I was a soldier; I had papers in my pocket to prove it. I hadn’t been classed as too dumb and useless for anything but make-work.
It was a few minutes after the end of the working day and the building was empty save for a skeleton night staff and a few stragglers. I ran into a man in the rotunda who was just leaving; his face looked familiar but I couldn’t place him.
But he caught my eye and recognized me. “Evening!” he said briskly. “You haven’t shipped out yet?”
And then I recognized him—the Fleet Sergeant who had sworn us in. I guess my chin dropped; this man was in civilian clothes, was walking around on two legs and had two arms. “Uh, good evening, Sergeant,” I mumbled.
He understood my expression perfectly, glanced down at himself and smiled easily. “Relax, lad. I don’t have to put on my horror show after working hours—and I don’t. You haven’t been placed yet?”
“I just got my orders.” “For what?”
“Mobile Infantry.”
His face broke in a big grin of delight and he shoved out his hand. “My outfit! Shake, son! We’ll make a man of you—or kill you trying. Maybe both.”
“It’s a good choice?” I said doubtfully.
“‘A good choice’? Son, it’s the only choice. The Mobile Infantry is the Army. All the others are either button pushers or professors, along merely to hand us the saw; we do the work.” He shook hands again and added, “Drop me a card—‘Fleet Sergeant Ho, Federal Building,’ that’ll reach me. Good luck!” And he was off, shoulders back, heels clicking, head up.
I looked at my hand. The hand he had offered me was the one that wasn’t there—his right hand. Yet it had felt like flesh and had shaken mine firmly. I had read about these powered prosthetics, but it is startling when you first run across them.
I went back to the hotel where recruits were temporarily billeted during placement—we didn’t even have uniforms yet, just plain coveralls we wore during the day and our own clothes after hours. I went to my room and started packing, as I was shipping out early in the morning—packing to send stuff home, I mean; Weiss had cautioned me not to take along anything but family photographs and possibly a musical instrument if I played one (which I didn’t). Carl had shipped out three days earlier, having gotten the R&D assignment he wanted. I was just as glad, as he would have been just too confounded understanding about the billet I had drawn. Little Carmen had shipped out, too, with the rank of cadet midshipman (probationary)—she was going to be a pilot, all right, if she could cut it . . . and I suspected that she could.
My temporary roomie came in while I was packing. “Got your orders?” he asked. “Yup.”
“What?”
“Mobile Infantry.”
“The Infantry? Oh, you poor stupid clown! I feel sorry for you, I really do.”
I straightened up and said angrily, “Shut up! The Mobile Infantry is the best outfit in the Army—it is the Army! The rest of you jerks are just along to hand us the saw—we do the work.”
He laughed. “You’ll find out!”
“You want a mouthful of knuckles?”
CH:03
He shall rule them with a rod of iron.
—Revelations II:25
I did Basic at Camp Arthur Currie on the northern prairies, along with a couple of thousand other victims—and I do mean “Camp,” as the only permanent buildings there were to shelter equipment. We slept and ate in tents; we lived outdoors—if you call that “living,” which I didn’t, at the time. I was used to a warm climate; it seemed to me that the North Pole was just five miles north of camp and getting closer. Ice Age returning, no doubt.
But exercise will keep you warm and they saw to it that we got plenty of that.
The first morning we were there they woke us up before daybreak. I had had trouble adjusting to the change in time zones and it seemed to me that I had just got to sleep; I couldn’t believe that anyone seriously intended that I should get up in the middle of the night.
But they did mean it. A speaker somewhere was blaring out a military march, fit to wake the dead, and a hairy nuisance who had come charging
down the company street yelling, “Everybody out! Showa leg! On the bounce!” came marauding back again just as I had pulled the covers over my head, tipped over my cot and dumped me on the cold hard ground.
It was an impersonal attention; he didn’t even wait to see if I hit.
Ten minutes later, dressed in trousers, undershirt, and shoes, I was lined up with the others in ragged ranks for setting-up exercises just as the Sun looked over the eastern horizon. Facing us was a big broad-shouldered, mean-looking man, dressed just as we were—except that while I looked and felt like a poor job of embalming, his chin was shaved blue, his trousers were sharply creased, you could have used his shoes for mirrors, and his manner was alert, wide-awake, relaxed, and rested. You got the impression that he never needed to sleep—just ten-thousand-mile checkups and dust him off occasionally.
He bellowed, “C’pnee! Atten . . . shut! I am Career Ship’s Sergeant Zim, your company commander. When you speak to me, you will salute and say, ‘Sir’—you will salute and ‘sir’ anyone who carries an instructor’s baton—” He was carrying a swagger cane and now made a quick reverse moulinet with it to show what he meant by an instructor’s baton; I had noticed men carrying them when we had arrived the night before and had intended to get one myself—they looked smart. Now I changed my mind. “—because we don’t have enough officers around here for you to practice on. You’ll practice on us. Who sneezed?”
No answer—
“WHO SNEEZED?”
“I did,” a voice answered.
“‘I did’ what?” “I sneezed.”
“‘I sneezed,’ SIR!”
“I sneezed, sir. I’m cold, sir.”
“Oho!” Zim strode up to the man who had sneezed, shoved the ferrule of the swagger cane an inch under his nose and demanded, “Name?” “Jenkins . . . sir.”
“Jenkins . . .” Zim repeated as if the word were somehow distasteful, even shameful. “I suppose some night on patrol you’re going to sneeze just because you’ve got a runny nose. Eh?”
“I hope not, sir.”
“So do I. But you’re cold. Hmm . . . we’ll fix that.” He pointed with his stick. “See that armory over there?” I looked and could see nothing but prairie except for one building that seemed to be almost on the skyline.
“Fall out. Run around it. Run, I said. Fast! Bronski! Pace him.”
“Right, Sarge.” One of the five or six other baton carriers took out after Jenkins, caught up with him easily, cracked him across the tight of his
pants with the baton. Zim turned back to the rest of us, still shivering at attention. He walked up and down, looked us over, and seemed awfully unhappy. At last he stepped out in front of us, shook his head, and said, apparently to himself but he had a voice that carried: “To think that this had
to happen to me!”
He looked at us. “You apes—No, not ‘apes’; you don’t rate that much. You pitiful mob of sickly monkeys . . . you sunken-chested, slack-bellied,
drooling refugees from apron strings. In my whole life I never saw such a disgraceful huddle of momma’s spoiled little darlings in—you, there! Suck
up the gut! Eyes front! I’m talking to you !”
I pulled in my belly, even though I was not sure he had addressed me. He went on and on and I began to forget my goose flesh in hearing him
storm. He never once repeated himself and he never used either profanity or obscenity. (I learned later that he saved those for very special occasions, which this wasn’t.) But he described our shortcomings, physical, mental, moral, and genetic, in great and insulting detail.
But somehow I was not insulted; I became greatly interested in studying his command of language. I wished that we had had him on our debate team.
At last he stopped and seemed about to cry. “I can’t stand it,” he said bitterly. “I’ve just got to work some of it off—I had a better set of wooden soldiers when I was six. ALL RIGHT! Is there any one of you jungle lice who thinks he can whip me? Is there a man in the crowd? Speak up!”
There was a short silence to which I contributed. I didn’t have any doubt at all that he could whip me; I was convinced.
I heard a voice far down the line, the tall end. “Ah reckon ah can . . . suh.”
Zim looked happy. “Good! Step out here where I can see you.” The recruit did so and he was impressive, at least three inches taller than Sergeant Zim and broader across the shoulders. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Breckinridge, suh—and ah weigh two hundred and ten pounds an’ theah ain’t any of it ‘slack-bellied.’” “Any particular way you’d like to fight?”
“Suh, you jus’ pick youah own method of dyin’. Ah’m not fussy.”
“Okay, no rules. Start whenever you like.” Zim tossed his baton aside.
It started—and it was over. The big recruit was sitting on the ground, holding his left wrist in his right hand. He didn’t say anything. Zim bent over him. “Broken?”
“Reckon it might be . . . suh.”
“I’m sorry. You hurried me a little. Do you know where the dispensary is? Never mind—Jones! Take Breckinridge over to the dispensary.” As they left Zim slapped him on the right shoulder and said quietly, “Let’s try it again in a month or so. I’ll show you what happened.” I think it was meant to
be a private remark but they were standing about six feet in front of where I was slowly freezing solid.
Zim stepped back and called out, “Okay, we’ve got one man in this company, at least. I feel better. Do we have another one? Do we have two more? Any two of you scrofulous toads think you can stand up to me?” He looked back and forth along our ranks. “Chickenlivered, spineless—oh, oh! Yes? Step out.”
Two men who had been side by side in ranks stepped out together; I suppose they had arranged it in whispers right there, but they also were far down the tall end, so I didn’t hear. Zim smiled at them. “Names, for your next of kin, please.”
“Heinrich.”
“Heinrich what?”
“Heinrich, sir. Bitte.” He spoke rapidly to the other recruit and added politely, “He doesn’t speak much Standard English yet, sir.”
“Meyer, mein Herr,” the second man supplied.
“That’s okay, lots of ’em don’t speak much of it when they get here—I didn’t myself. Tell Meyer not to worry, he’ll pick it up. But he understands what we are going to do?”
“Jawohl,” agreed Meyer.
“Certainly, sir. He understands Standard, he just can’t speak it fluently.” “All right. Where did you two pick up those face scars? Heidelberg?”
“Nein—no, sir. Königsberg.”
“Same thing.” Zim had picked up his baton after fighting Breckinridge; he twirled it and asked, “Perhaps you would each like to borrow one of these?”
“It would not be fair to you, sir,” Heinrich answered carefully. “Bare hands, if you please.” “Suit yourself. Though I might fool you. Königsberg, eh? Rules?”
“How can there be rules, sir, with three?”
“An interesting point. Well, let’s agree that if eyes are gouged out they must be handed back when it’s over. And tell your Korpsbruder that I’m ready now. Start when you like.” Zim tossed his baton away; someone caught it.
“You joke, sir. We will not gouge eyes.”
“No eye gouging, agreed. ‘Fire when ready, Gridley.’” “Please?”
“Come on and fight! Or get back into ranks!”
Now I am not sure that I saw it happen this way; I may have learned part of it later, in training. But here is what I think happened: The two moved out on each side of our company commander until they had him completely flanked but well out of contact. From this position there is a choice of four basic moves for the man working alone, moves that take advantage of his own mobility and of the superior co-ordination of one man as compared with two—Sergeant Zim says (correctly) that any group is weaker than a man alone unless they are perfectly trained to work together. For example, Zim could have feinted at one of them, bounced fast to the other with a disabler, such as a broken kneecap—then finished off the first at his leisure.
Instead he let them attack. Meyer came at him fast, intending to body check and knock him to the ground, I think, while Heinrich would follow through from above, maybe with his boots. That’s the way it appeared to start.
And here’s what I think I saw. Meyer never reached him with that body check. Sergeant Zim whirled to face him, while kicking out and getting Heinrich in the belly—and then Meyer was sailing through the air, his lunge helped along with a hearty assist from Zim.
But all I am sure of is that the fight started and then there were two German boys sleeping peacefully, almost end to end, one face down and one face up, and Zim was standing over them, not even breathing hard. “Jones,” he said. “No, Jones left, didn’t he? Mahmud! Let’s have the water bucket, then stick them back into their sockets. Who’s got my toothpick?”
A few moments later the two were conscious, wet, and back in ranks. Zim looked at us and inquired gently, “Anybody else? Or shall we get on with setting-up exercises?”
I didn’t expect anybody else and I doubt if he did. But from down on the left flank, where the shorties hung out, a boy stepped out of ranks, came front and center. Zim looked down at him. “Just you? Or do you want to pick a partner?”
“Just myself, sir.”
“As you say. Name?” “Shujumi, sir.”
Zim’s eyes widened. “Any relation to Colonel Shujumi?” “I have the honor to be his son, sir.”
“Ah so! Well! Black Belt?” “No, sir. Not yet.”
“I’m glad you qualified that. Well, Shujumi, are we going to use contest rules, or shall I send for the ambulance?” “As you wish, sir. But I think, if I may be permitted an opinion, that contest rules would be more prudent.”
“I don’t know just how you mean that, but I agree.” Zim tossed his badge of authority aside, then, so help me, they backed off, faced each other, and bowed.
After that they circled around each other in a half crouch, making tentative passes with their hands, and looking like a couple of roosters.
Suddenly they touched—and the little chap was down on the ground and Sergeant Zim was flying through the air over his head. But he didn’t land with the dull, breath-paralyzing thud that Meyer had; he lit rolling and was on his feet as fast as Shujumi was and facing him. “Banzai!” Zim yelled and grinned.
“Arigato,” Shujumi answered and grinned back.
They touched again almost without a pause and I thought the Sergeant was going to fly again. He didn’t; he slithered straight in, there was a confusion of arms and legs and when the motion slowed down you could see that Zim was tucking Shujumi’s left foot in his right ear—a poor fit.
Shujumi slapped the ground with a free hand; Zim let him up at once. They again bowed to each other. “Another fall, sir?”
“Sorry. We’ve got work to do. Some other time, eh? For fun . . . and honor. Perhaps I should have told you; your honorable father trained me.” “So I had already surmised, sir. Another time it is.”
Zim slapped him hard on the shoulder. “Back in ranks, soldier. C’pnee! ”
Then, for twenty minutes, we went through calisthenics that left me as dripping hot as I had been shivering cold. Zim led it himself, doing it all with
us and shouting the count. He hadn’t been mussed that I could see; he wasn’t breathing hard as we finished. He never led the exercises after that morning (we never saw him again before breakfast; rank hath its privileges), but he did that morning, and when it was over and we were all bushed, he led us at a trot to the mess tent, shouting at us the whole way to “Step it up! On the bounce! You’re dragging your tails!”
We always trotted everywhere at Camp Arthur Currie. I never did find out who Currie was, but he must have been a trackman.
Breckinridge was already in the mess tent, with a cast on his wrist but thumb and fingers showing. I heard him say, “Naw, just a greenstick
fractchuh—ah’ve played a whole quahtuh with wuss. But you wait—ah’ll fix him.”
I had my doubts. Shujumi, maybe—but not that big ape. He simply didn’t know when he was outclassed. I disliked Zim from the first moment I laid eyes on him. But he had style.
Breakfast was all right—all the meals were all right; there was none of that nonsense some boarding schools have of making your life miserable at the table. If you wanted to slump down and shovel it in with both hands, nobody bothered you—which was good, as meals were practically the only time somebody wasn’t riding you. The menu for breakfast wasn’t anything like what I had been used to at home and the civilians that waited on us slapped the food around in a fashion that would have made Mother grow pale and leave for her room—but it was hot and it was plentiful and the cooking was okay if plain. I ate about four times what I normally do and washed it down with mug after mug of coffee with cream and lots of sugar—I would have eaten a shark without stopping to skin him.
Jenkins showed up with Corporal Bronski behind him as I was starting on seconds. They stopped for a moment at a table where Zim was eating alone, then Jenkins slumped onto a vacant stool by mine. He looked mighty seedy—pale, exhausted, and his breath rasping. I said, “Here, let me pour you some coffee.”
He shook his head.
“You better eat,” I insisted. “Some scrambled eggs—they’ll go down easily.”
“Can’t eat. Oh, that dirty, dirty so-and-so.” He began cussing out Zim in a low, almost expressionless monotone. “All I asked him was to let me go
lie down and skip breakfast. Bronski wouldn’t let me—said I had to see the company commander. So I did and I told him I was sick, I told him. He just felt my cheek and counted my pulse and told me sick call was nine o’clock. Wouldn’t let me go back to my tent. Oh, that rat! I’ll catch him on a dark night, I will.”
I spooned out some eggs for him anyway and poured coffee. Presently he began to eat. Sergeant Zim got up to leave while most of us were still eating, and stopped by our table. “Jenkins.”
“Uh? Yes, sir.”
“At oh-nine-hundred muster for sick call and see the doctor.”
Jenkins’ jaw muscles twitched. He answered slowly, “I don’t need any pills—sir. I’ll get by.” “Oh-nine-hundred. That’s an order.” He left.
Jenkins started his monotonous chant again. Finally he slowed down, took a bite of eggs and said somewhat more loudly, “I can’t help wondering
what kind of a mother produced that. I’d just like to have a look at her, that’s all. Did he ever have a mother?”
It was a rhetorical question but it got answered. At the head of our table, several stools away, was one of the instructor-corporals. He had finished
eating and was smoking and picking his teeth, simultaneously; he had evidently been listening. “Jenkins—”
“Uh—sir?”
“Don’t you know about sergeants?” “Well . . . I’m learning.”
“They don’t have mothers. Just ask any trained private.” He blew smoke toward us. “They reproduce by fission . . . like all bacteria.”
And the LORD said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many . . . Nowtherefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return . . . And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand. And the LORD said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there . . . so he brought down the people unto the water: and the LORD said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise everyone that boweth down upon his knees to drink. And the number of them that drank, putting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men . . .
And the LORD said unto Gideon, By the three hundred . . . will I save you . . . let all the other people go . . .
—Judges VII:2-7
Two weeks after we got there they took our cots away from us. That is to say that we had the dubious pleasure of folding them, carrying them four miles, and stowing them in a warehouse. By then it didn’t matter; the ground seemed much warmer and quite soft—especially when the alert sounded in the middle of the night and we had to scramble out and play soldier. Which it did about three times a week. But I could get back to sleep after one of those mock exercises at once; I had learned to sleep any place, any time—sitting up, standing up, even marching in ranks. Why, I could even sleep through evening parade standing at attention, enjoy the music without being waked by it—and wake instantly at the command to pass in review.
I made a very important discovery at Camp Currie. Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more. All the wealthy, unhappy people you’ve ever met take sleeping pills; Mobile Infantrymen don’t need them. Give a cap trooper a bunk and time to sack out in it and he’s as happy as a worm in an apple—asleep.
Theoretically you were given eight full hours of sack time every night and about an hour and a half after evening chow for your own use. But in fact your night sack time was subject to alerts, to night duty, to field marches, and to acts of God and the whims of those over you, and your evenings, if not ruined by awkward squad or extra duty for minor offenses, were likely to be taken up by shining shoes, doing laundry, swapping haircuts (some of us got to be pretty fair barbers but a clean sweep like a billiard ball was acceptable and anybody can do that)—not to mention a thousand other chores having to do with equipment, person, and the demands of sergeants. For example we learned to answer morning roll call with: “Bathed!” meaning you had taken at least one bath since last reveille. A man might lie about it and get away with it (I did, a couple of times) but at least one in our company who pulled that dodge in the face of convincing evidence that he was not recently bathed got scrubbed with stiff brushes and floor soap by his squad mates while a corporal-instructor chaperoned and made helpful suggestions.
But if you didn’t have more urgent things to do after supper, you could write a letter, loaf, gossip, discuss the myriad mental and moral shortcomings of sergeants and, dearest of all, talk about the female of the species (we became convinced that there were no such creatures, just mythology created by inflamed imaginations—one boy in our company claimed to have seen a girl, over at regimental headquarters; he was unanimously judged a liar and a braggart). Or you could play cards. I learned, the hard way, not to draw to an inside straight and I’ve never done it since. In fact I haven’t played cards since.
Or, if you actually did have twenty minutes of your very own, you could sleep. This was a choice very highly thought of; we were always several weeks minus on sleep.
I may have given the impression that boot camp was made harder than necessary. This is not correct.
It was made as hard as possible and on purpose.
It was the firm opinion of every recruit that this was sheer meanness, calculated sadism, fiendish delight of witless morons in making other
people suffer.
It was not. It was too scheduled, too intellectual, too efficiently and impersonally organized to be cruelty for the sick pleasure of cruelty; it was planned like surgery for purposes as unimpassioned as those of a surgeon. Oh, I admit that some of the instructors may have enjoyed it but I don’t
knowthat they did—and I do know (now) that the psych officers tried to weed out any bullies in selecting instructors. They looked for skilled and dedicated craftsmen to follow the art of making things as tough as possible for a recruit; a bully is too stupid, himself too emotionally involved and too likely to grow tired of his fun and slack off, to be efficient.
Still, there may have been bullies among them. But I’ve heard that some surgeons (and not necessarily bad ones) enjoy the cutting and the blood which accompanies the humane art of surgery.
That’s what it was: surgery. Its immediate purpose was to get rid of, run right out of the outfit, those recruits who were too soft or too babyish ever
to make Mobile Infantrymen. It accomplished that, in droves. (They darn near ran me out.) Our company shrank to platoon size in the first six weeks. Some of them were dropped without prejudice and allowed, if they wished, to sweat out their terms in the non-combatant services; others got Bad Conduct Discharges, or Unsatisfactory Performance Discharges, or Medical Discharges.
Usually you didn’t know why a man left unless you saw him leave and he volunteered the information. But some of them got fed up, said so loudly, and resigned, forfeiting forever their chances of franchise. Some, especially the older men, simply couldn’t stand the pace physically no matter how hard they tried. I remember one, a nice old geezer named Carruthers, must have been thirty-five; they carried him away in a stretcher while he was still shouting feebly that it wasn’t fair!—and that he would be back.
It was sort of sad, because we liked Carruthers and he did try—so we looked the other way and figured we would never see him again, that he was a cinch for a medical discharge and civilian clothes. Only I did see him again, long after. He had refused discharge (you don’t have to accept a
medical) and wound up as third cook in a troop transport. He remembered me and wanted to talk old times, as proud of being an alumnus of Camp
Currie as Father is of his Harvard accent—he felt that he was a little bit better than the ordinary Navy man. Well, maybe he was.
But, much more important than the purpose of carving away the fat quickly and saving the government the training costs of those who would never cut it, was the prime purpose of making as sure as was humanly possible that no cap trooper ever climbed into a capsule for a combat drop unless he was prepared for it—fit, resolute, disciplined and skilled. If he is not, it’s not fair to the Federation, it’s certainly not fair to his teammates, and
worst of all it’s not fair to him.
But was boot camp more cruelly hard than was necessary?
All I can say to that is this: The next time I have to make a combat drop, I want the men on my flanks to be graduates of Camp Currie or its Siberian equivalent. Otherwise I’ll refuse to enter the capsule.
But I certainly thought it was a bunch of crumby, vicious nonsense at the time. Little things—When we were there a week, we were issued undress maroons for parade to supplement the fatigues we had been wearing. (Dress and full-dress uniforms came much later.) I took my tunic back to the issue shed and complained to the supply sergeant. Since he was only a supply sergeant and rather fatherly in manner I thought of him as a semi- civilian—I didn’t know how, as of then, to read the ribbons on his chest or I wouldn’t have dared speak to him. “Sergeant, this tunic is too large. My company commander says it fits like a tent.”
He looked at the garment, didn’t touch it. “Really?” “Yeah. I want one that fits.”
He still didn’t stir. “Let me wise you up, sonny boy. There are just two sizes in this army—too large and too small.” “But my company commander—”
“No doubt.”
“But what am I going to do?”
“Oh, it’s advice you want! Well, I’ve got that in stock—new issue, just today. Mmm . . . tell you what I’ll do. Here’s a needle and I’ll even give you a
spool of thread. You won’t need a pair of scissors; a razor blade is better. Now you tight ’em plenty across the hips but leave cloth to loose ’em
again across the shoulders; you’ll need it later.”
Sergeant Zim’s only comment on my tailoring was: “You can do better than that. Two hours extra duty.” So I did better than that by next parade.
Those first six weeks were all hardening up and hazing, with lots of parade drill and lots of route march. Eventually, as files dropped out and went home or elsewhere, we reached the point where we could do fifty miles in ten hours on the level—which is good mileage for a good horse in case you’ve never used your legs. We rested, not by stopping, but by changing pace, slow march, quick march, and trot. Sometimes we went out the full distance, bivouacked and ate field rations, slept in sleeping bags and marched back the next day.
One day we started out on an ordinary day’s march, no bed bags on our shoulders, no rations. When we didn’t stop for lunch, I wasn’t surprised, as I had already learned to sneak sugar and hard bread and such out of the mess tent and conceal it about my person, but when we kept on marching away from camp in the afternoon I began to wonder. But I had learned not to ask silly questions.
We halted shortly before dark, three companies, now somewhat abbreviated. We formed a battalion parade and marched through it, without music, guards were mounted, and we were dismissed. I immediately looked up Corporal-Instructor Bronski because he was a little easier to deal with than the others . . . and because I felt a certain amount of responsibility; I happened to be, at the time, a recruit-corporal myself. These boot chevrons didn’t mean much—mostly the privilege of being chewed out for whatever your squad did as well as for what you did yourself—and they could vanish as quickly as they appeared. Zim had tried out all of the older men as temporary non-coms first and I had inherited a brassard with chevrons on it a couple of days before when our squad leader had folded up and gone to hospital.
I said, “Corporal Bronski, what’s the straight word? When is chow call?”
He grinned at me. “I’ve got a couple of crackers on me. Want me to split ’em with you?”
“Huh? Oh, no, sir. Thank you.” (I had considerably more than a couple of crackers; I was learning.) “No chow call?”
“They didn’t tell me either, sonny. But I don’t see any copters approaching. Now if I was you, I’d round up my squad and figure things out. Maybe one of you can hit a jack rabbit with a rock.”
“Yes, sir. But—Well, are we staying here all night? We don’t have our bedrolls.”
His eyebrows shot up. “No bedrolls? Well, I do declare!” He seemed to think it over. “Mmm . . . ever see sheep huddle together in a snowstorm?” “Oh, no, sir.”
“Try it. They don’t freeze, maybe you won’t. Or if you don’t care for company, you might walk around all night. Nobody’ll bother you, as long as you stay inside the posted guards. You won’t freeze if you keep moving. Of course you may be a little tired tomorrow.” He grinned again.
I saluted and went back to my squad. We divvied up, share and share alike—and I came out with less food than I had started with; some of those idiots either hadn’t sneaked out anything to eat, or had eaten all they had while we marched. But a few crackers and a couple of prunes will do a lot to quiet your stomach’s sounding alert.
The sheep trick works, too; our whole section, three squads, did it together. I don’t recommend it as a way to sleep; you are either in the outer layer, frozen on one side and trying to worm your way inside, or you are inside, fairly warm but with everybody else trying to shove his elbows, feet, and halitosis on you. You migrate from one condition to the other all night long in a sort of a Brownian movement, never quite waking up and never really sound asleep. All this makes a night about a hundred years long.
We turned out at dawn to the familiar shout of: “Up you come! On the bounce!” encouraged by instructors’ batons applied smartly on fundaments sticking out of the piles . . . and then we did setting-up exercises. I felt like a corpse and didn’t see how I could touch my toes. But I did, though it hurt, and twenty minutes later when we hit the trail I merely felt elderly. Sergeant Zim wasn’t even mussed and somehow the scoundrel had managed to shave.
The Sun warmed our backs as we marched and Zim started us singing, oldies at first, like “Le Regiment de Sambre et Meuse” and “Caissons” and “Halls of Montezuma” and then our own “Cap Trooper’s Polka” which moves you into quickstep and pulls you on into a trot. Sergeant Zim couldn’t carry a tune in a sack; all he had was a loud voice. But Breckinridge had a sure, strong lead and could hold the rest of us in the teeth of Zim’s terrible false notes. We all felt cocky and covered with spines.
But we didn’t feel cocky fifty miles later. It had been a long night; it was an endless day—and Zim chewed us out for the way we looked on parade and several boots got gigged for failing to shave in the nine whole minutes between the time we fell out after the march and fell back in again for parade. Several recruits resigned that evening and I thought about it but didn’t because I had those silly boot chevrons and hadn’t been busted yet.
That night there was a two-hour alert.
But eventually I learned to appreciate the homey luxury of two or three dozen warm bodies to snuggle up to, because twelve weeks later they dumped me down raw naked in a primitive area of the Canadian Rockies and I had to make my way forty miles through mountains. I made it—and hated the Army every inch of the way.
I wasn’t in too bad shape when I checked in, though. A couple of rabbits had failed to stay as alert as I was, so I didn’t go entirely hungry . . . nor entirely naked; I had a nice warm thick coat of rabbit fat and dirt on my body and moccasins on my feet—the rabbits having no further use for their skins. It’s amazing what you can do with a flake of rock if you have to—I guess our cave-man ancestors weren’t such dummies as we usually think.
The others made it, too, those who were still around to try and didn’t resign rather than take the test—all except two boys who died trying. Then we all went back into the mountains and spent thirteen days finding them, working with copters overhead to direct us and all the best communication gear to help us and our instructors in powered command suits to supervise and to check rumors—because the Mobile Infantry doesn’t abandon its own while there is any thin shred of hope.
Then we buried them with full honors to the strains of “This Land Is Ours” and with the posthumous rank of PFC, the first of our boot regiment to
go that high—because a cap trooper isn’t necessarily expected to stay alive (dying is part of his trade) . . . but they care a lot about howyou die. It has to be heads up, on the bounce, and still trying.
Breckinridge was one of them; the other was an Aussie boy I didn’t know. They weren’t the first to die in training; they weren’t the last.
Starboard gun . . . FIRE!
He’s bound to be guilty ’r he wouldn’t be here!
Shooting’s too good for ’im, kick the louse out!
Port gun . . . FIRE!
—Ancient chanty used to time saluting guns
But that was after we had left Camp Currie and a lot had happened in between. Combat training, mostly—combat drill and combat exercises and combat maneuvers, using everything from bare hands to simulated nuclear weapons. I hadn’t known there were so many different ways to fight. Hands and feet to start with—and if you think those aren’t weapons you haven’t seen Sergeant Zim and Captain Frankel, our battalion commander, demonstrate la savate, or had little Shujumi work you over with just his hands and a toothy grin—Zim made Shujumi an instructor for that purpose at once and required us to take his orders, although we didn’t have to salute him and say “sir.”
As our ranks thinned down Zim quit bothering with formations himself, except parade, and spent more and more time in personal instruction, supplementing the corporal-instructors. He was sudden death with anything but he loved knives, and made and balanced his own, instead of using the perfectly good general-issue ones. He mellowed quite a bit as a personal teacher, too, becoming merely unbearable instead of downright disgusting—he could be quite patient with silly questions.
Once, during one of the two-minute rest periods that were scattered sparsely through each day’s work, one of the boys—a kid named Ted Hendrick—asked, “Sergeant? I guess this knife throwing is fun . . . but why do we have to learn it? What possible use is it?”
“Well,” answered Zim, “suppose all you have is a knife? Or maybe not even a knife? What do you do? Just say your prayers and die? Or wade in
and make him buy it anyhow? Son, this is real—it’s not a checker game you can concede if you find yourself too far behind.”
“But that’s just what I mean, sir. Suppose you aren’t armed at all? Or just one of these toadstickers, say? And the man you’re up against has all
sorts of dangerous weapons? There’s nothing you can do about it; he’s got you licked on showdown.” Zim said almost gently, “You’ve got it all wrong, son. There’s no such thing as a ‘dangerous weapon.’” “Huh? Sir?”
“There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. We’re trying to teach you to be dangerous—to the enemy. Dangerous even without a knife. Deadly as long as you still have one hand or one foot and are still alive. If you don’t know what I mean, go read ‘Horatius at the Bridge’ or ‘The Death of the Bon Homme Richard’; they’re both in the Camp library. But take the case you first mentioned; I’m you and all you have is a knife. That target behind me—the one you’ve been missing, number three—is a sentry, armed with everything but an H-bomb. You’ve got to get
him . . . quietly, at once, and without letting him call for help.” Zim turned slightly—thunk!—a knife he hadn’t even had in his hand was quivering in the center of target number three. “You see? Best to carry two knives—but get him you must, even barehanded.”
“Uh—”
“Something still troubling you? Speak up. That’s what I’m here for, to answer your questions.”
“Uh, yes, sir. You said the sentry didn’t have any H-bomb. But he does have an H-bomb; that’s just the point. Well, at least we have, if we’re the sentry . . . and any sentry we’re up against is likely to have them, too. I don’t mean the sentry, I mean the side he’s on.”
“I understood you.”
“Well . . . you see, sir? If we can use an H-bomb—and, as you said, it’s no checker game; it’s real, it’s war and nobody is fooling around—isn’t it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds, throwing knives and maybe getting yourself killed . . . and even losing the war . . . when you’ve got a real weapon you can use to win? What’s the point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with obsolete weapons when one professor type can do so much more just by pushing a button?”
Zim didn’t answer at once, which wasn’t like him at all. Then he said softly, “Are you happy in the Infantry, Hendrick? You can resign, you know.” Hendrick muttered something; Zim said, “Speak up!”
“I’m not itching to resign, sir. I’m going to sweat out my term.”
“I see. Well, the question you asked is one that a sergeant isn’t really qualified to answer . . . and one that you shouldn’t ask me. You’re supposed
to knowthe answer before you join up. Or you should. Did your school have a course in History and Moral Philosophy?” “What? Sure—yes, sir.”
“Then you’ve heard the answer. But I’ll give you my own—unofficial—views on it. If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?”
“Why . . . no, sir!”
“Of course not. You’d paddle it. There can be circumstances when it’s just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank
a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government’s decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him . . . but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing . . . but controlled and purposeful violence. But it’s not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It’s never a soldier’s
business to decide when or where or how—or why—he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people—‘older and wiser heads,’ as they
say—supply the control. Which is as it should be. That’s the best answer I can give you. If it doesn’t satisfy you, I’ll get you a chit to go talk to the
regimental commander. If he can’t convince you—then go home and be a civilian! Because in that case you will certainly never make a soldier.” Zim bounced to his feet. “I think you’ve kept me talking just to goldbrick. Up you come, soldiers! On the bounce! Man stations, on target—
Hendrick, you first. This time I want you to throw that knife south of you. South, get it? Not north. The target is due south of you and I want that knife to go in a general southerly direction, at least. I know you won’t hit the target but see if you can’t scare it a little. Don’t slice your ear off, don’t let go of it
and cut somebody behind you—just keep what tiny mind you have fixed on the idea of ‘south’! Ready—on target! Let fly!” Hendrick missed it again.
We trained with sticks and we trained with wire (lots of nasty things you can improvise with a piece of wire) and we learned what can be done with really modern weapons and how to do it and how to service and maintain the equipment—simulated nuclear weapons and infantry rockets and various sorts of gas and poison and incendiary and demolition. As well as other things maybe best not discussed. But we learned a lot of
“obsolete” weapons, too. Bayonets on dummy guns for example, and guns that weren’t dummies, too, but were almost identical with the infantry rifle of the XXth century—much like the sporting rifles used in hunting game, except that we fired nothing but solid slugs, alloy-jacketed lead bullets, both at targets on measured ranges and at surprise targets on booby-trapped skirmish runs. This was supposed to prepare us to learn to use any
armed weapon and to train us to be on the bounce, alert, ready for anything. Well, I suppose it did. I’m pretty sure it did.
We used these rifles in field exercises to simulate a lot of deadlier and nastier aimed weapons, too. We used a lot of simulation; we had to. An “explosive” bomb or grenade, against matériel or personnel, would explode just enough to put out a lot of black smoke; another sort of gave off a gas that would make you sneeze and weep—that told you that you were dead or paralyzed . . . and was nasty enough to make you careful about anti-gas precautions, to say nothing of the chewing-out you got if you were caught by it.
We got still less sleep; more than half the exercises were held at night, with snoopers and radar and audio gear and such.
The rifles used to simulate aimed weapons were loaded with blanks except one in five hundred rounds at random, which was a real bullet. Dangerous? Yes and no. It’s dangerous just to be alive . . . and a nonexplosive bullet probably won’t kill you unless it hits you in the head or the heart and maybe not then. What that one-in-five-hundred “for real” did was to give us a deep interest in taking cover, especially as we knew that some of
the rifles were being fired by instructors who were crack shots and actually trying their best to hit you—if the round happened not to be a blank. They
assured us that they would not intentionally shoot a man in the head . . . but accidents do happen.
This friendly assurance wasn’t very reassuring. That 500th bullet turned tedious exercises into large-scale Russian roulette; you stop being bored
the very first time you hear a slug go wheet! past your ear before you hear the crack of the rifle.
But we did slack down anyhow and word came down from the top that if we didn’t get on the bounce, the incidence of real ones would be
changed to one in a hundred . . . and if that didn’t work, to one in fifty. I don’t know whether a change was made or not—no way to tell—but I do know we tightened up again, because a boy in the next company got creased across his buttocks with a live one, producing an amazing scar and a lot of half-witty comments and a renewed interest by all hands in taking cover. We laughed at this kid for getting shot where he did . . . but we all knew it
could have been his head—or our own heads.
The instructors who were not firing rifles did not take cover. They put on white shirts and walked around upright with their silly canes, apparently
calmly certain that even a recruit would not intentionally shoot an instructor—which may have been overconfidence on the part of some of them. Still, the chances were five hundred to one that even a shot aimed with murderous intent would not be live and the safety factor increased still higher because the recruit probably couldn’t shoot that well anyhow. A rifle is not an easy weapon; it’s got no target-seeking qualities at all—I understand that even back in the days when wars were fought and decided with just such rifles it used to take several thousand fired shots to average killing
one man. This seems impossible but the military histories agree that it is true—apparently most shots weren’t really aimed but simply acted to force
the enemy to keep his head down and interfere with his shooting.
In any case we had no instructors wounded or killed by rifle fire. No trainees were killed, either, by rifle bullets; the deaths were all from other
weapons or things—some of which could turn around and bite you if you didn’t do things by the book. Well, one boy did manage to break his neck taking cover too enthusiastically when they first started shooting at him—but no bullet touched him.
However, by a chain reaction, this matter of rifle bullets and taking cover brought me to my lowest ebb at Camp Currie. In the first place I had been busted out of my boot chevrons, not over what I did but over something one of my squad did when I wasn’t even around . . . which I pointed out. Bronski told me to button my lip. So I went to see Zim about it. He told me coldly that I was responsible for what my men did, regardless . . . and tacked on six hours of extra duty besides busting me for having spoken to him about it without Bronski’s permission. Then I got a letter that upset me a lot; my mother finally wrote to me. Then I sprained a shoulder in my first drill with powered armor (they’ve got those practice suits rigged so
that the instructor can cause casualties in the suit at will, by radio control; I got dumped and hurt my shoulder) and this put me on light duty with too much time to think at a time when I had many reasons, it seemed to me, to feel sorry for myself.
Because of “light duty” I was orderly that day in the battalion commander’s office. I was eager at first, for I had never been there before and wanted to make a good impression. I discovered that Captain Frankel didn’t want zeal; he wanted me to sit still, say nothing, and not bother him. This left me time to sympathize with myself, for I didn’t dare go to sleep.
Then suddenly, shortly after lunch, I wasn’t a bit sleepy; Sergeant Zim came in, followed by three men. Zim was smart and neat as usual but the expression on his face made him look like Death on a pale horse and he had a mark on his right eye that looked as if it might be shaping up into a shiner—which was impossible, of course. Of the other three, the one in the middle was Ted Hendrick. He was dirty—well, the company had been on a field exercise; they don’t scrub those prairies and you spend a lot of your time snuggling up to the dirt. But his lip was split and there was blood on his chin and on his shirt and his cap was missing. He looked wild-eyed.
The men on each side of him were boots. They each had rifles; Hendrick did not. One of them was from my squad, a kid named Leivy. He seemed excited and pleased, and slipped me a wink when nobody was looking.
Captain Frankel looked surprised. “What is this, Sergeant?”
Zim stood frozen straight and spoke as if he were reciting something by rote. “Sir, H Company Commander reports to the Battalion Commander. Discipline. Article nine-one-oh-seven. Disregard of tactical command and doctrine, the team being in simulated combat. Article nine-one-two-oh. Disobedience of orders, same conditions.”
Captain Frankel looked puzzled. “You are bringing this to me, Sergeant? Officially?”
I don’t see how a man can manage to look as embarrassed as Zim looked and still have no expression of any sort in his face or voice. “Sir. If the
Captain pleases. The man refused administrative discipline. He insisted on seeing the Battalion Commander.”
“I see. A bedroll lawyer. Well, I still don’t understand it, Sergeant, but technically that’s his privilege. What was the tactical command and doctrine?”
“A ‘freeze,’ sir.” I glanced at Hendrick, thinking: Oh, oh, he’s going to catch it. In a “freeze” you hit dirt, taking any cover you can, fast, and then
freeze—don’t move at all, not even twitch an eyebrow, until released. Or you can freeze when you’re already in cover. They tell stories about men who had been hit while in freeze . . . and had died slowly but without ever making a sound or a move.
Frankel’s brows shot up. “Second part?”
“Same thing, sir. After breaking freeze, failing to return to it on being so ordered.” Captain Frankel looked grim. “Name?”
“Very well. Hendrick, you are deprived of all privileges for thirty days and restricted to your tent when not on duty or at meals, subject only to sanitary necessities. You will serve three hours extra duty each day under the Corporal of the Guard, one hour to be served just before taps, one hour just before reveille, one hour at the time of the noonday meal and in place of it. Your evening meal will be bread and water—as much bread as you can eat. You will serve ten hours extra duty each Sunday, the time to be adjusted to permit you to attend divine services if you so elect.”
(I thought: Oh my! He threw the book.)
Captain Frankel went on: “Hendrick, the only reason you are getting off so lightly is that I am not permitted to give you any more than that without convening a court-martial . . . and I don’t want to spoil your company’s record. Dismissed.” He dropped his eyes back to the papers on his desk, the incident already forgotten—
—and Hendrick yelled, “You didn’t hear my side of it!” The Captain looked up. “Oh. Sorry. You have a side?”
“You’re darn right I do! Sergeant Zim’s got it in for me! He’s been riding me, riding me, riding me, all day long from the time I got here! He—” “That’s his job,” the Captain said coldly. “Do you deny the two charges against you?”
“No, but—He didn’t tell you I was lying on an anthill.”
Frankel looked disgusted. “Oh. So you would get yourself killed and perhaps your teammates as well because of a few little ants?”
“Not ‘just a few’—there were hundreds of ’em. Stingers.”
“So? Young man, let me put you straight. Had it been a nest of rattlesnakes you would still have been expected—and required—to freeze.” Frankel paused. “Have you anything at all to say in your own defense?”
Hendrick’s mouth was open. “I certainly do! He hit me! He laid hands on me! The whole bunch of ’em are always strutting around with those silly batons, whackin’ you across the fanny, punchin’ you between the shoulders and tellin’ you to brace up—and I put up with it. But he hit me with his
hands—he knocked me down to the ground and yelled, ‘Freeze! you stupid jackass!’ How about that?”
Captain Frankel looked down at his hands, looked up again at Hendrick. “Young man, you are under a misapprehension very common among
civilians. You think that your superior officers are not permitted to ‘lay hands on you,’ as you put it. Under purely social conditions, that is true—say if we happened to run across each other in a theater or a shop, I would have no more right, as long as you treated me with the respect due my rank, to slap your face than you have to slap mine. But in line of duty the rule is entirely different—”
The Captain swung around in his chair and pointed at some loose-leaf books. “There are the laws under which you live. You can search every
article in those books, every court-martial case which has arisen under them, and you will not find one word which says, or implies, that your superior officer may not ‘lay hands on you’ or strike you in any other manner in line of duty. Hendrick, I could break your jaw . . . and I simply would
be responsible to my own superior officers as to the appropriate necessity of the act. But I would not be responsible to you. I could do more than that. There are circumstances under which a superior officer, commissioned or not, is not only permitted but required to kill an officer or a man
under him, without delay and perhaps without warning—and, far from being punished, be commended. To put a stop to pusillanimous conduct in the
face of the enemy, for example.”
The Captain tapped on his desk. “Now about those batons—They have two uses. First, they mark the men in authority. Second, we expect them to be used on you, to touch you up and keep you on the bounce. You can’t possibly be hurt with one, not the way they are used; at most they sting a
little. But they save thousands of words. Say you don’t turn out on the bounce at reveille. No doubt the duty corporal could wheedle you, say ‘pretty please with sugar on it,’ inquire if you’d like breakfast in bed this morning—if we could spare one career corporal just to nursemaid you. We can’t, so he gives your bedroll a whack and trots on down the line, applying the spur where needed. Of course he could simply kick you, which would be just as legal and nearly as effective. But the general in charge of training and discipline thinks that it is more dignified, both for the duty corporal and for you, to snap a late sleeper out of his fog with the impersonal rod of authority. And so do I. Not that it matters what you or I think about it; this is the way we do it.”
Captain Frankel sighed. “Hendrick, I have explained these matters to you because it is useless to punish a man unless he knows why he is being
punished. You’ve been a bad boy—I say ‘boy’ because you quite evidently aren’t a man yet, although we’ll keep trying—a surprisingly bad boy in view of the stage of your training. Nothing you have said is any defense, nor even any mitigation; you don’t seem to know the score nor have any idea of your duty as a soldier. So tell me in your own words why you feel mistreated; I want to get you straightened out. There might even be something in your favor, though I confess that I cannot imagine what it could be.”
I had sneaked a look or two at Hendrick’s face while the Captain was chewing him out—somehow his quiet, mild words were a worse chewing- out than any Zim had ever given us. Hendrick’s expression had gone from indignation to blank astonishment to sullenness.
“Speak up!” Frankel added sharply.
“Uh . . . well, we were ordered to freeze and I hit the dirt and I found I was on this anthill. So I got to my knees, to move over a couple of feet, and I was hit from behind and knocked flat and he yelled at me—and I bounced up and popped him one and he—”
“STOP!” Captain Frankel was out of his chair and standing ten feet tall, though he’s hardly taller than I am. He stared at Hendrick.
“You . . . struck . . . your . . . company commander?”
“Huh? I said so. But he hit me first. From behind, I didn’t even see him. I don’t take that off of anybody. I popped him and then he hit me again and
then—”
“Silence!”
Hendrick stopped. Then he added, “I just want out of this lousy outfit.”
“I think we can accommodate you,” Frankel said icily. “And quickly, too.” “Just gimme a piece of paper, I’m resigning.”
“One moment. Sergeant Zim.”
“Yes, sir.” Zim hadn’t said a word for a long time. He just stood, eyes front and rigid as a statue, nothing moving but his twitching jaw muscles. I looked at him now and saw that it certainly was a shiner—a beaut. Hendrick must have caught him just right. But he hadn’t said anything about it and Captain Frankel hadn’t asked—maybe he had just assumed Zim had run into a door and would explain it if he felt like it, later.
“Have the pertinent articles been published to your company, as required?” “Yes, sir. Published and logged, every Sunday morning.”
“I know they have. I asked simply for the record.”
Just before church call every Sunday they lined us up and read aloud the disciplinary articles out of the Laws and Regulations of the Military Forces. They were posted on the bulletin board, too, outside the orderly tent. Nobody paid them much mind—it was just another drill; you could stand still and sleep through it. About the only thing we noticed, if we noticed anything, was what we called “the thirty-one ways to crash land.” After all, the instructors see to it that you soak up all the regulations you need to know, through your skin. The “crash landings” were a worn-out joke, like “reveille oil” and “tent jacks” . . . they were the thirty-one capital offenses. Now and then somebody boasted, or accused somebody else, of having found a thirty-second way—always something preposterous and usually obscene.
“Striking a superior officer—! ”
It suddenly wasn’t amusing any longer. Popping Zim? Hang a man for that? Why, almost everybody in the company had taken a swing at Sergeant Zim and some of us had even landed . . . when he was instructing us in hand-to-hand combat. He would take us on after the other instructors had worked us over and we were beginning to feel cocky and pretty good at it—then he would put the polish on. Why, shucks, I once saw Shujumi knock him unconscious. Bronski threw water on him and Zim got up and grinned and shook hands—and threw Shujumi right over the horizon.
I did it, all thumbs, stepped back when an officer’s face came on and let the Captain take the call. “Adjutant,” the face said.
Frankel said crisply, “Second Battalion Commander’s respects to the Regimental Commander. I request and require an officer to sit as a court.” The face said, “When do you need him, Ian?”
“As quickly as you can get him here.”
“Right away. I’m pretty sure Jake is in his HQ. Article and name?”
Captain Frankel identified Hendrick and quoted an article number. The face in the screen whistled and looked grim. “On the bounce, Ian. If I can’t get Jake, I’ll be over myself—just as soon as I tell the Old Man.”
Captain Frankel turned to Zim. “This escort—are they witnesses?” “Yes, sir.”
“Did his section leader see it?”
Zim barely hesitated. “I think so, sir.”
“Get him. Anybody out that way in a powered suit?” “Yes, sir.”
Zim used the phone while Frankel said to Hendrick, “What witnesses do you wish to call in your defense?”
“Huh? I don’t need any witnesses, he knows what he did! Just hand me a piece of paper—I’m getting out of here.” “All in good time.”
In very fast time, it seemed to me. Less than five minutes later Corporal Jones came bouncing up in a command suit, carrying Corporal Mahmud in his arms. He dropped Mahmud and bounced away just as Lieutenant Spieksma came in. He said, “Afternoon, Cap’n. Accused and witnesses here?”
“All set. Take it, Jake.” “Recorder on?”
“It is now.”
“Very well. Hendrick, step forward.” Hendrick did so, looking puzzled and as if his nerve was beginning to crack. Lieutenant Spieksma said briskly: “Field Court-Martial, convened by order of Major F.X. Malloy, commanding Third Training Regiment, Camp Arthur Currie, under General Order Number Four, issued by the Commanding General, Training and Discipline Command, pursuant to the Laws and Regulations of the Military Forces, Terran Federation. Remanding officer: Captain Ian Frankel, M.I., assigned to and commanding Second Battalion, Third Regiment. The Court: Lieutenant Jacques Spieksma, M.I., assigned to and commanding First Battalion, Third Regiment. Accused: Hendrick, Theodore C., Recruit Private RP7960924. Article 9080. Charge: Striking his superior officer, the Terran Federation then being in a state of emergency.”
The thing that got me was how fast it went. I found myself suddenly appointed an “officer of the court” and directed to “remove” the witnesses and have them ready. I didn’t know how I would “remove” Sergeant Zim if he didn’t feel like it, but he gathered Mahmud and the two boots up by eye and they all went outside, out of earshot. Zim separated himself from the others and simply waited; Mahmud sat down on the ground and rolled a cigarette—which he had to put out; he was the first one called. In less than twenty minutes all three of them had testified, all telling much the same story Hendrick had. Zim wasn’t called at all.
Lieutenant Spieksma said to Hendrick, “Do you wish to cross-examine the witnesses? The Court will assist you, if you so wish.” “No.”
“Stand at attention and say ‘sir’ when you address the Court.” “No, sir.” He added, “I want a lawyer.”
“The Law does not permit counsel in field courts-martial. Do you wish to testify in your own defense? You are not required to do so and, in view of the evidence thus far, the Court will take no judicial notice if you choose not to do so. But you are warned that any testimony that you give may be used against you and that you will be subject to cross-examination.”
Hendrick shrugged. “I haven’t anything to say. What good would it do me?”
“The Court repeats: Will you testify in your own defense?”
“Uh, no, sir.”
“The Court must demand of you one technical question. Was the article under which you are charged published to you before the time of the alleged offense of which you stand accused? You may answer yes, or no, or stand mute—but you are responsible for your answer under Article 9167 which relates to perjury.”
The accused stood mute.
“Very well, the Court will reread the article of the charge aloud to you and again ask you that question. ‘Article 9080: Any person in the Military Forces who strikes or assaults, or attempts to strike or assault—’ ”
“Oh, I suppose they did. They read a lot of stuff, every Sunday morning—a whole long list of things you couldn’t do.” “Was or was not that particular article read to you?”
“Uh . . . yes, sir. It was.”
“Very well. Having declined to testify, do you have any statement to make in mitigation or extenuation?” “Sir?”
“Do you want to tell the Court anything about it? Any circumstance which you think might possibly affect the evidence already given? Or anything which might lessen the alleged offense? Such things as being ill, or under drugs or medication. You are not under oath at this point; you may say anything at all which you think may help you. What the Court is trying to find out is this: Does anything about this matter strike you as being unfair? If so, why?”
“Huh? Of course it is! Everything about it is unfair! He hit me first! You heard ’em!—he hit me first!” “Anything more?”
“Huh? No, sir. Isn’t that enough?”
“The trial is completed. Recruit Private Theodore C. Hendrick, stand forth!” Lieutenant Spieksma had been standing at attention the whole time; now Captain Frankel stood up. The place suddenly felt chilly.
“Private Hendrick, you are found guilty as charged.”
My stomach did a flip-flop. They were going to do it to him . . . they were going to do the “Danny Deever” to Ted Hendrick. And I had eaten breakfast beside him just this morning.
“The Court sentences you,” he went on, while I felt sick, “to ten lashes and Bad Conduct Discharge.” Hendrick gulped. “I want to resign!”
“The Court does not permit you to resign. The Court wishes to add that your punishment is light simply because this Court possesses no jurisdiction to assign greater punishment. The authority which remanded you specified a field court-martial—why it so chose, this Court will not speculate. But had you been remanded for general court-martial, it seems certain that the evidence before this Court would have caused a general court to sentence you to hang by the neck until dead. You are very lucky—and the remanding authority has been most merciful.” Lieutenant Spieksma paused, then went on, “The sentence will be carried out at the earliest hour after the convening authority has reviewed and approved the record, if it does so approve. Court is adjourned. Remove and confine him.”
The last was addressed to me, but I didn’t actually have to do anything about it, other than phone the guard tent and then get a receipt for him when they took him away.
At afternoon sick call Captain Frankel took me off orderly and sent me to see the doctor, who sent me back to duty. I got back to my company just in time to dress and fall in for parade—and to get gigged by Zim for “spots on uniform.” Well, he had a bigger spot over one eye but I didn’t mention it.
Somebody had set up a big post in the parade ground just back of where the adjutant stood. When it came time to publish the orders, instead of “routine order of the day” or other trivia, they published Hendrick’s court-martial.
Then they marched him out, between two armed guards, with his hands cuffed together in front of him.
I had never seen a flogging. Back home, while they do it in public of course, they do it back of the Federal Building—and Father had given me strict orders to stay away from there. I tried disobeying him on it once . . . but it was postponed and I never tried to see one again.
Once is too many.
The guards lifted his arms and hooked the manacles over a big hook high up on the post. Then they took his shirt off and it turned out that it was fixed so that it could come off and he didn’t have an undershirt. The adjutant said crisply, “Carry out the sentence of the Court.”
A corporal-instructor from some other battalion stepped forward with the whip. The Sergeant of the Guard made the count.
It’s a slow count, five seconds between each one and it seems much longer. Ted didn’t let out a peep until the third, then he sobbed.
The next thing I knew I was staring up at Corporal Bronski. He was slapping me and looking intently at me. He stopped and asked, “Okay now?
All right, back in ranks. On the bounce; we’re about to pass in review.” We did so and marched back to our company areas. I didn’t eat much dinner but neither did a lot of them.
Nobody said a word to me about fainting. I found out later that I wasn’t the only one—a couple of dozen of us had passed out.
CH:06
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly . . . it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
—Thomas Paine
It was the night after Hendrick was kicked out that I reached my lowest slump at Camp Currie. I couldn’t sleep—and you have to have been through boot camp to understand just how far down a recruit has to sink before that can happen. But I hadn’t had any real exercise all day so I wasn’t physically tired, and my shoulder still hurt even though I had been marked “duty,” and I had that letter from my mother preying on my mind, and every time I closed my eyes I would hear that crack! and see Ted slump against the whipping post.
I wasn’t fretted about losing my boot chevrons. That no longer mattered at all because I was ready to resign, determined to. If it hadn’t been the middle of the night and no pen and paper handy, I would have done so right then.
Ted had made a bad mistake, one that lasted all of half a second. And it really had been just a mistake, too, because, while he hated the outfit (who liked it?), he had been trying to sweat it out and win his franchise; he meant to go into politics—he talked a lot about how, when he got his citizenship, “There will be some changes made—you wait and see.”
Well, he would never be in public office now; he had taken his finger off his number for a single instant and he was through.
If it could happen to him, it could happen to me. Suppose I slipped? Next day or next week? Not even allowed to resign . . . but drummed out with my back striped.
Time to admit that I was wrong and Father was right, time to put in that little piece of paper and slink home and tell Father that I was ready to go to Harvard and then go to work in the business—if he would still let me. Time to see Sergeant Zim, first thing in the morning, and tell him that I had had
it. But not until morning, because you don’t wake Sergeant Zim except for something you’re certain that he will class as an emergency—believe me, you don’t! Not Sergeant Zim.
Sergeant Zim—
He worried me as much as Ted’s case did. After the court-martial was over and Ted had been taken away, he stayed behind and said to Captain Frankel, “May I speak with the Battalion Commander, sir?”
“Certainly. I was intending to ask you to stay behind for a word. Sit down.”
Zim flicked his eyes my way and the Captain looked at me and I didn’t have to be told to get out; I faded. There was nobody in the outer office, just a couple of civilian clerks. I didn’t dare go outside because the Captain might want me; I found a chair back of a row of files and sat down.
I could hear them talking, through the partition I had my head against. BHQ was a building rather than a tent, since it housed permanent communication and recording equipment, but it was a “minimum field building,” a shack; the inner partitions weren’t much. I doubt if the civilians could hear as they each were wearing transcriber phones and were bent over typers—besides, they didn’t matter. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Uh, well, maybe I did.
Zim said: “Sir, I request transfer to a combat team.”
Frankel answered: “I can’t hear you, Charlie. My tin ear is bothering me again.” Zim: “I’m quite serious, sir. This isn’t my sort of duty.”
Frankel said testily, “Quit bellyaching your troubles to me, Sergeant. At least wait until we’ve disposed of duty matters. What in the world happened?”
Zim said stiffly, “Captain, that boy doesn’t rate ten lashes.”
Frankel answered, “Of course he doesn’t. You know who goofed—and so do I.” “Yes, sir. I know.”
“Well? You know even better than I do that these kids are wild animals at this stage. You know when it’s safe to turn your back on them and when
it isn’t. You know the doctrine and the standing orders about article nine-oh-eight-oh—you must never give them a chance to violate it. Of course some of them are going to try it—if they weren’t aggressive they wouldn’t be material for the M.I. They’re docile in ranks; it’s safe enough to turn your back when they’re eating, or sleeping, or sitting on their tails and being lectured. But get them out in the field in a combat exercise, or anything that gets them keyed up and full of adrenaline, and they’re as explosive as a hatful of mercury fulminate. You know that, all you instructors know that; you’re trained—trained to watch for it, trained to snuff it out before it happens. Explain to me how it was possible for an untrained recruit to hang a mouse on your eye? He should never have laid a hand on you; you should have knocked him cold when you saw what he was up to. So why weren’t you on the bounce? Are you slowing down?”
“I don’t know,” Zim answered slowly. “I guess I must be.”
“Hmm! If true, a combat team is the last place for you. But it’s not true. Or wasn’t true the last time you and I worked out together, three days ago. So what slipped?”
Zim was slow in answering. “I think I had him tagged in my mind as one of the safe ones.” “There are no such.”
“Yes, sir. But he was so earnest, so doggedly determined to sweat it out—he didn’t have any aptitude but he kept on trying—that I must have done that, subconsciously.” Zim was silent, then added, “I guess it was because I liked him.”
Frankel snorted. “An instructor can’t afford to like a man.”
“I know it, sir. But I do. They’re a nice bunch of kids. We’ve dumped all the real twerps by now—Hendrick’s only shortcoming, aside from being clumsy, was that he thought he knew all the answers. I didn’t mind that; I knew it all at that age myself. The twerps have gone home and those that are left are eager, anxious to please, and on the bounce—as cute as a litter of collie pups. A lot of them will make soldiers.”
“So that was the soft spot. You liked him . . . so you failed to clip him in time. So he winds up with a court and the whip and a B.C.D. Sweet.” Zim said earnestly, “I wish to heaven there were some way for me to take that flogging myself, sir.”
“You’d have to take your turn, I outrank you. What do you think I’ve been wishing the past hour? What do you think I was afraid of from the moment I saw you come in here sporting a shiner? I did my best to brush it off with administrative punishment and the young fool wouldn’t let well enough
alone. But I never thought he would be crazy enough to blurt it out that he’d hung one on you—he’s stupid; you should have eased him out of the outfit weeks ago . . . instead of nursing him along until he got into trouble. But blurt it out he did, to me, in front of witnesses, forcing me to take
official notice of it—and that licked us. No way to get it off the record, no way to avoid a court . . . just go through the whole dreary mess and take our
medicine, and wind up with one more civilian who’ll be against us the rest of his days. Because he has to be flogged; neither you nor I can take it for him, even though the fault was ours. Because the regiment has to see what happens when nine-oh-eight-oh is violated. Our fault . . . but his lumps.”
“My fault, Captain. That’s why I want to be transferred. Uh, sir, I think it’s best for the outfit.”
“You do, eh? But I decide what’s best for my battalion, not you, Sergeant. Charlie, who do you think pulled your name out of the hat? And why?
Think back twelve years. You were a corporal, remember? Where were you?”
“Here, as you know quite well, Captain. Right here on this same godforsaken prairie—and I wish I had never come back to it!”
“Don’t we all. But it happens to be the most important and the most delicate work in the Army—turning unspanked young cubs into soldiers. Who was the worst unspanked young cub in your section?”
“Mmm . . .” Zim answered slowly. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say you were the worst, Captain.”
“You wouldn’t, eh? But you’d have to think hard to name another candidate. I hated your guts, ‘Corporal’ Zim.” Zim sounded surprised, and a little hurt. “You did, Captain? I didn’t hate you—I rather liked you.”
“So? Well, ‘hate’ is the other luxury an instructor can never afford. We must not hate them, we must not like them; we must teach them. But if you liked me then—mmm, it seemed to me that you had very strange ways of showing it. Do you still like me? Don’t answer that; I don’t care whether you do or not—or, rather, I don’t want to know, whichever it is. Never mind; I despised you then and I used to dream about ways to get you. But you were always on the bounce and never gave me a chance to buy a nine-oh-eight-oh court of my own. So here I am, thanks to you. Now to handle your request: You used to have one order that you gave to me over and over again when I was a boot. I got so I loathed it almost more than anything else
you did or said. Do you remember it? I do and now I’ll give it back to you: ‘Soldier, shut up and soldier!’” “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t go yet. This weary mess isn’t all loss; any regiment of boots needs a stern lesson in the meaning of nine-oh-eight-oh, as we both know.
They haven’t yet learned to think, they won’t read, and they rarely listen—but they can see . . . and young Hendrick’s misfortune may save one of his mates, someday, from swinging by the neck until he’s dead, dead, dead. But I’m sorry the object lesson had to come from my battalion and I certainly don’t intend to let this battalion supply another one. You get your instructors together and warn them. For about twenty-four hours those kids will be in a state of shock. Then they’ll turn sullen and the tension will build. Along about Thursday or Friday some boy who is about to flunk out anyhow will start thinking over the fact that Hendrick didn’t get so very much, not even the number of lashes for drunken driving . . . and he’s going to
start brooding that it might be worth it, to take a swing at the instructor he hates worst. Sergeant—that blowmust never land! Understand me?” “Yes, sir.”
“I want them to be eight times as cautious as they have been. I want them to keep their distance, I want them to have eyes in the backs of their heads. I want them to be as alert as a mouse at a cat show. Bronski—you have a special word with Bronski; he has a tendency to fraternize.”
“I’ll straighten Bronski out, sir.”
“See that you do. Because when the next kid starts swinging, it’s got to be stop-punched—not muffed, like today. The boy has got to be knocked cold and the instructor must do so without ever being touched himself—or I’ll damned well break him for incompetence. Let them know that. They’ve
got to teach those kids that it’s not merely expensive but impossible to violate nine-oh-eight-oh . . . that even trying it wins a short nap, a bucket of water in the face, and a very sore jaw—and nothing else.”
“Yes, sir. It’ll be done.”
“It had better be done. I will not only break the instructor who slips, I will personally take him ’way out on the prairie and give him lumps . . .
because I will not have another one of my boys strung up to that whipping post through sloppiness on the part of his teachers. Dismissed.” “Yes, sir. Good afternoon, Captain.”
“What’s good about it? Charlie—” “Yes, sir.”
“If you’re not too busy this evening, why don’t you bring your soft shoes and your pads over to officers’ row and we’ll go waltzing Matilda? Say about eight o’clock.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s not an order, that’s an invitation. If you really are slowing down, maybe I’ll be able to kick your shoulder blades off.” “Uh, would the Captain care to put a small bet on it?”
“Huh? With me sitting here at this desk getting swivel-chair spread? I will not! Not unless you agree to fight with one foot in a bucket of cement. Seriously, Charlie, we’ve had a miserable day and it’s going to be worse before it gets better. If you and I work up a good sweat and swap a few lumps, maybe we’ll be able to sleep tonight despite all of mother’s little darlings.”
“I’ll be there, Captain. Don’t eat too much dinner—I need to work off a couple of matters myself.”
“I’m not going to dinner; I’m going to sit right here and sweat out this quarterly report . . . which the Regimental Commander is graciously pleased
to see right after his dinner . . . and which somebody whose name I won’t mention has put me two hours behind on. So I may be a few minutes late for our waltz. Go ’way now, Charlie, and don’t bother me. See you later.”
Sergeant Zim left so abruptly that I barely had time to lean over and tie my shoe and thereby be out of sight behind the file case as he passed
through the outer office. Captain Frankel was already shouting, “Orderly! Orderly! ORDERLY!—do I have to call you three times? What’s your name? Put yourself down for an hour’s extra duty, full kit. Find the company commanders of E, F, and G, my compliments and I’ll be pleased to see them before parade. Then bounce over to my tent and fetch me a clean dress uniform, cap, side arms, shoes, ribbons—no medals. Lay it out for me here. Then make afternoon sick call—if you can scratch with that arm, as I’ve seen you doing, your shoulder can’t be too sore. You’ve got thirteen minutes until sick call—on the bounce, soldier!”
I made it . . . by catching two of them in the senior instructors’ shower (an orderly can go anywhere) and the third at his desk; the orders you get aren’t impossible, they merely seem so because they nearly are. I was laying out Captain Frankel’s uniform for parade as sick call sounded. Without looking up he growled, “Belay that extra duty. Dismissed.” So I got home just in time to catch extra duty for “Uniform, Untidy in, Two Particulars” and see the sickening end of Ted Hendrick’s time in the M.I.
So I had plenty to think about as I lay awake that night. I had known that Sergeant Zim worked hard, but it had never occurred to me that he could
possibly be other than completely and smugly self-satisfied with what he did. He looked so smug, so self-assured, so at peace with the world and with himself.
The idea that this invincible robot could feel that he had failed, could feel so deeply and personally disgraced that he wanted to run away, hide his face among strangers, and offer the excuse that his leaving would be “best for the outfit,” shook me up as much, and in a way even more, than seeing Ted flogged.
To have Captain Frankel agree with him—as to the seriousness of the failure, I mean—and then rub his nose in it, chew him out. Well! I mean really. Sergeants don’t get chewed out; sergeants do the chewing. A law of nature.
But I had to admit that what Sergeant Zim had taken, and swallowed, was so completely humiliating and withering as to make the worst I had ever heard or overheard from a sergeant sound like a love song. And yet the Captain hadn’t even raised his voice.
The whole incident was so preposterously unlikely that I was never even tempted to mention it to anyone else.
And Captain Frankel himself—Officers we didn’t see very often. They showed up for evening parade, sauntering over at the last moment and doing nothing that would work up a sweat; they inspected once a week, making private comments to sergeants, comments that invariably meant grief for somebody else, not them; and they decided each week what company had won the honor of guarding the regimental colors. Aside from that, they popped up occasionally on surprise inspections, creased, immaculate, remote, and smelling faintly of cologne—and went away again.
Oh, one or more of them did always accompany us on route marches and twice Captain Frankel had demonstrated his virtuosity at la savate. But officers didn’t work, not real work, and they had no worries because sergeants were under them, not over them.
But it appeared that Captain Frankel worked so hard that he skipped meals, was kept so busy with something or other that he complained of
lack of exercise and would waste his own free time just to work up a sweat.
As for worries, he had honestly seemed to be even more upset at what had happened to Hendrick than Zim had been. And yet he hadn’t even known Hendrick by sight; he had been forced to ask his name.
I had an unsettling feeling that I had been completely mistaken as to the very nature of the world I was in, as if every part of it was something wildly different from what it appeared to be—like discovering that your own mother isn’t anyone you’ve ever seen before, but a stranger in a rubber mask.
But I was sure of one thing: I didn’t even want to find out what the M.I. really was. If it was so tough that even the gods-that-be—sergeants and officers—were made unhappy by it, it was certainly too tough for Johnnie! How could you keep from making mistakes in an outfit you didn’t
understand? I didn’t want to swing by my neck till I was dead, dead, dead! I didn’t even want to risk being flogged . . . even though the doctor stands by to make certain that it doesn’t do you any permanent injury. Nobody in our family had ever been flogged (except paddlings in school, of course,
which isn’t at all the same thing). There were no criminals in our family on either side, none who had even been accused of crime. We were a proud
family; the only thing we lacked was citizenship and Father regarded that as no real honor, a vain and useless thing. But if I were flogged—Well, he’d probably have a stroke.
And yet Hendrick hadn’t done anything that I hadn’t thought about doing a thousand times. Why hadn’t I? Timid, I guess. I knewthat those instructors, any one of them, could beat the tar out of me, so I had buttoned my lip and hadn’t tried it. No guts, Johnnie. At least Ted Hendrick had had guts. I didn’t have . . . and a man with no guts has no business in the Army in the first place.
Besides that, Captain Frankel hadn’t even considered it to be Ted’s fault. Even if I didn’t buy a 9080, through lack of guts, what day would I do something other than a 9080—something not my fault—and wind up slumped against the whipping post anyhow?
Time to get out, Johnnie, while you’re still ahead.
My mother’s letter simply confirmed my decision. I had been able to harden my heart to my parents as long as they were refusing me—but when they softened, I couldn’t stand it. Or when Mother softened, at least. She had written:
—but I am afraid I must tell you that your father will still not permit your name to be mentioned. But, dearest, that is his way of grieving, since he
cannot cry. You must understand, my darling baby, that he loves you more than life itself—more than he does me—and that you have hurt him very
deeply. He tells the world that you are a grown man, capable of making your own decisions, and that he is proud of you. But that is his own pride speaking, the bitter hurt of a proud man who has been wounded deep in his heart by the one he loves best. You must understand, Juanito, that he does not speak of you and has not written to you because he cannot—not yet, not till his grief becomes bearable. When it has, I will know it, and then I will intercede for you—and we will all be together again.
Myself? How could anything her baby boy does anger his mother? You can hurt me, but you cannot make me love you the less. Wherever you are, whatever you choose to do, you are always my little boy who bangs his knee and comes running to my lap for comfort. My lap has shrunk, or
perhaps you have grown (though I have never believed it), but nonetheless it will always be waiting, when you need it. Little boys never get over needing their mother’s laps—do they, darling? I hope not. I hope that you will write and tell me so.
But I must add that, in view of the terribly long time that you have not written, it is probably best (until I let you know otherwise) for you to write to me care of your Aunt Eleanora. She will pass it on to me at once—and without causing any more upset. You understand?
A thousand kisses to my baby, Your Mother
I understood, all right—and if Father could not cry, I could. I did.
And at last I got to sleep . . . and was awakened at once by an alert. We bounced out to the bombing range, the whole regiment, and ran through a simulated exercise, without ammo. We were wearing full unarmored kit otherwise, including ear-plug receivers, and we had no more than extended when the word came to freeze.
We held that freeze for at least an hour—and I mean we held it, barely breathing. A mouse tiptoeing past would have sounded noisy. Something did go past and ran right over me, a coyote I think. I never twitched. We got awfully cold holding that freeze, but I didn’t care; I knew it was my last.
I didn’t even hear reveille the next morning; for the first time in weeks I had to be whacked out of my sack and barely made formation for morning jerks. There was no point in trying to resign before breakfast anyhow, since I had to see Zim as the first step. But he wasn’t at breakfast. I did ask Bronski’s permission to see the C.C. and he said, “Sure. Help yourself,” and didn’t ask me why.
But you can’t see a man who isn’t there. We started a route march after breakfast and I still hadn’t laid eyes on him. It was an out-and-back, with lunch fetched out to us by copter—an unexpected luxury, since failure to issue field rations before marching usually meant practice starvation except for whatever you had cached . . . and I hadn’t; too much on my mind.
Sergeant Zim came out with the rations and he held mail call in the field—which was not an unexpected luxury. I’ll say this for the M.I.; they might chop off your food, water, sleep, or anything else, without warning, but they never held up a person’s mail a minute longer than circumstances required. That was yours, and they got it to you by the first transportation available and you could read it at your earliest break, even on maneuvers. This hadn’t been too important for me, as (aside from a couple of letters from Carl) I hadn’t had anything but junk mail until Mother wrote to me.
I didn’t even gather around when Zim handed it out; I figured now on not speaking to him until he got in—no point in giving him reason to notice me until we were actually in reach of headquarters. So I was surprised when he called my name and held up a letter. I bounced over and took it.
And was surprised again—it was from Mr. Dubois, my high school instructor in History and Moral Philosophy. I would sooner have expected a letter from Santa Claus.
Then, when I read it, it still seemed like a mistake. I had to check the address and the return address to convince myself that he had written it and had meant it for me.
My dear boy,
I would have written to you much sooner to express my delight and my pride in learning that you had not only volunteered to serve but also had chosen my own service. But not to express surprise; it is what I expected of you—except, possibly, the additional and very personal bonus that you chose the M.I. This is the sort of consummation, which does not happen too often, that nevertheless makes all of a teacher’s efforts worth while. We necessarily sift a great many pebbles, much sand, for each nugget—but the nuggets are the reward.
By now the reason I did not write at once is obvious to you. Many young men, not necessarily through any reprehensible fault, are dropped during recruit training. I have waited (I have kept in touch through my own connections) until you had “sweated it out” past the hump (how well we all know that hump!) and were certain, barring accidents or illness, of completing your training and your term.
You are now going through the hardest part of your service—not the hardest physically (though physical hardship will never trouble you again; you now have its measure), but the hardest spiritually . . . the deep, soul-turning readjustments and re-evaluations necessary to metamorphize a potential citizen into one in being. Or, rather I should say: you have already gone through the hardest part, despite all the tribulations you still have ahead of you and all the hurdles, each higher than the last, which you still must clear. But it is that “hump” that counts—and, knowing you, lad, I know that I have waited long enough to be sure that you are past your “hump”— or you would be home now.
When you reached that spiritual mountaintop you felt something, a new something. Perhaps you haven’t words for it (I know I didn’t, when I was a boot). So perhaps you will permit an older comrade to lend you the words, since it often helps to have discrete words. Simply this: The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war’s desolation. The words are not mine, of course, as you will recognize. Basic truths cannot change and once a man of insight expresses one of them it is never necessary, no matter how much the world changes, to reformulate them. This is an immutable, true everywhere, throughout all time, for all men and all nations.
Let me hear from you, please, if you can spare an old man some of your precious sack time to write an occasional letter. And if you should happen to run across any of my former mates, give them my warmest greetings.
Good luck, trooper! You’ve made me proud.
Jean V. Dubois Lt.-Col., M.I., rtd.
The signature was as amazing as the letter itself. Old Sour Mouth was a short colonel? Why, our regional commander was only a major. Mr. Dubois had never used any sort of rank around school. We had supposed (if we thought about it at all) that he must have been a corporal or some such who had been let out when he lost his hand and had been fixed up with a soft job teaching a course that didn’t have to be passed, or even taught—just audited. Of course we had known that he was a veteran since History and Moral Philosophy must be taught by a citizen. But an M.I.? He didn’t look it. Prissy, faintly scornful, a dancing-master type—not one of us apes.
But that was the way he had signed himself.
I spent the whole long hike back to camp thinking about that amazing letter. It didn’t sound in the least like anything he had ever said in class. Oh, I don’t mean it contradicted anything he had told us in class; it was just entirely different in tone. Since when does a short colonel call a recruit private “comrade”?
When he was plain “Mr. Dubois” and I was one of the kids who had to take his course he hardly seemed to see me—except once when he got me sore by implying that I had too much money and not enough sense. (So my old man could have bought the school and given it to me for Christmas—is that a crime? It was none of his business.)
He had been droning along about “value,” comparing the Marxist theory with the orthodox “use” theory. Mr. Dubois had said, “Of course, the Marxian definition of value is ridiculous. All the work one cares to add will not turn a mud pie into an apple tart; it remains a mud pie, value zero. By corollary, unskillful work can easily subtract value; an untalented cook can turn wholesome dough and fresh green apples, valuable already, into an inedible mess, value zero. Conversely, a great chef can fashion of those same materials a confection of greater value than a commonplace apple tart, with no more effort than an ordinary cook uses to prepare an ordinary sweet.
“These kitchen illustrations demolish the Marxian theory of value—the fallacy from which the entire magnificent fraud of communism derives—and illustrate the truth of the common-sense definition as measured in terms of use.”
Dubois had waved his stump at us. “Nevertheless—wake up, back there!—nevertheless the disheveled old mystic of Das Kapital, turgid, tortured, confused, and neurotic, unscientific, illogical, this pompous fraud Karl Marx, nevertheless had a glimmering of a very important truth. If he had possessed an analytical mind, he might have formulated the first adequate definition of value . . . and this planet might have been saved endless grief.
“Or might not,” he added. “You!” I had sat up with a jerk.
“If you can’t listen, perhaps you can tell the class whether ‘value’ is a relative, or an absolute?”
I had been listening; I just didn’t see any reason not to listen with eyes closed and spine relaxed. But his question caught me out; I hadn’t read that day’s assignment. “An absolute,” I answered, guessing.
“Wrong,” he said coldly. “‘Value’ has no meaning other than in relation to living beings. The value of a thing is always relative to a particular person, is completely personal and different in quantity for each living human—‘market value’ is a fiction, merely a rough guess at the average of personal values, all of which must be quantitatively different or trade would be impossible.” (I had wondered what Father would have said if he had heard “market value” called a “fiction”—snort in disgust, probably.)
“This very personal relationship, ‘value,’ has two factors for a human being: first, what he can do with a thing, its use to him . . . and second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts ‘the best things in life are free.’ Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic
fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the
people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted . . . and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears. “Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain.” He had been still looking at me and
added, “If you boys and girls had to sweat for your toys the way a newly born baby has to struggle to live you would be happier . . . and much richer. As it is, with some of you, I pity the poverty of your wealth. You! I’ve just awarded you the prize for the hundred-meter dash. Does it make you happy?”
“Uh, I suppose it would.”
“No dodging, please. You have the prize—here, I’ll write it out: ‘Grand prize for the championship, one hundred-meter sprint.’” He had actually come back to my seat and pinned it on my chest. “There! Are you happy? You value it—or don’t you?”
I was sore. First that dirty crack about rich kids—a typical sneer of those who haven’t got it—and now this farce. I ripped it off and chucked it at him.
Mr. Dubois had looked surprised. “It doesn’t make you happy?” “You know darn well I placed fourth!”
“Exactly! The prize for first place is worthless to you . . . because you haven’t earned it. But you enjoy a modest satisfaction in placing fourth; you earned it. I trust that some of the somnambulists here understood this little morality play. I fancy that the poet who wrote that song meant to imply that
the best things in life must be purchased other than with money—which is true—just as the literal meaning of his words is false. The best things in life are beyond money; their price is agony and sweat and devotion . . . and the price demanded for the most precious of all things in life is life itself
—ultimate cost for perfect value.”
I mulled over things I had heard Mr. Dubois—Colonel Dubois—say, as well as his extraordinary letter, while we went swinging back toward camp. Then I stopped thinking because the band dropped back near our position in column and we sang for a while, a French group—“Marseillaise,” of course, and “Madelon” and “Sons of Toil and Danger,” and then “Legion Étrangère” and “Mademoiselle from Armentières.”
It’s nice to have the band play; it picks you right up when your tail is dragging the prairie. We hadn’t had anything but canned music at first and that only for parade and calls. But the powers-that-be had found out early who could play and who couldn’t; instruments were provided and a regimental band was organized, all our own—even the director and the drum major were boots.
It didn’t mean they got out of anything. Oh no! It just meant they were allowed and encouraged to do it on their own time, practicing evenings and Sundays and such—and that they got to strut and countermarch and show off at parade instead of being in ranks with their platoons. A lot of things that we did were run that way. Our chaplain, for example, was a boot. He was older than most of us and had been ordained in some obscure little sect I had never heard of. But he put a lot of passion into his preaching whether his theology was orthodox or not (don’t ask me) and he was certainly in a position to understand the problems of a recruit. And the singing was fun. Besides, there was nowhere else to go on Sunday morning between morning police and lunch.
The band suffered a lot of attrition but somehow they always kept it going. The camp owned four sets of pipes and some Scottish uniforms, donated by Lochiel of Cameron whose son had been killed there in training—and one of us boots turned out to be a piper; he had learned it in the Scottish Boy Scouts. Pretty soon we had four pipers, maybe not good but loud. Pipes seem very odd when you first hear them, and a tyro practicing can set your teeth on edge—it sounds and looks as if he had a cat under his arm, its tail in his mouth, and biting it.
But they grow on you. The first time our pipers kicked their heels out in front of the band, skirling away at “Alamein Dead,” my hair stood up so straight it lifted my cap. It gets you—makes tears.
We couldn’t take a parade band out on route march, of course, because no special allowances were made for the band. Tubas and bass drums had to stay behind because a boy in the band had to carry a full kit, same as everybody, and could only manage an instrument small enough to add to his load. But the M.I. has band instruments which I don’t believe anybody else has, such as a little box hardly bigger than a harmonica, an electric gadget which does an amazing job of faking a big horn and is played the same way. Comes band call when you are headed for the horizon, each bandsman sheds his kit without stopping, his squad mates split it up, and he trots to the column position of the color company and starts blasting.
It helps.
The band drifted aft, almost out of earshot, and we stopped singing because your own singing drowns out the beat when it’s too far away. I suddenly realized I felt good.
I tried to think why I did. Because we would be in after a couple of hours and I could resign?
No. When I had decided to resign, it had indeed given me a measure of peace, quieted down my awful jitters and let me go to sleep. But this was something else—and no reason for it, that I could see.
Then I knew. I had passed my hump!
I was over the “hump” that Colonel Dubois had written about. I actually walked over it and started down, swinging easily. The prairie through there
was flat as a griddle-cake, but just the same I had been plodding wearily uphill all the way out and about halfway back. Then, at some point—I think it was while we were singing—I had passed the hump and it was all downhill. My kit felt lighter and I was no longer worried.
When we got in, I didn’t speak to Sergeant Zim; I no longer needed to. Instead he spoke to me, motioned me to him as we fell out. “Yes, sir?”
“This is a personal question . . . so don’t answer it unless you feel like it.” He stopped, and I wondered if he suspected that I had overheard his chewing-out, and shivered.
“At mail call today,” he said, “you got a letter. I noticed—purely by accident, none of my business—the name on the return address. It’s a fairly common name, some places, but—this is the personal question you need not answer—by any chance does the person who wrote that letter have his left hand off at the wrist?”
I guess my chin dropped. “How did you know? Sir?”
“I was nearby when it happened. It is Colonel Dubois? Right?”
“Yes, sir.” I added, “He was my high school instructor in History and Moral Philosophy.”
I think that was the only time I ever impressed Sergeant Zim, even faintly. His eyebrows went up an eighth of an inch and his eyes widened slightly. “So? You were extraordinarily fortunate.” He added, “When you answer his letter—if you don’t mind—you might say that Ship’s Sergeant Zim sends his respects.”
“Yes, sir. Oh . . . I think maybe he sent you a message, sir.”
“What?”
“Uh, I’m not certain.” I took out the letter, read just: “‘—if you should happen to run across any of my former mates, give them my warmest
greetings.’ Is that for you, sir?”
Zim pondered it, his eyes looking through me, somewhere else. “Eh? Yes, it is. For me among others. Thanks very much.” Then suddenly it was
over and he said briskly, “Nine minutes to parade. And you still have to shower and change. On the bounce, soldier.”
The young recruit is silly—’e thinks o’ suicide. ’E’s lost ’is gutter-devil; ’e ’asin’t got’is pride; But day by day they kicks ’im, which ’elps ’im on a bit, Till ’e finds ’isself one mornin’ with a full an’ proper kit. Gettin’ clear o’ dirtiness, gettin’ done with mess, Gettin’ shut o’ doin’ things rather-more-or-less.
I’m not going to talk much more about my boot training. Mostly it was simply work, but I was squared away—enough said.
—Rudyard Kipling
But I do want to mention a little about powered suits, partly because I was fascinated by them and also because that was what led me into trouble. No complaints—I rated what I got.
An M.I. lives by his suit the way a K-9 man lives by and with and on his doggie partner. Powered armor is one-half the reason we call ourselves “mobile infantry” instead of just “infantry.” (The other half are the spaceships that drop us and the capsules we drop in.) Our suits give us better eyes, better ears, stronger backs (to carry heavier weapons and more ammo), better legs, more intelligence (“intelligence” in the military meaning; a man in a suit can be just as stupid as anybody else—only he had better not be), more firepower, greater endurance, less vulnerability.
A suit isn’t a space suit—although it can serve as one. It is not primarily armor—although the Knights of the Round Table were not armored as well as we are. It isn’t a tank—but a single M.I. private could take on a squadron of those things and knock them off unassisted if anybody was silly enough to put tanks against M.I. A suit is not a ship but it can fly, a little—on the other hand neither spaceships nor atmosphere craft can fight against a man in a suit except by saturation bombing of the area he is in (like burning down a house to get one flea!). Contrariwise we can do many things that no ship—air, submersible, or space—can do.
There are a dozen different ways of delivering destruction in impersonal wholesale, via ships and missiles of one sort or another, catastrophes so widespread, so unselective, that the war is over because that nation or planet has ceased to exist. What we do is entirely different. We make war as personal as a punch in the nose. We can be selective, applying precisely the required amount of pressure at the specified point at a designated time—we’ve never been told to go down and kill or capture all left-handed redheads in a particular area, but if they tell us to, we can. We will.
We are the boys who go to a particular place, at H-hour, occupy a designated terrain, stand on it, dig the enemy out of their holes, force them then and there to surrender or die. We’re the bloody infantry, the doughboy, the duckfoot, the foot soldier who goes where the enemy is and takes him on in person. We’ve been doing it, with changes in weapons but very little change in our trade, at least since the time five thousand years ago when the foot sloggers of Sargon the Great forced the Sumerians to cry “Uncle!”
Maybe they’ll be able to do without us someday. Maybe some mad genius with myopia, a bulging forehead, and a cybernetic mind will devise a weapon that can go down a hole, pick out the opposition, and force it to surrender or die—without killing that gang of your own people they’ve got imprisoned down there. I wouldn’t know; I’m not a genius, I’m an M.I. In the meantime, until they build a machine to replace us, my mates can handle that job—and I might be some help on it, too.
Maybe someday they’ll get everything nice and tidy and we’ll have that thing we sing about, when “we ain’t a-gonna study war no more.” Maybe. Maybe the same day the leopard will take off his spots and get a job as a Jersey cow, too. But again, I wouldn’t know; I am not a professor of cosmopolitics; I’m an M.I. When the government sends me, I go. In between, I catch a lot of sack time.
But, while they have not yet built a machine to replace us, they’ve surely thought up some honeys to help us. The suit, in particular.
No need to describe what it looks like, since it has been pictured so often. Suited up, you look like a big steel gorilla, armed with gorilla-sized weapons. (This may be why a sergeant generally opens his remarks with “You apes—” However, it seems more likely that Caesar’s sergeants used the same honorific.)
But the suits are considerably stronger than a gorilla. If an M.I. in a suit swapped hugs with a gorilla, the gorilla would be dead, crushed; the M.I. and the suit wouldn’t be mussed.
The “muscles,” the pseudo-musculature, get all the publicity but it’s the control of all that power which merits it. The real genius in the design is
that you don’t have to control the suit; you just wear it, like your clothes, like skin. Any sort of ship you have to learn to pilot; it takes a long time, a new full set of reflexes, a different and artificial way of thinking. Even riding a bicycle demands an acquired skill, very different from walking, whereas a spaceship—oh, brother! I won’t live that long. Spaceships are for acrobats who are also mathematicians.
But a suit you just wear.
Two thousand pounds of it, maybe, in full kit—yet the very first time you are fitted into one you can immediately walk, run, jump, lie down, pick up
an egg without breaking it (takes a trifle of practice, but anything improves with practice), dance a jig (if you can dance a jig, that is, without a suit)— and jump right over the house next door and come down to a feather landing.
The secret lies in negative feedback and amplification.
Don’t ask me to sketch the circuitry of a suit; I can’t. But I understand that some very good concert violinists can’t build a violin, either. I can do field maintenance and field repairs and check off the three hundred and forty-seven items from “cold” to ready to wear, and that’s all a dumb M.I. is expected to do. But if my suit gets really sick, I call the doctor—a doctor of science (electromechanical engineering) who is a staff Naval officer, usually a lieutenant (read “captain” for our ranks), and is part of the ship’s company of the troop transport—or who is reluctantly assigned to a regimental headquarters at Camp Currie, a fate-worse-than-death to a Navy man.
But if you really are interested in the prints and stereos and schematics of a suit’s physiology, you can find most of it, the unclassified part, in any fairly large public library. For the small amount that is classified, you must look up a reliable enemy agent—“reliable” I say, because spies are a tricky lot; he’s likely to sell you the parts you could get free from the public library.
But here is how it works, minus the diagrams. The inside of the suit is a mass of pressure receptors, hundreds of them. You push with the heel of your hand; the suit feels it, amplifies it, pushes with you to take the pressure off the receptors that gave the order to push. That’s confusing, but negative feedback is always a confusing idea the first time, even though your body has been doing it ever since you quit kicking helplessly as a baby. Young children are still learning it; that’s why they are clumsy. Adolescents and adults do it without knowing they ever learned it—and a man with Parkinson’s disease has damaged his circuits for it.
The suit has feedback which causes it to match any motion you make, exactly—but with great force.
Controlled force . . . force controlled without your having to think about it. You jump, that heavy suit jumps, but higher than you can jump in your
skin. Jump really hard and the suit’s jets cut in, amplifying what the suit’s leg “muscles” did, giving you a three-jet shove, the axis of pressure of which passes through your center of mass. So you jump over that house next door. Which makes you come down as fast as you went up . . . which the suit notes through your proximity & closing gear (a sort of simple-minded radar resembling a proximity fuse) and therefore cuts in the jets again just the right amount to cushion your landing without your having to think about it.
And that is the beauty of a powered suit: you don’t have to think about it. You don’t have to drive it, fly it, conn it, operate it; you just wear it and it takes orders directly from your muscles and does for you what your muscles are trying to do. This leaves you with your whole mind free to handle
your weapons and notice what is going on around you . . . which is supremely important to an infantryman who wants to die in bed. If you load a mud foot down with a lot of gadgets that he has to watch, somebody a lot more simply equipped—say with a stone ax—will sneak up and bash his head in while he is trying to read a vernier.
Your “eyes” and your “ears” are rigged to help you without cluttering up your attention, too. Say you have three audio circuits, common in a marauder suit. The frequency control to maintain tactical security is very complex, at least two frequencies for each circuit, both of which are necessary for any signal at all and each of which wobbles under the control of a cesium clock timed to a micromicrosecond with the other end—but all this is no problem of yours. You want circuit A to your squad leader, you bite down once—for circuit B, bite down twice—and so on. The mike is taped to your throat, the plugs are in your ears and can’t be jarred out; just talk. Besides that, outside mikes on each side of your helmet give you
binaural hearing for your immediate surroundings just as if your head were bare—or you can suppress any noisy neighbors and not miss what your
platoon leader is saying simply by turning your head.
Since your head is the one part of your body not involved in the pressure receptors controlling the suit’s muscles, you use your head—your jaw muscles, your chin, your neck—to switch things for you and thereby leave your hands free to fight. A chin plate handles all visual displays the way the jaw switch handles the audios. All displays are thrown on a mirror in front of your forehead from where the work is actually going on above and back of your head. All this helmet gear makes you look like a hydrocephalic gorilla but, with luck, the enemy won’t live long enough to be offended by your appearance, and it is a very convenient arrangement; you can flip through your several types of radar displays quicker than you can change channels to avoid a commercial—catch a range & bearing, locate your boss, check your flank men, whatever.
If you toss your head like a horse bothered by a fly, your infrared snoopers go up on your forehead—toss it again, they come down. If you let go of
your rocket launcher, the suit snaps it back until you need it again. No point in discussing water nipples, air supply, gyros, etc.—the point to all the arrangements is the same: to leave you free to follow your trade, slaughter.
Of course these things do require practice and you do practice until picking the right circuit is as automatic as brushing your teeth, and so on. But simply wearing the suit, moving in it, requires almost no practice. You practice jumping because, while you do it with a completely natural motion, you jump higher, faster, farther, and stay up longer. The last alone calls for a new orientation; those seconds in the air can be used—seconds are jewels beyond price in combat. While off the ground in a jump, you can get a range & bearing, pick a target, talk & receive, fire a weapon, reload,
decide to jump again without landing and override your automatics to cut in the jets again. You can do all of these things in one bounce, with practice.
But, in general, powered armor doesn’t require practice; it simply does it for you, just the way you were doing it, only better. All but one thing—you
can’t scratch where it itches. If I ever find a suit that will let me scratch between my shoulder blades, I’ll marry it.
There are three main types of M.I. armor: marauder, command, and scout. Scout suits are very fast and very long-range, but lightly armed.
Command suits are heavy on go juice and jump juice, are fast and can jump high; they have three times as much comm & radar gear as other suits, and a dead-reckoning tracker, inertial. Marauders are for those guys in ranks with the sleepy look—the executioners.
As I may have said, I fell in love with powered armor, even though my first crack at it gave me a strained shoulder. Any day thereafter that my section was allowed to practice in suits was a big day for me. The day I goofed I had simulated sergeant’s chevrons as a simulated section leader and was armed with simulated A-bomb rockets to use in simulated darkness against a simulated enemy. That was the trouble; everything was simulated— but you are required to behave as if it is all real.
We were retreating—“advancing toward the rear,” I mean—and one of the instructors cut the power on one of my men, by radio control, making him a helpless casualty. Per M.I. doctrine, I ordered the pickup, felt rather cocky that I had managed to get the order out before my number two cut out to do it anyhow, turned to do the next thing I had to do, which was to lay down a simulated atomic ruckus to discourage the simulated enemy overtaking us.
Our flank was swinging; I was supposed to fire it sort of diagonally but with the required spacing to protect my own men from blast while still putting it in close enough to trouble the bandits. On the bounce, of course. The movement over the terrain and the problem itself had been discussed ahead of time; we were still green—the only variations supposed to be left in were casualties.
Doctrine required me to locate exactly, by radar beacon, my own men who could be affected by the blast. But this all had to be done fast and I wasn’t too sharp at reading those little radar displays anyhow. I cheated just a touch—flipped my snoopers up and looked, bare eyes in broad
daylight. I left plenty of room. Shucks, I could see the only man affected, half a mile away, and all I had was just a little bitty H.E. rocket, intended to make a lot of smoke and not much else. So I picked a spot by eye, took the rocket launcher and let fly.
Then I bounced away, feeling smug—no seconds lost.
And had my power cut in the air. This doesn’t hurt you; it’s a delayed action, executed by your landing. I grounded and there I stuck, squatting,
held upright by gyros but unable to move. You do not repeat not move when surrounded by a ton of metal with your power dead.
Instead I cussed to myself—I hadn’t thought that they would make me a casualty when I was supposed to be leading the problem. Shucks and
other comments.
I should have known that Sergeant Zim would be monitoring the section leader.
He bounced over to me, spoke to me privately on the face-to-face. He suggested that I might be able to get a job sweeping floors since I was too stupid, clumsy, and careless to handle dirty dishes. He discussed my past and probable future and several other things that I did not want to hear about. He ended by saying tonelessly, “How would you like to have Colonel Dubois see what you’ve done?”
Then he left me. I waited there, crouched over, for two hours until the drill was over. The suit, which had been feather-light, real seven-league boots, felt like an Iron Maiden. At last he returned for me, restored power, and we bounded together at top speed to BHQ.
Captain Frankel said less but it cut more.
Then he paused and added in that flat voice officers use when quoting regulations: “You may demand trial by court-martial if such be your choice. How say you?”
I gulped and said, “No, sir!” Until that moment I hadn’t fully realized just how much trouble I was in.
Captain Frankel seemed to relax slightly. “Then we’ll see what the Regimental Commander has to say. Sergeant, escort the prisoner.” We
walked rapidly over to RHQ and for the first time I met the Regimental Commander face to face—and by then I was sure that I was going to catch a court no matter what. But I remembered sharply how Ted Hendrick had talked himself into one; I said nothing.
Major Malloy said a total of five words to me. After hearing Sergeant Zim, he said three of them: “Is that correct?” I said, “Yes, sir,” which ended my part of it.
Major Malloy said, to Captain Frankel: “Is there any possibility of salvaging this man?” Captain Frankel answered, “I believe so, sir.”
Major Malloy said, “Then we’ll try administrative punishment,” turned to me and said: “Five lashes.”
Well, they certainly didn’t keep me dangling. Fifteen minutes later the doctor had completed checking my heart and the Sergeant of the Guard was outfitting me with that special shirt which comes off without having to be pulled over the hands—zippered from the neck down the arms. Assembly for parade had just sounded. I was feeling detached, unreal . . . which I have learned is one way of being scared right out of your senses. The nightmare hallucination—
Zim came into the guard tent just as the call ended. He glanced at the Sergeant of the Guard—Corporal Jones—and Jones went out. Zim stepped up to me, slipped something into my hand. “Bite on that,” he said quietly. “It helps. I know.”
It was a rubber mouthpiece such as we used to avoid broken teeth in hand-to-hand combat drill. Zim left. I put it in my mouth. Then they handcuffed me and marched me out.
The order read: “—in simulated combat, gross negligence which would in action have caused the death of a teammate.” Then they peeled off my shirt and strung me up.
Now here is a very odd thing: A flogging isn’t as hard to take as it is to watch. I don’t mean it’s a picnic. It hurts worse than anything else I’ve ever had happen to me, and the waits between strokes are worse than the strokes themselves. But the mouthpiece did help and the only yelp I let out never got past it.
Here’s the second odd thing: Nobody even mentioned it to me, not even other boots. So far as I could see, Zim and the instructors treated me exactly the same afterwards as they had before. From the instant the doctor painted the marks and told me to go back to duty it was all done with, completely. I even managed to eat a little at dinner that night and pretend to take part in the jawing at the table.
Another thing about administrative punishment: There is no permanent black mark. Those records are destroyed at the end of boot training and you start clean. The only record is one where it counts most.
You don’t forget it.
Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.
—Proverbs XXII:6
There were other floggings but darn few. Hendrick was the only man in our regiment to be flogged by sentence of court-martial; the others were administrative punishment, like mine, and for lashes it was necessary to go all the way up to the Regimental Commander—which a subordinate commander finds distasteful, to put it faintly. Even then, Major Malloy was much more likely to kick the man out, “Undesirable Discharge,” than to have the whipping post erected. In a way, an administrative flogging is the mildest sort of a compliment; it means that your superiors think that there is a faint possibility that you just might have the character eventually to make a soldier and a citizen, unlikely as it seems at the moment.
I was the only one to get the maximum administrative punishment; none of the others got more than three lashes. Nobody else came as close as I did to putting on civilian clothes but still squeaked by. This is a social distinction of sorts. I don’t recommend it.
But we had another case, much worse than mine or Ted Hendrick’s—a really sick-making one. Once they erected gallows.
Now, look, get this straight. This case didn’t really have anything to do with the Army. The crime didn’t take place at Camp Currie and the placement officer who accepted this boy for M.I. should turn in his suit.
He deserted, only two days after we arrived at Currie. Ridiculous, of course, but nothing about the case made sense—why didn’t he resign? Desertion, naturally, is one of the “thirty-one crash landings” but the Army doesn’t invoke the death penalty for it unless there are special circumstances, such as “in the face of the enemy” or something else that turns it from a highly informal way of resigning into something that can’t be ignored.
The Army makes no effort to find deserters and bring them back. This makes the hardest kind of sense. We’re all volunteers; we’re M.I. because we want to be, we’re proud to be M.I. and the M.I. is proud of us. If a man doesn’t feel that way about it, from his callused feet to his hairy ears, I don’t want him on my flank when trouble starts. If I buy a piece of it, I want men around me who will pick me up because they’re M.I. and I’m M.I. and my skin means as much to them as their own. I don’t want any ersatz soldiers, dragging their tails and ducking out when the party gets rough. It’s a whole lot safer to have a blank file on your flank than to have an alleged soldier who is nursing the “conscript” syndrome. So if they run, let ’em run; it’s a waste of time and money to fetch them back.
Of course most of them do come back, though it may take them years—in which case the Army tiredly lets them have their fifty lashes instead of hanging them, and turns them loose. I suppose it must wear on a man’s nerves to be a fugitive when everybody else is either a citizen or a legal resident, even when the police aren’t trying to find him. “The wicked flee when no man pursueth.” The temptation to turn yourself in, take your lumps, and breathe easily again must get to be overpowering.
But this boy didn’t turn himself in. He was gone four months and I doubt if his own company remembered him, since he had been with them only a couple of days; he was probably just a name without a face, the “Dillinger, N.L.” who had to be reported, day after day, as absent without leave on the morning muster.
Then he killed a baby girl.
He was tried and convicted by a local tribunal but identity check showed that he was an undischarged soldier; the Department had to be notified and our commanding general at once intervened. He was returned to us, since military law and jurisdiction take precedence over civil code.
Why did the general bother? Why didn’t he let the local sheriff do the job? In order to “teach us a lesson”?
Not at all. I’m quite sure that our general did not think that any of his boys needed to be nauseated in order not to kill any baby girls. By now I believe that he would have spared us the sight—had it been possible.
We did learn a lesson, though nobody mentioned it at the time and it is one that takes a long time to sink in until it becomes second nature: The M.I. take care of their own—no matter what.
Dillinger belonged to us, he was still on our rolls. Even though we didn’t want him, even though we should never have had him, even though we would have been happy to disclaim him, he was a member of our regiment. We couldn’t brush him off and let a sheriff a thousand miles away handle it. If it has to be done, a man—a real man—shoots his own dog himself; he doesn’t hire a proxy who may bungle it.
The regimental records said that Dillinger was ours, so taking care of him was our duty.
That evening we marched to the parade grounds at slow march, sixty beats to the minute (hard to keep step, when you’re used to a hundred and forty), while the band played “Dirge for the Unmourned.” Then Dillinger was marched out, dressed in M.I. full dress just as we were, and the band played “Danny Deever” while they stripped off every trace of insignia, even buttons and cap, leaving him in a maroon and light blue suit that was no longer a uniform. The drums held a sustained roll and it was all over.
We passed in review and on home at a fast trot. I don’t think anybody fainted and I don’t think anybody quite got sick, even though most of us didn’t eat much dinner that night and I’ve never heard the mess tent so quiet. But, grisly as it was (it was the first time I had seen death, first time for most of us), it was not the shock that Ted Hendrick’s flogging was—I mean, you couldn’t put yourself in Dillinger’s place; you didn’t have any feeling
of: “It could have been me.” Not counting the technical matter of desertion, Dillinger had committed at least four capital crimes; if his victim had lived, he still would have danced Danny Deever for any one of the other three—kidnaping, demand of ransom, criminal neglect, etc.
I had no sympathy for him and still haven’t. That old saw about “To understand all is to forgive all” is a lot of tripe. Some things, the more you understand the more you loathe them. My sympathy is reserved for Barbara Anne Enthwaite whom I had never seen, and for her parents, who would never again see their little girl.
As the band put away their instruments that night we started thirty days of mourning for Barbara and of disgrace for us, with our colors draped in black, no music at parade, no singing on route march. Only once did I hear anybody complain and another boot promptly asked him how he would like a full set of lumps? Certainly, it hadn’t been our fault—but our business was to guard little girls, not kill them. Our regiment had been dishonored;
we had to clean it. We were disgraced and we felt disgraced.
That night I tried to figure out how such things could be kept from happening. Of course, they hardly ever do nowadays—but even once is ’way too
many. I never did reach an answer that satisfied me. This Dillinger—he looked like anybody else, and his behavior and record couldn’t have been too odd or he would never have reached Camp Currie in the first place. I suppose he was one of those pathological personalities you read about— no way to spot them.
Well, if there was no way to keep it from happening once, there was only one sure way to keep it from happening twice. Which we had used.
If Dillinger had understood what he was doing (which seemed incredible) then he got what was coming to him . . . except that it seemed a shame that he hadn’t suffered as much as had little Barbara Anne—he practically hadn’t suffered at all.
But suppose, as seemed more likely, that he was so crazy that he had never been aware that he was doing anything wrong? What then? Well, we shoot mad dogs, don’t we?
Yes, but being crazy that way is a sickness—
I couldn’t see but two possibilities. Either he couldn’t be made well—in which case he was better dead for his own sake and for the safety of others—or he could be treated and made sane. In which case (it seemed to me) if he ever became sane enough for civilized society . . . and
thought over what he had done while he was “sick”—what could be left for him but suicide? How could he live with himself?
And suppose he escaped before he was cured and did the same thing again? And maybe again? How do you explain that to bereaved parents? In view of his record?
I couldn’t see but one answer.
I found myself mulling over a discussion in our class in History and Moral Philosophy. Mr. Dubois was talking about the disorders that preceded the breakup of the North American republic, back in the XXth century. According to him, there was a time just before they went down the drain when such crimes as Dillinger’s were as common as dog-fights. The Terror had not been just in North America—Russia and the British Isles had it, too, as well as other places. But it reached its peak in North America shortly before things went to pieces.
“Law-abiding people,” Dubois had told us, “hardly dared go into a public park at night. To do so was to risk attack by wolf packs of children,
armed with chains, knives, homemade guns, bludgeons . . . to be hurt at least, robbed most certainly, injured for life probably—or even killed. This
went on for years, right up to the war between the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance and the Chinese Hegemony. Murder, drug addiction, larceny, assault, and vandalism were commonplace. Nor were parks the only places—these things happened also on the streets in daylight, on school grounds, even inside school buildings. But parks were so notoriously unsafe that honest people stayed clear of them after dark.”
I had tried to imagine such things happening in our schools. I simply couldn’t. Nor in our parks. A park was a place for fun, not for getting hurt. As for getting killed in one—“Mr. Dubois, didn’t they have police? Or courts?”
“They had many more police than we have. And more courts. All overworked.”
“I guess I don’t get it.” If a boy in our city had done anything half that bad . . . well, he and his father would have been flogged side by side. But such things just didn’t happen.
Mr. Dubois then demanded of me, “Define a ‘juvenile delinquent.’” “Uh, one of those kids—the ones who used to beat up people.” “Wrong.”
“Huh? But the book said—”
“My apologies. Your textbook does so state. But calling a tail a leg does not make the name fit. ‘Juvenile delinquent’ is a contradiction in terms, one which gives a clue to their problem and their failure to solve it. Have you ever raised a puppy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you housebreak him?”
“Err . . . yes, sir. Eventually.” It was my slowness in this that caused my mother to rule that dogs must stay out of the house. “Ah, yes. When your puppy made mistakes, were you angry?”
“What? Why, he didn’t know any better; he was just a puppy.” “What did you do?”
“Why, I scolded him and rubbed his nose in it and paddled him.” “Surely he could not understand your words?”
“No, but he could tell I was sore at him!” “But you just said that you were not angry.”
Mr. Dubois had an infuriating way of getting a person mixed up. “No, but I had to make him think I was. He had to learn, didn’t he?”
“Conceded. But, having made it clear to him that you disapproved, how could you be so cruel as to spank him as well? You said the poor beastie
didn’t know that he was doing wrong. Yet you inflicted pain. Justify yourself! Or are you a sadist?”
I didn’t then know what a sadist was—but I knew pups. “Mr. Dubois, you have to! You scold him so that he knows he’s in trouble, you rub his nose in it so that he will know what trouble you mean, you paddle him so that he darn well won’t do it again—and you have to do it right away! It doesn’t do a bit of good to punish him later; you’ll just confuse him. Even so, he won’t learn from one lesson, so you watch and catch him again and paddle him still harder. Pretty soon he learns. But it’s a waste of breath just to scold him.” Then I added, “I guess you’ve never raised pups.”
“Many. I’m raising a dachshund now—by your methods. Let’s get back to those juvenile criminals. The most vicious averaged somewhat younger than you here in this class . . . and they often started their lawless careers much younger. Let us never forget that puppy. These children were often caught; police arrested batches each day. Were they scolded? Yes, often scathingly. Were their noses rubbed in it? Rarely. News organs and officials usually kept their names secret—in many places the law so required for criminals under eighteen. Were they spanked? Indeed not! Many had never been spanked even as small children; there was a widespread belief that spanking, or any punishment involving pain, did a child permanent psychic damage.”
(I had reflected that my father must never have heard of that theory.)
“Corporal punishment in schools was forbidden by law,” he had gone on. “Flogging was lawful as sentence of court only in one small province, Delaware, and there only for a few crimes and was rarely invoked; it was regarded as ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’” Dubois had mused aloud, “I do not understand objections to ‘cruel and unusual’ punishment. While a judge should be benevolent in purpose, his awards should cause the criminal to suffer, else there is no punishment—and pain is the basic mechanism built into us by millions of years of evolution which safeguards us by warning when something threatens our survival. Why should society refuse to use such a highly perfected survival mechanism? However, that period was loaded with pre-scientific pseudo-psychological nonsense.
“As for ‘unusual,’ punishment must be unusual or it serves no purpose.” He then pointed his stump at another boy. “What would happen if a puppy were spanked every hour?”
“Uh . . . probably drive him crazy!”
“Probably. It certainly will not teach him anything. How long has it been since the principal of this school last had to switch a pupil?” “Uh, I’m not sure. About two years. The kid that swiped—”
“Never mind. Long enough. It means that such punishment is so unusual as to be significant, to deter, to instruct. Back to these young criminals— They probably were not spanked as babies; they certainly were not flogged for their crimes. The usual sequence was: for a first offense, a warning
—a scolding, often without trial. After several offenses a sentence of confinement but with sentence suspended and the youngster placed on probation. A boy might be arrested many times and convicted several times before he was punished—and then it would be merely confinement, with others like him from whom he learned still more criminal habits. If he kept out of major trouble while confined, he could usually evade most of even that mild punishment, be given probation—‘paroled’ in the jargon of the times.
“This incredible sequence could go on for years while his crimes increased in frequency and viciousness, with no punishment whatever save rare dull-but-comfortable confinements. Then suddenly, usually by law on his eighteenth birthday, this so-called ‘juvenile delinquent’ becomes an adult
criminal—and sometimes wound up in only weeks or months in a death cell awaiting execution for murder. You—”
He had singled me out again. “Suppose you merely scolded your puppy, never punished him, let him go on making messes in the house . . . and
occasionally locked him up in an outbuilding but soon let him back into the house with a warning not to do it again. Then one day you notice that he
is now a grown dog and still not housebroken—whereupon you whip out a gun and shoot him dead. Comment, please?” “Why . . . that’s the craziest way to raise a dog I ever heard of!”
“I agree. Or a child. Whose fault would it be?” “Uh . . . why, mine, I guess.”
“Again I agree. But I’m not guessing.”
“Mr. Dubois,” a girl blurted out, “but why? Why didn’t they spank little kids when they needed it and use a good dose of the strap on any older ones who deserved it—the sort of lesson they wouldn’t forget! I mean ones who did things really bad. Why not?”
“I don’t know,” he had answered grimly, “except that the time-tested method of instilling social virtue and respect for law in the minds of the young
did not appeal to a pre-scientific pseudo-professional class who called themselves ‘social workers’ or sometimes ‘child psychologists.’ It was too simple for them, apparently, since anybody could do it, using only the patience and firmness needed in training a puppy. I have sometimes wondered if they cherished a vested interest in disorder—but that is unlikely; adults almost always act from conscious ‘highest motives’ no matter what their behavior.”
“But—good heavens!” the girl answered. “I didn’t like being spanked any more than any kid does, but when I needed it, my mama delivered. The only time I ever got a switching in school I got another one when I got home—and that was years and years ago. I don’t ever expect to be hauled up in front of a judge and sentenced to a flogging; you behave yourself and such things don’t happen. I don’t see anything wrong with our system; it’s a
lot better than not being able to walk outdoors for fear of your life—why, that’s horrible!”
“I agree. Young lady, the tragic wrongness of what those well-meaning people did, contrasted with what they thought they were doing, goes very deep. They had no scientific theory of morals. They did have a theory of morals and they tried to live by it (I should not have sneered at their
motives), but their theory was wrong—half of it fuzzy-headed wishful thinking, half of it rationalized charlatanry. The more earnest they were, the farther it led them astray. You see, they assumed that Man has a moral instinct.”
“Sir? I thought—But he does! I have.”
“No, my dear, you have a cultivated conscience, a most carefully trained one. Man has no moral instinct. He is not born with moral sense. You were not born with it, I was not—and a puppy has none. We acquire moral sense, when we do, through training, experience, and hard sweat of the
mind. These unfortunate juvenile criminals were born with none, even as you and I, and they had no chance to acquire any; their experiences did not
permit it. What is ‘moral sense’? It is an elaboration of the instinct to survive. The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it. Anything that conflicts with the survival instinct acts sooner or later to eliminate the individual and thereby fails to show up in future generations. This truth is mathematically demonstrable, everywhere verifiable; it is the single eternal imperative controlling everything we do.
“But the instinct to survive,” he had gone on, “can be cultivated into motivations more subtle and much more complex than the blind, brute urge of the individual to stay alive. Young lady, what you miscalled your ‘moral instinct’ was the instilling in you by your elders of the truth that survival can have stronger imperatives than that of your own personal survival. Survival of your family, for example. Of your children, when you have them. Of your nation, if you struggle that high up the scale. And so on up. A scientifically verifiable theory of morals must be rooted in the individual’s instinct to
survive—and nowhere else!—and must correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts. “We have such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any level. Self-interest, love of family, duty to country, responsibility toward the
human race—we are even developing an exact ethic for extra-human relations. But all moral problems can be illustrated by one misquotation: ‘Greater love hath no man than a mother cat dying to defend her kittens.’ Once you understand the problem facing that cat and how she solved it, you will then be ready to examine yourself and learn how high up the moral ladder you are capable of climbing.
“These juvenile criminals hit a low level. Born with only the instinct for survival, the highest morality they achieved was a shaky loyalty to a peer
group, a street gang. But the do-gooders attempted to ‘appeal to their better natures,’ to ‘reach them,’ to ‘spark their moral sense.’ Tosh! They hadno ‘better natures’; experience taught them that what they were doing was the way to survive. The puppy never got his spanking; therefore what he did with pleasure and success must be ‘moral.’
“The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual. Nobody preached duty to these kids in a way they could understand—that is, with a spanking. But the society they were in told them endlessly about their ‘rights.’
“The results should have been predictable, since a human being has no natural rights of any nature.”
Mr. Dubois had paused. Somebody took the bait. “Sir? How about ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’?”
“Ah, yes, the ‘unalienable rights.’ Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What ‘right’ to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What ‘right’ to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of ‘right’? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man’s right is
‘unalienable’? And is it ‘right’? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.
“The third ‘right’?—the ‘pursuit of happiness’? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot
take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can ‘pursue happiness’ as long as my brain lives—but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.”
Mr. Dubois then turned to me. “I told you that ‘juvenile delinquent’ is a contradiction in terms. ‘Delinquent’ means ‘failing in duty.’ But duty is an adult virtue—indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self- love he was born with. There never was, there cannot be, a ‘juvenile delinquent.’ But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult
delinquents—people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail.
“And that was the soft spot which destroyed what was in many ways an admirable culture. The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of ‘rights’ . . . and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure.”
I wondered how Colonel Dubois would have classed Dillinger. Was he a juvenile criminal who merited pity even though you had to get rid of him? Or was he an adult delinquent who deserved nothing but contempt?
I didn’t know, I would never know. The one thing I was sure of was that he would never again kill any little girls. That suited me. I went to sleep.
We’ve got no place in this outfit for good losers. We want tough hombres who will go in there and win!
—Admiral Jonas Ingram, 1926
When we had done all that a mud foot can do in flat country, we moved into some rough mountains to do still rougher things—the Canadian Rockies between Good Hope Mountain and Mount Waddington. Camp Sergeant Spooky Smith was much like Camp Currie (aside from its rugged setting) but it was much smaller. Well, the Third Regiment was much smaller now, too—less than four hundred whereas we had started out with more than two thousand. H Company was now organized as a single platoon and the battalion paraded as if it were a company. But we were still called “H Company” and Zim was “Company Commander,” not platoon leader.
What the sweat-down meant, really, was much more personal instruction; we had more corporal-instructors than we had squads and Sergeant Zim, with only fifty men on his mind instead of the two hundred and sixty he had started with, kept his Argus eyes on each one of us all the time— even when he wasn’t there. At least, if you goofed, it turned out he was standing right behind you.
However, the chewing-out you got had almost a friendly quality, in a horrid sort of way, because we had changed, too, as well as the regiment— the one-in-five who was left was almost a soldier and Zim seemed to be trying to make him into one, instead of running him over the hill.
We saw a lot more of Captain Frankel, too; he now spent most of his time teaching us, instead of behind a desk, and he knew all of us by name and face and seemed to have a card file in his mind of exactly what progress each man had made on every weapon, every piece of equipment— not to mention your extra-duty status, medical record, and whether you had had a letter from home lately.
He wasn’t as severe with us as Zim was; his words were milder and it took a really stupid stunt to take that friendly grin off his face—but don’t let that fool you; there was beryl armor under the grin. I never did figure out which one was the better soldier, Zim or Captain Frankel—I mean, if you took away the insignia and thought of them as privates. Unquestionably they were both better soldiers than any of the other instructors—but which was best? Zim did everything with precision and style, as if he were on parade; Captain Frankel did the same thing with dash and gusto, as if it were a game. The results were about the same—and it never turned out to be as easy as Captain Frankel made it look.
We needed the abundance of instructors. Jumping a suit (as I have said) was easy on flat ground. Well, the suit jumps just as high and just as easily in the mountains—but it makes a lot of difference when you have to jump up a vertical granite wall, between two close-set fir trees, and override your jet control at the last instant. We had three major casualties in suit practice in broken country, two dead and one medical retirement.
But that rock wall is even tougher without a suit, tackled with lines and pitons. I didn’t really see what use alpine drill was to a cap trooper but I had learned to keep my mouth shut and try to learn what they shoved at us. I learned it and it wasn’t too hard. If anybody had told me, a year earlier, that I could go up a solid chunk of rock, as flat and as perpendicular as a blank wall of a building, using only a hammer, some silly little steel pins, and a chunk of clothesline, I would have laughed in his face; I’m a sea-level type. Correction: I was a sea-level type. There had been some changes made.
Just how much I had changed I began to find out. At Camp Sergeant Spooky Smith we had liberty—to go to town, I mean. Oh, we had “liberty” after the first month at Camp Currie, too. This meant that, on a Sunday afternoon, if you weren’t in the duty platoon, you could check out at the orderly tent and walk just as far away from camp as you wished, bearing in mind that you had to be back for evening muster. But there was nothing within walking distance, if you don’t count jack rabbits—no girls, no theaters, no dance halls, et cetera.
Nevertheless, liberty, even at Camp Currie, was no mean privilege; sometimes it can be very important indeed to be able to go so far away that you can’t see a tent, a sergeant, nor even the ugly faces of your best friends among the boots . . . not have to be on the bounce about anything, have time to take out your soul and look at it. You could lose that privilege in several degrees; you could be restricted to camp . . . or you could be restricted to your own company street, which meant that you couldn’t go to the library nor to what was misleadingly called the “recreation” tent (mostly some parcheesi sets and similar wild excitements) . . . or you could be under close restriction, required to stay in your tent when your presence was not required elsewhere.
This last sort didn’t mean much in itself since it was usually added to extra duty so demanding that you didn’t have any time in your tent other than for sleep anyhow; it was a decoration added like a cherry on top of a dish of ice cream to notify you and the world that you had pulled not some everyday goof-off but something unbecoming of a member of the M.I. and were thereby unfit to associate with other troopers until you had washed away the stain.
But at Camp Spooky we could go into town—duty status, conduct status, etc., permitting. Shuttles ran to Vancouver every Sunday morning, right after divine services (which were moved up to thirty minutes after breakfast) and came back again just before supper and again just before taps. The instructors could even spend Saturday night in town, or cop a three-day pass, duty permitting.
I had no more than stepped out of the shuttle, my first pass, than I realized in part that I had changed. Johnnie didn’t fit in any longer. Civilian life, I mean. It all seemed amazingly complex and unbelievably untidy.
I’m not running down Vancouver. It’s a beautiful city in a lovely setting; the people are charming and they are used to having the M.I. in town and they make a trooper welcome. There is a social center for us downtown, where they have dances for us every week and see to it that junior
hostesses are on hand to dance with, and senior hostesses to make sure that a shy boy (me, to my amazement—but you try a few months with nothing female around but lady jack rabbits) gets introduced and has a partner’s feet to step on.
But I didn’t go to the social center that first pass. Mostly I stood around and gawked—at beautiful buildings, at display windows filled with all manner of unnecessary things (and not a weapon among them), at all those people running around, or even strolling, doing exactly as they pleased and no two of them dressed alike—and at girls.
Especially at girls. I hadn’t realized just how wonderful they were. Look, I’ve approved of girls from the time I first noticed that the difference was more than just that they dress differently. So far as I remember I never did go through that period boys are supposed to go through when they know
that girls are different but dislike them; I’ve always liked girls.
But that day I realized that I had long been taking them for granted.
Girls are simply wonderful. Just to stand on a corner and watch them going past is delightful. They don’t walk. At least not what we do when we talk. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s much more complex and utterly delightful. They don’t move just their feet; everything moves and in different directions . . . and all of it graceful.
I might have been standing there yet if a policeman hadn’t come by. He sized us up and said, “Howdy, boys. Enjoying yourselves?”
I quickly read the ribbons on his chest and was impressed. “Yes, sir!”
“You don’t have to say ‘sir’ to me. Not much to do here. Why don’t you go to the hospitality center?” He gave us the address, pointed the direction
and we started that way—Pat Leivy, “Kitten” Smith, and myself. He called after us, “Have a good time, boys . . . and stay out of trouble.” Which was exactly what Sergeant Zim had said to us as we climbed into the shuttle.
But we didn’t go there. Pat Leivy had lived in Seattle when he was a small boy and wanted to take a look at his old home town. He had money and offered to pay our shuttle fares if we would go with him. I didn’t mind and it was all right; shuttles ran every twenty minutes and our passes were not restricted to Vancouver. Smith decided to go along, too.
Seattle wasn’t so very different from Vancouver and the girls were just as plentiful; I enjoyed it. But Seattle wasn’t quite as used to having M.I. around in droves and we picked a poor spot to eat dinner, one where we weren’t quite so welcome—a bar-restaurant, down by the docks.
Now, look, we weren’t drinking. Well, Kitten Smith had had one repeat one beer with his dinner but he was never anything but friendly and nice. That is how he got his name; the first time we had hand-to-hand combat drill Corporal Jones had said to him disgustedly: “A kitten would have hit
me harder than that!” The nickname stuck.
We were the only uniforms in the place; most of the other customers were merchant marine sailors—Seattle handles an awful lot of surface
tonnage. I hadn’t known it at the time but merchant sailors don’t like us. Part of it has to do with the fact that their guilds have tried and tried to get their trade classed as equivalent to Federal Service, without success—but I understand that some of it goes way back in history, centuries.
There were some young fellows there, too, about our age—the right age to serve a term, only they weren’t—long-haired and sloppy and kind of dirty-looking. Well, say about the way I looked, I suppose, before I joined up.
Presently we started noticing that at the table behind us, two of these young twerps and two merchant sailors (to judge by clothes) were passing
remarks that were intended for us to overhear. I won’t try to repeat them.
We didn’t say anything. Presently, when the remarks were even more personal and the laughs louder and everybody else in the place was keeping quiet and listening, Kitten whispered to me, “Let’s get out of here.”
I caught Pat Leivy’s eye; he nodded. We had no score to settle; it was one of those pay-as-you-get-it places. We got up and left. They followed us out.
Pat whispered to me, “Watch it.” We kept on walking, didn’t look back. They charged us.
I gave my man a side-neck chop as I pivoted and let him fall past me, swung to help my mates. But it was over. Four in, four down. Kitten had handled two of them and Pat had sort of wrapped the other one around a lamppost from throwing him a little too hard.
Somebody, the proprietor I guess, must have called the police as soon as we stood up to leave, since they arrived almost at once while we were still standing around wondering what to do with the meat—two policemen; it was that sort of a neighborhood.
The senior of them wanted us to prefer charges, but none of us was willing—Zim had told us to “stay out of trouble.” Kitten looked blank and about fifteen years old and said, “I guess they stumbled.”
“So I see,” agreed the police officer and toed a knife away from the outflung hand of my man, put it against the curb and broke the blade. “Well, you boys had better run along . . . farther uptown.”
We left. I was glad that neither Pat nor Kitten wanted to make anything of it. It’s a mighty serious thing, a civilian assaulting a member of the Armed Forces, but what the deuce?—the books balanced. They jumped us, they got their lumps. All even.
But it’s a good thing we never go on pass armed . . . and have been trained to disable without killing. Because every bit of it happened by reflex. I didn’t believe that they would jump us until they already had, and I didn’t do any thinking at all until it was over.
But that’s how I learned for the first time just how much I had changed. We walked back to the station and caught a shuttle to Vancouver.
We started practice drops as soon as we moved to Camp Spooky—a platoon at a time, in rotation (a full platoon, that is—a company), would shuttle down to the field north of Walla Walla, go aboard, space, make a drop, go through an exercise, and home on a beacon. A day’s work. With eight companies that gave us not quite a drop each week, and then it gave us a little more than a drop each week as attrition continued, whereupon the drops got tougher—over mountains, into the arctic ice, into the Australian desert, and, before we graduated, onto the face of the Moon, where your capsule is placed only a hundred feet up and explodes as it ejects—and you have to look sharp and land with only your suit (no air, no parachute) and a bad landing can spill your air and kill you.
Some of the attrition was from casualties, deaths or injuries, and some of it was just from refusing to enter the capsule—which some did, and that was that; they weren’t even chewed out; they were just motioned aside and that night they were paid off. Even a man who had made several drops might get the panic and refuse . . . and the instructors were just gentle with him, treated him the way you do a friend who is ill and won’t get well.
I never quite refused to enter the capsule—but I certainly learned about the shakes. I always got them, I was scared silly every time. I still am. But you’re not a cap trooper unless you drop.
They tell a story, probably not true, about a cap trooper who was sight-seeing in Paris. He visited Les Invalides, looked down at Napoleon’s coffin and said to a French guard there: “Who’s he?”
The Frenchman was properly scandalized. “Monsieur does not know? This is the tomb of Napoleon! Napoleon Bonaparte—the greatest soldier who ever lived!”
The cap trooper thought about it. Then he asked, “So? Where were his drops?”
It is almost certainly not true, because there is a big sign outside there that tells you exactly who Napoleon was. But that is how cap troopers feel about it.
Eventually we graduated.
I can see that I’ve left out almost everything. Not a word about most of our weapons, nothing about the time we dropped everything and fought a forest fire for three days, no mention of the practice alert that was a real one, only we didn’t know it until it was over, nor about the day the cook tent blew away—in fact not any mention of weather and, believe me, weather is important to a doughboy, rain and mud especially. But though weather is important while it happens it seems to me to be pretty dull to look back on. You can take descriptions of most any sort of weather out of an almanac and stick them in just anywhere; they’ll probably fit.
The regiment had started with 2009 men; we graduated 187—of the others, fourteen were dead (one executed and his name struck) and the rest resigned, dropped, transferred, medical discharge, etc. Major Malloy made a short speech, we each got a certificate, we passed in review for the last time, and the regiment was disbanded, its colors to be cased until they would be needed (three weeks later) to tell another couple of thousand civilians that they were an outfit, not a mob.
I was a “trained soldier,” entitled to put “TP” in front of my serial number instead of “RP.” Big day. The biggest I ever had.
The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots . . .
—Thomas Jefferson, 1787
That is, I thought I was a “trained soldier” until I reported to my ship. Any law against having a wrong opinion?
I see that I didn’t make any mention of how the Terran Federation moved from “peace” to a “state of emergency” and then on into “war.” I didn’t notice it too closely myself. When I enrolled, it was “peace,” the normal condition, at least so people think (who ever expects anything else?). Then, while I was at Currie, it became a “state of emergency” but I still didn’t notice it, as what Corporal Bronski thought about my haircut, uniform, combat drill, and kit was much more important—and what Sergeant Zim thought about such matters was overwhelmingly important. In any case, “emergency” is still “peace.”
“Peace” is a condition in which no civilian pays any attention to military casualties which do not achieve page-one, lead-story prominence— unless that civilian is a close relative of one of the casualties. But, if there ever was a time in history when “peace” meant that there was no fighting going on, I have been unable to find out about it. When I reported to my first outfit, “Willie’s Wildcats,” sometimes known as Company K, Third
Regiment, First M.I. Division, and shipped with them in the Valley Forge (with that misleading certificate in my kit), the fighting had already been going on for several years.
The historians can’t seem to settle whether to call this one “The Third Space War” (or the “Fourth”), or whether “The First Interstellar War” fits it better. We just call it “The Bug War” if we call it anything, which we usually don’t, and in any case the historians date the beginning of “war” after the time I joined my first outfit and ship. Everything up to then and still later were “incidents,” “patrols,” or “police actions.” However, you are just as dead if you buy a farm in an “incident” as you are if you buy it in a declared war.
But, to tell the truth, a soldier doesn’t notice a war much more than a civilian does, except his own tiny piece of it and that just on the days it is happening. The rest of the time he is much more concerned with sack time, the vagaries of sergeants, and the chances of wheedling the cook between meals. However, when Kitten Smith and Al Jenkins and I joined them at Luna Base, each of Willies’ Wildcats had made more than one combat drop; they were soldiers and we were not. We weren’t hazed for it—at least I was not—and the sergeants and corporals were amazingly easy to deal with after the calculated frightfulness of instructors.
It took a little while to discover that this comparatively gentle treatment simply meant that we were nobody, hardly worth chewing out, until we had proved in a drop—a real drop—that we might possibly replace real Wildcats who had fought and bought it and whose bunks we now occupied.
Let me tell you how green I was. While the Valley Forge was still at Luna Base, I happened to come across my section leader just as he was about to hit dirt, all slicked up in dress uniform. He was wearing in his left ear lobe a rather small earring, a tiny gold skull beautifully made and under it, instead of the conventional crossed bones of the ancient Jolly Roger design, was a whole bundle of little gold bones, almost too small to see.
Back home, I had always worn earrings and other jewelry when I went out on a date—I had some beautiful ear clips, rubies as big as the end of my little finger which had belonged to my mother’s grandfather. I like jewelry and had rather resented being required to leave it all behind when I went to Basic . . . but here was a type of jewelry which was apparently okay to wear with uniform. My ears weren’t pierced—my mother didn’t approve of it, for boys—but I could have the jeweler mount it on a clip . . . and I still had some money left from pay call at graduation and was anxious to spend it before it mildewed. “Unh, Sergeant? Where do you get earrings like that one? Pretty neat.”
He didn’t look scornful, he didn’t even smile. He just said, “You like it?”
“I certainly do!” The plain raw gold pointed up the gold braid and piping of the uniform even better than gems would have done. I was thinking that a pair would be still handsomer, with just crossbones instead of all that confusion at the bottom. “Does the base PX carry them?”
“No, the PX here never sells them.” He added, “At least I don’t think you’ll ever be able to buy one here—I hope. But I tell you what—when we reach a place where you can buy one of your own, I’ll see to it you know about it. That’s a promise.”
“Uh, thanks!” “Don’t mention it.”
I saw several of the tiny skulls thereafter, some with more “bones,” some with fewer; my guess had been correct, this was jewelry permitted with uniform, when on pass at least. Then I got my own chance to “buy” one almost immediately thereafter and discovered that the prices were unreasonably high, for such plain ornaments.
It was Operation Bughouse, the First Battle of Klendathu in the history books, soon after Buenos Aires was smeared. It took the loss of B.A. to make the ground-hogs realize that anything was going on, because people who haven’t been out don’t really believe in other planets, not down deep where it counts. I know I hadn’t and I had been space-happy since I was a pup.
But B.A. really stirred up the civilians and inspired loud screams to bring all our forces home, from everywhere—orbit them around the planet practically shoulder to shoulder and interdict the space Terra occupies. This is silly, of course; you don’t win a war by defense but by attack—no “Department of Defense” ever won a war; see the histories. But it seems to be a standard civilian reaction to scream for defensive tactics as soon as they do notice a war. They then want to run the war—like a passenger trying to grab the controls away from the pilot in an emergency.
However, nobody asked my opinion at the time; I was told. Quite aside from the impossibility of dragging the troops home in view of our treaty obligations and what it would do to the colony planets in the Federation and to our allies, we were awfully busy doing something else, to wit: carrying the war to the Bugs. I suppose I noticed the destruction of B.A. much less than most civilians did. We were already a couple of parsecs away under Cherenkov drive and the news didn’t reach us until we got it from another ship after we came out of drive.
I remember thinking, “Gosh, that’s terrible!” and feeling sorry for the one Porteño in the ship. But B.A. wasn’t my home and Terra was a long way off and I was very busy, as the attack on Klendathu, the Bugs’ home planet, was mounted immediately after that and we spent the time to
rendezvous strapped in our bunks, doped and unconscious, with the internal-gravity field of the Valley Forge off, to save power and give greater speed.
The loss of Buenos Aires did mean a great deal to me; it changed my life enormously, but this I did not know until many months later.
When it came time to drop onto Klendathu, I was assigned to PFC Dutch Bamburger as a supernumerary. He managed to conceal his pleasure at the news and as soon as the platoon sergeant was out of earshot, he said, “Listen, boot, you stick close behind me and stay out of my way. You go slowing me down, I break your silly neck.”
I just nodded. I was beginning to realize that this was not a practice drop. Then I had the shakes for a while and then we were down—
Operation Bughouse should have been called “Operation Madhouse.” Everything went wrong. It had been planned as an all-out move to bring the enemy to their knees, occupy their capital and the key points of their home planet, and end the war. Instead it darn near lost the war.
I am not criticizing General Diennes. I don’t know whether it’s true that he demanded more troops and more support and allowed himself to be overruled by the Sky Marshal-in-Chief—or not. Nor was it any of my business. Furthermore I doubt if some of the smart second-guessers know all the facts.
What I do know is that the General dropped with us and commanded us on the ground and, when the situation became impossible, he personally led the diversionary attack that allowed quite a few of us (including me) to be retrieved—and, in so doing, bought his farm. He’s radioactive debris on Klendathu and it’s much too late to court-martial him, so why talk about it?
I do have one comment to make to any armchair strategist who has never made a drop. Yes, I agree that the Bugs’ planet possibly could have been plastered with H-bombs until it was surfaced with radioactive glass. But would that have won the war? The Bugs are not like us. The Pseudo- Arachnids aren’t even like spiders. They are arthropods who happen to look like a madman’s conception of a giant, intelligent spider, but their organization, psychological and economic, is more like that of ants or termites; they are communal entities, the ultimate dictatorship of the hive. Blasting the surface of their planet would have killed soldiers and workers; it would not have killed the brain caste and the queens—I doubt if anybody can be certain that even a direct hit with a burrowing H-rocket would kill a queen; we don’t know how far down they are. Nor am I anxious to find out; none of the boys who went down those holes came up again.
So suppose we did ruin the productive surface of Klendathu? They still would have ships and colonies and other planets, same as we have, and their HQ is still intact—so unless they surrender, the war isn’t over. We didn’t have nova bombs at that time; we couldn’t crack Klendathu open. If
they absorbed the punishment and didn’t surrender, the war was still on. If they can surrender—
Their soldiers can’t. Their workers can’t fight (and you can waste a lot of time and ammo shooting up workers who wouldn’t say boo!) and their soldier caste can’t surrender. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that the Bugs are just stupid insects because they look the way they do and don’t know how to surrender. Their warriors are smart, skilled, and aggressive—smarter than you are, by the only universal rule, if the Bug shoots first. You can burn off one leg, two legs, three legs, and he just keeps on coming; burn off four on one side and he topples over—but keeps on shooting. You have to spot the nerve case and get it . . . whereupon he will trot right on past you, shooting at nothing, until he crashes into a wall or something.
The drop was a shambles from the start. Fifty ships were in our piece of it and they were supposed to come out of Cherenkov drive and into reaction drive so perfectly co-ordinated that they could hit orbit and drop us, in formation and where we were supposed to hit, without even making
one planet circuit to dress up their own formation. I suppose this is difficult. Shucks, I knowit is. But when it slips, it leaves the M.I. holding the sack.
We were lucky at that, because the Valley Forge and every Navy file in her bought it before we ever hit the ground. In that tight, fast formation (4.7 miles/sec. orbital speed is not a stroll) she collided with the Ypres and both ships were destroyed. We were lucky to get out of her tubes—those of
us who did get out, for she was still firing capsules as she was rammed. But I wasn’t aware of it; I was inside my cocoon, headed for the ground. I
suppose our company commander knew that the ship had been lost (and half his Wildcats with it) since he was out first and would know when he suddenly lost touch, over the command circuit, with the ship’s captain.
But there is no way to ask him, because he wasn’t retrieved. All I ever had was a gradually dawning realization that things were in a mess.
The next eighteen hours were a nightmare. I shan’t tell much about it because I don’t remember much, just snatches, stop-motion scenes of horror. I have never liked spiders, poisonous or otherwise; a common house spider in my bed can give me the creeps. Tarantulas are simply unthinkable, and I can’t eat lobster, crab, or anything of that sort. When I got my first sight of a Bug, my mind jumped right out of my skull and started to yammer. It was seconds later that I realized that I had killed it and could stop shooting. I suppose it was a worker; I doubt if I was in any shape to tackle a warrior and win.
But, at that, I was in better shape than was the K-9 Corps. They were to be dropped (if the drop had gone perfectly) on the periphery of our entire target and the neodogs were supposed to range outward and provide tactical intelligence to interdiction squads whose business it was to secure the periphery. Those Calebs aren’t armed, of course, other than their teeth. A neodog is supposed to hear, see, and smell and tell his partner what he finds by radio; all he carries is a radio and a destruction bomb with which he (or his partner) can blow the dog up in case of bad wounds or capture.
Those poor dogs didn’t wait to be captured; apparently most of them suicided as soon as they made contact. They felt the way I do about the Bugs, only worse. They have neodogs now that are indoctrinated from puppy-hood to observe and evade without blowing their tops at the mere sight or smell of a Bug. But these weren’t.
But that wasn’t all that went wrong. Just name it, it was fouled up. I didn’t know what was going on, of course; I just stuck close behind Dutch, trying to shoot or flame anything that moved, dropping a grenade down a hole whenever I saw one. Presently I got so that I could kill a Bug without wasting ammo or juice, although I did not learn to distinguish between those that were harmless and those that were not. Only about one in fifty is a warrior
—but he makes up for the other forty-nine. Their personal weapons aren’t as heavy as ours but they are lethal just the same—they’ve got a beam that will penetrate armor and slice flesh like cutting a hard-boiled egg, and they co-operate even better than we do . . . because the brain that is doing the heavy thinking for a “squad” isn’t where you can reach it; it’s down one of the holes.
Dutch and I stayed lucky for quite a long time, milling around over an area about a mile square, corking up holes with bombs, killing what we found above surface, saving our jets as much as possible for emergencies. The idea was to secure the entire target and allow the reinforcements and the heavy stuff to come down without important opposition; this was not a raid, this was a battle to establish a beachhead, stand on it, hold it, and enable fresh troops and heavies to capture or pacify the entire planet.
Only we didn’t.
Our own section was doing all right. It was in the wrong pew and out of touch with the other section—the platoon leader and sergeant were dead and we never re-formed. But we had staked out a claim, our special-weapons squad had set up a strong point, and we were ready to turn our real estate over to fresh troops as soon as they showed up.
Only they didn’t. They dropped in where we should have dropped, found unfriendly natives and had their own troubles. We never saw them. So we stayed where we were, soaking up casualties from time to time and passing them out ourselves as opportunity offered—while we ran low on ammo and jump juice and even power to keep the suits moving. This seemed to go on for a couple of thousand years.
Dutch and I were zipping along close to a wall, headed for our special-weapons squad in answer to a yell for help, when the ground suddenly opened in front of Dutch, a Bug popped out, and Dutch went down.
I flamed the Bug and tossed a grenade and the hole closed up, then turned to see what had happened to Dutch. He was down but he didn’t look hurt. A platoon sergeant can monitor the physicals of every man in his platoon, sort out the dead from those who merely can’t make it unassisted and must be picked up. But you can do the same thing manually from switches right on the belt of a man’s suit.
Dutch didn’t answer when I called to him. His body temperature read ninety-nine degrees, his respiration, heartbeat, and brain wave read zero— which looked bad but maybe his suit was dead rather than he himself. Or so I told myself, forgetting that the temperature indicator would give no reading if it were the suit rather than the man. Anyhow, I grabbed the can-opener wrench from my own belt and started to take him out of his suit while trying to watch all around me.
Then I heard an all-hands call in my helmet that I never want to hear again. “Sauve qui peut! Home! Home! Pickup and home! Any beacon you can hear. Six minutes! All hands, save yourselves, pick up your mates. Home on any beacon! Sauve qui—”
I hurried.
His head came off as I tried to drag him out of his suit, so I dropped him and got out of there. On a later drop I would have had sense enough to salvage his ammo, but I was far too sluggy to think; I simply bounced away from there and tried to rendezvous with the strong point we had been heading for.
It was already evacuated and I felt lost . . . lost and deserted. Then I heard recall, not the recall it should have been: “Yankee Doodle” (if it had
been a boat from the Valley Forge)—but “Sugar Bush,” a tune I didn’t know. No matter, it was a beacon; I headed for it, using the last of my jump juice lavishly—got aboard just as they were about to button up and shortly thereafter was in the Voortrek, in such a state of shock that I couldn’t remember my serial number.
I’ve heard it called a “strategic victory”—but I was there and I claim we took a terrible licking.
Six weeks later (and feeling about sixty years older) at Fleet Base on Sanctuary I boarded another ground boat and reported for duty to Ship’s Sergeant Jelal in the Rodger Young. I was wearing, in my pierced left ear lobe, a broken skull with one bone. Al Jenkins was with me and was wearing one exactly like it (Kitten never made it out of the tube). The few surviving Wildcats were distributed elsewhere around the Fleet; we had lost half our strength, about, in the collision between the Valley Forge and the Ypres; that disastrous mess on the ground had run our casualties up over 80 per cent and the powers-that-be decided that it was impossible to put the outfit back together with the survivors—close it out, put the records in the archives, and wait until the scars had healed before reactivating Company K (Wildcats) with new faces but old traditions.
Besides, there were a lot of empty files to fill in other outfits.
Sergeant Jelal welcomed us warmly, told us that we were joining a smart outfit, “best in the Fleet,” in a taut ship, and didn’t seem to notice our ear skulls. Later that day he took us forward to meet the Lieutenant, who smiled rather shyly and gave us a fatherly little talk. I noticed that Al Jenkins wasn’t wearing his gold skull. Neither was I—because I had already noticed that nobody in Rasczak’s Roughnecks wore the skulls.
They didn’t wear them because, in Rasczak’s Roughnecks, it didn’t matter in the least how many combat drops you had made, nor which ones; you were either a Roughneck or you weren’t—and if you were not, they didn’t care who you were. Since we had come to them not as recruits but as combat veterans, they gave us all possible benefit of doubt and made us welcome with no more than that unavoidable trace of formality anybody necessarily shows to a house guest who is not a member of the family.
But, less than a week later when we had made one combat drop with them, we were full-fledged Roughnecks, members of the family, called by our first names, chewed out on occasion without any feeling on either side that we were less than blood brothers thereby, borrowed from and lent to,
included in bull sessions and privileged to express our own silly opinions with complete freedom—and have them slapped down just as freely. We
even called non-coms by their first names on any but strictly duty occasions. Sergeant Jelal was always on duty, of course, unless you ran across him dirtside, in which case he was “Jelly” and went out of his way to behave as if his lordly rank meant nothing between Roughnecks.
But the Lieutenant was always “The Lieutenant”—never “Mr. Rasczak,” nor even “Lieutenant Rasczak.” Simply “The Lieutenant,” spoken to and of in the third person. There was no god but the Lieutenant and Sergeant Jelal was his prophet. Jelly could say “No” in his own person and it might be
subject to further argument, at least from junior sergeants, but if he said, “The Lieutenant wouldn’t like it,” he was speaking ex cathedra and the matter was dropped permanently. Nobody ever tried to check up on whether or not the Lieutenant would or would not like it; the Word had been spoken.
The Lieutenant was father to us and loved us and spoiled us and was nevertheless rather remote from us aboard ship—and even dirtside . . . unless we reached dirt via a drop. But in a drop—well, you wouldn’t think that an officer could worry about every man of a platoon spread over a hundred square miles of terrain. But he can. He can worry himself sick over each one of them. How he could keep track of us all I can’t describe, but in the midst of a ruckus his voice would sing out over the command circuit: “Johnson! Check squad six! Smitty’s in trouble,” and it was better than even money that the Lieutenant had noticed it before Smith’s squad leader.
Besides that, you knew with utter and absolute certainty that, as long as you were still alive, the Lieutenant would not get into the retrieval boat without you. There have been prisoners taken in the Bug War, but none from Rasczak’s Roughnecks.
Jelly was mother to us and was close to us and took care of us and didn’t spoil us at all. But he didn’t report us to the Lieutenant—there was
never a court-martial among the Roughnecks and no man was ever flogged. Jelly didn’t even pass out extra duty very often; he had other ways of paddling us. He could look you up and down at daily inspection and simply say, “In the Navy you might look good. Why don’t you transfer?”—and get results, it being an article of faith among us that the Navy crew members slept in their uniforms and never washed below their collar lines.
But Jelly didn’t have to maintain discipline among privates because he maintained discipline among his non-coms and expected them to do
likewise. My squad leader, when I first joined, was “Red” Greene. After a couple of drops, when I knew how good it was to be a Roughneck, I got to feeling gay and a bit too big for my clothes—and talked back to Red. He didn’t report me to Jelly; he just took me back to the washroom and gave me a medium set of lumps, and we got to be pretty good friends. In fact, he recommended me for lance, later on.
Actually we didn’t know whether the crew members slept in their clothes or not; we kept to our part of the ship and the Navy men kept to theirs, because they were made to feel unwelcome if they showed up in our country other than on duty—after all, one has social standards one must maintain, mustn’t one? The Lieutenant had his stateroom in male officers’ country, a Navy part of the ship, but we never went there, either, except on
duty and rarely. We did go forward for guard duty, because the Rodger Young was a mixed ship, female captain and pilot officers, some female Navy ratings; forward of bulkhead thirty was ladies’ country—and two armed M.I. day and night stood guard at the one door cutting it. (At battle stations that door, like all other gastight doors, was secured; nobody missed a drop.)
Officers were privileged to go forward of bulkhead thirty on duty and all officers, including the Lieutenant, ate in a mixed mess just beyond it. But
they didn’t tarry there; they ate and got out. Maybe other corvette transports were run differently, but that was the way the Rodger Young was run— both the Lieutenant and Captain Deladrier wanted a taut ship and got it.
Nevertheless guard duty was a privilege. It was a rest to stand beside that door, arms folded, feet spread, doping off and thinking about nothing .
. . but always warmly aware that any moment you might see a feminine creature even though you were not privileged to speak to her other than on duty. Once I was called all the way into the Skipper’s office and she spoke to me—she looked right at me and said, “Take this to the Chief Engineer, please.”
My daily shipside job, aside from cleaning, was servicing electronic equipment under the close supervision of “Padre” Migliaccio, the section leader of the first section, exactly as I used to work under Carl’s eye. Drops didn’t happen too often and everybody worked every day. If a man didn’t have any other talent he could always scrub bulkheads; nothing was ever quite clean enough to suit Sergeant Jelal. We followed the M.I. rule; everybody fights, everybody works. Our first cook was Johnson, the second section’s sergeant, a big friendly boy from Georgia (the one in the western hemisphere, not the other one) and a very talented chef. He wheedled pretty well, too; he liked to eat between meals himself and saw no reason why other people shouldn’t.
With the Padre leading one section and the cook leading the other, we were well taken care of, body and soul—but suppose one of them bought it? Which one would you pick? A nice point that we never tried to settle but could always discuss.
The Rodger Young kept busy and we made a number of drops, all different. Every drop has to be different so that they never can figure out a pattern on you. But no more pitched battles; we operated alone, patrolling, harrying, and raiding. The truth was that the Terran Federation was not then able to mount a large battle; the foul-up with Operation Bughouse had cost too many ships, ’way too many trained men. It was necessary to take time to heal up, train more men.
In the meantime, small fast ships, among them the Rodger Young and other corvette transports, tried to be everywhere at once, keeping the enemy off balance, hurting him and running. We suffered casualties and filled our holes when we returned to Sanctuary for more capsules. I still got the shakes every drop, but actual drops didn’t happen too often nor were we ever down long—and between times there were days and days of shipboard life among the Roughnecks.
It was the happiest period of my life although I was never quite consciously aware of it—I did my full share of beefing just as everybody else did, and enjoyed that, too.
We weren’t really hurt until the Lieutenant bought it.
I guess that was the worst time in all my life. I was already in bad shape for a personal reason: My mother had been in Buenos Aires when the Bugs smeared it.
I found out about it one time when we put in at Sanctuary for more capsules and some mail caught up with us—a note from my Aunt Eleanora, one that had not been coded and sent fast because she had failed to mark for that; the letter itself came. It was about three bitter lines. Somehow she seemed to blame me for my mother’s death. Whether it was my fault because I was in the Armed Services and should have therefore prevented the raid, or whether she felt that my mother had made a trip to Buenos Aires because I wasn’t home where I should have been, was not quite clear; she managed to imply both in the same sentence.
I tore it up and tried to walk away from it. I thought that both my parents were dead—since Father would never send Mother on a trip that long by herself. Aunt Eleanora had not said so, but she wouldn’t have mentioned Father in any case; her devotion was entirely to her sister. I was almost correct—eventually I learned that Father had planned to go with her but something had come up and he stayed over to settle it, intending to come along the next day. But Aunt Eleanora did not tell me this.
A couple of hours later the Lieutenant sent for me and asked me very gently if I would like to take leave at Sanctuary while the ship went out on her next patrol—he pointed out that I had plenty of accumulated R&R and might as well use some of it. I don’t know how he knew that I had lost a member of my family, but he obviously did. I said no, thank you, sir; I preferred to wait until the outfit all took R&R together.
I’m glad I did it that way, because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been along when the Lieutenant bought it . . . and that would have been just too much to be borne. It happened very fast and just before retrieval. A man in the third squad was wounded, not badly but he was down; the assistant section leader moved in to pick up—and bought a small piece of it himself. The Lieutenant, as usual, was watching everything at once—no doubt he had checked physicals on each of them by remote, but we’ll never know. What he did was to make sure that the assistant section leader was still alive; then made pickup on both of them himself, one in each arm of his suit.
He threw them the last twenty feet and they were passed into the retrieval boat—and with everybody else in, the shield gone and no interdiction, was hit and died instantly.
I haven’t mentioned the names of the private and of the assistant section leader on purpose. The Lieutenant was making pickup on all of us, with his last breath. Maybe I was the private. It doesn’t matter who he was. What did matter was that our family had had its head chopped off. The head of the family from which we took our name, the father who made us what we were.
After the Lieutenant had to leave us Captain Deladrier invited Sergeant Jelal to eat forward, with the other heads of departments. But he begged to be excused. Have you ever seen a widow with stern character keep her family together by behaving as if the head of the family had simply stepped out and would return at any moment? That’s what Jelly did. He was just a touch more strict with us than ever and if he ever had to say: “The
Lieutenant wouldn’t like that,” it was almost more than a man could take. Jelly didn’t say it very often.
He left our combat team organization almost unchanged; instead of shifting everybody around, he moved the assistant section leader of the second section over into the (nominal) platoon sergeant spot, leaving his section leaders where they were needed—with their sections—and he moved me from lance and assistant squad leader into acting corporal as a largely ornamental assistant section leader. Then he himself behaved as if the Lieutenant were merely out of sight and that he was just passing on the Lieutenant’s orders, as usual.
It saved us.
CH:11
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.
—W. Churchill, XXth century soldier-statesman
As we came back into the ship after the raid on the Skinnies—the raid in which Dizzy Flores bought it, Sergeant Jelal’s first drop as platoon leader
—a ship’s gunner who was tending the boat lock spoke to me: “How’d it go?”
“Routine,” I answered briefly. I suppose his remark was friendly but I was feeling very mixed up and in no mood to talk—sad over Dizzy, glad that we had made pickup anyhow, mad that the pickup had been useless, and all of it tangled up with that washed-out but happy feeling of being back in the ship again, able to muster arms and legs and note that they are all present. Besides, how can you talk about a drop to a man who has never made one?
“So?” he answered. “You guys have got it soft. Loaf thirty days, work thirty minutes. Me, I stand a watch in three and turn to.” “Yeah, I guess so,” I agreed and turned away. “Some of us are born lucky.”
“Soldier, you ain’t peddlin’ vacuum,” he said to my back.
And yet there was much truth in what the Navy gunner had said. We cap troopers are like aviators of the earlier mechanized wars; a long and busy military career could contain only a few hours of actual combat facing the enemy, the rest being: train, get ready, go out—then come back, clean up the mess, get ready for another one, and practice, practice, practice, in between. We didn’t make another drop for almost three weeks and that on a different planet around another star—a Bug colony. Even with Cherenkov drive, stars are far apart.
In the meantime I got my corporal’s stripes, nominated by Jelly and confirmed by Captain Deladrier in the absence of a commissioned officer of our own. Theoretically the rank would not be permanent until approved against vacancy by the Fleet M.I. repple-depple, but that meant nothing, as the casualty rate was such that there were always more vacancies in the T.O. than there were warm bodies to fill them. I was a corporal when Jelly said I was a corporal; the rest was red tape.
But the gunner was not quite correct about “loafing”; there were fifty-three suits of powered armor to check, service, and repair between each drop, not to mention weapons and special equipment. Sometimes Migliaccio would down-check a suit, Jelly would confirm it, and the ship’s weapons engineer, Lieutenant Farley, would decide that he couldn’t cure it short of base facilities—whereupon a new suit would have to be broken out of stores and brought from “cold” to “hot,” an exacting process requiring twenty-six man-hours not counting the time of the man to whom it was being fitted.
We kept busy.
But we had fun, too. There were always several competitions going on, from acey-deucy to Honor Squad, and we had the best jazz band in several cubic light-years (well, the only one, maybe), with Sergeant Johnson on the trumpet leading them mellow and sweet for hymns or tearing the steel right off the bulkheads, as the occasion required. After that masterful (or should it be “mistressful”?) retrieval rendezvous without a
programmed ballistic, the platoon’s metalsmith, PFC Archie Campbell, made a model of the Rodger Young for the Skipper and we all signed and Archie engraved our signatures on a base plate: To Hot Pilot Yvette Deladrier, with thanks from Rasczak’s Roughnecks, and we invited her aft to
eat with us and the Roughneck Downbeat Combo played during dinner and then the junior private presented it to her. She got tears and kissed him
—and kissed Jelly as well and he blushed purple.
After I got my chevrons I simply had to get things straight with Ace, because Jelly kept me on as assistant section leader. This is not good. A man ought to fill each spot on his way up; I should have had a turn as squad leader instead of being bumped from lance and assistant squad leader to corporal and assistant section leader. Jelly knew this, of course, but I know perfectly well that he was trying to keep the outfit as much as possible the way it had been when the Lieutenant was alive—which meant that he left his squad leaders and section leaders unchanged.
But it left me with a ticklish problem; all three of the corporals under me as squad leaders were actually senior to me—but if Sergeant Johnson bought it on the next drop, it would not only lose us a mighty fine cook, it would leave me leading the section. There mustn’t be any shadow of doubt when you give an order, not in combat; I had to clear up any possible shadow before we dropped again.
Ace was the problem. He was not only senior of the three, he was a career corporal as well and older than I was. If Ace accepted me, I wouldn’t have any trouble with the other two squads.
I hadn’t really had any trouble with him aboard. After we made pickup on Flores together he had been civil enough. On the other hand we hadn’t had anything to have trouble over; our shipside jobs didn’t put us together, except at daily muster and guard mount, which is all cut and dried. But you can feel it. He was not treating me as somebody he took orders from.
So I looked him up during off hours. He was lying in his bunk, reading a book, Space Rangers against the Galaxy—a pretty good yarn, except that I doubt if a military outfit ever had so many adventures and so few goof-offs. The ship had a good library.
“Ace. Got to see you.”
He glanced up. “So? I just left the ship, I’m off duty.” “I’ve got to see you now. Put your book down.”
“What’s so aching urgent? I’ve got to finish this chapter.”
“Oh, come off it, Ace. If you can’t wait, I’ll tell you how it comes out.”
“You do and I’ll clobber you.” But he put the book down, sat up, and listened.
I said, “Ace, about this matter of the section organization—you’re senior to me, you ought to be assistant section leader.”
“Oh, so it’s that again!”
“Yep. I think you and I ought to go see Johnson and get him to fix it up with Jelly.”
“You do, eh?”
“Yes, I do. That’s how it’s got to be.”
“So? Look, Shortie, let me put you straight. I got nothing against you at all. Matter of fact, you were on the bounce that day we had to pick up Dizzy; I’ll hand you that. But if you want a squad, you go dig up one of your own. Don’t go eyeing mine. Why, my boys wouldn’t even peel potatoes for you.”
“That’s your final word?”
“That’s my first, last, and only word.”
I sighed. “I thought it would be. But I had to make sure. Well, that settles that. But I’ve got one thing on my mind. I happened to notice that the washroom needs cleaning . . . and I think maybe you and I ought to attend to it. So put your book aside . . . as Jelly says, non-coms are always on duty.”
He didn’t stir at once. He said quietly, “You really think it’s necessary, Shortie? As I said, I got nothing against you.” “Looks like.”
“Think you can do it?” “I can sure try.”
“Okay. Let’s take care of it.”
We went aft to the washroom, chased out a private who was about to take a shower he didn’t really need, and locked the door. Ace said, “You got any restrictions in mind, Shortie?”
“Well . . . I hadn’t planned to kill you.”
“Check. And no broken bones, nothing that would keep either one of us out of the next drop—except maybe by accident, of course. That suit you?”
“Suits,” I agreed. “Uh, I think maybe I’ll take my shirt off.”
“Wouldn’t want to get blood on your shirt.” He relaxed. I started to peel it off and he let go a kick for my kneecap. No wind up. Flat-footed and not tense.
Only my kneecap wasn’t there—I had learned.
A real fight ordinarily can last only a second or two, because that is all the time it takes to kill a man, or knock him out, or disable him to the point where he can’t fight. But we had agreed to avoid inflicting permanent damage; this changes things. We were both young, in top condition, highly trained, and used to absorbing punishment. Ace was bigger, I was maybe a touch faster. Under such conditions the miserable business simply has to go on until one or the other is too beaten down to continue—unless a fluke settles it sooner. But neither one of us was allowing any flukes; we were professionals and wary.
So it did go on, for a long, tedious, painful time. Details would be trivial and pointless; besides, I had no time to take notes.
A long time later I was lying on my back and Ace was flipping water in my face. He looked at me, then hauled me to my feet, shoved me against a bulkhead, steadied me. “Hit me!”
“Huh?” I was dazed and seeing double. “Johnnie . . . hit me.”
His face was floating in the air in front of me; I zeroed in on it and slugged it with all the force in my body, hard enough to mash any mosquito in poor health. His eyes closed and he slumped to the deck and I had to grab at a stanchion to keep from following him.
He got slowly up. “Okay, Johnnie,” he said, shaking his head, “I’ve had my lesson. You won’t have any more lip out of me . . . nor out of anybody in the section. Okay?”
I nodded and my head hurt. “Shake?” he asked.
We shook on it, and that hurt, too.
Almost anybody else knew more about how the war was going than we did, even though we were in it. This was the period, of course, after the Bugs had located our home planet, through the Skinnies, and had raided it, destroying Buenos Aires and turning “contact troubles” into all-out war, but before we had built up our forces and before the Skinnies had changed sides and become our co-belligerents and de facto allies. Partly effective interdiction for Terra had been set up from Luna (we didn’t know it), but speaking broadly, the Terran Federation was losing the war.
We didn’t know that, either. Nor did we know that strenuous efforts were being made to subvert the alliance against us and bring the Skinnies over to our side; the nearest we came to being told about that was when we got instructions, before the raid in which Flores was killed, to go easy on the Skinnies, destroy as much property as possible but to kill inhabitants only when unavoidable.
What a man doesn’t know he can’t spill if he is captured; neither drugs, nor torture, nor brainwash, nor endless lack of sleep can squeeze out a secret he doesn’t possess. So we were told only what we had to know for tactical purposes. In the past, armies have been known to fold up and quit because the men didn’t know what they were fighting for, or why, and therefore lacked the will to fight. But the M.I. does not have that weakness. Each one of us was a volunteer to begin with, each for some reason or other—some good, some bad. But now we fought because we were M.I.
We were professionals, with esprit de corps. We were Rasczak’s Roughnecks, the best unprintable outfit in the whole expurgated M.I.; we climbed into our capsules because Jelly told us it was time to do so and we fought when we got down there because that is what Rasczak’s Roughnecks do.
We certainly didn’t know that we were losing.
Those Bugs lay eggs. They not only lay them, they hold them in reserve, hatch them as needed. If we killed a warrior—or a thousand, or ten thousand—his or their replacements were hatched and on duty almost before we could get back to base. You can imagine, if you like, some Bug supervisor of population flashing a phone to somewhere down inside and saying, “Joe, warm up ten thousand warriors and have ’em ready by Wednesday . . . and tell engineering to activate reserve incubators N, O, P, Q, and R; the demand is picking up.”
I don’t say they did exactly that, but those were the results. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that they acted purely from instinct, like termites or ants; their actions were as intelligent as ours (stupid races don’t build spaceships!) and were much better co-ordinated. It takes a minimum of a
year to train a private to fight and to mesh his fighting in with his mates; a Bug warrior is hatched able to do this.
Every time we killed a thousand Bugs at a cost of one M.I. it was a net victory for the Bugs. We were learning, expensively, just how efficient a
total communism can be when used by a people actually adapted to it by evolution; the Bug commissars didn’t care any more about expending soldiers than we cared about expending ammo. Perhaps we could have figured this out about the Bugs by noting the grief the Chinese Hegemony gave the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance; however the trouble with “lessons from history” is that we usually read them best after falling flat on our chins.
But we were learning. Technical instructions and tactical doctrine orders resulted from every brush with them, spread through the Fleet. We learned to tell the workers from the warriors—if you had time, you could tell from the shape of the carapace, but the quick rule of thumb was: If he comes at you, he’s a warrior; if he runs, you can turn your back on him. We learned not to waste ammo even on warriors except in self-protection; instead we went after their lairs. Find a hole, drop down it first a gas bomb which explodes gently a few seconds later, releasing an oily liquid which evaporates as a nerve gas tailored to Bugs (it is harmless to us) and which is heavier than air and keeps on going down—then you use a second grenade of H.E. to seal the hole.
We still didn’t know whether we were getting deep enough to kill the queens—but we did know that the Bugs didn’t like these tactics; our intelligence through the Skinnies and on back into the Bugs themselves was definite on this point. Besides, we cleaned their colony off Sheol completely this way. Maybe they managed to evacuate the queens and the brains . . . but at least we were learning to hurt them.
But so far as the Roughnecks were concerned, these gas bombings were simply another drill, to be done according to orders, by the numbers, and on the bounce.
Eventually we had to go back to Sanctuary for more capsules. Capsules are expendable (well, so were we) and when they are gone, you must return to base, even if the Cherenkov generators could still take you twice around the Galaxy. Shortly before this a dispatch came through breveting Jelly to lieutenant, vice Rasczak. Jelly tried to keep it quiet but Captain Deladrier published it and then required him to eat forward with the other officers. He still spent all the rest of his time aft.
But we had taken several drops by then with him as platoon leader and the outfit had gotten used to getting along without the Lieutenant—it still hurt but it was routine now. After Jelal was commissioned the word was slowly passed around among us and chewed over that it was time for us to name ourselves for our boss, as with other outfits.
Johnson was senior and took the word to Jelly; he picked me to go along with him as moral support. “Yeah?” growled Jelly. “Uh, Sarge—I mean Lieutenant, we’ve been thinking—”
“With what?”
“Well, the boys have sort of been talking it over and they think—well, they say the outfit ought to call itself: ‘Jelly’s Jaguars.’” “They do, eh? How many of ’em favor that name?”
“It’s unanimous,” Johnson said simply.
“So? Fifty-two ayes . . . and one no. The noes have it.” Nobody ever brought up the subject again.
Shortly after that we orbited at Sanctuary. I was glad to be there, as the ship’s internal pseudo-gravity field had been off for most of two days before that, while the Chief Engineer tinkered with it, leaving us in free fall—which I hate. I’ll never be a real spaceman. Dirt underfoot felt good. The entire platoon went on ten days’ rest & recreation and transferred to accommodation barracks at the Base.
I never have learned the co-ordinates of Sanctuary, nor the name or catalogue number of the star it orbits—because what you don’t know, you can’t spill; the location is ultra-top-secret, known only to ships’ captains, piloting officers, and such . . . and, I understand, with each of them under orders and hypnotic compulsion to suicide if necessary to avoid capture. So I don’t want to know. With the possibility that Luna Base might be taken and Terra herself occupied, the Federation kept as much of its beef as possible at Sanctuary, so that a disaster back home would not necessarily mean capitulation.
But I can tell you what sort of a planet it is. Like Earth, but retarded.
Literally retarded, like a kid who takes ten years to learn to wave bye-bye and never does manage to master patty-cake. It is a planet as near like
Earth as two planets can be, same age according to the planetologists and its star is the same age as the Sun and the same type, so say the astrophysicists. It has plenty of flora and fauna, the same atmosphere as Earth, near enough, and much the same weather; it even has a good-sized moon and Earth’s exceptional tides.
With all these advantages it barely got away from the starting gate. You see, it’s short on mutations; it does not enjoy Earth’s high level of natural radiation.
Its typical and most highly developed plant life is a very primitive giant fern; its top animal life is a proto-insect which hasn’t even developed
colonies. I am not speaking of transplanted Terran flora and fauna—our stuff moves in and brushes the native stuff aside.
With its evolutionary progress held down almost to zero by lack of radiation and a consequent most unhealthily low mutation rate, native life forms
on Sanctuary just haven’t had a decent chance to evolve and aren’t fit to compete. Their gene patterns remain fixed for a relatively long time; they aren’t adaptable—like being forced to play the same bridge hand over and over again, for eons, with no hope of getting a better one.
As long as they just competed with each other, this didn’t matter too much—morons among morons, so to speak. But when types that had evolved on a planet enjoying high radiation and fierce competition were introduced, the native stuff was outclassed.
Now all the above is perfectly obvious from high school biology . . . but the high forehead from the research station there who was telling me about this brought up a point I would never have thought of.
What about the human beings who have colonized Sanctuary?
Not transients like me, but the colonists who live there, many of whom were born there, and whose descendants will live there, even unto the umpteenth generation—what about those descendants? It doesn’t do a person any harm not to be radiated; in fact it’s a bit safer—leukemia and some types of cancer are almost unknown there. Besides that, the economic situation is at present all in their favor; when they plant a field of (Terran) wheat, they don’t even have to clear out the weeds. Terran wheat displaces anything native.
But the descendants of those colonists won’t evolve. Not much, anyhow. This chap told me that they could improve a little through mutation from other causes, from new blood added by immigration, and from natural selection among the gene patterns they already own—but that is all very minor compared with the evolutionary rate on Terra and on any usual planet. So what happens? Do they stay frozen at their present level while the rest of the human race moves on past them, until they are living fossils, as out of place as a pithecanthropus in a spaceship?
Or will they worry about the fate of their descendants and dose themselves regularly with X-rays or maybe set off lots of dirty-type nuclear explosions each year to build up a fallout reservoir in their atmosphere? (Accepting, of course, the immediate dangers of radiation to themselves in order to provide a proper genetic heritage of mutation for the benefit of their descendants.)
This bloke predicted that they would not do anything. He claims that the human race is too individualistic, too self-centered, to worry that much about future generations. He says that the genetic impoverishment of distant generations through lack of radiation is something most people are simply incapable of worrying about. And of course it is a far-distant threat; evolution works so slowly, even on Terra, that the development of a new species is a matter of many, many thousands of years.
I don’t know. Shucks, I don’t know what I myself will do more than half the time; how can I predict what a colony of strangers will do? But I’m sure of this: Sanctuary is going to be fully settled, either by us or by the Bugs. Or by somebody. It is a potential utopia, and, with desirable real estate so scarce in this end of the Galaxy, it will not be left in the possession of primitive life forms that failed to make the grade.
Already it is a delightful place, better in many ways for a few days R&R than is most of Terra. In the second place, while it has an awful lot of civilians, more than a million, as civilians go they aren’t bad. They know there is a war on. Fully half of them are employed either at the Base or in war industry; the rest raise food and sell it to the Fleet. You might say they have a vested interest in war, but, whatever their reasons, they respect the uniform and don’t resent the wearers thereof. Quite the contrary. If an M.I. walks into a shop there, the proprietor calls him “Sir,” and really seems to mean it, even while he’s trying to sell something worthless at too high a price.
But in the first place, half of those civilians are female.
You have to have been out on a long patrol to appreciate this properly. You need to have looked forward to your day of guard duty, for the
privilege of standing two hours out of each six with your spine against bulkhead thirty and your ears cocked for just the sound of a female voice. I suppose it’s actually easier in the all-stag ships . . . but I’ll take the Rodger Young. It’s good to know that the ultimate reason you are fighting actually exists and that they are not just a figment of the imagination.
Besides the civilian wonderful 50 per cent, about 40 per cent of the Federal Service people on Sanctuary are female. Add it all up and you’ve got the most beautiful scenery in the explored universe.
Besides these unsurpassed natural advantages, a great deal has been done artificially to keep R&R from being wasted. Most of the civilians seem to hold two jobs; they’ve got circles under their eyes from staying up all night to make a service man’s leave pleasant. Churchill Road from the Base to the city is lined both sides with enterprises intended to separate painlessly a man from money he really hasn’t any use for anyhow, to the pleasant accompaniment of refreshment, entertainment, and music.
If you are able to get past these traps, through having already been bled of all valuta, there are still other places in the city almost as satisfactory (I mean there are girls there, too) which are provided free by a grateful populace—much like the social center in Vancouver, these are, but even more welcome.
Sanctuary, and especially Espiritu Santo, the city, struck me as such an ideal place that I toyed with the notion of asking for my discharge there when my term was up—after all, I didn’t really care whether my descendants (if any) twenty-five thousand years hence had long green tendrils like everybody else, or just the equipment I had been forced to get by with. That professor type from the Research Station couldn’t frighten me with that no radiation scare talk; it seemed to me (from what I could see around me) that the human race had reached its ultimate peak anyhow.
No doubt a gentleman wart hog feels the same way about a lady wart hog—but, if so, both of us are very sincere.
There are other opportunities for recreation there, too. I remember with particular pleasure one evening when a table of Roughnecks got into a
friendly discussion with a group of Navy men (not from the Rodger Young) seated at the next table. The debate was spirited, a bit noisy, and some Base police came in and broke it up with stun guns just as we were warming to our rebuttal. Nothing came of it, except that we had to pay for the furniture—the Base Commandant takes the position that a man on R&R should be allowed a little freedom as long as he doesn’t pick one of the “thirty-one crash landings.”
The accommodation barracks are all right, too—not fancy, but comfortable and the chow line works twenty-five hours a day with civilians doing all the work. No reveille, no taps, you’re actually on leave and you don’t have to go to the barracks at all. I did, however, as it seemed downright preposterous to spend money on hotels when there was a clean, soft sack free and so many better ways to spend accumulated pay. That extra hour in each day was nice, too, as it meant nine hours solid and the day still untouched—I caught up sack time clear back to Operation Bughouse.
It might as well have been a hotel; Ace and I had a room all to ourselves in visiting non-com quarters. One morning, when R&R was regrettably drawing to a close, I was just turning over about local noon when Ace shook my bed. “On the bounce, soldier! The Bugs are attacking.”
I told him what to do with the Bugs. “Let’s hit dirt,” he persisted.
“No dinero.” I had had a date the night before with a chemist (female, of course, and charmingly so) from the Research Station. She had known Carl on Pluto and Carl had written to me to look her up if I ever got to Sanctuary. She was a slender redhead, with expensive tastes. Apparently Carl had intimated to her that I had more money than was good for me, for she decided that the night before was just the time for her to get acquainted with the local champagne. I didn’t let Carl down by admitting that all I had was a trooper’s honorarium; I bought it for her while I drank what they said was (but wasn’t) fresh pineapple squash. The result was that I had to walk home, afterwards—the cabs aren’t free. Still, it had been worth it. After
all, what is money?—I’m speaking of Bug money, of course.
“No ache,” Ace answered. “I can juice you—I got lucky last night. Ran into a Navy file who didn’t know percentages.”
So I got up and shaved and showered and we hit the chow line for half a dozen shell eggs and sundries such as potatoes and ham and hot cakes and so forth and then we hit dirt to get something to eat. The walk up Churchill Road was hot and Ace decided to stop in a cantina. I went along to see if their pineapple squash was real. It wasn’t, but it was cold. You can’t have everything.
We talked about this and that and Ace ordered another round. I tried their strawberry squash—same deal. Ace stared into his glass, then said, “Ever thought about greasing for officer?”
I said, “Huh? Are you crazy?”
“Nope. Look, Johnnie, this war may run on quite a piece. No matter what propaganda they put out for the folks at home, you and I know that the
Bugs aren’t ready to quit. So why don’t you plan ahead? As the man says, if you’ve got to play in the band, it’s better to wave the stick than to carry
the big drum.”
I was startled by the turn the talk had taken, especially from Ace. “How about you? Are you planning to buck for a commission?”
“Me?” he answered. “Check your circuits, son—you’re getting wrong answers. I’ve got no education and I’m ten years older than you are. But
you’ve got enough education to hit the selection exams for O.C.S. and you’ve got the I.Q. they like. I guarantee that if you go career, you’ll make sergeant before I do . . . and get picked for O.C.S. the day after.”
“Now I know you’re crazy!”
“You listen to your pop. I hate to tell you this, but you are just stupid and eager and sincere enough to make the kind of officer that men love to follow into some silly predicament. But me—well, I’m a natural non-com, with the proper pessimistic attitude to offset the enthusiasm of the likes of you. Someday I’ll make sergeant . . . and presently I’ll have my twenty years in and retire and get one of the reserved jobs—cop, maybe—and marry a nice fat wife with the same low tastes I have, and I’ll follow the sports and fish and go pleasantly to pieces.”
Ace stopped to wet his whistle. “But you,” he went on. “You’ll stay in and probably make high rank and die gloriously and I’ll read about it and say proudly, ‘I knew him when. Why, I used to lend him money—we were corporals together.’ Well?”
“I’ve never thought about it,” I said slowly. “I just meant to serve my term.”
He grinned sourly. “Do you see any term enrollees being paid off today? You expect to make it on two years?”
He had a point. As long as the war continued, a “term” didn’t end—at least not for cap troopers. It was mostly a difference in attitude, at least for the present. Those of us on “term” could at least feel like short-timers; we could talk about: “When this flea-bitten war is over.” A career man didn’t say that; he wasn’t going anywhere, short of retirement—or buying it.
On the other hand, neither were we. But if you went “career” and then didn’t finish twenty . . . well, they could be pretty sticky about your franchise even though they wouldn’t keep a man who didn’t want to stay.
“Maybe not a two-year term,” I admitted. “But the war won’t last forever.” “It won’t?”
“How can it?”
“Blessed if I know. They don’t tell me these things. But I know that’s not what is troubling you, Johnnie. You got a girl waiting?”
“No. Well, I had,” I answered slowly, “but she ‘Dear-Johned’ me.” As a lie, this was no more than a mild decoration, which I tucked in because Ace
seemed to expect it. Carmen wasn’t my girl and she never waited for anybody—but she did address letters with “Dear Johnnie” on the infrequent occasions when she wrote to me.
Ace nodded wisely. “They’ll do it every time. They’d rather marry civilians and have somebody around to chew out when they feel like it. Never you mind, son—you’ll find plenty of them more than willing to marry when you’re retired . . . and you’ll be better able to handle one at that age. Marriage
is a young man’s disaster and an old man’s comfort.” He looked at my glass. “It nauseates me to see you drinking that slop.” “I feel the same way about the stuff you drink,” I told him.
He shrugged. “As I say, it takes all kinds. You think it over.” “I will.”
Ace got into a card game shortly after, and lent me some money and I went for a walk; I needed to think.
Go career? Quite aside from that noise about a commission, did I want to go career? Why, I had gone through all this to get my franchise, hadn’t I?—and if I went career, I was just as far away from the privilege of voting as if I had never enrolled . . . because as long as you were still in uniform you weren’t entitled to vote. Which was the way it should be, of course—why, if they let the Roughnecks vote the idiots might vote not to make a drop. Can’t have that.
Nevertheless I had signed up in order to win a vote. Or had I?
Had I ever cared about voting? No, it was the prestige, the pride, the status . . . of being a citizen. Or was it?
I couldn’t to save my life remember why I had signed up.
Anyhow, it wasn’t the process of voting that made a citizen—the Lieutenant had been a citizen in the truest sense of the word, even though he
had not lived long enough ever to cast a ballot. He had “voted” every time he made a drop. And so had I!
I could hear Colonel Dubois in my mind: “Citizenship is an attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part
. . . and that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself that the whole may live.”
I still didn’t know whether I yearned to place my one-and-only body “between my loved home and the war’s desolation”—I still got the shakes every drop and that “desolation” could be pretty desolate. But nevertheless I knew at last what Colonel Dubois had been talking about. The M.I. was mine and I was theirs. If that was what the M.I. did to break the monotony, then that was what I did. Patriotism was a bit esoteric for me, too large- scale to see. But the M.I. was my gang, I belonged. They were all the family I had left; they were the brothers I had never had, closer than Carl had ever been. If I left them, I’d be lost.
So why shouldn’t I go career?
All right, all right—but how about this nonsense of greasing for a commission? That was something else again. I could see myself putting in twenty years and then taking it easy, the way Ace had described, with ribbons on my chest and carpet slippers on my feet . . . or evenings down at
the Veterans Hall, rehashing old times with others who belonged. But O.C.S.? I could hear Al Jenkins, in one of the bull sessions we had about such things: “I’m a private! I’m going to stay a private! When you’re a private they don’t expect anything of you. Who wants to be an officer? Or even a sergeant? You’re breathing the same air, aren’t you? Eating the same food. Going the same places, making the same drops. But no worries.”
Al had a point. What had chevrons ever gotten me?—aside from lumps.
Nevertheless I knew I would take sergeant if it was ever offered to me. You don’t refuse, a cap trooper doesn’t refuse anything; he steps up and takes a swing at it. Commission, too, I supposed.
Not that it would happen. Who was I to think that I could ever be what Lieutenant Rasczak had been?
My walk had taken me close to the candidates’ school, though I don’t believe I intended to come that way. A company of cadets were out on their parade ground, drilling at trot, looking for all the world like boots in Basic. The sun was hot and it looked not nearly as comfortable as a bull session
in the drop room of the Rodger Young—why, I hadn’t marched farther than bulkhead thirty since I had finished Basic; that breaking-in nonsense was past.
I watched them a bit, sweating through their uniforms; I heard them being chewed out—by sergeants, too. Old Home Week. I shook my head and walked away from there—
—went back to the accommodation barracks, over to the B.O.Q. wing, found Jelly’s room.
He was in it, his feet up on a table and reading a magazine. I knocked on the frame of the door. He looked up and growled, “Yeah?” “Sarge—I mean, Lieutenant—”
“Spit it out!”
“Sir, I want to go career.”
He dropped his feet to the desk. “Put up your right hand.”
He swore me, reached into the drawer of the table and pulled out papers.
He had my papers already made out, waiting for me ready to sign. And I hadn’t even told Ace. How about that?
CH:12
It is by no means enough that an officer should be capable. . . . He should be as well a gentleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor. . . . No meritorious act of a subordinate should escape his attention, even if the reward be only one word of approval. Conversely, he should not be blind to a single fault in any subordinate.
True as may be the political principles for which we are nowcontending . . . the shipsthemselves must be ruled under a system of absolute despotism.
I trust that I have nowmade clear to you the tremendous responsibilities. . . . We must do thebest we can with what we have.
—John Paul Jones, September 14, 1775; excerpts from a letter to the naval committee of the N.A. insurrectionists
The Rodger Young was again returning to Base for replacements, both capsules and men. Al Jenkins had bought his farm, covering a pickup— and that one had cost us the Padre, too. And besides that, I had to be replaced. I was wearing brand-new sergeant’s chevrons (vice Migliaccio) but I had a hunch that Ace would be wearing them as soon as I was out of the ship—they were mostly honorary, I knew; the promotion was Jelly’s way of giving me a good send-off as I was detached for O.C.S.
But it didn’t keep me from being proud of them. At the Fleet landing field I went through the exit gate with my nose in the air and strode up to the quarantine desk to have my orders stamped. As this was being done I heard a polite, respectful voice behind me: “Excuse me, Sergeant, but that
boat that just came down—is it from the Rodger—”
I turned to see the speaker, flicked my eyes over his sleeves, saw that it was a small, slightly stoop-shouldered corporal, no doubt one of our—
“Father!”
Then the corporal had his arms around me. “Juan! Juan! Oh, my little Johnnie!”
I kissed him and hugged him and started to cry. Maybe that civilian clerk at the quarantine desk had never seen two non-coms kiss each other before. Well, if I had noticed him so much as lifting an eyebrow, I would have pasted him. But I didn’t notice him; I was busy. He had to remind me to take my orders with me.
By then we had blown our noses and quit making an open spectacle of ourselves. I said, “Father, let’s find a corner somewhere and sit down and
talk. I want to know . . . well, everything!” I took a deep breath. “I thought you were dead.”
“No. Came close to buying it once or twice, maybe. But, Son . . . Sergeant—I really do have to find out about that landing boat. You see—”
“Oh, that. It’s from the Rodger Young. I just—”
He looked terribly disappointed. “Then I’ve got to bounce, right now. I’ve got to report in.” Then he added eagerly, “But you’ll be back aboard
soon, won’t you, Juanito? Or are you going on R&R?”
“Uh, no.” I thought fast. Of all the ways to have things roll! “Look, Father, I know the boat schedule. You can’t go aboard for at least an hour and a
bit. That boat is not on a fast retrieve; she’ll make a minimum-fuel rendezvous when the Rog completes this pass—if the pilot doesn’t have to wait over for the next pass after that; they’ve got to load first.”
He said dubiously, “My orders read to report at once to the pilot of the first available ship’s boat.”
“Father, Father! Do you have to be so confounded regulation? The girl who’s pushing that heap won’t care whether you board the boat now, or
just as they button up. Anyhow they’ll play the ship’s recall over the speakers in here ten minutes before boost and announce it. You can’t miss it.” He let me lead him over to an empty corner. As we sat down he added, “Will you be going up in the same boat, Juan? Or later?”
“Uh—” I showed him my orders; it seemed the simplest way to break the news. Ships that pass in the night, like the Evangeline story—cripes, what a way for things to break!
He read them and got tears in his eyes and I said hastily, “Look, Father, I’m going to try to come back—I wouldn’t want any other outfit than the Roughnecks. And with you in them . . . oh, I know it’s disappointing but—”
“It’s not disappointment, Juan.” “Huh?”
“It’s pride. My boy is going to be an officer. My little Johnnie—Oh, it’s disappointment, too; I had waited for this day. But I can wait a while longer.” He smiled through his tears. “You’ve grown, lad. And filled out, too.”
“Uh, I guess so. But, Father, I’m not an officer yet and I might only be out of the Rog a few days. I mean, they sometimes bust ’em out pretty fast and—”
“Enough of that, young man!” “Huh?”
“You’ll make it. Let’s have no more talk of ‘busting out.’” Suddenly he smiled. “That’s the first time I’ve been able to tell a sergeant to shut up.”
“Well . . . I’ll certainly try, Father. And if I do make it, I’ll certainly put in for the old Rog. But—” I trailed off.
“Yes, I know. Your request won’t mean anything unless there’s a billet for you. Never mind. If this hour is all we have, we’ll make the most of it—
and I’m so proud of you I’m splitting my seams. How have you been, Johnnie?”
“Oh, fine, just fine.” I was thinking that it wasn’t all bad. He would be better off in the Roughnecks than in any other outfit. All my friends . . . they’d take care of him, keep him alive. I’d have to send a gram to Ace—Father like as not wouldn’t even let them know he was related. “Father, how long have you been in?”
“A little over a year.” “And corporal already!”
Father smiled grimly. “They’re making them fast these days.”
I didn’t have to ask what he meant. Casualties. There were always vacancies in the T.O.; you couldn’t get enough trained soldiers to fill them. Instead I said, “Uh . . . but, Father, you’re—Well, I mean, aren’t you sort of old to be soldiering? I mean the Navy, or Logistics, or—”
“I wanted the M.I. and I got it!” he said emphatically. “And I’m no older than many sergeants—not as old, in fact. Son, the mere fact that I am twenty-two years older than you are doesn’t put me in a wheel chair. And age has its advantages, too.”
Well, there was something in that. I recalled how Sergeant Zim had always tried the older men first, when he was dealing out boot chevrons. And Father would never have goofed in Basic the way I had—no lashes for him. He was probably spotted as non-com material before he ever finished Basic. The Army needs a lot of really grown-up men in the middle grades; it’s a paternalistic organization.
I didn’t have to ask him why he had wanted M.I., nor why or how he had wound up in my ship—I just felt warm about it, more flattered by it than any
praise he had ever given me in words. And I didn’t want to ask him why he had joined up; I felt that I knew. Mother. Neither of us had mentioned her
—too painful.
So I changed the subject abruptly. “Bring me up to date. Tell me where you’ve been and what you’ve done.” “Well, I trained at Camp San Martín—”
“Huh? Not Currie?”
“New one. But the same old lumps, I understand. Only they rush you through two months faster, you don’t get Sundays off. Then I requested the
Rodger Young—and didn’t get it—and wound up in McSlattery’s Volunteers. A good outfit.”
“Yes, I know.” They had had a reputation for being rough, tough, and nasty—almost as good as the Roughnecks.
“I should say that it was a good outfit. I made several drops with them and some of the boys bought it and after a while I got these.” He glanced at
his chevrons. “I was a corporal when we dropped on Sheol—”
“You were there? So was I!” With a sudden warm flood of emotion I felt closer to my father than I ever had before in my life.
“I know. At least I knew your outfit was there. I was about fifty miles north of you, near as I can guess. We soaked up that counterattack when they
came boiling up out of the ground like bats out of a cave.” Father shrugged. “So when it was over I was a corporal without an outfit, not enough of us left to make a healthy cadre. So they sent me here. I could have gone with King’s Kodiak Bears, but I had a word with the placement sergeant—
and, sure as sunrise, the Rodger Young came back with a billet for a corporal. So here I am.”
“And when did you join up?” I realized that it was the wrong remark as soon as I had made it—but I had to get the subject away from McSlattery’s
Volunteers; an orphan from a dead outfit wants to forget it. Father said quietly, “Shortly after Buenos Aires.”
“Oh. I see.”
Father didn’t say anything for several moments. Then he said softly, “I’m not sure that you do see, Son.” “Sir?”
“Mmm . . . it will not be easy to explain. Certainly, losing your mother had a great deal to do with it. But I didn’t enroll to avenge her—even though I had that in mind, too. You had more to do with it—”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. Son, I always understood what you were doing better than your mother did—don’t blame her; she never had a chance to know, any
more than a bird can understand swimming. And perhaps I knew why you did it, even though I beg to doubt that you knew yourself, at the time. At least half of my anger at you was sheer resentment . . . that you had actually done something that I knew, buried deep in my heart, I should have done. But you weren’t the cause of my joining up, either . . . you merely helped trigger it and you did control the service I chose.”
He paused. “I wasn’t in good shape at the time you enrolled. I was seeing my hypnotherapist pretty regularly—you never suspected that, did you?
—but we had gotten no farther than a clear recognition that I was enormously dissatisfied. After you left, I took it out on you—but it was not you, and I knew it and my therapist knew it. I suppose I knew that there was real trouble brewing earlier than most; we were invited to bid on military components fully a month before the state of emergency was announced. We had converted almost entirely to war production while you were still in training.
“I felt better during that period, worked to death and too busy to see my therapist. Then I became more troubled than ever.” He smiled. “Son, do you know about civilians?”
“Well . . . we don’t talk the same language. I know that.”
“Clearly enough put. Do you remember Madame Ruitman? I was on a few days leave after I finished Basic and I went home. I saw some of our friends, said goodby—she among them. She chattered away and said, ‘So you’re really going out? Well, if you reach Faraway, you really must look up my dear friends the Regatos.’
“I told her, as gently as I could, that it seemed unlikely, since the Arachnids had occupied Faraway.
“It didn’t faze her in the least. She said, ‘Oh, that’s all right—they’re civilians!’” Father smiled cynically. “Yes, I know.”
“But I’m getting ahead of my story. I told you that I was getting still more upset. Your mother’s death released me for what I had to do . . . even though she and I were closer than most, nevertheless it set me free to do it. I turned the business over to Morales—”
“Old man Morales? Can he handle it?”
“Yes. Because he has to. A lot of us are doing things we didn’t know we could. I gave him a nice chunk of stock—you know the old saying about
the kine that tread the grain—and the rest I split two ways, in a trust: half to the Daughters of Charity, half to you whenever you want to go back and take it. If you do. Never mind. I had at last found out what was wrong with me.” He stopped, then said very softly, “I had to perform an act of faith. I
had to prove to myself that I was a man. Not just a producing-consuming economic animal . . . but a man.”
At that moment, before I could answer anything, the wall speakers around us sang: “—shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young!” and a girl’s voice added, “Personnel for F.C.T. Rodger Young, stand to boat. Berth H. Nine minutes.”
Father bounced to his feet, grabbed his kit roll. “That’s mine! Take care of yourself, Son—and hit those exams. Or you’ll find you’re still not too big
to paddle.”
“I will, Father.”
He embraced me hastily. “See you when we get back!” And he was gone, on the bounce.
In the Commandant’s outer office I reported to a fleet sergeant who looked remarkably like Sergeant Ho, even to lacking an arm. However, he lacked Sergeant Ho’s smile as well. I said, “Career Sergeant Juan Rico, to report to the Commandant pursuant to orders.”
He glanced at the clock. “Your boat was down seventy-three minutes ago. Well?”
So I told him. He pulled his lip and looked at me meditatively. “I’ve heard every excuse in the book. But you’ve just added a new page. Your father, your own father, really was reporting to your old ship just as you were detached?”
“The bare truth, Sergeant. You can check it—Corporal Emilio Rico.”
“We don’t check the statements of the ‘young gentlemen’ around here. We simply cashier them if it ever turns out that they have not told the truth. Okay, a boy who wouldn’t be late in order to see his old man off wouldn’t be worth much in any case. Forget it.”
“Thanks, Sergeant. Do I report to the Commandant now?”
“You’ve reported to him.” He made a check mark on a list. “Maybe a month from now he’ll send for you along with a couple of dozen others. Here’s your room assignment, here’s a checkoff list you start with—and you can start by cutting off those chevrons. But save them; you may need them later. But as of this moment you are ‘Mister,’ not ‘Sergeant.’”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me ‘sir.’ I call you ‘sir.’ But you won’t like it.”
I am not going to describe Officer Candidates School. It’s like Basic, but squared and cubed with books added. In the mornings we behaved like privates, doing the same old things we had done in Basic and in combat and being chewed out for the way we did them—by sergeants. In the afternoons we were cadets and “gentlemen,” and recited on and were lectured concerning an endless list of subjects: math, science, galactography, xenology, hypnopedia, logistics, strategy and tactics, communications, military law, terrain reading, special weapons, psychology of leadership, anything from the care and feeding of privates to why Xerxes lost the big one. Most especially how to be a one-man catastrophe yourself while keeping track of fifty other men, nursing them, loving them, leading them, saving them—but never babying them.
We had beds, which we used all too little; we had rooms and showers and inside plumbing; and each four candidates had a civilian servant, to make our beds and clean our rooms and shine our shoes and lay out our uniforms and run errands. This service was not intended as a luxury and was not; its purpose was to give the student more time to accomplish the plainly impossible by relieving him of things any graduate of Basic can already do perfectly.
Six days shalt thou work and do all thou art able, The seventh the same and pound on the cable.
Or the Army version ends:—and clean out the stable, which shows you how many centuries this sort of thing has been going on. I wish I could catch just one of those civilians who think we loaf and put them through one month of O.C.S.
In the evenings and all day Sundays we studied until our eyes burned and our ears ached—then slept (if we slept) with a hypnopedic speaker droning away under the pillow.
Our marching songs were appropriately downbeat: “No Army for mine, no Army for mine! I’d rather be behind the plow any old time!” and “Don’t wanta study war no more,” and “Don’t make my boy a soldier, the weeping mother cried,” and—favorite of all—the old classic “Gentlemen Rankers” with its chorus about the Little Lost Sheep: “—God ha’ pity on such as we. Baa! Yah! Bah!”
Yet somehow I don’t remember being unhappy. Too busy, I guess. There was never that psychological “hump” to get over, the one everybody hits in Basic; there was simply the ever-present fear of flunking out. My poor preparation in math bothered me especially. My roommate, a colonial from
Hesperus with the oddly appropriate name of “Angel,” sat up night after night, tutoring me.
Most of the instructors, especially the officers, were disabled. The only ones I can remember who had a full complement of arms, legs, eyesight, hearing, etc., were some of the non-commissioned combat instructors—and not all of those. Our coach in dirty fighting sat in a powered chair, wearing a plastic collar, and was completely paralyzed from the neck down. But his tongue wasn’t paralyzed, his eye was photographic, and the savage way in which he could analyze and criticize what he had seen made up for his minor impediment.
At first I wondered why those obvious candidates for physical retirement and full-pay pension didn’t take it and go home. Then I quit wondering. I guess the high point in my whole cadet course was a visit from Ensign Ibañez, she of the dark eyes, junior watch officer and pilot-under-
instruction of the Corvette Transport Mannerheim. Carmencita showed up, looking incredibly pert in Navy dress whites and about the size of a paperweight, while my class was lined up for evening meal muster—walked down the line and you could hear eyeballs click as she passed— walked straight up to the duty officer and asked for me by name in a clear, penetrating voice.
The duty officer, Captain Chandar, was widely believed never to have smiled at his own mother, but he smiled down at little Carmen, straining his face out of shape, and admitted my existence . . . whereupon she waved her long black lashes at him, explained that her ship was about to boost
and could she please take me out to dinner?
And I found myself in possession of a highly irregular and totally unprecedented three-hour pass. It may be that the Navy has developed hypnosis
techniques that they have not yet gotten around to passing on to the Army. Or her secret weapon may be older than that and not usable by M.I. In any case I not only had a wonderful time but my prestige with my classmates, none too high until then, climbed to amazing heights.
It was a glorious evening and well worth flunking two classes the next day. It was somewhat dimmed by the fact that we had each heard about Carl—killed when the Bugs smashed our research station on Pluto—but only somewhat, as we had each learned to live with such things.
One thing did startle me. Carmen relaxed and took off her hat while we were eating, and her blue-black hair was all gone. I knew that a lot of the Navy girls shaved their heads—after all, it’s not practical to take care of long hair in a war ship and, most especially, a pilot can’t risk having her hair floating around, getting in the way, in any free-fall maneuvers. Shucks, I shaved my own scalp, just for convenience and cleanliness. But my mental picture of little Carmen included this mane of thick, wavy hair.
But, do you know, once you get used to it, it’s rather cute. I mean, if a girl looks all right to start with, she still looks all right with her head smooth. And it does serve to set a Navy girl apart from civilian chicks—sort of a lodge pin, like the gold skulls for combat drops. It made Carmen look distinguished, gave her dignity, and for the first time I fully realized that she really was an officer and a fighting man—as well as a very pretty girl.
I got back to barracks with stars in my eyes and whiffing slightly of perfume. Carmen had kissed me good-by.
The only O.C.S. classroom course the content of which I’m even going to mention was: History and Moral Philosophy.
I was surprised to find it in the curriculum. H. & M. P. has nothing to do with combat and how to lead a platoon; its connection with war (where it is
connected) is in why to fight—a matter already settled for any candidate long before he reaches O.C.S. An M.I. fights because he is M.I.
I decided that the course must be a repeat for the benefit of those of us (maybe a third) who had never had it in school. Over 20 per cent of my
cadet class were not from Terra (a much higher percentage of colonials sign up to serve than do people born on Earth—sometimes it makes you wonder) and of the three-quarters or so from Terra, some were from associated territories and other places where H. & M. P. might not be taught. So I figured it for a cinch course which would give me a little rest from tough courses, the ones with decimal points.
Wrong again. Unlike my high school course, you had to pass it. Not by examination, however. The course included examinations and prepared papers and quizzes and such—but no marks. What you had to have was the instructor’s opinion that you were worthy of commission.
If he gave you a downcheck, a board sat on you, questioning not merely whether you could be an officer but whether you belonged in the Army at
any rank, no matter how fast you might be with weapons—deciding whether to give you extra instruction . . . or just kick you out and let you be a civilian.
History and Moral Philosophy works like a delayed-action bomb. You wake up in the middle of the night and think: Now what did he mean by
that? That had been true even with my high school course; I simply hadn’t known what Colonel Dubois was talking about. When I was a kid I thought it was silly for the course to be in the science department. It was nothing like physics or chemistry; why wasn’t it over in the fuzzy studies where it belonged? The only reason I paid attention was because there were such lovely arguments.
I had no idea that “Mr.” Dubois was trying to teach me why to fight until long after I had decided to fight anyhow.
Well, why should I fight? Wasn’t it preposterous to expose my tender skin to the violence of unfriendly strangers? Especially as the pay at any rank was barely spending money, the hours terrible, and the working conditions worse? When I could be sitting at home while such matters were
handled by thick-skulled characters who enjoyed such games? Particularly when the strangers against whom I fought never had done anything to me personally until I showed up and started kicking over their tea wagon—what sort of nonsense is this?
Fight because I’m an M.I.? Brother, you’re drooling like Dr. Pavlov’s dogs. Cut it out and start thinking.
Major Reid, our instructor, was a blind man with a disconcerting habit of looking straight at you and calling you by name. We were reviewing events after the war between the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance and the Chinese Hegemony, 1987 and following. But this was the day that we heard the news of the destruction of San Francisco and the San Joaquin Valley; I thought he would give us a pep talk. After all, even a civilian ought to be able to figure it out now—the Bugs or us. Fight or die.
Major Reid didn’t mention San Francisco. He had one of us apes summarize the negotiated treaty of New Delhi, discuss how it ignored
prisoners of war . . . and, by implication, dropped the subject forever; the armistice became a stalemate and prisoners stayed where they were—on one side; on the other side they were turned loose and, during the Disorders, made their way home—or not if they didn’t want to.
Major Reid’s victim summed up the unreleased prisoners : survivors of two divisions of British paratroopers, some thousands of civilians, captured mostly in Japan, the Philippines, and Russia and sentenced for “political” crimes.
“Besides that, there were many other military prisoners,” Major Reid’s victim went on, “captured during and before the war—there were rumors that some had been captured in an earlier war and never released. The total of unreleased prisoners was never known. The best estimates place the number around sixty-five thousand.”
“Why the ‘best’?”
“Uh, that’s the estimate in the textbook, sir.”
“Please be precise in your language. Was the number greater or less than one hundred thousand?” “Uh, I don’t know, sir.”
“And nobody else knows. Was it greater than one thousand?” “Probably, sir. Almost certainly.”
“Utterly certain—because more than that eventually escaped, found their ways home, were tallied by name. I see you did not read your lesson
carefully. Mr. Rico!”
Now I am the victim. “Yes, sir.”
“Are a thousand unreleased prisoners sufficient reason to start or resume a war? Bear in mind that millions of innocent people may die, almost
certainly will die, if war is started or resumed.”
I didn’t hesitate. “Yes, sir! More than enough reason.”
“‘More than enough.’ Very well, is one prisoner, unreleased by the enemy, enough reason to start or resume a war?”
I hesitated. I knew the M.I. answer—but I didn’t think that was the one he wanted. He said sharply, “Come, come, Mister! We have an upper limit
of one thousand; I invited you to consider a lower limit of one. But you can’t pay a promissory note which reads ‘somewhere between one and one
thousand pounds’—and starting a war is much more serious than paying a trifle of money. Wouldn’t it be criminal to endanger a country—two countries in fact—to save one man? Especially as he may not deserve it? Or may die in the meantime? Thousands of people get killed every day in accidents . . . so why hesitate over one man? Answer! Answer yes, or answer no—you’re holding up the class.”
He got my goat. I gave him the cap trooper’s answer. “Yes, sir!” “‘Yes’ what?”
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s a thousand—or just one, sir. You fight.”
“Aha! The number of prisoners is irrelevant. Good. Now prove your answer.”
I was stuck. I knewit was the right answer. But I didn’t know why. He kept hounding me. “Speak up, Mr. Rico. This is an exact science. You have
made a mathematical statement; you must give proof. Someone may claim that you have asserted, by analogy, that one potato is worth the same
price, no more, no less, as one thousand potatoes. No?” “No, sir!”
“Why not? Prove it.” “Men are not potatoes.”
“Good, good, Mr. Rico! I think we have strained your tired brain enough for one day. Bring to class tomorrow a written proof, in symbolic logic, of your answer to my original question. I’ll give you a hint. See reference seven in today’s chapter. Mr. Salomon! How did the present political organization evolve out of the Disorders? And what is its moral justification?”
Sally stumbled through the first part. However, nobody can describe accurately how the Federation came about; it just grew. With national governments in collapse at the end of the XXth century, something had to fill the vacuum, and in many cases it was returned veterans. They had lost a war, most of them had no jobs, many were sore as could be over the terms of the Treaty of New Delhi, especially the P.O.W. foul-up—and they knew how to fight. But it wasn’t revolution; it was more like what happened in Russia in 1917—the system collapsed; somebody else moved in.
The first known case, in Aberdeen, Scotland, was typical. Some veterans got together as vigilantes to stop rioting and looting, hanged a few people (including two veterans) and decided not to let anyone but veterans on their committee. Just arbitrary at first—they trusted each other a bit, they didn’t trust anyone else. What started as an emergency measure became constitutional practice . . . in a generation or two.
Probably those Scottish veterans, since they were finding it necessary to hang some veterans, decided that, if they had to do this, they weren’t going to let any “bleedin’, profiteering, black-market, double-time-for-overtime, army-dodging, unprintable” civilians have any say about it. They’d do what they were told, see?—while us apes straightened things out! That’s my guess, because I might feel the same way . . . and historians agree
that antagonism between civilians and returned soldiers was more intense than we can imagine today.
Sally didn’t tell it by the book. Finally Major Reid cut him off. “Bring a summary to class tomorrow, three thousand words. Mr. Salomon, can you give me a reason—not historical nor theoretical but practical—why the franchise is today limited to discharged veterans?”
“Uh, because they are picked men, sir. Smarter.”
“Preposterous!” “Sir?”
“Is the word too long for you? I said it was a silly notion. Service men are not brighter than civilians. In many cases civilians are much more
intelligent. That was the sliver of justification underlying the attempted coup d’état just before the Treaty of New Delhi, the so-called ‘Revolt of the Scientists’: let the intelligent elite run things and you’ll have utopia. It fell flat on its foolish face of course. Because the pursuit of science, despite its social benefits, is itself not a social virtue; its practitioners can be men so self-centered as to be lacking in social responsibility. I’ve given you a hint, Mister; can you pick it up?”
Sally answered, “Uh, service men are disciplined, sir.”
Major Reid was gentle with him. “Sorry. An appealing theory not backed up by facts. You and I are not permitted to vote as long as we remain in the Service, nor is it verifiable that military discipline makes a man self-disciplined once he is out; the crime rate of veterans is much like that of civilians. And you have forgotten that in peacetime most veterans come from non-combatant auxiliary services and have not been subjected to the full rigors of military discipline; they have merely been harried, overworked, and endangered—yet their votes count.”
Major Reid smiled. “Mr. Salomon, I handed you a trick question. The practical reason for continuing our system is the same as the practical reason for continuing anything: It works satisfactorily.
“Nevertheless, it is instructive to observe the details. Throughout history men have labored to place the sovereign franchise in hands that would guard it well and use it wisely, for the benefit of all. An early attempt was absolute monarchy, passionately defended as the ‘divine right of kings.’
“Sometimes attempts were made to select a wise monarch, rather than leave it up to God, as when the Swedes picked a Frenchman, General Bernadotte, to rule them. The objection to this is that the supply of Bernadottes is limited.
“Historic examples ranged from absolute monarch to utter anarch; mankind has tried thousands of ways and many more have been proposed,
some weird in the extreme such as the antlike communism urged by Plato under the misleading title The Republic. But the intent has always been moralistic: to provide stable and benevolent government.
“All systems seek to achieve this by limiting franchise to those who are believed to have the wisdom to use it justly. I repeat ‘all systems’; even the so-called ‘unlimited democracies’ excluded from franchise not less than one-quarter of their populations by age, birth, poll tax, criminal record, or other.”
Major Reid smiled cynically. “I have never been able to see how a thirty-year-old moron can vote more wisely than a fifteen-year-old genius . . . but that was the age of the ‘divine right of the common man.’ Never mind, they paid for their folly.
“The sovereign franchise has been bestowed by all sorts of rules—place of birth, family of birth, race, sex, property, education, age, religion, et cetera. All these systems worked and none of them well. All were regarded as tyrannical by many, all eventually collapsed or were overthrown.
“Now here are we with still another system . . . and our system works quite well. Many complain but none rebel; personal freedom for all is greatest in history, laws are few, taxes are low, living standards are as high as productivity permits, crime is at its lowest ebb. Why? Not because our voters are smarter than other people; we’ve disposed of that argument. Mr. Tammany—can you tell us why our system works better than any used by our ancestors?”
I don’t know where Clyde Tammany got his name; I’d take him for a Hindu. He answered, “Uh, I’d venture to guess that it’s because the electors are a small group who know that the decisions are up to them . . . so they study the issues.”
“No guessing, please; this is exact science. And your guess is wrong. The ruling nobles of many another system were a small group fully aware of their grave power. Furthermore, our franchised citizens are not everywhere a small fraction; you know or should know that the percentage of citizens among adults ranges from over eighty per cent on Iskander to less than three per cent in some Terran nations—yet government is much the same everywhere. Nor are the voters picked men; they bring no special wisdom, talent, or training to their sovereign tasks. So what difference is there between our voters and wielders of franchise in the past? We have had enough guesses; I’ll state the obvious: Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.
“And that is the one practical difference.
“He may fail in wisdom, he may lapse in civic virtue. But his average performance is enormously better than that of any other class of rulers in history.”
Major Reid paused to touch the face of an old-fashioned watch, “reading” its hands. “The period is almost over and we have yet to determine the
moral reason for our success in governing ourselves. Now continued success is never a matter of chance. Bear in mind that this is science, not wishful thinking; the universe is what it is, not what we want it to be. To vote is to wield authority; it is the supreme authority from which all other authority derives—such as mine to make your lives miserable once a day. Force, if you will!—the franchise is force, naked and raw, the Power of the Rods and the Ax. Whether it is exerted by ten men or by ten billion, political authority is force.
“But this universe consists of paired dualities. What is the converse of authority? Mr. Rico.”
He had picked one I could answer. “Responsibility, sir.”
“Applause. Both for practical reasons and for mathematically verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal—else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy. The unlimited democracies were unstable because their citizens were not responsible for the fashion in which they exerted their sovereign authority . . . other than through the tragic logic of history. The unique ‘poll tax’ that we must pay was unheard of. No attempt was made to determine whether a voter was socially responsible to the extent of his literally unlimited authority. If he voted the impossible, the disastrous possible happened instead—and responsibility was then forced on him willy-nilly and destroyed both him and his foundationless temple.
“Superficially, our system is only slightly different; we have democracy unlimited by race, color, creed, birth, wealth, sex, or conviction, and anyone may win sovereign power by a usually short and not too arduous term of service—nothing more than a light workout to our cave-man ancestors. But that slight difference is one between a system that works, since it is constructed to match the facts, and one that is inherently unstable. Since sovereign franchise is the ultimate in human authority, we insure that all who wield it accept the ultimate in social responsibility—we require each person who wishes to exert control over the state to wager his own life—and lose it, if need be—to save the life of the state. The maximum
responsibility a human can accept is thus equated to the ultimate authority a human can exert. Yin and yang, perfect and equal.”
The Major added, “Can anyone define why there has never been revolution against our system? Despite the fact that every government in history has had such? Despite the notorious fact that complaints are loud and unceasing?”
One of the older cadets took a crack at it. “Sir, revolution is impossible.” “Yes. But why?”
“Because revolution—armed uprising—requires not only dissatisfaction but aggressiveness. A revolutionist has to be willing to fight and die—or he’s just a parlor pink. If you separate out the aggressive ones and make them the sheep dogs, the sheep will never give you trouble.”
“Nicely put! Analogy is always suspect, but that one is close to the facts. Bring me a mathematical proof tomorrow. Time for one more question— you ask it and I’ll answer. Anyone?”
“Uh, sir, why not go—well, go the limit? Require everyone to serve and let everybody vote?” “Young man, can you restore my eyesight?”
“Sir? Why, no, sir!”
“You would find it much easier than to instill moral virtue—social responsibility—into a person who doesn’t have it, doesn’t want it, and resents having the burden thrust on him. This is why we make it so hard to enroll, so easy to resign. Social responsibility above the level of family, or at most of tribe, requires imagination—devotion, loyalty, all the higher virtues—which a man must develop himself; if he has them forced down him, he will vomit them out. Conscript armies have been tried in the past. Look up in the library the psychiatric report on brainwashed prisoners in the so-called ‘Korean War,’ circa 1950—the Mayor Report. Bring an analysis to class.” He touched his watch. “Dismissed.”
Major Reid gave us a busy time.
But it was interesting. I caught one of those master’s-thesis assignments he chucked around so casually; I had suggested that the Crusades were
different from most wars. I got sawed off and handed this: Required: to prove that war and moral perfection derive from the same genetic inheritance. Briefly, thus: All wars arise from population pressure. (Yes, even the Crusades, though you have to dig into trade routes and birth rate
and several other things to prove it. ) Morals—all correct moral rules—derive from the instinct to survive; moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level—as in a father who dies to save his children. But since population pressure results from the process of surviving through others, then war, because it results from population pressure, derives from the same inherited instinct which produces all moral rules suitable for human beings.
Check of proof: Is it possible to abolish war by relieving population pressure (and thus do away with the all-too-evident evils of war) through constructing a moral code under which population is limited to resources?
Without debating the usefulness or morality of planned parenthood, it may be verified by observation that any breed which stops its own increase gets crowded out by breeds which expand. Some human populations did so, in Terran history, and other breeds moved in and engulfed them.
Nevertheless, let’s assume that the human race manages to balance birth and death, just right to fit its own planets, and thereby becomes peaceful. What happens?
Soon (about next Wednesday) the Bugs move in, kill off this breed which “ain’ta gonna study war no more” and the universe forgets us. Which still may happen. Either we spread and wipe out the Bugs, or they spread and wipe us out—because both races are tough and smart and want the same real estate.
Do you know how fast population pressure could cause us to fill the entire universe shoulder to shoulder? The answer will astound you, just the flicker of an eye in terms of the age of our race.
Try it—it’s a compound-interest expansion.
But does Man have any “right” to spread through the universe?
Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive, and (so far) the ability, against all competition. Unless one accepts that, anything one says
about morals, war, politics—you name it—is nonsense. Correct morals arise from knowing what Man is—not what do-gooders and well-meaning old Aunt Nellies would like him to be.
The universe will let us know—later—whether or not Man has any “right” to expand through it.
In the meantime the M.I. will be in there, on the bounce and swinging, on the side of our own race.
Toward the end each of us was shipped out to serve under an experienced combat commander. This was a semifinal examination, your ’board- ship instructor could decide that you didn’t have what it takes. You could demand a board but I never heard of anybody who did; they either came back with an upcheck—or we never saw them again.
Some hadn’t failed; it was just that they were killed—because assignments were to ships about to go into action. We were required to keep kit bags packed—once at lunch, all the cadet officers of my company were tapped; they left without eating and I found myself cadet company commander.
Like boot chevrons, this is an uncomfortable honor, but in less than two days my own call came.
I bounced down to the Commandant’s office, kit bag over my shoulder and feeling grand. I was sick of late hours and burning eyes and never catching up, of looking stupid in class; a few weeks in the cheerful company of a combat team was just what Johnnie needed!
I passed some new cadets, trotting to class in close formation, each with the grim look that every O.C.S. candidate gets when he realizes that possibly he made a mistake in bucking for officer, and I found myself singing. I shut up when I was within earshot of the office.
Two others were there, Cadets Hassan and Byrd. Hassan the Assassin was the oldest man in our class and looked like something a fisherman had let out of a bottle, while Birdie wasn’t much bigger than a sparrow and about as intimidating.
We were ushered into the Holy of Holies. The Commandant was in his wheel chair—we never saw him out of it except Saturday inspection and parade, I guess walking hurt. But that didn’t mean you didn’t see him—you could be working a prob at the board, turn around and find that wheel chair behind you, and Colonel Nielssen reading your mistakes.
He never interrupted—there was a standing order not to shout “Attention!” But it’s disconcerting. There seemed to be about six of him.
The Commandant had a permanent rank of fleet general (yes, that Nielssen); his rank as colonel was temporary, pending second retirement, to permit him to be Commandant. I once questioned a paymaster about this and confirmed what the regulations seemed to say: The Commandant got only the pay of a colonel—but would revert to the pay of a fleet general on the day he decided to retire again.
Well, as Ace says, it takes all sorts—I can’t imagine choosing half pay for the privilege of riding herd on cadets.
Colonel Nielssen looked up and said, “Morning, gentlemen. Make yourselves comfortable.” I sat down but wasn’t comfortable. He glided over to a coffee machine, drew four cups, and Hassan helped him deal them out. I didn’t want coffee but a cadet doesn’t refuse the Commandant’s hospitality.
He took a sip. “I have your orders, gentlemen,” he announced, “and your temporary commissions.” He went on, “But I want to be sure you understand your status.”
We had already been lectured about this. We were going to be officers just enough for instruction and testing—“supernumerary, probationary, and temporary.” Very junior, quite superfluous, on good behavior, and extremely temporary; we would revert to cadet when we got back and could be busted at any time by the officers examining us.
We would be “temporary third lieutenants”—a rank as necessary as feet on a fish, wedged into the hairline between fleet sergeants and real officers. It is as low as you can get and still be called an “officer.” If anybody ever saluted a third lieutenant, the light must have been bad.
“Your commission reads ‘third lieutenant,’” he went on, “but your pay stays the same, you continue to be addressed as ‘Mister,’ the only change in uniform is a shoulder pip even smaller than cadet insignia. You continue under instruction since it has not yet been settled that you are fit to be officers.” The Colonel smiled. “So why call you a ‘third lieutenant’?”
I had wondered about that. Why this whoopty-do of “commissions” that weren’t real commissions? Of course I knew the textbook answer.
“Mr. Byrd?” the Commandant said.
“Uh . . . to place us in the line of command, sir.”
“Exactly!” Colonel glided to a T.O. on one wall. It was the usual pyramid, with chain of command defined all the way down. “Look at this—” He pointed to a box connected to his own by a horizontal line; it read: ASSISTANT TO COMMANDANT (Miss Kendrick).
“Gentlemen,” he went on, “I would have trouble running this place without Miss Kendrick. Her head is a rapid-access file to everything that happens around here.” He touched a control on his chair and spoke to the air. “Miss Kendrick, what mark did Cadet Byrd receive in military law last
term?”
Her answer came back at once: “Ninety-three per cent, Commandant.”
“Thank you.” He continued, “You see? I sign anything if Miss Kendrick has initialed it. I would hate to have an investigating committee find out how often she signs my name and I don’t even see it. Tell me, Mr. Byrd . . . if I drop dead, does Miss Kendrick carry on to keep things moving?”
“Why, uh—” Birdie looked puzzled. “I suppose, with routine matters, she would do what was necess—”
“She wouldn’t do a blessed thing!” the Colonel thundered. “Until Colonel Chauncey told her what to do—his way. She is a very smart woman and understands what you apparently do not, namely, that she is not in the line of command and has no authority.”
He went on, “‘Line of command’ isn’t just a phrase; it’s as real as a slap in the face. If I ordered you to combat as a cadet the most you could do would be to pass along somebody else’s orders. If your platoon leader bought out and you then gave an order to a private—a good order, sensible and wise—you would be wrong and he would be just as wrong if he obeyed it. Because a cadet cannot be in the line of command. A cadet has no military existence, no rank, and is not a soldier. He is a student who will become a soldier—either an officer, or at his former rank. While he is under
Army discipline, he is not in the Army. That is why—”
A zero. A nought with no rim. If a cadet wasn’t even in the Army—“Colonel!”
“Eh? Speak up, young man. Mr. Rico.”
I had startled myself but I had to say it. “But . . . if we aren’t in the Army . . . then we aren’t M.I. Sir?” He blinked at me. “This worries you?”
“I, uh, don’t believe I like it much, sir.” I didn’t like it at all. I felt naked.
“I see.” He didn’t seem displeased. “You let me worry about the space-lawyer aspects of it, son.” “But—”
“That’s an order. You are technically not an M.I. But the M.I. hasn’t forgotten you; the M.I. never forgets its own no matter where they are. If you are struck dead this instant, you will be cremated as Second Lieutenant Juan Rico, Mobile Infantry, of—” Colonel Nielssen stopped. “Miss Kendrick, what was Mr. Rico’s ship?”
“The Rodger Young.”
“Thank you.” He added, “—in and of TFCT Rodger Young, assigned to mobile combat team Second Platoon of George Company, Third Regiment, First Division, M.I.—the ‘Roughnecks,’” he recited with relish, not consulting anything once he had been reminded of my ship. “A good outfit, Mr. Rico—proud and nasty. Your Final Orders go back to them for Taps and that’s the way your name would read in Memorial Hall. That’s why we always commission a dead cadet, son—so we can send him home to his mates.”
I felt a surge of relief and homesickness and missed a few words. “. . . lip buttoned while I talk, we’ll have you back in the M.I. where you belong. You must be temporary officers for your ’prentice cruise because there is no room for deadheads in a combat drop. You’ll fight—and take orders—
and give orders. Legal orders, because you will hold rank and be ordered to serve in that team; that makes any order you give in carrying out your assigned duties as binding as one signed by the C-in-C.
“Even more,” the Commandant went on, “once you are in line of command, you must be ready instantly to assume higher command. If you are in a one-platoon team—quite likely in the present state of the war—and you are assistant platoon leader when your platoon leader buys it . . . then . . .
you . . . are . . . It!”
He shook his head. “Not ‘acting platoon leader.’ Not a cadet leading a drill. Not a ‘junior officer under instruction.’ Suddenly you are the Old Man,
the Boss, Commanding Officer Present—and you discover with a sickening shock that fellow human beings are depending on you alone to tell them what to do, how to fight, how to complete the mission and get out alive. They wait for the sure voice of command—while seconds trickle away
—and it’s up to you to be that voice, make decisions, give the right orders . . . and not only the right ones but in a calm, unworried tone. Because it’s a cinch, gentlemen, that your team is in trouble—bad trouble!—and a strange voice with panic in it can turn the best combat team in the Galaxy into
a leaderless, lawless, fear-crazed mob.
“The whole merciless load will land without warning. You must act at once and you’ll have only God over you. Don’t expect Him to fill in tactical
details; that’s your job. He’ll be doing all that a soldier has a right to expect if He helps you keep the panic you are sure to feel out of your voice.” The Colonel paused. I was sobered and Birdie was looking terribly serious and awfully young and Hassan was scowling. I wished that I were
back in the drop room of the Rog, with not too many chevrons and an after-chow bull session in full swing. There was a lot to be said for the job of assistant section leader—when you come right to it, it’s a lot easier to die than it is to use your head.
The Commandant continued: “That’s the Moment of Truth, gentlemen. Regrettably there is no method known to military science to tell a real
officer from a glib imitation with pips on his shoulders, other than through ordeal by fire. Real ones come through—or die gallantly; imitations crack up.
“Sometimes, in cracking up, the misfits die. But the tragedy lies in the loss of others . . . good men, sergeants and corporals and privates, whose only lack is fatal bad fortune in finding themselves under the command of an incompetent.
“We try to avoid this. First is our unbreakable rule that every candidate must be a trained trooper, blooded under fire, a veteran of combat drops. No other army in history has stuck to this rule, although some came close. Most great military schools of the past—Saint Cyr, West Point, Sandhurst, Colorado Springs—didn’t even pretend to follow it; they accepted civilian boys, trained them, commissioned them, sent them out with no battle experience to command men . . . and sometimes discovered too late that this smart young ‘officer’ was a fool, a poltroon, or a hysteric.
“At least we have no misfits of those sorts. We know you are good soldiers—brave and skilled, proved in battle—else you would not be here. We know that your intelligence and education meet acceptable minimums. With this to start on, we eliminate as many as possible of the not-quite- competent—get them quickly back in ranks before we spoil good cap troopers by forcing them beyond their abilities. The course is very hard— because what will be expected of you later is still harder.
“In time we have a small group whose chances look fairly good. The major criterion left untested is one we cannot test here; that undefinable something which is the difference between a leader in battle . . . and one who merely has the earmarks but not the vocation. So we field-test for it.
“Gentlemen!—you have reached that point. Are you ready to take the oath?”
There was an instant of silence, then Hassan the Assassin answered firmly, “Yes, Colonel,” and Birdie and I echoed.
The Colonel frowned. “I have been telling you how wonderful you are—physically perfect, mentally alert, trained, disciplined, blooded. The very
model of the smart young officer—” He snorted. “Nonsense! You may become officers someday. I hope so . . . we not only hate to waste money and time and effort, but also, and much more important, I shiver in my boots every time I send one of you half-baked not-quite-officers up to the Fleet, knowing what a Frankensteinian monster I may be turning loose on a good combat team. If you understood what you are up against, you
wouldn’t be so all-fired ready to take the oath the second the question is put to you. You may turn it down and force me to let you go back to your permanent ranks. But you don’t know.
“So I’ll try once more. Mr. Rico! Have you ever thought how it would feel to be court-martialed for losing a regiment?”
I was startled silly. “Why—No, sir, I never have.” To be court-martialed—for any reason—is eight times as bad for an officer as for an enlisted man. Offenses which will get privates kicked out (maybe with lashes, possibly without) rate death in an officer. Better never to have been born!
“Think about it,” he said grimly. “When I suggested that your platoon leader might be killed, I was by no means citing the ultimate in military disaster. Mr. Hassan! What is the largest number of command levels ever knocked out in a single battle?”
The Assassin scowled harder than ever. “I’m not sure, sir. Wasn’t there a while during Operation Bughouse when a major commanded a brigade, before the Soveki-poo?”
“There was and his name was Fredericks. He got a decoration and a promotion. If you go back to the Second Global War, you can find a case in which a naval junior officer took command of a major ship and not only fought it but sent signals as if he were admiral. He was vindicated even though there were officers senior to him in line of command who were not even wounded. Special circumstances—a breakdown in communications. But I am thinking of a case in which four levels were wiped out in six minutes—as if a platoon leader were to blink his eyes and find himself commanding a brigade. Any of you heard of it?”
Dead silence.
“Very well. It was one of those bush wars that flared up on the edges of the Napoleonic wars. This young officer was the most junior in a naval vessel—wet navy, of course—wind-powered, in fact. This youngster was about the age of most of your class and was not commissioned. He carried the title of ‘temporary third lieutenant’—note that this is the title you are about to carry. He had no combat experience; there were four
officers in the chain of command above him. When the battle started his commanding officer was wounded. The kid picked him up and carried him
out of the line of fire. That’s all—make a pickup on a comrade. But he did it without being ordered to leave his post. The other officers all bought it
while he was doing this and he was tried for ‘deserting his post of duty as commanding officer in the presence of the enemy.’ Convicted. Cashiered.”
I gasped. “For that? Sir.”
“Why not? True, we make pickup. But we do it under different circumstances from a wet-navy battle, and by orders to the man making pickup. But
pickup is never an excuse for breaking off battle in the presence of the enemy. This boy’s family tried for a century and a half to get his conviction reversed. No luck, of course. There was doubt about some circumstances but no doubt that he had left his post during battle without orders. True,
he was green as grass—but he was lucky not to be hanged.” Colonel Nielssen fixed me with a cold eye. “Mr. Rico—could this happen to you?” I gulped. “I hope not, sir.”
“Let me tell you how it could on this very ’prentice cruise. Suppose you are in a multiple-ship operation, with a full regiment in the drop. Officers drop first, of course. There are advantages to this and disadvantages, but we do it for reasons of morale; no trooper ever hits the ground on a hostile planet without an officer. Assume the Bugs know this—and they may. Suppose they work up some trick to wipe out those who hit the ground first . . . but not good enough to wipe out the whole drop. Now suppose, since you are a supernumerary, you have to take any vacant capsule instead of being fired with the first wave. Where does that leave you?”
“Uh, I’m not sure, sir.”
“You have just inherited command of a regiment. What are you going to do with your command, Mister? Talk fast—the Bugs won’t wait!”
“Uh . . .” I caught an answer right out of the book and parroted it. “I’ll take command and act as circumstances permit, sir, according to the tactical
situation as I see it.”
“You will, eh?” The Colonel grunted. “And you’ll buy a farm too—that’s all anybody can do with a foul-up like that. But I hope you’ll go down swinging—and shouting orders to somebody, whether they make sense or not. We don’t expect kittens to fight wildcats and win—we merely expect them to try. All right, stand up. Put up your right hands.”
He struggled to his feet. Thirty seconds later we were officers—“temporary, probationary, and supernumerary.”
I thought he would give us our shoulder pips and let us go. We aren’t supposed to buy them—they’re a loan, like the temporary commission they represent. Instead he lounged back and looked almost human.
“See here, lads—I gave you a talk on how rough it’s going to be. I want you to worry about it, doing it in advance, planning what steps you might take against any combination of bad news that can come your way, keenly aware that your life belongs to your men and is not yours to throw away
in a suicidal reach for glory . . . and that your life isn’t yours to save, either, if the situation requires that you expend it. I want you to worry yourself sick
before a drop, so that you can be unruffled when the trouble starts.
“Impossible, of course. Except for one thing. What is the only factor that can save you when the load is too heavy? Anyone?” Nobody answered.
“Oh, come now!” Colonel Nielssen said scornfully. “You aren’t recruits. Mr. Hassan!” “Your leading sergeant, sir,” the Assassin said slowly.
“Obviously. He’s probably older than you are, more drops under his belt, and he certainly knows his team better than you do. Since he isn’t carrying that dreadful, numbing load of top command, he may be thinking more clearly than you are. Ask his advice. You’ve got one circuit just for that.
“It won’t decrease his confidence in you; he’s used to being consulted. If you don’t, he’ll decide you are a fool, a cocksure know-it-all—and he’ll be right.
“But you don’t have to take his advice. Whether you use his ideas, or whether they spark some different plan—make your decision and snap out orders. The one thing—the only thing!—that can strike terror in the heart of a good platoon sergeant is to find that he’s working for a boss who can’t
make up his mind.
“There never has been an outfit in which officers and men were more dependent on each other than they are in the M.I., and sergeants are the glue that holds us together. Never forget it.”
The Commandant whipped his chair around to a cabinet near his desk. It contained row on row of pigeonholes, each with a little box. He pulled out one and opened it. “Mr. Hassan—”
“Sir?”
“These pips were worn by Captain Terrence O’Kelly on his ’prentice cruise. Does it suit you to wear them?” “Sir?” The Assassin’s voice squeaked and I thought the big lunk was going to break into tears. “Yes, sir!”
“Come here.” Colonel Nielssen pinned them on, then said, “Wear them as gallantly as he did . . . but bring them back. Understand me?” “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”
“I’m sure you will. There’s an air car waiting on the roof and your boat boosts in twenty-eight minutes. Carry out your orders, sir!” The Assassin saluted and left; the Commandant turned and picked out another box. “Mr. Byrd, are you superstitious?”
“No, sir.”
“Really? I am, quite. I take it you would not object to wearing pips which have been worn by five officers, all of whom were killed in action?” Birdie barely hesitated. “No, sir.”
“Good. Because these five officers accumulated seventeen citations, from the Terran Medal to the Wounded Lion. Come here. The pip with the brown discoloration must always be worn on your left shoulder—and don’t try to buff it off! Just try not to get the other one marked in the same fashion. Unless necessary, and you’ll know when it is necessary. Here is a list of former wearers. You have thirty minutes until your transportation leaves. Bounce up to Memorial Hall and look up the record of each.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Carry out your orders, sir!”
He turned to me, looked at my face and said sharply, “Something on your mind, son? Speak up!”
“Uh—” I blurted it out. “Sir, that temporary third lieutenant—the one that got cashiered. How could I find out what happened?”
“Oh. Young man, I didn’t mean to scare the daylights out of you; I simply intended to wake you up. The battle was on one June 1813 old style
between USF Chesapeake and HMF Shannon. Try the Naval Encyclopedia; your ship will have it.” He turned back to the case of pips and frowned.
Then he said, “Mr. Rico, I have a letter from one of your high school teachers, a retired officer, requesting that you be issued the pips he wore as a third lieutenant. I am sorry to say that I must tell him ‘No.’”
“Sir?” I was delighted to hear that Colonel Dubois was still keeping track of me—and very disappointed, too.
“Because I can’t. I issued those pips two years ago—and they never came back. Real estate deal. Hmm—” He took a box, looked at me. “You could start a new pair. The metal isn’t important; the importance of the request lies in the fact that your teacher wanted you to have them.”
“Whatever you say, sir.”
“Or”—he cradled the box in his hands—“you could wear these. They have been worn five times . . . and the last four candidates to wear them have all failed of commission—nothing dishonorable but pesky bad luck. Are you willing to take a swing at breaking the hoodoo? Turn them into good-luck pips instead?”
I would rather have petted a shark. But I answered, “All right, sir. I’ll take a swing at it.”
“Good.” He pinned them on me. “Thank you, Mr. Rico. You see, these were mine, I wore them first . . . and it would please me mightily to have them brought back to me with that streak of bad luck broken, have you go on and graduate.”
I felt ten feet tall. “I’ll try, sir!”
“I know you will. You may now carry out your orders, sir. The same air car will take both you and Byrd. Just a moment—Are your mathematics textbooks in your bag?”
“Sir? No, sir.”
“Get them. The Weightmaster of your ship has been advised of your extra baggage allowance.”
I saluted and left, on the bounce. He had me shrunk down to size as soon as he mentioned math.
My math books were on my study desk, tied into a package with a daily assignment sheet tucked under the cord. I gathered the impression that Colonel Nielssen never left anything unplanned—but everybody knew that.
Birdie was waiting on the roof by the air car. He glanced at my books and grinned. “Too bad. Well, if we’re in the same ship, I’ll coach you. What ship?”
“Tours.”
“Sorry, I’m for the Moskva.” We got in, I checked the pilot, saw that it had been pre-set for the field, closed the door and the car took off. Birdie added, “You could be worse off. The Assassin took not only his math books but two other subjects.”
Birdie undoubtedly knew and he had not been showing off when he offered to coach me; he was a professor type except that his ribbons proved that he was a soldier too.
Instead of studying math Birdie taught it. One period each day he was a faculty member, the way little Shujumi taught judo at Camp Currie. The
M.I. doesn’t waste anything; we can’t afford to. Birdie had a B.S. in math on his eighteenth birthday, so naturally he was assigned extra duty as instructor—which didn’t keep him from being chewed out at other hours.
Not that he got chewed out much. Birdie had that rare combo of brilliant intellect, solid education, common sense, and guts, which gets a cadet marked as a potential general. We figured he was a cinch to command a brigade by the time he was thirty, what with the war.
But my ambitions didn’t soar that high. “It would be a dirty, rotten shame,” I said, “if the Assassin flunked out,” while thinking that it would be a dirty,
rotten shame if I flunked out.
“He won’t,” Birdie answered cheerfully. “They’ll sweat him through the rest if they have to put him in a hypno booth and feed him through a tube.
Anyhow,” he added, “Hassan could flunk out and get promoted for it.” “Huh?”
“Didn’t you know? The Assassin’s permanent rank is first lieutenant—field commission, naturally. He reverts to it if he flunks out. See the regs.”
I knew the regs. If I flunked math, I’d revert to buck sergeant, which is better than being slapped in the face with a wet fish any way you think about it . . . and I’d thought about it, lying awake nights after busting a quiz.
But this was different. “Hold it,” I protested. “He gave up first lieutenant, permanent grade . . . and has just made temporary third lieutenant . . . in order to become a second lieutenant? Are you crazy? Or is he?”
Birdie grinned. “Just enough to make us both M.I.”
“But—I don’t get it.”
“Sure you do. The Assassin has no education that he didn’t pick up in the M.I. So how high can he go? I’m sure he could command a regiment in battle and do a real swingin’ job—provided somebody else planned the operation. But commanding in battle is only a fraction of what an officer does, especially a senior officer. To direct a war, or even to plan a single battle and mount the operation, you have to have theory of games, operational analysis, symbolic logic, pessimistic synthesis, and a dozen other skull subjects. You can sweat them out on your own if you’ve got the grounding. But have them you must, or you’ll never get past captain, or possibly major. The Assassin knows what he is doing.”
“I suppose so,” I said slowly. “Birdie, Colonel Nielssen must know that Hassan was an officer—is an officer, really.” “Huh? Of course.”
“He didn’t talk as if he knew. We all got the same lecture.”
“Not quite. Did you notice that when the Commandant wanted a question answered a particular way he always asked the Assassin?” I decided it was true. “Birdie, what is your permanent rank?”
The car was just landing; he paused with a hand on the latch and grinned. “PFC—I don’t dare flunk out!”
I snorted. “You won’t. You can’t!” I was surprised that he wasn’t even a corporal, but a kid as smart and well educated as Birdie would go to
O.C.S. just as quickly as he proved himself in combat . . . which, with the war on, could be only months after his eighteenth birthday. Birdie grinned still wider. “We’ll see.”
“You’ll graduate. Hassan and I have to worry, but not you.”
“So? Suppose Miss Kendrick takes a dislike to me.” He opened the door and looked startled. “Hey! They’re sounding my call. So long!” “See you, Birdie.”
But I did not see him and he did not graduate. He was commissioned two weeks later and his pips came back with their eighteenth decoration— the Wounded Lion, posthumous.
CH:13
Youse guys think this deleted outfit is a blankety-blank nursery. Well, it ain’t! See?
—Remark attributed to a Hellenic corporal before the walls of Troy, 1194 B.C.
The Rodger Young carries one platoon and is crowded; the Tours carries six—and is roomy. She has the tubes to drop them all at once and enough spare room to carry twice that number and make a second drop. This would make her very crowded, with eating in shifts, hammocks in passageways and drop rooms, rationed water, inhale when your mate exhales, and get your elbow out of my eye! I’m glad they didn’t double up while I was in her.
But she has the speed and lift to deliver such crowded troops still in fighting condition to any point in Federation space and much of Bug space; under Cherenkov drive she cranks Mike 400 or better—say Sol to Capella, forty-six light-years, in under six weeks.
Of course, a six-platoon transport is not big compared with a battle wagon or passenger liner; these things are compromises. The M.I. prefers speedy little one-platoon corvettes which give flexibility for any operation, while if it was left up to the Navy we would have nothing but regimental transports. It takes almost as many Navy files to run a corvette as it does to run a monster big enough for a regiment—more maintenance and housekeeping, of course, but soldiers can do that. After all, those lazy troopers do nothing but sleep and eat and polish buttons—do ’em good to have a little regular work. So says the Navy.
The real Navy opinion is even more extreme: The Army is obsolete and should be abolished.
The Navy doesn’t say this officially—but talk to a Naval officer who is on R&R and feeling his oats; you’ll get an earful. They think they can fight any war, win it, send a few of their own people down to hold the conquered planet until the Diplomatic Corps takes charge.
I admit that their newest toys can blow any planet right out of the sky—I’ve never seen it but I believe it. Maybe I’m as obsolete as Tyrannosaurusrex. I don’t feel obsolete and us apes can do things that the fanciest ship cannot. If the government doesn’t want those things done, no doubt they’ll
tell us.
Maybe it’s just as well that neither the Navy nor the M.I. has the final word. A man can’t buck for Sky Marshal unless he has commanded both a regiment and a capital ship—go through M.I. and take his lumps and then become a Naval officer (I think little Birdie had that in mind), or first become an astrogator-pilot and follow it with Camp Currie, etc.
I’ll listen respectfully to any man who has done both.
Like most transports, the Tours is a mixed ship; the most amazing change for me was to be allowed “North of Thirty.” The bulkhead that separates ladies’ country from the rough characters who shave is not necessarily No. 30 but, by tradition, it is called “bulkhead thirty” in any mixed
ship. The wardroom is just beyond it and the rest of ladies’ country is farther forward. In the Tours the wardroom also served as messroom for enlisted women, who ate just before we did, and it was partitioned between meals into a recreation room for them and a lounge for their officers. Male officers had a lounge called the cardroom just abaft thirty.
Besides the obvious fact that drop & retrieval require the best pilots (i.e., female), there is very strong reason why female Naval officers are assigned to transports: It is good for trooper morale.
Let’s skip M.I. traditions for a moment. Can you think of anything sillier than letting yourself be fired out of a spaceship with nothing but mayhem and sudden death at the other end? However, if someone must do this idiotic stunt, do you know of a surer way to keep a man keyed up to the point where he is willing than by keeping him constantly reminded that the only good reason why men fight is a living, breathing reality?
In a mixed ship, the last thing a trooper hears before a drop (maybe the last word he ever hears) is a woman’s voice, wishing him luck. If you don’t think this is important, you’ve probably resigned from the human race.
The Tours had fifteen Naval officers, eight ladies and seven men; there were eight M.I. officers including (I am happy to say) myself. I won’t say “bulkhead thirty” caused me to buck for O.C.S. but the privilege of eating with the ladies is more incentive than any increase in pay. The Skipper was president of the mess, my boss Captain Blackstone was vice-president—not because of rank; three Naval officers ranked him; but as C.O. of the strike force he was de facto senior to everybody but the Skipper.
Every meal was formal. We would wait in the cardroom until the hour struck, follow Captain Blackstone in and stand behind our chairs; the Skipper would come in followed by her ladies and, as she reached the head of the table, Captain Blackstone would bow and say, “Madam President . . . ladies,” and she would answer, “Mr. Vice . . . gentlemen,” and the man on each lady’s right would seat her.
This ritual established that it was a social event, not an officers’ conference; thereafter ranks or titles were used, except that junior Naval officers and myself alone among the M.I. were called “Mister” or “Miss”—with one exception which fooled me.
My first meal aboard I heard Captain Blackstone called “Major,” although his shoulder pips plainly read “captain.” I got straightened out later. There can’t be two captains in a Naval vessel so an Army captain is bumped one rank socially rather than commit the unthinkable of calling him by the title reserved for the one and only monarch. If a Naval captain is aboard as anything but skipper, he or she is called “Commodore” even if the skipper is a lowly lieutenant.
The M.I. observes this by avoiding the necessity in the wardroom and paying no attention to the silly custom in our own part of the ship.
Seniority ran downhill from each end of the table, with the Skipper at the head and the strike force C.O. at the foot, the junior midshipmen at his right and myself at the Skipper’s right. I would most happily have sat by the junior midshipman; she was awfully pretty—but the arrangement is planned chaperonage; I never even learned her first name.
I knew that I, as the lowliest male, sat on the Skipper’s right—but I didn’t know that I was supposed to seat her. At my first meal she waited and nobody sat down—until the third assistant engineer jogged my elbow. I haven’t been so embarrassed since a very unfortunate incident in kindergarten, even though Captain Jorgenson acted as if nothing had happened.
When the Skipper stands up the meal is over. She was pretty good about this but once she stayed seated only a few minutes and Captain Blackstone got annoyed. He stood up but called out, “Captain—”
She stopped. “Yes, Major?”
“Will the Captain please give orders that my officers and myself be served in the cardroom?” She answered coldly, “Certainly, sir.” And we were. But no Naval officer joined us.
The following Saturday she exercised her privilege of inspecting the M.I. aboard—which transport skippers almost never do. However, she simply walked down the ranks without commenting. She was not really a martinet and she had a nice smile when she wasn’t being stern. Captain Blackstone assigned Second Lieutenant “Rusty” Graham to crack the whip over me about math; she found out about it, somehow, and told Captain Blackstone to have me report to her office for one hour after lunch each day, whereupon she tutored me in math and bawled me out when my “homework” wasn’t perfect.
Our six platoons were two companies as a rump battalion; Captain Blackstone commanded Company D, Blackie’s Blackguards, and also
commanded the rump battalion. Our battalion commander by the T.O., Major Xera, was with A and B companies in the Tours’ sister ship Normandy Beach—maybe half a sky away; he commanded us only when the full battalion dropped together—except that Cap’n Blackie routed certain reports and letters through him. Other matters went directly to Fleet, Division, or Base, and Blackie had a truly wizard fleet sergeant to keep
such things straight and to help him handle both a company and a rump battalion in combat.
Administrative details are not simple in an army spread through many light-years in hundreds of ships. In the old Valley Forge, in the RodgerYoung, and now in the Tours I was in the same regiment, the Third (“Pampered Pets”) Regiment of the First (“Polaris”) M.I. Division. Two battalions formed from available units had been called the “Third Regiment” in Operation Bughouse but I did not see “my” regiment; all I saw was PFC
Bamburger and a lot of Bugs.
I might be commissioned in the Pampered Pets, grow old and retire in it—and never even see my regimental commander. The Roughnecks had a company commander but he also commanded the first platoon (“Hornets”) in another corvette; I didn’t know his name until I saw it on my orders to
O.C.S. There is a legend about a “lost platoon” that went on R&R as its corvette was decommissioned. Its company commander had just been promoted and the other platoons had been attached tactically elsewhere. I’ve forgotten what happened to the platoon’s lieutenant but R&R is a routine time to detach an officer—theoretically after a relief has been sent to understudy him, but reliefs are always scarce.
They say this platoon enjoyed a local year of the flesh-pots along Churchill Road before anybody missed them.
I don’t believe it. But it could happen.
The chronic scarcity of officers strongly affected my duties in Blackie’s Blackguards. The M.I. has the lowest percentage of officers in any army of record and this factor is just part of the M.I.’s unique “divisional wedge.” “D.W.” is military jargon but the idea is simple: If you have 10,000 soldiers, how many fight? And how many just peel potatoes, drive lorries, count graves, and shuffle papers?
In the M.I., 10,000 men fight.
In the mass wars of the XXth century it sometimes took 70,000 men (fact!) to enable 10,000 to fight.
I admit it takes the Navy to place us where we fight; however, an M.I. strike force, even in a corvette, is at least three times as large as the transport’s Navy crew. It also takes civilians to supply and service us; about 10 per cent of us are on R&R at any time; and a few of the very best of us are rotated to instruct at boot camps.
While a few M.I. are on desk jobs you will always find that they are shy an arm or leg, or some such. These are the ones—the Sergeant Hos and the Colonel Nielssens—who refuse to retire, and they really ought to count twice since they release able-bodied M.I. by filling jobs which require fighting spirit but not physical perfection. They do work that civilians can’t do—or we would hire civilians. Civilians are like beans; you buy ’em as needed for any job which merely requires skill and savvy.
But you can’t buy fighting spirit.
It’s scarce. We use all of it, waste none. The M.I. is the smallest army in history for the size of the population it guards. You can’t buy an M.I., you can’t conscript him, you can’t coerce him—you can’t even keep him if he wants to leave. He can quit thirty seconds before a drop, lose his nerve and not get into his capsule and all that happens is that he is paid off and can never vote.
At O.C.S. we studied armies in history that were driven like galley slaves. But the M.I. is a free man; all that drives him comes from inside—that
self-respect and need for the respect of his mates and his pride in being one of them called morale, or esprit de corps.
The root of our morale is: “Everybody works, everybody fights.” An M.I. doesn’t pull strings to get a soft, safe job; there aren’t any. Oh, a trooper
will get away with what he can; any private with enough savvy to mark time to music can think up reasons why he should not clean compartments or break out stores; this is a soldier’s ancient right.
But all “soft, safe” jobs are filled by civilians; that goldbricking private climbs into his capsule certain that everybody, from general to private, is doing it with him. Light-years away and on a different day, or maybe an hour or so later—no matter. What does matter is that everybody drops. This
is why he enters the capsule, even though he may not be conscious of it.
If we ever deviate from this, the M.I. will go to pieces. All that holds us together is an idea—one that binds more strongly than steel but its magic power depends on keeping it intact.
It is this “everybody fights” rule that lets the M.I. get by with so few officers.
I know more about this than I want to, because I asked a foolish question in Military History and got stuck with an assignment which forced me to
dig up stuff ranging from De Bello Gallico to Tsing’s classic Collapse of the Golden Hegemony. Consider an ideal M.I. division—on paper, because you won’t find one elsewhere. How many officers does it require? Never mind units attached from other corps; they may not be present during a ruckus and they are not like M.I.—the special talents attached to Logistics & Communications are all ranked as officers. If it will make a memory man, a telepath, a senser, or a lucky man happy to have me salute him, I’m glad to oblige; he is more valuable than I am and I could not replace him if I lived to be two hundred. Or take the K-9 Corps, which is 50 per cent “officers” but whose other 50 per cent are neodogs.
None of these is in line of command, so let’s consider only us apes and what it takes to lead us.
This imaginary division has 10,800 men in 216 platoons, each with a lieutenant. Three platoons to a company calls for 72 captains; four companies to a battalion calls for 18 majors or lieutenant colonels. Six regiments with six colonels can form two or three brigades, each with a short general, plus a medium-tall general as top boss.
You wind up with 317 officers out of a total, all ranks, of 11,117.
There are no blank files and every officer commands a team. Officers total 3 per cent—which is what the M.I. does have, but arranged somewhat differently. In fact a good many platoons are commanded by sergeants and many officers “wear more than one hat” in order to fill some utterly necessary staff jobs.
Even a platoon leader should have “staff ”—his platoon sergeant.
But he can get by without one and his sergeant can get by without him. But a general must have staff; the job is too big to carry in his hat. He needs a big planning staff and a small combat staff. Since there are never enough officers, the team commanders in his flag transport double as his planning staff and are picked from the M.I.’s best mathematical logicians—then they drop with their own teams. The general drops with a small combat staff, plus a small team of the roughest, on-the-bounce troopers in the M.I. Their job is to keep the general from being bothered by rude strangers while he is managing the battle. Sometimes they succeed.
Besides necessary staff billets, any team larger than a platoon ought to have a deputy commander. But there are never enough officers so we make do with what we’ve got. To fill each necessary combat billet, one job to one officer, would call for a 5 per cent ratio of officers—but 3 per cent is all we’ve got.
In place of that optimax of 5 per cent that the M.I. never can reach, many armies in the past commissioned 10 per cent of their number, or even 15 per cent—and sometimes a preposterous 20 per cent! This sounds like a fairy tale but it was a fact, especially during the XXth century. What kind
of an army has more “officers” than corporals? (And more non-coms than privates!)
An army organized to lose wars—if history means anything. An army that is mostly organization, red tape, and overhead, most of whose “soldiers” never fight.
But what do “officers” do who do not command fighting men?
Fiddlework, apparently—officers’ club officer, morale officer, athletics officer, public information officer, recreation officer, PX officer,
transportation officer, legal officer, chaplain, assistant chaplain, junior assistant chaplain, officer-in-charge of anything anybody can think of—even
nursery officer!
In the M.I., such things are extra duty for combat officers or, if they are real jobs, they are done better and cheaper and without demoralizing a fighting outfit by hiring civilians. But the situation got so smelly in one of the XXth century major powers that real officers, ones who commanded
fighting men, were given special insignia to distinguish them from the swarms of swivel-chair hussars.
The scarcity of officers got steadily worse as the war wore on, because the casualty rate is always highest among officers . . . and the M.I. nevercommissions a man simply to fill a vacancy. In the long run, each boot regiment must supply its own share of officers and the percentage can’t be raised without lowering the standards—The strike force in the Tours needed thirteen officers—six platoon leaders, two company commanders and two deputies, and a strike force commander staffed by a deputy and an adjutant.
What it had was six . . . and me.
TABLE OF ORGANIZATION
“Rump Battalion” Strike Force—
Cpt. Blackstone (“first hat”)
Fleet Sergeant
I would have been under Lieutenant Silva, but he left for hospital the day I reported, ill with some sort of twitching awfuls. But this did not necessarily mean that I would get his platoon. A temporary third lieutenant is not considered an asset; Captain Blackstone could place me under Lieutenant Bayonne and put a sergeant in charge of his own first platoon, or even “put on a third hat” and take the platoon himself.
In fact, he did both and nevertheless assigned me as platoon leader of the first platoon of the Blackguards. He did this by borrowing the Wolverine’s best buck sergeant to act as his battalion staffer, then he placed his fleet sergeant as platoon sergeant of his first platoon—a job two grades below his chevrons. Then Captain Blackstone spelled it out for me in a head-shrinking lecture: I would appear on the T.O. as platoon leader, but Blackie himself and the fleet sergeant would run the platoon.
As long as I behaved myself, I could go through the motions. I would even be allowed to drop as platoon leader—but one word from my platoon sergeant to my company commander and the jaws of the nutcracker would close.
It suited me. It was my platoon as long as I could swing it—and if I couldn’t, the sooner I was shoved aside the better for everybody. Besides, it was a lot less nerve-racking to get a platoon that way than by sudden catastrophe in battle.
I took my job very seriously, for it was my platoon—the T.O. said so. But I had not yet learned to delegate authority and, for about a week, I was around troopers’ country much more than is good for a team. Blackie called me into his stateroom. “Son, what in Ned do you think you are doing?”
I answered stiffly that I was trying to get my platoon ready for action.
“So? Well, that’s not what you are accomplishing. You are stirring them like a nest of wild bees. Why the deuce do you think I turned over to you
the best sergeant in the Fleet? If you will go to your stateroom, hang yourself on a hook, and stay there! . . . until ‘Prepare for Action’ is sounded, he’ll hand that platoon over to you tuned like a violin.”
“As the Captain pleases, sir,” I agreed glumly.
“And that’s another thing—I can’t stand an officer who acts like a confounded kaydet. Forget that silly third-person talk around me—save it for generals and the Skipper. Quit bracing your shoulders and clicking your heels. Officers are supposed to look relaxed, son.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And let that be the last time you say ‘sir’ to me for one solid week. Same for saluting. Get that grim kaydet look off your face and hang a smile on it.”
“Yes, s—Okay.”
“That’s better. Lean against the bulkhead. Scratch yourself. Yawn. Anything but that tin-soldier act.”
I tried . . . and grinned sheepishly as I discovered that breaking a habit is not easy. Leaning was harder work than standing at attention. Captain Blackstone studied me. “Practice it,” he said. “An officer can’t look scared or tense; it’s contagious. Now tell me, Johnnie, what your platoon needs. Never mind the piddlin’ stuff; I’m not interested in whether a man has the regulation number of socks in his locker.”
I thought rapidly. “Uh . . . do you happen to know if Lieutenant Silva intended to put Brumby up for sergeant?”
“I do happen to know. What’s your opinion?”
“Well . . . the record shows that he has been acting section leader the past two months. His efficiency marks are good.”
“I asked for your recommendation, Mister.”
“Well, s—Sorry. I’ve never seen him work on the ground, so I can’t have a real opinion; anybody can soldier in the drop room. But the way I see it, he’s been acting sergeant too long to bust him back to chaser and promote a squad leader over him. He ought to get that third chevron before we drop—or he ought to be transferred when we get back. Sooner, if there’s a chance for a spaceside transfer.”
Blackie grunted. “You’re pretty generous in giving away my Blackguards—for a third lieutenant.”
I turned red. “Just the same, it’s a soft spot in my platoon. Brumby ought to be promoted, or transferred. I don’t want him back in his old job with somebody promoted over his head; he’d likely turn sour and I’d have an even worse soft spot. If he can’t have another chevron, he ought to go to repple-depple for cadre. Then he won’t be humiliated and he gets a fair shake to make sergeant in another team—instead of a dead end here.”
“Really?” Blackie did not quite sneer. “After that masterly analysis, apply your powers of deduction and tell me why Lieutenant Silva failed to transfer him three weeks ago when we arrived around Sanctuary.”
I had wondered about that. The time to transfer a man is the earliest possible instant after you decide to let him go—and without warning; it’s better for the man and the team—so says the book. I said slowly, “Was Lieutenant Silva already ill at that time, Captain?”
“No.”
The pieces matched. “Captain, I recommend Brumby for immediate promotion.” His eyebrows shot up. “A minute ago you were about to dump him as useless.”
“Uh, not quite. I said it had to be one or the other—but I didn’t know which. Now I know.” “Continue.”
“Uh, this assumes that Lieutenant Silva is an efficient officer—”
“Hummmph! Mister, for your information, ‘Quick’ Silva has an unbroken string of ‘Excellent—Recommended for Promotion’ on his Form Thirty- One.”
“But I knew that he was good,” I plowed on, “because I inherited a good platoon. A good officer might not promote a man for—oh, for many reasons—and still not put his misgivings in writing. But in this case, if he could not recommend him for sergeant, then he wouldn’t keep him with the team—so he would get him out of the ship at the first opportunity. But he didn’t. Therefore I know he intended to promote Brumby.” I added, “But I can’t see why he didn’t push it through three weeks ago, so that Brumby could have worn his third chevron on R&R.”
Captain Blackstone grinned. “That’s because you don’t credit me with being efficient.” “S—I beg pardon?”
“Never mind. You’ve proved who killed Cock Robin and I don’t expect a still-moist kaydet to know all the tricks. But listen and learn, son. As long as this war goes on, don’t ever promote a man just before you return to Base.”
“Uh . . . why not, Captain?”
“You mentioned sending Brumby to Replacement Depot if he was not to be promoted. But that’s just where he would have gone if we hadpromoted him three weeks ago. You don’t know how hungry that non-com desk at repple-depple is. Paw through the dispatch file and you’ll find a demand that we supply two sergeants for cadre. With a platoon sergeant being detached for O.C.S. and a buck sergeant spot vacant, I was under complement and able to refuse.” He grinned savagely. “It’s a rough war, son, and your own people will steal your best men if you don’t watch ’em.” He took two sheets of paper out of a drawer. “There—”
One was a letter from Silva to Cap’n Blackie, recommending Brumby for sergeant; it was dated over a month ago.
The other was Brumby’s warrant for sergeant—dated the day after we left Sanctuary. “That suit you?” he asked.
“Huh? Oh, yes indeed!”
“I’ve been waiting for you to spot the weak place in your team, and tell me what had to be done. I’m pleased that you figured it out—but only middlin’ pleased because an experienced officer would have analyzed it at once from the T.O. and the service records. Never mind, that’s how you gain experience. Now here’s what you do. Write me a letter like Silva’s; date it yesterday. Tell your platoon sergeant to tell Brumby that you have put him up for a third stripe—and don’t mention that Silva did so. You didn’t know that when you made the recommendation, so we’ll keep it that way. When I swear Brumby in, I’ll let him know that both his officers recommended him independently—which will make him feel good. Okay, anything more?”
“Uh . . . not in organization—unless Lieutenant Silva planned to promote Naidi, vice Brumby. In which case we could promote one PFC to lance . .
. and that would allow us to promote four privates to PFC, including three vacancies now existing. I don’t know whether it’s your policy to keep the
T.O. filled up tight or not?”
“Might as well,” Blackie said gently, “as you and I know that some of those lads aren’t going to have many days in which to enjoy it. Just remember that we don’t make a man a PFC until after he has been in combat—not in Blackie’s Blackguards we don’t. Figure it out with your platoon sergeant and let me know. No hurry . . . any time before bedtime tonight. Now . . . anything else?”
“Well—Captain, I’m worried about the suits.” “So am I. All platoons.”
“I don’t know all the other platoons, but with five recruits to fit, plus four suits damaged and exchanged, and two more downchecked this past week and replaced from stores—well, I don’t see how Cunha and Navarre can warm up that many and run routine tests on forty-one others and get it all done by our calculated date. Even if no trouble develops—”
“Trouble always develops.”
“Yes, Captain. But that’s two hundred and eighty-six man-hours just for warm & fit, and plus a hundred and twenty-three hours of routine checks. And it always takes longer.”
“Well, what do you think can be done? The other platoons will lend you help if they finish their suits ahead of time. Which I doubt. Don’t ask to borrow help from the Wolverines; we’re more likely to lend them help.”
“Uh . . . Captain, I don’t know what you’ll think of this, since you told me to stay out of troopers’ country. But when I was a corporal, I was assistant to the Ordnance & Armor sergeant.”
“Keep talking.”
“Well, right at the last I was the O&A sergeant. But I was just standing in another man’s shoes—I’m not a finished O&A mechanic. But I’m a pretty darn good assistant and if I was allowed to, well, I can either warm new suits, or run routine checks—and give Cunha and Navarre that much more time for trouble.”
Blackie leaned back and grinned. “Mister, I have searched the regs carefully . . . and I can’t find the one that says an officer mustn’t get his hands dirty.” He added, “I mention that because some ‘young gentlemen’ who have been assigned to me apparently had read such a regulation. All right, draw some dungarees—no need to get your uniform dirty along with your hands. Go aft and find your platoon sergeant, tell him about Brumby and order him to prepare recommendations to close the gaps in the T.O. in case I should decide to confirm your recommendation for Brumby. Then tell him that you are going to put in all your time on ordnance and armor—and that you want him to handle everything else. Tell him that if he has any problems to look you up in the armory. Don’t tell him you consulted me—just give him orders. Follow me?”
“Yes, s—Yes, I do.”
“Okay, get on it. As you pass through the cardroom, please give my compliments to Rusty and tell him to drag his lazy carcass in here.”
For the next two weeks I was never so busy—not even in boot camp. Working as an ordnance & armor mech about ten hours a day was not all that I did. Math, of course—and no way to duck it with the Skipper tutoring me. Meals—say an hour and a half a day. Plus the mechanics of staying alive
—shaving, showering, putting buttons in uniforms and trying to chase down the Navy master-at-arms, get him to unlock the laundry to locate clean
uniforms ten minutes before inspection. (It is an unwritten law of the Navy that facilities must always be locked when they are most needed. )
Guard mount, parade, inspections, a minimum of platoon routine, took another hour a day. But besides, I was “George.” Every outfit has a
“George.” He’s the most junior officer and has the extra jobs—athletics officer, mail censor, referee for competitions, school officer, correspondence courses officer, prosecutor courts-martial, treasurer of the welfare mutual loan fund, custodian of registered publications, stores officer, troopers’ mess officer, et cetera ad endless nauseam.
Rusty Graham had been “George” until he happily turned it over to me. He wasn’t so happy when I insisted on a sight inventory on everything for which I had to sign. He suggested that if I didn’t have sense enough to accept a commissioned officer’s signed inventory then perhaps a direct order would change my tune. So I got sullen and told him to put his orders in writing—with a certified copy so that I could keep the original and endorse the copy over to the team commander.
Rusty angrily backed down—even a second lieutenant isn’t stupid enough to put such orders in writing. I wasn’t happy either as Rusty was my roommate and was then still my tutor in math, but we held the sight inventory. I got chewed out by Lieutenant Warren for being stupidly officious but he opened his safe and let me check his registered publications. Captain Blackstone opened his with no comment and I couldn’t tell whether he approved of my sight inventory or not.
Publications were okay but accountable property was not. Poor Rusty! He had accepted his predecessor’s count and now the count was short— and the other officer was not merely gone, he was dead. Rusty spent a restless night (and so did I!), then went to Blackie and told him the truth.
Blackie chewed him out, then went over the missing items, found ways to expend most of them as “lost in combat.” It reduced Rusty’s shortages to a few days’ pay—but Blackie had him keep the job, thereby postponing the cash reckoning indefinitely.
Not all “George” jobs caused that much headache. There were no courts-martial; good combat teams don’t have them. There was no mail to censor as the ship was in Cherenkov drive. Same for welfare loans for similar reasons. Athletics I delegated to Brumby; referee was “if and when.” The troopers’ mess was excellent; I initialed menus and sometimes inspected the galley, i.e., I scrounged a sandwich without getting out of dungarees when working late in the armory. Correspondence courses meant a lot of paperwork since quite a few were continuing their educations, war or no war—but I delegated my platoon sergeant and the records were kept by the PFC who was his clerk.
Nevertheless “George” jobs soaked up about two hours every day—there were so many.
You see where this left me—ten hours O&A, three hours math, meals an hour and a half, personal one hour, military fiddlework one hour, “George” two hours, sleep eight hours; total, twenty-six and a half hours. The ship wasn’t even on the twenty-five-hour Sanctuary day; once we left we went on Greenwich standard and the universal calendar.
The only slack was in my sleeping time.
I was sitting in the cardroom about one o’clock one morning, plugging away at math, when Captain Blackstone came in. I said, “Good evening, Captain.”
“Morning, you mean. What the deuce ails you, son? Insomnia?” “Uh, not exactly.”
He picked up a stack of sheets, remarking, “Can’t your sergeant handle your paperwork? Oh, I see. Go to bed.” “But, Captain—”
“Sit back down. Johnnie, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. I never see you here in the cardroom, evenings. I walk past your room, you’re at your desk. When your bunkie goes to bed, you move out here. What’s the trouble?”
“Well . . . I just never seem to get caught up.”
“Nobody ever does. How’s the work going in the armory?” “Pretty well. I think we’ll make it.”
“I think so, too. Look, son, you’ve got to keep a sense of proportion. You have two prime duties. First is to see that your platoon’s equipment is ready—you’re doing that. You don’t have to worry about the platoon itself, I told you that. The second—and just as important—you’ve got to be ready to fight. You’re muffing that.”
“I’ll be ready, Captain.”
“Nonsense and other comments. You’re getting no exercise and losing sleep. Is that how to train for a drop? When you lead a platoon, son, you’ve got to be on the bounce. From here on you will exercise from sixteen-thirty to eighteen hundred each day. You will be in your sack with lights out at twenty-three hundred—and if you lie awake fifteen minutes two nights in a row, you will report to the Surgeon for treatment. Orders.”
“Yes, sir.” I felt the bulkheads closing in on me and added desperately, “Captain, I don’t see howI can get to bed by twenty-three—and still get everything done.”
“Then you won’t. As I said, son, you must have a sense of proportion. Tell me how you spend your time.”
So I did. He nodded. “Just as I thought.” He picked up my math “homework,” tossed it in front of me. “Take this. Sure, you want to work on it. But why work so hard before we go into action?”
“Well, I thought—”
“‘Think’ is what you didn’t do. There are four possibilities, and only one calls for finishing these assignments. First, you might buy a farm. Second,
you might buy a small piece and be retired with an honorary commission. Third, you might come through all right . . . but get a downcheck on your Form Thirty-One from your examiner, namely me. Which is just what you’re aching for at the present time—why, son, I won’t even let you drop if you show up with eyes red from no sleep and muscles flabby from too much chair parade. The fourth possibility is that you take a grip on yourself . . . in which case I might let you take a swing at leading a platoon. So let’s assume that you do and put on the finest show since Achilles slew Hector and I pass you. In that case only—you’ll need to finish these math assignments. So do them on the trip back.
“That takes care of that—I’ll tell the Skipper. The rest of those jobs you are relieved of, right now. On our way home you can spend your time on math. If we get home. But you’ll never get anywhere if you don’t learn to keep first things first. Go to bed!”
A week later we made rendezvous, coming out of drive and coasting short of the speed of light while the fleet exchanged signals. We were sent Briefing, Battle Plan, our Mission & Orders—a stack of words as long as a novel—and were told not to drop.
Oh, we were to be in the operation but we would ride down like gentlemen, cushioned in retrieval boats. This we could do because the Federation already held the surface; Second, Third, and Fifth M.I. Divisions had taken it—and paid cash.
The described real estate didn’t seem worth the price. Planet P is smaller than Terra, with a surface gravity of 0.7, is mostly arctic-cold ocean and rock, with lichenous flora and no fauna of interest. Its air is not breathable for long, being contaminated with nitrous oxide and too much ozone. Its one continent is about half the size of Australia, plus many worthless islands; it would probably require as much terra-forming as Venus before we could use it.
However, we were not buying real estate to live on; we went there because Bugs were there—and they were there on our account, so Staff thought. Staff told us that Planet P was an uncompleted advance base (prob. 87 ± 6 per cent) to be used against us.
Since the planet was no prize, the routine way to get rid of this Bug base would be for the Navy to stand off at a safe distance and render this ugly spheroid uninhabitable by Man or Bug. But the C-in-C had other ideas.
The operation was a raid. It sounds incredible to call a battle involving hundreds of ships and thousands of casualties a “raid,” especially as, in the meantime, the Navy and a lot of other cap troopers were keeping things stirred up many light-years into Bug space in order to divert them from reinforcing Planet P.
But the C-in-C was not wasting men; this giant raid could determine who won the war, whether next year or thirty years hence. We needed to learn more about Bug psychology. Must we wipe out every Bug in the Galaxy? Or was it possible to trounce them and impose a peace? We did not know; we understood them as little as we understand termites.
To learn their psychology we had to communicate with them, learn their motivations, find out why they fought and under what conditions they would stop; for these, the Psychological Warfare Corps needed prisoners.
Workers are easy to capture. But a Bug worker is hardly more than animate machinery. Warriors can be captured by burning off enough limbs to make them helpless—but they are almost as stupid without a director as workers. From such prisoners our own professor types had learned important matters—the development of that oily gas that killed them but not us came from analyzing the biochemistries of workers and warriors, and we had had other new weapons from such research even in the short time I had been a cap trooper. But to discover why Bugs fight we needed to study members of their brain caste. Also, we hoped to exchange prisoners.
So far, we had never taken a brain Bug alive. We had either cleaned out colonies from the surface, as on Sheol, or (as had too often been the case) raiders had gone down their holes and not come back. A lot of brave men had been lost this way.
Still more had been lost through retrieval failure. Sometimes a team on the ground had its ship or ships knocked out of the sky. What happens to such a team? Possibly it dies to the last man. More probably it fights until power and ammo are gone, then survivors are captured as easily as so many beetles on their backs.
From our co-belligerents the Skinnies we knew that many missing troopers were alive as prisoners—thousands we hoped, hundreds we were sure. Intelligence believed that prisoners were always taken to Klendathu; the Bugs are as curious about us as we are about them—a race of individuals able to build cities, starships, armies, may be even more mysterious to a hive entity than a hive entity is to us.
As may be, we wanted those prisoners back!
In the grim logic of the universe this may be a weakness. Perhaps some race that never bothers to rescue an individual may exploit this human
trait to wipe us out. The Skinnies have such a trait only slightly and the Bugs don’t seem to have it at all—nobody ever saw a Bug come to the aid of another because he was wounded; they co-operate perfectly in fighting but units are abandoned the instant they are no longer useful.
Our behavior is different. How often have you seen a headline like this?—TWO DIE ATTEMPTING RESCUE OF DROWNING CHILD. If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost just as many volunteers turn out.
Poor arithmetic . . . but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature—a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price.
Weakness? It might be the unique strength that wins us a Galaxy.
Weakness or strength, Bugs don’t have it; there was no prospect of trading fighters for fighters.
But in a hive polyarchy, some castes are valuable—or so our Psych Warfare people hoped. If we could capture brain Bugs, alive and undamaged, we might be able to trade on good terms.
And suppose we captured a queen!
What is a queen’s trading value? A regiment of troopers? Nobody knew, but Battle Plan ordered us to capture Bug “royalty,” brains and queens,
at any cost, on the gamble that we could trade them for human beings.
The third purpose of Operation Royalty was to develop methods: how to go down, how to dig them out, how to win with less than total weapons.
Trooper for warrior, we could now defeat them above ground; ship for ship, our Navy was better; but, so far, we had had no luck when we tried to go down their holes.
If we failed to exchange prisoners on any terms, then we still had to: (a) win the war, (b) do so in a way that gave us a fighting chance to rescue our own people, or (c)—might as well admit it—die trying and lose. Planet P was a field test to determine whether we could learn how to root them out.
Briefing was read to every trooper and he heard it again in his sleep during hypno preparation. So, while we all knew that Operation Royalty was laying the groundwork toward eventual rescue of our mates, we also knew that Planet P held no human prisoners—it had never been raided. So there was no reason to buck for medals in a wild hope of being personally in on a rescue; it was just another Bug hunt, but conducted with massive
force and new techniques. We were going to peel that planet like an onion, until we knewthat every Bug had been dug out.
The Navy had plastered the islands and that unoccupied part of the continent until they were radioactive glaze; we could tackle Bugs with no
worries about our rear. The Navy also maintained a ball-of-yarn patrol in tight orbits around the planet, guarding us, escorting transports, keeping a spy watch on the surface to make sure that Bugs did not break out behind us despite that plastering.
Under the Battle Plan, the orders for Blackie’s Blackguards charged us with supporting the prime Mission when ordered or as opportunity presented, relieving another company in a captured area, protecting units of other corps in that area, maintaining contact with M.I. units around us— and smacking down any Bugs that showed their ugly heads.
So we rode down in comfort to an unopposed landing. I took my platoon out at a powered-armor trot. Blackie went ahead to meet the company commander he was relieving, get the situation and size up the terrain. He headed for the horizon like a scared jack rabbit.
I had Cunha send his first sections’ scouts out to locate the forward corners of my patrol area and I sent my platoon sergeant off to my left to
make contact with a patrol from the Fifth Regiment. We, the Third Regiment, had a grid three hundred miles wide and eighty miles deep to hold; my piece was a rectangle forty miles deep and seventeen wide in the extreme left flank forward corner. The Wolverines were behind us, Lieutenant Khoroshen’s platoon on the right and Rusty beyond him.
Our First Regiment had already relieved a Vth Div. regiment ahead of us, with a “brick wall” overlap which placed them on my corner as well as ahead. “Ahead” and “rear,” “right flank” and “left,” referred to orientation set up in dead-reckoning tracers in each command suit to match the grid of the Battle Plan. We had no true front, simply an area, and the only fighting at the moment was going on several hundred miles away, to our arbitrary right and rear.
Somewhere off that way, probably two hundred miles, should be 2nd platoon, G Co, 2nd Batt, 3rd Reg—commonly known as “The Roughnecks.”
Or the Roughnecks might be forty light-years away. Tactical organization never matches the Table of Organization; all I knew from Plan was that
something called the “2nd Batt” was on our right flank beyond the boys from the Normandy Beach. But that battalion could have been borrowed from another division. The Sky Marshal plays his chess without consulting the pieces.
Anyhow, I should not be thinking about the Roughnecks; I had all I could do as a Blackguard. My platoon was okay for the moment—safe as you can be on a hostile planet—but I had plenty to do before Cunha’s first squad reached the far corner. I needed to:
Locate the platoon leader who had been holding my area.
Establish corners and identify them to section and squad leaders.
Make contact liaison with eight platoon leaders on my sides and corners, five of whom should already be in position (those from Fifth and First Regiments) and three (Khoroshen of the Blackguards and Bayonne and Sukarno of the Wolverines) who were now moving into position.
Get my own boys spread out to their initial points as fast as possible by shortest routes.
The last had to be set up first, as the open column in which we disembarked would not do it. Brumby’s last squad needed to deploy to the left flank; Cunha’s leading squad needed to spread from dead ahead to left oblique; the other four squads must fan out in between.
This is a standard square deployment and we had simulated how to reach it quickly in the drop room; I called out: “Cunha! Brumby! Time to spread ’em out,” using the non-com circuit.
“Roger sec one!”—“Roger sec two!”
“Section leaders take charge . . . and caution each recruit. You’ll be passing a lot of Cherubs. I don’t want ’em shot at by mistake!” I bit down for my private circuit and said, “Sarge, you got contact on the left?”
“Yes, sir. They see me, they see you.”
“Good. I don’t see a beacon on our anchor corner—” “Missing.”
“—so you coach Cunha by D.R. Same for the lead scout—that’s Hughes—and have Hughes set a new beacon.” I wondered why the Third or Fifth hadn’t replaced that anchor beacon—my forward left corner where three regiments came together.
No use talking. I went on: “D.R. check. You bear two seven five, miles twelve.” “Sir, reverse is nine six, miles twelve scant.”
“Close enough. I haven’t found my opposite number yet, so I’m cutting out forward at max. Mind the shop.” “Got ’em, Mr. Rico.”
I advanced at max speed while clicking over to officers’ circuit: “Square Black One, answer. Black One, Chang’s Cherubs—do you read me? Answer.” I wanted to talk with the leader of the platoon we were relieving—and not for any perfunctory I-relieve-you-sir: I wanted the ungarnished word.
I didn’t like what I had seen.
Either the top brass had been optimistic in believing that we had mounted overwhelming force against a small, not fully developed Bug base—or the Blackguards had been awarded the spot where the roof fell in. In the few moments I had been out of the boat I had spotted half a dozen armored suits on the ground—empty I hoped, dead men possibly, but ’way too many any way you looked at it.
Besides that, my tactical radar display showed a full platoon (my own) moving into position but only a scattering moving back toward retrieval or still on station. Nor could I see any system to their movements.
I was responsible for 680 square miles of hostile terrain and I wanted very badly to find out all I could before my own squads were deep into it. Battle Plan had ordered a new tactical doctrine which I found dismaying: Do not close the Bugs’ tunnels. Blackie had explained this as if it had been his own happy thought, but I doubt if he liked it.
The strategy was simple, and, I guess, logical . . . if we could afford the losses. Let the Bugs come up. Meet them and kill them on the surface. Let them keep on coming up. Don’t bomb their holes, don’t gas their holes—let them out. After a while—a day, two days, a week—if we really did have overwhelming force, they would stop coming up. Planning Staff estimated (don’t ask me how!) that the Bugs would expend 70 per cent to 90 per cent of their warriors before they stopped trying to drive us off the surface.
Then we would start the unpeeling, killing surviving warriors as we went down and trying to capture “royalty” alive. We knew what the brain caste looked like; we had seen them dead (in photographs) and we knew they could not run—barely functional legs, bloated bodies that were mostly nervous system. Queens no human had ever seen, but Bio War Corps had prepared sketches of what they should look like—obscene monsters larger than a horse and utterly immobile.
Besides brains and queens there might be other “royalty” castes. As might be—encourage their warriors to come out and die, then capture alive anything but warriors and workers.
A necessary plan and very pretty, on paper. What it meant to me was that I had an area 17 × 40 miles which might be riddled with unstopped Bug holes. I wanted co-ordinates on each one.
If there were too many . . . well, I might accidentally plug a few and let my boys concentrate on watching the rest. A private in a marauder suit can cover a lot of terrain, but he can look at only one thing at a time; he is not superhuman.
I bounced several miles ahead of the first squad, still calling the Cherub platoon leader, varying it by calling any Cherub officer and describing the pattern of my transponder beacon (dah-di-dah-dah).
No answer—
At last I got a reply from my boss: “Johnnie! Knock off the noise. Answer me on conference circuit.”
So I did, and Blackie told me crisply to quit trying to find the Cherub leader for Square Black One; there wasn’t one. Oh, there might be a non- com alive somewhere but the chain of command had broken.
By the book, somebody always moves up. But it does happen if too many links are knocked out. As Colonel Nielssen had once warned me, in the dim past . . . almost a month ago.
Captain Chang had gone into action with three officers besides himself; there was one left now (my classmate, Abe Moise) and Blackie was trying to find out from him the situation. Abe wasn’t much help. When I joined the conference and identified myself, Abe thought I was his battalion commander and made a report almost heartbreakingly precise, especially as it made no sense at all.
Blackie interrupted and told me to carry on. “Forget about a relief briefing. The situation is whatever you see that it is—so stir around and see.” “Right, Boss!” I slashed across my own area toward the far corner, the anchor corner, as fast as I could move, switching circuits on my first
bounce. “Sarge! How about that beacon?”
“No place on that corner to put it, sir. A fresh crater there, about scale six.”
I whistled to myself. You could drop the Tours into a size six crater. One of the dodges the Bugs used on us when we were sparring, ourselves on the surface, Bugs underground, was land mines. (They never seemed to use missiles, except from ships in space.) If you were near the spot, the ground shock got you; if you were in the air when one went off, the concussion wave could tumble your gyros and throw your suit out of control.
I had never seen larger than a scale-four crater. The theory was that they didn’t dare use too big an explosion because of damage to their troglodyte habitats, even if they cofferdammed around it.
“Place an offset beacon,” I told him. “Tell section and squad leaders.”
“I have, sir. Angle one one oh, miles one point three. Da-di-dit. You should be able to read it, bearing about three three five from where you are.” He sounded as calm as a sergeant-instructor at drill and I wondered if I were letting my voice get shrill.
I found it in my display, above my left eyebrow—long and two shorts. “Okay. I see Cunha’s first squad is nearly in position. Break off that squad, have it patrol the crater. Equalize the areas—Brumby will have to take four more miles of depth.” I thought with annoyance that each man already had to patrol fourteen square miles; spreading the butter so thin meant seventeen square miles per man—and a Bug can come out of a hole less than five feet wide.
I added, “How ‘hot’ is that crater?”
“Amber-red at the edge. I haven’t been in it, sir.”
“Stay out of it. I’ll check it later.” Amber-red would kill an unprotected human but a trooper in armor can take it for quite a time. If there was that much radiation at the edge, the bottom would no doubt fry your eyeballs. “Tell Naidi to pull Malan and Bjork back to amber zone, and have them set
up ground listeners.” Two of my five recruits were in that first squad—and recruits are like puppies; they stick their noses into things.
“Tell Naidi that I am interested in two things: movement inside the crater . . . and noises in the ground around it.” We wouldn’t send troopers out through a hole so radioactive that mere exit would kill them. But Bugs would, if they could reach us that way. “Have Naidi report to me. To you and me, I mean.”
“Yes, sir.” My platoon sergeant added, “May I make a suggestion?” “Of course. And don’t stop to ask permission next time.”
“Navarre can handle the rest of the first section. Sergeant Cunha could take the squad at the crater and leave Naidi free to supervise the ground- listening watch.”
I knew what he was thinking. Naidi, so newly a corporal that he had never before had a squad on the ground, was hardly the man to cover what looked like the worst danger point in Square Black One; he wanted to pull Naidi back for the same reasons I had pulled the recruits back.
I wondered if he knew what I was thinking? That “nutcracker”—he was using the suit he had worn as Blackie’s battalion staffer, he had one more circuit than I had, a private one to Captain Blackstone.
Blackie was probably patched in and listening via that extra circuit. Obviously my platoon sergeant did not agree with my disposition of the platoon. If I didn’t take his advice, the next thing I heard might be Blackie’s voice cutting in: “Sergeant, take charge. Mr. Rico, you’re relieved.”
But—Confound it, a corporal who wasn’t allowed to boss his squad wasn’t a corporal . . . and a platoon leader who was just a ventriloquist’s dummy for his platoon sergeant was an empty suit!
I didn’t mull this. It flashed through my head and I answered at once. “I can’t spare a corporal to baby-sit with two recruits. Nor a sergeant to boss four privates and a lance.”
“But—”
“Hold it. I want the crater watch relieved every hour. I want our first patrol sweep made rapidly. Squad leaders will check any hole reported and get beacon bearings so that section leaders, platoon sergeant and platoon leader can check them as they reach them. If there aren’t too many, we’ll put a watch on each—I’ll decide later.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Second time around, I want a slow patrol, as tight as possible, to catch holes we miss on the first sweep. Assistant squad leaders will use snoopers on that pass. Squad leaders will get bearings on any troopers—or suits—on the ground; the Cherubs may have left some live wounded. But no one is to stop even to check physicals until I order it. We’ve got to know the Bug situation first.”
“Yes, sir.” “Suggestions?”
“Just one,” he answered. “I think the squad chasers should use their snoopers on that first fast pass.”
“Very well, do it that way.” His suggestion made sense as the surface air temperature was much lower than the Bugs use in their tunnels; a camouflaged vent hole should show a plume like a geyser by infrared vision. I glanced at my display. “Cunha’s boys are almost at limit. Start your parade.”
“Very well, sir!”
“Off.” I clicked over to the wide circuit and continued to make tracks for the crater while I listened to everybody at once as my platoon sergeant revised the pre-plan—cutting out one squad, heading it for the crater, starting the rest of the first section in a two-squad countermarch while keeping the second section in a rotational sweep as pre-planned but with four miles increased depth; got the sections moving, dropped them and caught
the first squad as it converged on the anchor crater, gave it its instructions; cut back to the section leaders in plenty of time to give them new beacon bearings at which to make their turns.
He did it with the smart precision of a drum major on parade and he did it faster and in fewer words than I could have done it. Extended-order powered suit drill, with a platoon spread over many miles of countryside, is much more difficult than the strutting precision of parade—but it has to be exact, or you’ll blow the head off your mate in action . . . or, as in this case, you sweep part of the terrain twice and miss another part.
But the drillmaster has only a radar display of his formation; he can see with his eyes only those near him. While I listened I watched it in my own display—glowworms crawling past my face in precise lines, “crawling” because even forty miles an hour is a slow crawl when you compress a formation twenty miles across into a display a man can see.
I listened to everybody at once because I wanted to hear the chatter inside the squads.
There wasn’t any. Cunha and Brumby gave their secondary commands—and shut up. The corporals sang out only as squad changes were necessary; section and squad chasers called out occasional corrections of interval or alignment—and privates said nothing at all.
I heard the breathing of fifty men like muted sibilance of surf, broken only by necessary orders in the fewest possible words. Blackie had been right; the platoon had been handed over to me “tuned like a violin.”
They didn’t need me! I could go home and my platoon would get along just as well. Maybe better—
I wasn’t sure I had been right in refusing to cut Cunha out to guard the crater; if trouble broke there and those boys couldn’t be reached in time, the excuse that I had done it “by the book” was worthless. If you get killed, or let someone else get killed, “by the book” it’s just as permanent as any other way.
I wondered if the Roughnecks had a spot open for a buck sergeant.
Most of Square Black One was as flat as the prairie around Camp Currie and much more barren. For this I was thankful; it gave us our only chance of spotting a Bug coming up from below and getting him first. We were spread so widely that four-mile intervals between men and about six minutes between waves of a fast sweep was as tight a patrol as we could manage. This isn’t tight enough; any one spot would remain free of observation
for at least three or four minutes between patrol waves—and a lot of Bugs can come out of a very small hole in three to four minutes. Radar can see farther than the eye, of course, but it cannot see as accurately.
In addition we did not dare use anything but short-range selective weapons—our own mates were spread around us in all directions. If a Bug popped up and you let fly with something lethal, it was certain that not too far beyond that Bug was a cap trooper; this sharply limits the range and force of the frightfulness you dare use. On this operation only officers and platoon sergeants were armed with rockets and, even so, we did not expect to use them. If a rocket fails to find its target, it has a nasty habit of continuing to search until it finds one . . . and it cannot tell a friend from foe; a brain that can be stuffed into a small rocket is fairly stupid.
I would happily have swapped that area patrol with thousands of M.I. around us, for a simple one-platoon strike in which you know where your own people are and anything else is an enemy target.
I didn’t waste time moaning; I never stopped bouncing toward that anchor-corner crater while watching the ground and trying to watch the radar picture as well. I didn’t find any Bug holes but I did jump over a dry wash, almost a canyon, which could conceal quite a few. I didn’t stop to see; I simply gave its co-ordinates to my platoon sergeant and told him to have somebody check it.
That crater was even bigger than I had visualized; the Tours would have been lost in it. I shifted my radiation counter to directional cascade, took readings on floor and sides—red to multiple red right off the scale, very unhealthy for long exposure even to a man in armor; I estimated its width and depth by helmet range finder, then prowled around and tried to spot openings leading underground.
I did not find any but I did run into crater watches set out by adjacent platoons of the Fifth and First Regiments, so I arranged to split up the watch by sectors such that the combined watch could yell for help from all three platoons, the patch-in to do this being made through First Lieutenant Do Campo of the “Head Hunters” on our left. Then I pulled out Naidi’s lance and half his squad (including the recruits) and sent them back to platoon, reporting all this to my boss, and to my platoon sergeant.
“Captain,” I told Blackie, “we aren’t getting any ground vibrations. I’m going down inside and check for holes. The readings show that I won’t get too much dosage if I—”
“Youngster, stay out of that crater.” “But Captain, I just meant to—”
The next nine hours were tedious. We had been preconditioned for forty hours of duty (two revolutions of Planet P) through forced sleep, elevated
blood sugar count, and hypno indoctrination, and of course the suits are self-contained for personal needs. The suits can’t last that long, but each man was carrying extra power units and super H.P. air cartridges for recharging. But a patrol with no action is dull, it is easy to goof off.
I did what I could think of, having Cunha and Brumby take turns as drill sergeant (thus leaving platoon sergeant and leader free to rove around): I gave orders that no sweeps were to repeat in pattern so that each man would always check terrain that was new to him. There are endless patterns to cover a given area, by combining the combinations. Besides that, I consulted my platoon sergeant and announced bonus points toward honor squad for first verified hole, first Bug destroyed, etc.—boot camp tricks, but staying alert means staying alive, so anything to avoid boredom.
Finally we had a visit from a special unit: three combat engineers in a utility air car, escorting a talent—a spatial senser. Blackie warned me to expect them. “Protect them and give them what they want.”
“Yes, sir. What will they need?”
“How should I know? If Major Landry wants you to take off your skin and dance in your bones, do it!” “Yes, sir. Major Landry.”
I relayed the word and set up a bodyguard by subareas. Then I met them as they arrived because I was curious; I had never seen a special talent at work. They landed beside my right flank and got out. Major Landry and two officers were wearing armor and hand flamers but the talent had no armor and no weapons—just an oxygen mask. He was dressed in a fatigue uniform without insignia and he seemed terribly bored by everything. I was not introduced to him. He looked like a sixteen-year-old boy . . . until I got close and saw a network of wrinkles around his weary eyes.
As he got out he took off his breathing mask. I was horrified, so I spoke to Major Landry, helmet to helmet without radio. “Major—the air around here is ‘hot.’ Besides that, we’ve been warned that—”
“Pipe down,” said the Major. “He knows it.”
I shut up. The talent strolled a short distance, turned and pulled his lower lip. His eyes were closed and he seemed lost in thought. He opened them and said fretfully, “How can one be expected to work with all those silly people jumping around?”
Major Landry said crisply, “Ground your platoon.”
I gulped and started to argue—then cut in the all-hands circuit: “First Platoon Blackguards—ground and freeze!”
It speaks well for Lieutenant Silva that all I heard was a double echo of my order, as it was repeated down to squad. I said, “Major, can I let them
move around on the ground?” “No. And shut up.”
Presently the senser got back in the car, put his mask on. There wasn’t room for me, but I was allowed—ordered, really—to grab on and be towed; we shifted a couple of miles. Again the senser took off his mask and walked around. This time he spoke to one of the other combat engineers, who kept nodding and sketching on a pad.
The special-mission unit landed about a dozen times in my area, each time going through the same apparently pointless routine; then they moved on into the Fifth Regiment’s grid. Just before they left, the officer who had been sketching pulled a sheet out of the bottom of his sketch box and handed it to me. “Here’s your sub map. The wide red band is the only Bug boulevard in your area. It is nearly a thousand feet down where it enters but it climbs steadily toward your left rear and leaves at about minus four hundred fifty. The light blue network joining it is a big Bug colony; the only places where it comes within a hundred feet of the surface I have marked. You might put some listeners there until we can get over there and handle it.”
I stared at it. “Is this map reliable?”
The engineer officer glanced at the senser, then said very quietly to me, “Of course it is, you idiot! What are you trying to do? Upset him?”
They left while I was studying it. The artist-engineer had done double sketching and the box had combined them into a stereo picture of the first thousand feet under the surface. I was so bemused by it that I had to be reminded to take the platoon out of “freeze”—then I withdrew the ground listeners from the crater, pulled two men from each squad and gave them bearings from that infernal map to have them listen along the Bug highway and over the town.
I reported it to Blackie. He cut me off as I started to describe the Bug tunnels by co-ordinates. “Major Landry relayed a facsimile to me. Just give me co-ordinates of your listening posts.”
I did so. He said, “Not bad, Johnnie. But not quite what I want, either. You’ve placed more listeners than you need over their mapped tunnels. String four of them along that Bug race track, place four more in a diamond around their town. That leaves you four. Place one in the triangle formed by your right rear corner and the main tunnel; the other three go in the larger area on the other side of the tunnel.”
“Yes, sir.” I added, “Captain, can we depend on this map?” “What’s troubling you?”
“Well . . . it seems like magic. Uh, black magic.”
“Oh. Look, son, I’ve got a special message from the Sky Marshal to you. He says to tell you that map is official . . . and that he will worry about everything else so that you can give full time to your platoon. Follow me?”
“Uh, yes, Captain.”
“But the Bugs can burrow mighty fast, so you give special attention to the listening posts outside the area of the tunnels. Any noise from those four outside posts louder than a butterfly’s roar is to be reported at once, regardless of its nature.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When they burrow, it makes a noise like frying bacon—in case you’ve never heard it. Stop your patrol sweeps. Leave one man on visual observation of the crater. Let half your platoon sleep for two hours, while the other half pairs off to take turns listening.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You may see some more combat engineers. Here’s the revised plan. A sapper company will blast down and cork that main tunnel where it comes nearest the surface, either at your left flank, or beyond in ‘Head Hunter’ territory. At the same time another engineer company will do the same where that tunnel branches about thirty miles off to your right in the First Regiment’s bailiwick. When the corks are in, a long chunk of their main street and a biggish settlement will be cut off. Meanwhile, the same sort of thing will be going on a lot of other places. Thereafter—we’ll see. Either the Bugs break through to the surface and we have a pitched battle, or they sit tight and we go down after them, a sector at a time.”
“I see.” I wasn’t sure that I did, but I understood my part: rearrange my listening posts; let half my platoon sleep. Then a Bug hunt—on the surface if we were lucky, underground if we had to.
“Have your flank make contact with that sapper company when it arrives. Help ’em if they want help.”
“Right, Cap’n,” I agreed heartily. Combat engineers are almost as good an outfit as the infantry; it’s a pleasure to work with them. In a pinch they fight, maybe not expertly but bravely. Or they go ahead with their work, not even lifting their heads while a battle rages around them. They have an unofficial, very cynical and very ancient motto: “First we dig ’em, then we die in ’em,” to supplement their official motto: “Can do!” Both mottoes are literal truth.
“Get on it, son.”
Twelve listening posts meant that I could put a half squad at each post, either a corporal or his lance, plus three privates, then allow two of each group of four to sleep while the other two took turns listening. Navarre and the other section chaser could watch the crater and sleep, turn about, while section sergeants could take turns in charge of the platoon. The redisposition took no more than ten minutes once I had detailed the plan and given out bearings to the sergeants; nobody had to move very far. I warned everybody to keep eyes open for a company of engineers. As soon as each section reported its listening posts in operation I clicked to the wide circuit: “Odd numbers! Lie down, prepare to sleep . . . one . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five—sleep!”
A suit is not a bed, but it will do. One good thing about hypno preparation for combat is that, in the unlikely event of a chance to rest, a man can be put to sleep instantly by post-hypnotic command triggered by someone who is not a hypnotist—and awakened just as instantly, alert and ready to fight. It is a life-saver, because a man can get so exhausted in battle that he shoots at things that aren’t there and can’t see what he should be fighting.
But I had no intention of sleeping. I had not been told to—and I had not asked. The very thought of sleeping when I knew that perhaps many thousands of Bugs were only a few hundred feet away made my stomach jump. Maybe that senser was infallible, perhaps the Bugs could not reach us without alerting our listening posts.
Maybe—But I didn’t want to chance it.
I clicked to my private circuit. “Sarge—”
“Yes, sir.”
“You might as well get a nap. I’ll be on watch. Lie down and prepare to sleep . . . one . . . two—” “Excuse me, sir. I have a suggestion.”
“Yes?”
“If I understand the revised plan, no action is expected for the next four hours. You could take a nap now, and then—”
“Forget it, Sarge! I am not going to sleep. I am going to make the rounds of the listening posts and watch for that sapper company.” “Very well, sir.”
“I’ll check number three while I’m here. You stay here with Brumby and catch some rest while I—”
“Johnnie!”
I broke off. “Yes, Captain?” Had the Old Man been listening?
“Are your posts all set?”
“Yes, Captain, and my odd numbers are sleeping. I am about to inspect each post. Then—” “Let your sergeant do it. I want you to rest.”
“But, Captain—”
“Lie down. That’s a direct order. Prepare to sleep . . . one . . . two . . . three—Johnnie!”
“Captain, with your permission, I would like to inspect my posts first. Then I’ll rest, if you say so, but I would rather remain awake. I—”
Blackie guffawed in my ear. “Look, son, you’ve slept for an hour and ten minutes.”
“Sir?”
“Check the time.” I did so—and felt foolish. “You wide-awake, son?”
“Yes, sir. I think so.”
“Things have speeded up. Call your odd numbers and put your even numbers to sleep. With luck, they may get an hour. So swap ’em around, inspect your posts, and call me back.”
I did so and started my rounds without a word to my platoon sergeant. I was annoyed at both him and Blackie—at my company commander because I resented being put to sleep against my wishes; and as for my platoon sergeant, I had a dirty hunch that it wouldn’t have been done if he weren’t the real boss and myself just a figurehead.
But after I had checked posts number three and one (no sounds of any sort, both were forward of the Bug area), I cooled down. After all, blaming a sergeant, even a fleet sergeant, for something a captain did was silly. “Sarge—”
“Yes, Mr. Rico?”
“Do you want to catch a nap with the even numbers? I’ll wake you a minute or two before I wake them.” He hesitated slightly. “Sir, I’d like to inspect the listening posts myself.”
“Haven’t you already?”
“No, sir. I’ve been asleep the past hour.”
“Huh?”
He sounded embarrassed. “The Captain required me to do so. He placed Brumby temporarily in charge and put me to sleep immediately after
he relieved you.”
I started to answer, then laughed helplessly. “Sarge? Let’s you and I go off somewhere and go back to sleep. We’re wasting our time; Cap’n Blackie is running this platoon.”
“I have found, sir,” he answered stiffly, “that Captain Blackstone invariably has a reason for anything he does.”
I nodded thoughtfully, forgetting that I was ten miles from my listener. “Yes. You’re right, he always has a reason. Mmm . . . since he had us both sleep, he must want us both awake and alert now.”
“I think that must be true.” “Mmm . . . any idea why?”
He was rather long in answering. “Mr. Rico,” he said slowly, “if the Captain knew he would tell us; I’ve never known him to hold back information. But sometimes he does things a certain way without being able to explain why. The Captain’s hunches—well, I’ve learned to respect them.”
“So? Squad leaders are all even numbers; they’re asleep.” “Yes, sir.”
“Alert the lance of each squad. We won’t wake anybody . . . but when we do, seconds may be important.” “Right away.”
I checked the remaining forward post, then covered the four posts bracketing the Bug village, jacking my phones in parallel with each listener. I
had to force myself to listen, because you could hear them, down there below, chittering to each other. I wanted to run and it was all I could do not to let it show.
I wondered if that “special talent” was simply a man with incredibly acute hearing.
Well, no matter how he did it, the Bugs were where he said they were. Back at O.C.S. we had received demonstrations of recorded Bug noises; these four posts were picking up typical nest noises of a large Bug town—that chittering which may be their speech (though why should they need to talk if they are all remotely controlled by the brain caste?), a rustling like sticks and dry leaves, a high background whine which is always heard at a settlement and which had to be machinery—their air conditioning perhaps.
I did not hear the hissing, cracking noise they make in cutting through rock.
The sounds along the Bug boulevard were unlike the settlement sounds—a low background rumble which increased to a roar every few moments, as if heavy traffic were passing. I listened at post number five, then got an idea—checked it by having the stand-by man at each of the
four posts along the tunnel call out “Mark!” to me each time the roaring got loudest. Presently I reported. “Captain—”
“Yeah, Johnnie?”
“The traffic along this Bug race is all moving one way, from me toward you. Speed is approximately a hundred and ten miles per hour, a load goes past about once a minute.”
“Close enough,” he agreed. “I make it one-oh-eight with a headway of fifty-eight seconds.” “Oh.” I felt dashed, and changed the subject. “I haven’t seen that sapper company.”
“You won’t. They picked a spot in the middle rear of ‘Head Hunter’ area: Sorry, I should have told you. Anything more?”
“No, sir.” We clicked off and I felt better. Even Blackie could forget . . . and there hadn’t been anything wrong with my idea. I left the tunnel zone to inspect the listening post to right and rear of the Bug area, post twelve.
As with the others, there were two men asleep, one listening, one stand-by, I said to the stand-by, “Getting anything?” “No, sir.”
The man listening, one of my five recruits, looked up and said, “Mr. Rico, I think this pickup has just gone sour.” “I’ll check it,” I said. He moved to let me jack in with him.
“Frying bacon” so loud you could smell it!
I hit the all-hands circuit. “First platoon up! Wake up, call off, and report!”
—And clicked over to officers’ circuit. “Captain! Captain Blackstone! Urgent!” “Slow down, Johnnie. Report.”
“‘Frying bacon’ sounds, sir,” I answered, trying desperately to keep my voice steady. “Post twelve at co-ordinates Easter Nine, Square Black One.”
“Easter Nine,” he agreed. “Decibels?”
I looked hastily at the meter on the pickup. “I don’t know, Captain. Off the scale at the max end. It sounds like they’re right under my feet!” “Good!” He applauded—and I wondered how he could feel that way. “Best news we’ve had today! Now listen, son. Get your lads awake—” “They are, sir!”
“Very well. Pull back two listeners, have them spot-check around post twelve. Try to figure where the Bugs are going to break out. And stay awayfrom that spot! Understand me?”
“I hear you, sir,” I said carefully. “But I do not understand.”
He sighed. “Johnnie, you’ll turn my hair gray yet. Look, son, we want them to come out, the more the better. You don’t have the firepower to handle them other than by blowing up their tunnel as they reach the surface—and that is the one thing you must not do! If they come out in force, a regiment can’t handle them. But that’s just what the General wants, and he’s got a brigade of heavy weapons in orbit, waiting for it. So you spot that
breakthrough, fall back and keep it under observation. If you are lucky enough to have a major breakthrough in your area, your reconnaissance will be patched through all the way to the top. So stay lucky and stay alive! Got it?”
“Yes, sir. Spot the breakthrough. Fall back and avoid contact. Observe and report.” “Get on it!”
I pulled back listeners nine and ten from the middle stretch of “Bug Boulevard” and had them close in on co-ordinates Easter Nine from right and left, stopping every half mile to listen for “frying bacon.” At the same time I lifted post twelve and moved it toward our rear, while checking for a dying away of the sound.
In the meantime my platoon sergeant was regrouping the platoon in the forward area between the Bug settlement and the crater—all but twelve men who were ground-listening. Since we were under orders not to attack, we both worried over the prospect of having the platoon spread too widely for mutual support. So he rearranged them in a compact line five miles long, with Brumby’s section on the left, nearer the Bug settlement. This placed the men less than three hundred yards apart (almost shoulder to shoulder for cap troopers), and put nine of the men still on listening stations within support distance of one flank or the other. Only the three listeners working with me were out of reach of ready help.
I told Bayonne of the Wolverines and Do Campo of the Head Hunters that I was no longer patrolling and why, and I reported our regrouping to Captain Blackstone.
He grunted. “Suit yourself. Got a prediction on that breakthrough?”
“It seems to center about Easter Ten, Captain, but it is hard to pin down. The sounds are very loud in an area about three miles across—and it seems to get wider. I’m trying to circle it at an intensity level just barely on scale.” I added, “Could they be driving a new horizontal tunnel just under the surface?”
He seemed surprised. “That’s possible. I hope not—we want them to come up.” He added, “Let me know if the center of the noise moves. Check on it.”
“Yes, sir. Captain—” “Huh? Speak up.”
“You told us not to attack when they break out. If they break out. What are we to do? Are we just spectators?”
There was a longish delay, fifteen or twenty seconds, and he may have consulted “upstairs.” At last he said, “Mr. Rico, you are not to attack at or
near Easter Ten. Anywhere else—the idea is to hunt Bugs.” “Yes, sir,” I agreed happily. “We hunt Bugs.”
“Johnnie!” he said sharply. “If you go hunting medals instead of Bugs—and I find out—you’re going to have a mighty sad-looking Form Thirty- One!”
“Captain,” I said earnestly. “I don’t ever want to win a medal. The idea is to hunt Bugs.” “Right. Now quit bothering me.”
I called my platoon sergeant, explained the new limits under which we would work, told him to pass the word along and to make sure that each man’s suit was freshly charged, air and power.
“We’ve just finished that, sir. I suggest that we relieve the men with you.” He named three reliefs.
That was reasonable, as my ground listeners had had no time to recharge. But the reliefs he named were all scouts.
Silently I cussed myself for utter stupidity. A scout’s suit is as fast as a command suit, twice the speed of a marauder. I had been having a nagging feeling of something left undone, and had checked it off to the nervousness I always feel around Bugs.
Now I knew. Here I was, ten miles away from my platoon with a party of three men—each in a marauder suit. When the Bugs broke through, I was going to be faced with an impossible decision . . . unless the men with me could rejoin as fast as I could. “That’s good,” I agreed, “but I no longer need three men. Send Hughes, right away. Have him relieve Nyberg. Use the other three scouts to relieve the listening posts farthest forward.”
“Just Hughes?” he said doubtfully.
“Hughes is enough. I’m going to man one listener myself. Two of us can straddle the area; we know where they are now.” I added, “Get Hughes down here on the bounce.”
For the next thirty-seven minutes nothing happened. Hughes and I swung back and forth along the forward and rear arcs of the area around Easter Ten, listening five seconds at a time, then moving on. It was no longer necessary to seat the microphone in rock; it was enough to touch it to the ground to get the sound of “frying bacon” strong and clear. The noise area expanded but its center did not change. Once I called Captain Blackstone to tell him the sound had abruptly stopped, and again three minutes later to tell him it had resumed; otherwise I used the scouts’ circuit and let my platoon sergeant take care of the platoon and the listening posts near the platoon.
At the end of this time everything happened at once.
A voice called out on the scouts’ circuit, “‘Bacon Fry’! Albert Two!”
I clicked over and called out, “Captain! ‘Bacon Fry’ at Albert Two, Black One! ”—clicked over to liaison with the platoons surrounding me: “Liaison flash! ‘Bacon frying’ at Albert Two, Square Black One”—and immediately heard Do Campo reporting: “‘Frying bacon’ sounds at Adolf Three, Green Twelve.”
I relayed that to Blackie and cut back to my own scouts’ circuit, heard: “Bugs! Bugs! HELP!” “Where?”
No answer. I clicked over. “Sarge! Who reported Bugs?”
He rapped back, “Coming up out of their town—about Bangkok Six.”
“Hit ’em!” I clicked over to Blackie. “Bugs at Bangkok Six, Black One—I am attacking!” “I heard you order it,” he answered calmly. “How about Easter Ten?”
“Easter Ten is—” The ground fell away under me and I was engulfed in Bugs.
I didn’t know what had happened to me. I wasn’t hurt; it was a bit like falling into the branches of a tree—but those branches were alive and kept jostling me while my gyros complained and tried to keep me upright. I fell ten or fifteen feet, deep enough to be out of the daylight.
Then a surge of living monsters carried me back up into the light—and training paid off; I landed on my feet, talking and fighting: “Breakthrough at Easter Ten—no, Easter Eleven, where I am now. Big hole and they’re pouring up. Hundreds. More than that.” I had a hand flamer in each hand and was burning them down as I reported.
“Get out of there, Johnnie!” “Wilco! ”—and I started to jump.
And stopped. Checked the jump in time, stopped flaming, and really looked—for I suddenly realized that I ought to be dead. “Correction,” I said, looking and hardly believing. “Breakthrough at Easter Eleven is a feint. No warriors.”
“Repeat.”
“Easter Eleven, Black One. Breakthrough here is entirely by workers so far. No warriors. I am surrounded by Bugs and they are still pouring out, but not a one of them is armed and those nearest me all have typical worker features. I have not been attacked.” I added, “Captain, do you think this could be just a diversion? With their real breakthrough to come somewhere else?”
“Could be,” he admitted. “Your report is patched through right to Division, so let them do the thinking. Stir around and check what you’ve reported. Don’t assume that they are all workers—you may find out the hard way.”
“Right, Captain.” I jumped high and wide, intending to get outside that mass of harmless but loathsome monsters.
That rocky plain was covered with crawly black shapes in all directions. I overrode my jet controls and increased the jump, calling out, “Hughes!
Report!”
“Bugs, Mr. Rico! Zillions of ’em! I’m a-burnin’ ’em down!”
“Hughes, take a close look at those Bugs. Any of them fighting back? Aren’t they all workers?” “Uh—” I hit the ground and bounced again. He went on, “Hey! You’re right, sir! How did you know?”
“Rejoin your squad, Hughes.” I clicked over. “Captain, several thousand Bugs have exited near here from an undetermined number of holes. I have not been attacked. Repeat, I have not been attacked at all. If there are any warriors among them, they must be holding their fire and using workers as camouflage.”
He did not answer.
There was an extremely brilliant flash far off to my left, followed at once by one just like it but farther away to my right front; automatically I noted time and bearings. “Captain Blackstone—answer!” At the top of my jump I tried to pick out his beacon, but that horizon was cluttered by low hills in Square Black Two.
I clicked over and called out, “Sarge! Can you relay to the Captain for me?” At that very instant my platoon sergeant’s beacon blinked out.
I headed on that bearing as fast as I could push my suit. I had not been watching my display closely, my platoon sergeant had the platoon and I had been busy, first with ground-listening and, most lately, with a few hundred Bugs. I had suppressed all but the non-com’s beacons to allow me to see better.
I studied the skeleton display, picked out Brumby and Cunha, their squad leaders and section chasers. “Cunha! Where’s the platoon sergeant?” “He’s reconnoitering a hole, sir.”
“Tell him I’m on my way, rejoining.” I shifted circuits without waiting. “First Platoon Blackguards to second platoon—answer!” “What do you want?” Lieutenant Khoroshen growled.
“I can’t raise the Captain.” “You won’t, he’s out.” “Dead?”
“No. But he’s lost power—so he’s out.” “Oh. Then you’re company commander?”
“All right, all right, so what? Do you want help?” “Uh . . . no. No, sir.”
“Then shut up,” Khoroshen told me, “until you do need help. We’ve got more than we can handle here.”
“Okay.” I suddenly found that I had more than I could handle. While reporting to Khoroshen, I shifted to full display and short range, as I was almost closed with my platoon—and now I saw my first section disappear one by one, Brumby’s beacon disappearing first.
“Cunha! What’s happening to the first section?”
His voice sounded strained. “They are following the platoon sergeant down.”
If there’s anything in the book that covers this, I don’t know what it is. Had Brumby acted without orders? Or had he been given orders I hadn’t heard? Look, the man was already down a Bug hole, out of sight and hearing—is this a time to go legal? We would sort such things out tomorrow. If any of us had a tomorrow—
“Very well,” I said. “I’m back now. Report.” My last jump brought me among them; I saw a Bug off to my right and I got him before I hit. No worker, this—it had been firing as it moved.
“I’ve lost three men,” Cunha answered, gasping. “I don’t know what Brumby lost. They broke out three places at once—that’s when we took the casualties. But we’re mopping them—”
A tremendous shock wave slammed me just as I bounced again, slapped me sideways. Three minutes thirty-seven seconds—call it thirty miles. Was that our sappers “putting down their corks”? “First section! Brace yourselves for another shock wave!” I landed sloppily, almost on top of a group of three or four Bugs. They weren’t dead but they weren’t fighting; they just twitched. I donated them a grenade and bounced again. “Hit ’em
now!” I called out. “They’re groggy. And mind that next—”
The second blast hit as I was saying it. It wasn’t as violent. “Cunha! Call off your section. And everybody stay on the bounce and mop up.”
The call-off was ragged and slow—too many missing files as I could see from my physicals display. But the mop-up was precise and fast. I ranged around the edge and got half a dozen Bugs myself—the last of them suddenly became active just before I flamed it. Why did concussion daze them more than it did us? Because they were unarmored? Or was it their brain Bug, somewhere down below, that was dazed?I
The call-off showed nineteen effectives, plus two dead, two hurt, and three out of action through suit failure—and two of these latter Navarre was repairing by vandalizing power units from suits of dead and wounded. The third suit failure was in radio & radar and could not be repaired, so Navarre assigned the man to guard the wounded, the nearest thing to pickup we could manage until we were relieved.
In the meantime I was inspecting, with Sergeant Cunha, the three places where the Bugs had broken through from their nest below. Comparison with the sub map showed, as one could have guessed, that they had cut exits at the places where their tunnels were closest to the surface.
One hole had closed; it was a heap of loose rock. The second one did not show Bug activity; I told Cunha to post a lance and a private there with orders to kill single Bugs, close the hole with a bomb if they started to pour out—it’s all very well for the Sky Marshal to sit up there and decide that holes must not be closed, but I had a situation, not a theory.
Then I looked at the third hole, the one that had swallowed up my platoon sergeant and half my platoon.
Here a Bug corridor came within twenty feet of the surface and they had simply removed the roof for about fifty feet. Where the rock went, what caused that “frying bacon” noise while they did it, I could not say. The rocky roof was gone and the sides of the hole were sloped and grooved. The map showed what must have happened; the other two holes came up from small side tunnels, this tunnel was part of their main labyrinth—so the other two had been diversions and their main attack had come from here.
Can those Bugs see through solid rock?
Nothing was in sight down that hole, neither Bug nor human. Cunha pointed out the direction the second section had gone. It had been seven minutes and forty seconds since the platoon sergeant had gone down, slightly over seven since Brumby had gone after him. I peered into the darkness, gulped and swallowed my stomach. “Sergeant, take charge of your section,” I said, trying to make it sound cheerful. “If you need help, call Lieutenant Khoroshen.”
“Orders, sir?”
“None. Unless some come down from above. I’m going down and find the second section—so I may be out of touch for a while.” Then I jumped down in the hole at once, because my nerve was slipping.
Behind me I heard: “Section!”
“First squad! ”—“Second squad! ”—“Third squad!”
“By squads! Followme!”—and Cunha jumped down, too. It’s not nearly so lonely that way.
I had Cunha leave two men at the hole to cover our rear, one on the floor of the tunnel, one at surface level. Then I led them down the tunnel the second section had followed, moving as fast as possible—which wasn’t fast as the roof of the tunnel was right over our heads. A man can move in sort of a skating motion in a powered suit without lifting his feet, but it is neither easy nor natural; we could have trotted without armor faster.
Snoopers were needed at once—whereupon we confirmed something that had been theorized: Bugs see by infrared. That dark tunnel was well lighted when seen by snoopers. So far it had no special features, simply glazed rock walls arching over a smooth, level floor.
We came to a tunnel crossing the one we were in and I stopped short of it. There are doctrines for how you should dispose a strike force underground—but what good are they? The only certainty was that the man who had written the doctrines had never himself tried them . . . because, before Operation Royalty, nobody had come back up to tell what had worked and what had not.
One doctrine called for guarding every intersection such as this one. But I had already used two men to guard our escape hole; if I left 10 per cent of my force at each intersection, mighty soon I would be ten-percented to death.
I decided to keep us together . . . decided, too, that none of us would be captured. Not by Bugs. Far better a nice, clean real estate deal . . . and
with that decision a load was lifted from my mind and I was no longer worried.
I peered cautiously into the intersection, looked both ways. No Bugs. So I called out over the non-coms’ circuit: “Brumby!”
The result was startling. You hardly hear your own voice when using suit radio, as you are shielded from your output. But here, underground in a network of smooth corridors, my output came back to me as if the whole complex were one enormous wave guide:
“BRRRRUMMBY!”
My ears rang with it.
And then rang again: “MR. RRRICCCO!”
“Not so loud,” I said, trying to talk very softly myself. “Where are you?” Brumby answered, not quite so deafeningly, “Sir, I don’t know. We’re lost.”
“Well, take it easy. We’re coming to get you. You can’t be far away. Is the platoon sergeant with you?” “No, sir. We never—”
“Hold it.” I clicked in my private circuit. “Sarge—”
“I read you, sir.” His voice sounded calm and he was holding the volume down. “Brumby and I are in radio contact but we have not been able to make rendezvous.”
“Where are you?”
He hesitated slightly. “Sir, my advice is to make rendezvous with Brumby’s section—then return to the surface.” “Answer my question.”
“Mr. Rico, you could spend a week down here and not find me . . . and I am not able to move. You must—” “Cut it, Sarge! Are you wounded?”
“No, sir, but—”
“Then why can’t you move? Bug trouble?”
“Lots of it. They can’t reach me now . . . but I can’t come out. So I think you had better—”
“Sarge, you’re wasting time! I am certain you know exactly what turns you took. Now tell me, while I look at the map. And give me a vernier reading on your D.R. tracer. That’s a direct order. Report.”
He did so, precisely and concisely. I switched on my head lamp, flipped up the snoopers, and followed it on the map. “All right,” I said presently. “You’re almost directly under us and two levels down—and I know what turns to take. We’ll be there as soon as we pick up the second section. Hang on.” I clicked over. “Brumby—”
“Here, sir.”
“When you came to the first tunnel intersection, did you go right, left, or straight ahead?” “Straight ahead, sir.”
“Okay. Cunha, bring ’em along. Brumby, have you got Bug trouble?”
“Not now, sir. But that’s how we got lost. We tangled with a bunch of them . . . and when it was over, we were turned around.”
I started to ask about casualties, then decided that bad news could wait; I wanted to get my platoon together and get out of there. A Bug town with no bugs in sight was somehow more upsetting than the Bugs we had expected to encounter. Brumby coached us through the next two choices and I tossed tanglefoot bombs down each corridor we did not use. “Tanglefoot” is a derivative of the nerve gas we had been using on Bugs in the past— instead of killing, it gives any Bug that trots through it a sort of shaking palsy. We had been equipped with it for this one operation, and I would have swapped a ton of it for a few pounds of the real stuff. Still, it might protect our flanks.
In one long stretch of tunnel I lost touch with Brumby—some oddity in reflection of radio waves, I guess, for I picked him up at the next intersection. But there he could not tell me which way to turn. This was the place, or near the place, where the Bugs had hit them.
And here the Bugs hit us.
I don’t know where they came from. One instant everything was quiet. Then I heard the cry of “Bugs! Bugs!” from back of me in the column, I turned—and suddenly Bugs were everywhere. I suspect that those smooth walls are not as solid as they look; that’s the only way I can account for the way they were suddenly all around us and among us.
We couldn’t use flamers, we couldn’t use bombs; we were too likely to hit each other. But the Bugs didn’t have any such compunctions among themselves if they could get one of us. But we had hands and we had feet—
It couldn’t have lasted more than a minute, then there were no more Bugs, just broken pieces of them on the floor . . . and four cap troopers down.
One was Sergeant Brumby, dead. During the ruckus the second section had rejoined. They had been not far away, sticking together to keep from getting further lost in that maze, and had heard the fight. Hearing it, they had been able to trace it by sound, where they had not been able to locate us by radio.
Cunha and I made certain that our casualties were actually dead, then consolidated the two sections into one of four squads and down we went— and found the Bugs that had our platoon sergeant besieged.
That fight didn’t last any time at all, because he had warned me what to expect. He had captured a brain Bug and was using its bloated body as a shield. He could not get out, but they could not attack him without (quite literally) committing suicide by hitting their own brain.
We were under no such handicap; we hit them from behind.
Then I was looking at the horrid thing he was holding and I was feeling exultant despite our losses, when suddenly I heard close up that “frying bacon” noise. A big piece of roof fell on me and Operation Royalty was over as far as I was concerned.
I woke up in bed and thought that I was back at O.C.S. and had just had a particularly long and complicated Bug nightmare. But I was not at
O.C.S.; I was in a temporary sick bay of the transport Argonne, and I really had had a platoon of my own for nearly twelve hours.
But now I was just one more patient, suffering from nitrous oxide poisoning and overexposure to radiation through being out of armor for over an hour before being retrieved, plus broken ribs and a knock in the head which had put me out of action.
It was a long time before I got everything straight about Operation Royalty and some of it I’ll never know. Why Brumby took his section underground, for example. Brumby is dead and Naidi bought the farm next to his and I’m simply glad that they both got their chevrons and were wearing them that day on Planet P when nothing went according to plan.
I did learn, eventually, why my platoon sergeant decided to go down into that Bug town. He had heard my report to Captain Blackstone that the “major breakthrough” was actually a feint, made with workers sent up to be slaughtered. When real warrior Bugs broke out where he was, he had concluded (correctly and minutes sooner than Staff reached the same conclusion) that the Bugs were making a desperation push, or they would not expend their workers simply to draw our fire.
He saw that their counterattack made from Bug town was not in sufficient force, and concluded that the enemy did not have many reserves—and decided that, at this one golden moment, one man acting alone might have a chance of raiding, finding “royalty” and capturing it. Remember, that was the whole purpose of the operation; we had plenty of force simply to sterilize Planet P, but our object was to capture royalty castes and to learn how to go down in. So he tried it, snatched that one moment—and succeeded on both counts.
It made it “mission accomplished” for the First Platoon of the Blackguards. Not very many platoons, out of many, many hundreds, could say that; no queens were captured (the Bugs killed them first) and only six brains. None of the six were ever exchanged, they didn’t live long enough. But the Psych Warfare boys did get live specimens, so I suppose Operation Royalty was a success.
My platoon sergeant got a field commission. I was not offered one (and would not have accepted)—but I was not surprised when I learned that he had been commissioned. Cap’n Blackie had told me that I was getting “the best sergeant in the fleet” and I had never had any doubt that Blackie’s opinion was correct. I had met my platoon sergeant before. I don’t think any other Blackguard knew this—not from me and certainly not from him. I doubt if Blackie himself knew it. But I had known my platoon sergeant since my first day as a boot.
His name is Zim.
My part in Operation Royalty did not seem a success to me. I was in the Argonne more than a month, first as a patient, then as an unattached casual, before they got around to delivering me and a few dozen others to Sanctuary; it gave me too much time to think—mostly about casualties, and what a generally messed-up job I had made out of my one short time on the ground as platoon leader. I knew I hadn’t kept everything juggled the way the Lieutenant used to—why, I hadn’t even managed to get wounded still swinging; I had let a chunk of rock fall on me.
And casualties—I didn’t know how many there were; I just knew that when I closed ranks there were only four squads where I had started with six. I
didn’t know how many more there might have been before Zim got them to the surface, before the Blackguards were relieved and retrieved.
I didn’t even know whether Captain Blackstone was still alive (he was—in fact he was back in command about the time I went underground) and I had no idea what the procedure was if a candidate was alive and his examiner was dead. But I felt that my Form Thirty-One was sure to make me a buck sergeant again. It really didn’t seem important that my math books were in another ship.
Nevertheless, when I was let out of bed the first week I was in the Argonne, after loafing and brooding a day I borrowed some books from one of the junior officers and got to work. Math is hard work and it occupies your mind—and it doesn’t hurt to learn all you can of it, no matter what rank you are; everything of any importance is founded on mathematics.
When I finally checked in at O.C.S. and turned in my pips, I learned that I was a cadet again instead of a sergeant. I guess Blackie gave me the benefit of the doubt.
My roommate, Angel, was in our room with his feet on the desk—and in front of his feet was a package, my math books. He looked up and looked surprised. “Hi, Juan! We thought you had bought it!”
“Me? The Bugs don’t like me that well. When do you go out?”
“Why, I’ve been out,” Angel protested. “Left the day after you did, made three drops and been back a week. What took you so long?” “Took the long way home. Spent a month as a passenger.”
“Some people are lucky. What drops did you make?” “Didn’t make any,” I admitted.
He stared. “Some people have all the luck!”
Perhaps Angel was right; eventually I graduated. But he supplied some of the luck himself, in patient tutoring. I guess my “luck” has usually been people—Angel and Jelly and the Lieutenant and Carl and Lieutenant Colonel Dubois, yes and my father, and Blackie . . . and Brumby . . . and Ace
—and always Sergeant Zim. Brevet Captain Zim, now, with permanent rank of First Lieutenant. It wouldn’t have been right for me to have wound up senior to him.
Bennie Montez, a classmate of mine, and I were at the Fleet landing field the day after graduation, waiting to go up to our ships. We were still such brand-new second lieutenants that being saluted made us nervous and I was covering it by reading the list of ships in orbit around Sanctuary
—a list so long that it was clear that something big was stirring, even though they hadn’t seen fit to mention it to me. I felt excited. I had my two dearest wishes, in one package—posted to my old outfit and while my father was still there, too. And now this, whatever it was, meant that I was about to have the polish put on me by “makee-learnee” under Lieutenant Jelal, with some important drop coming up.
I was so full of it all that I couldn’t talk about it, so I studied the lists. Whew, what a lot of ships! They were posted by types, too many to locate otherwise. I started reading off the troop carriers, the only ones that matter to an M.I.
There was the Mannerheim! Any chance of seeing Carmen? Probably not, but I could send a dispatch and find out.
Big ships—the new Valley Forge and the new Ypres, Marathon, El Alamein, Iwo, Gallipoli, Leyte, Marne, Tours, Gettysburg, Hastings, Alamo, Waterloo—all places where mud feet had made their names to shine.
Little ships, the ones named for foot sloggers: Horatius , Alvin York, Swamp Fox, the Rog herself, bless her heart, Colonel Bowie, Devereux, Vercingetorix, Sandino, Aubrey Cousens, Kamehameha, Audie Murphy, Xenophon, Aguinaldo—
I said, “There ought to be one named Magsaysay.”
Bennie said, “What?”
“Ramón Magsaysay,” I explained. “Great man, great soldier—probably be chief of psychological warfare if he were alive today. Didn’t you ever study any history?”
“Well,” admitted Bennie, “I learned that Simón Bolívar built the Pyramids, licked the Armada, and made the first trip to the moon.” “You left out marrying Cleopatra.”
“Oh, that. Yup. Well, I guess every country has its own version of history.”
“I’m sure of it.” I added something to myself and Bennie said, “What did you say?”
“Sorry, Bernardo. Just an old saying in my own language. I suppose you could translate it, more or less, as: ‘Home is where the heart is.’” “But what language was it?”
“Tagalog. My native language.”
“Don’t they talk Standard English where you come from?”
“Oh, certainly. For business and school and so forth. We just talk the old speech around home a little. Traditions. You know.”
“Yeah, I know. My folks chatter in Español the same way. But where do you—” The speaker started playing “Meadowland”; Bennie broke into a grin. “Got a date with a ship! Watch yourself, fellow! See you.”
“Mind the Bugs.” I turned back and went on reading ships’ names: Pal Maleter, Montgomery, Tchaka, Geronimo— Then came the sweetest sound in the world: “—shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young!”
I grabbed my kit and hurried. “Home is where the heart is”—I was going home.
CH:14
Am I my brother’s keeper?
—Genesis IV:9
Howthink ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?
—Matthew XII:12
Howmuch then is a man better than a sheep?
—Matthew XVIII:12
In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful . . . whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.
Each year we gain a little. You have to keep a sense of proportion.
—The Koran, Sûrah V, 32
“Time, sir.” My j.o. under instruction, Candidate or “Third Lieutenant” Bearpaw, stood just outside my door. He looked and sounded awfully young, and was about as harmless as one of his scalp-hunting ancestors.
“Right, Jimmie.” I was already in armor. We walked aft to the drop room. I said, as we went, “One word, Jimmie. Stick with me and keep out of my way. Have fun and use up your ammo. If by any chance I buy it, you’re the boss—but if you’re smart, you’ll let your platoon sergeant call the signals.”
“Yes, sir.”
As we came in, the platoon sergeant called them to attention and saluted. I returned it, said, “At ease,” and started down the first section while Jimmie looked over the second.
Then I inspected the second section, too, checking everything on every man. My platoon sergeant is much more careful than I am, so I didn’t find anything, I never do. But it makes the men feel better if their Old Man scrutinizes everything—besides, it’s my job.
Then I stepped out in the middle. “Another Bug hunt, boys. This one is a little different, as you know. Since they still hold prisoners of ours, we can’t use a nova bomb on Klendathu—so this time we go down, stand on it, hold it, take it away from them. The boat won’t be down to retrieve us; instead it’ll fetch more ammo and rations. If you’re taken prisoner, keep your chin up and follow the rules—because you’ve got the whole outfit
behind you, you’ve got the whole Federation behind you; we’ll come and get you. That’s what the boys from the Swamp Fox and the Montgomery
have been depending on. Those who are still alive are waiting, knowing that we will show up. And here we are. Now we go get ’em.
“Don’t forget that we’ll have help all around us, lots of help above us. All we have to worry about is our one little piece, just the way we rehearsed
it.
“One last thing. I had a letter from Captain Jelal just before we left. He says that his new legs work fine. But he also told me to tell you that he’s got
you in mind . . . and he expects your names to shine!
“And so do I. Five minutes for the Padre.”
I felt myself beginning to shake. It was a relief when I could call them to attention again and add: “By sections . . . port and starboard . . . prepare for drop!”
I was all right then while I inspected each man into his cocoon down one side, with Jimmie and the platoon sergeant taking the other. Then we buttoned Jimmie into the No. 3 center-line capsule. Once his face was covered up, the shakes really hit me.
My platoon sergeant put his arm around my armored shoulders. “Just like a drill, Son.” “I know it, Father.” I stopped shaking at once. “It’s the waiting, that’s all.”
“I know. Four minutes. Shall we get buttoned up, sir?”
“Right away, Father.” I gave him a quick hug, let the Navy drop crew seal us in. The shakes didn’t start up again. Shortly I was able to report: “Bridge! Rico’s Roughnecks . . . ready for drop!”
“Thirty-one seconds, Lieutenant.” She added, “Good luck, boys! This time we take ’em!” “Right, Captain.”
“Check. Now some music while you wait?” She switched it on: “To the everlasting glory of the Infantry—”
The End
I hope that you enjoyed this post. I have many other stories and well-written articles (by your’s truly) in my Fiction Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
This is the full text of a very long full length novel by Robert Heinlein. It is about a “mad scientist” that builds a machine that can enter and leave different world-lines at will. The scientist meets up with a girl and they both go out exploring all the very many different world lines at their leasure. As they fiddle with the controls they start to enter some very strange world-lines. Some of which resemble other science fiction novels, and some that resemble childhood stories…
This novel was one of the last Heinlein stores. It tends to be confusing if you have never read Heinlein before. As he refers to other stories that he wrote and the events that transpire tends to be confusing if you are not paying attention to it. Further, this (as one of his last major works) is jam packed with “farwells” to his friends, family and associates, as well as chock full of literiary “Easter Eggs”. He also includes answers to some “Hanging” mysteries and unanswered situations in some of his other works.
PART 3 – The Time Of Woe 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48
PART ONE – The Mandarin’s Butterfly
Chapter I
” – it is better to marry than to burn.” – Saul of Tarsus
Zeb: “He’s a Mad Scientist and I’m his Beautiful Daughter.” That’s what she said: the oldest cliché in pulp fiction. She wasn’t old enough to remember the pulps. The thing to do with a silly remark is to fail to hear it. I went on waltzing while taking another look down her evening formal. Nice view. Not foam rubber. She waltzed well. Today most girls who even attempt ballroom dancing drape themselves around your neck and expect you to shove them around the floor. She kept her weight on her own feet, danced close without snuggling, and knew what I was going to do a split second before I led it. A perfect partner as long as she didn’t talk. “Well?” she persisted. My paternal grandfather – an unsavory old reactionary; the FemLibbers would have lynched him – used to say, “Zebadiah, the mistake we made was not in putting shoes on them or in teaching them to read – we should never have taught them to talk!” I signaled a twirl by pressure; she floated into it and back into my arms right on the beat. I inspected her hands and the outer corners of her eyes. Yes, she really was young – minimum eighteen (Hilda Corners never permitted legal “infants” at her parties), maximum twenty-five, first approximation twenty-two. Yet she danced like her grandmother’s generation. “Well?” she repeated more firmly. This time I openly stared. “Is that cantilevering natural? Or is there an invisible bra, you being in fact the sole support of two dependents?” She glanced down, looked up and grinned. “They do stick out, don’t they? Your comment is rude, crude, unrefined, and designed to change the subject.” “What subject? I made a polite inquiry; you parried it with amphigory.” “‘Amphigory’ my tired feet! I answered precisely.” “‘Amphigory,'” I repeated. “The operative symbols were ‘mad,’ ‘scientist,’ ‘beautiful,’ and ‘daughter.’ The first has several meanings – the others denote opinions. Semantic content: zero.” She looked thoughtful rather than angry. “Pop isn’t rabid… although I did use ‘mad’ in ambivalent mode. ‘Scientist’ and ‘beautiful’ each contain descriptive opinions, I stipulate. But are you in doubt as to my sex? If so, are you qualified to check my twenty-third chromosome pair? With transsexual surgery so common I assume that anything less would not satisfy you.” “I prefer a field test.” “On the dance floor?” “No, the bushes back of the pool. Yes, I’m qualified – laboratory or field. But it was not your sex that lay in the area of opinion; that is a fact that can be established… although the gross evidence is convincing. I -“ “Ninety-five centimeters isn’t gross! Not for my height. One hundred seventy bare-footed, one eighty in these heels. It’s just that I’m wasp-waisted for my mass – forty-eight centimeters versus fifty-nine kilos.” “And your teeth are your own and you don’t have dandruff. Take it easy, Deedee; I didn’t mean to shake your aplomb” – or those twin glands that are not gross but delicious. I have an infantile bias and have known it since I was six – six months, that is. “But the symbol ‘daughter’ encompasses two statements, one factual – sex – and the other a matter of opinion even when stated by a forensic genetohematologist.” “Gosh, what big words you know, Mister. I mean ‘Doctor’.” “‘Mister’ is correct. On this campus it is swank to assume that everyone holds a doctorate. Even I have one, Ph.D. Do you know what that stands for?” “Doesn’t everybody? I have a Ph.D., too. ‘Piled Higher and Deeper.'” I raised that maximum to twenty-six and assigned it as second approximation. “Phys. ed.?” “Mister Doctor, you are trying to get my goat. Won’t work. I had an undergraduate double major, one being phys. ed. with teacher’s credentials in case I needed a job. But my real major was math – which I continued in graduate school.” “And here I had been assuming that ‘Deedee’ meant ‘Doctor of Divinity.'” “Go wash out your mouth with soap. My nickname is my initials – Dee Tee. Or Deety. Doctor D. T. Burroughs if being formal, as I can’t be ‘Mister’ and refuse to be ‘Miz’ or ‘Miss.’ See here, Mister; I’m supposed to be luring you with my radiant beauty, then hooking you with my feminine charm… and not getting anywhere. Let’s try another tack. Tell me what you piled higher and deeper.” “Let me think. Flycasting? Or was it basketweaving? It was one of those transdisciplinary things in which the committee simply weighs the dissertation. Tell you what. I’ve got a copy around my digs. I’ll find it and see what title the researcher who wrote it put on it.” “Don’t bother. The title is ‘Some Implications of a Six-Dimensional Non-Newtonian Continuum.’ Pop wants to discuss it.” I stopped waltzing. “Huh? He’d better discuss that paper with the bloke who wrote it.” “Nonsense; I saw you blink – I’ve hooked you. Pop wants to discuss it, then offer you a job.” “‘Job’! I just slipped off the hook.” “Oh, dear! Pop will be really mad. Please? Please, sir!” “You said that you had used ‘mad’ in ambivalent mode. How?” “Oh. Mad-angry because his colleagues won’t listen to him. Mad-psychotic in the opinions of some colleagues. They say his papers don’t make sense.” “Do they make sense?” “I’m not that good a mathematician, sir. My work is usually simplifying software. Child’s play compared with n-dimensional spaces.” I wasn’t required to express an opinion; the trio started Blue Tango, Deety melted into my arms. You don’t talk if you know tango. Deety knew. After an eternity of sensual bliss, I swung her out into position precisely on coda; she answered my bow and scrape with a deep curtsy. “Thank you, sir.” “Whew! After a tango like that the couple ought to get married.” “All right. I’ll find our hostess and tell Pop. Five minutes? Front door, or side?” She looked serenely happy. I said, “Deety, do you mean what you appear to mean? That you intend to marry me? A total stranger?” Her face remained calm but the light went out – and her nipples went down. She answered steadily. “After that tango we are no longer strangers. I construed your statement as a proposal – no, a willingness – to marry me. Was I mistaken?” My mind went into emergency, reviewing the past years the way a drowning man’s life is supposed to flash before his eyes (how could anyone know that?): a rainy afternoon when my chum’s older sister had initiated me into the mysteries; the curious effect caused by the first time strangers had shot back at me; a twelve-month cohabitation contract that had started with a bang and had ended without a whimper; countless events which had left me determined never to marry. I answered instantly, “I meant what I implied – marriage, in its older meaning. I’m willing. But why are you willing? I’m no prize.” She took a deep breath, straining the fabric, and – thank Allah! – her nipples came up. “Sir, you are the prize I was sent to fetch, and, when you said that we really ought to get married – hyperbole and I knew it – I suddenly realized, with a deep burst of happiness, that this was the means of fetching you that I wanted above all!” She went on, “But I will not trap you through misconstruing a gallantry. If you wish, you may take me into those bushes back of the pool… and not marry me.” She went on firmly, “But for that… whoring… my fee is for you to talk with my father and to let him show you something.” “Deety, you’re an idiot! You would ruin that pretty gown.” “Mussing a dress is irrelevant but I can take it off. I will. There’s nothing under it.” “There’s a great deal under it!” That fetched a grin, instantly wiped away. “Thank you. Shall we head for the bushes?” “Wait a half! I’m about to be noble and regret it the rest of my life. You’ve made a mistake. Your father doesn’t want to talk to me; I don’t know anything about n-dimensional geometry.” (Why do I get these attacks of honesty? I’ve never done anything to deserve them.) “Pop thinks you do; that is sufficient. Shall we go? I want to get Pop out of here before he busts somebody in the mouth.” “Don’t rush me; I didn’t ask you to rassle on the grass; I said I wanted to marry you – but wanted to know why you were willing to marry me. Your answer concerned what your father wants. I’m not trying to marry your father; he’s not my type. Speak for yourself, Deety. Or drop it.” (Am I a masochist? There’s a sunbathing couch back of those bushes.) Solemnly she looked me over, from my formal tights to my crooked bow tie and on up to my thinning brush cut – a hundred and ninety-four centimeters of big ugly galoot. “I like your firm lead in dancing. I like the way you look. I like the way your voice rumbles. I like your hair-splitting games with words – you sound like Whorf debating Korzybski with Shannon as referee.” She took another deep breath, finished almost sadly: “Most of all, I like the way you smell.” It would have taken a sharp nose to whiff me. I had been squeaky clean ninety minutes earlier, and it takes more than one waltz and a tango to make me sweat. But her remark had that skid in it that Deety put into almost anything. Most girls, when they want to ruin a man’s judgment, squeeze his biceps and say, “Goodness, you’re strong!” I grinned down at her. “You smell good too. Your perfume could rouse a corpse.” “I’m not wearing perfume.” “Oh. Correction: your natural pheromone. Enchanting. Get your wrap, Side door. Five minutes.” “Yes, sir.” “Tell your father we’re getting married. He gets that talk, free. I decided that before you started to argue. It won’t take him long to decide that I’m not Lobachevski.” “That’s Pop’s problem,” she answered, moving. “Will you let him show you this thing he’s built in our basement?” “Sure, why not? What is it?”
“A time machine.”
Chapter II
“This Universe never did make sense – “
Zeb: Tomorrow I will seven eagles see, a great comet will appear, and voices will speak from whirlwinds foretelling monstrous and fearful things – This Universe never did make sense; I suspect that it was built on government contract. “Big basement?” “Medium. Nine by twelve. But cluttered. Work benches and power tools.” A hundred and eight square meters – Ceiling height probably two and a half – Had Pop made the mistake of the man who built a boat in his basement? My musing was interrupted by a male voice in a high scream: “You overeducated, obstipated, pedantic ignoramus! Your mathematical intuition froze solid the day you matriculated!” I didn’t recognize the screamer but did know the stuffed shirt he addressed: Professor Neil O’Heret Brain, head of the department of mathematics – and God help the student who addressed a note to “Professor N.O. Brain” or even “N. O’H. Brain.” “Brainy” had spent his life in search of The Truth – intending to place it under house arrest. He was puffed up like a pouter pigeon with is professional pontifical pomposity reeling. His expression suggested that he was giving birth to a porcupine. Deety gasped, “It’s started,” and dashed toward the row. Me, I stay out of rows; I’m a coward by trade and wear fake zero-prescription glasses as a buffer – when some oaf snarls, “Take off your glasses!” that gives me time to retreat. I headed straight for the row. Deety had placed herself between the two, facing the screamer, and was saying in a low but forceful voice, “Pop, don’t you dare! – I won’t bail you out!” She was reaching for his glasses with evident intent to put them back on his face. It was clear that he had taken them off for combat; he was holding them out of her reach. I reached over their heads, plucked them out of his hand, gave them to Deety. She flashed me a smile and put them back on her father. He gave up and let her. She then took his arm firmly. “Aunt Hilda!” Our hostess converged on the row. “Yes, Deety? Why did you stop them, darling? You didn’t give us time to get bets down.” Fights were no novelty at “Sharp” Corners’ parties. Her food and liquor were lavish, the music always live; her guests were often eccentric but never dull – I had been surprised at the presence of N. O. Brain. I now felt that I understood it: a planned hypergolic mixture. Deety ignored her questions. “Will you excuse Pop and me and Mr. Carter? Something urgent has come up.” “You and Jake may leave if you must. But you can’t drag Zebbie away. Deety, that’s cheating.” Deety looked at me. “May I tell?” “Eh? Certainly!” That bliffy “Brainy” picked this moment to interrupt. “Mrs. Corners, Doctor Burroughs can’t leave until he apologizes! I insist. My privilege!” Our hostess looked at him with scorn. “Merde, Professor. I’m not one of your teaching fellows. Shout right back at Jake Burroughs if you like. If your command of invective equals his, we’ll enjoy hearing it. But just one more wordthat sounds like an order to me or to one of my guests – and out you go! Then you had best go straight home; the Chancellor will be trying to reach you.” She turned her back on him. “Deety, you started to add something?” “Sharp” Corners can intimidate Internal Revenue agents. She hadn’t cut loose on “Brainy” – just a warning shot across his bow. But from his face one would have thought she had hulled him. However, her remark to Deety left me no time to see whether he would have a stroke. “Not Deety, Hilda. Me. Zeb.” “Quiet, Zebbie. Whatever it is, the answer is No. Deety? Go ahead, dear.” Hilda Corners is related to that famous mule. I did not use a baseball bat because she comes only up to my armpits and grosses forty-odd kilos. I picked her up by her elbows and turned her around, facing me. “Hilda, we’re going to get married.” “Zebbie darling! I thought you would never ask.” “Not you, you old harridan. Deety. I proposed, she accepted; I’m going to nail it down before the anesthetic wears off.” Hilda looked thoughtfully interested. “That’s reasonable.” She craned her neck to look at Deety. “Did he mention his wife in Boston, Deety? Or the twins?” I set her back on her feet. “Pipe down, Sharpie; this is serious. Doctor Burroughs, I am unmarried, in good health, solvent, and able to support a family. I hope this meets with your approval.” “Pop says Yes,” Deety answered. “I hold his power of attorney.” “You pipe down, too. My name is Carter, sir – Zeb Carter. I’m on campus; you can check my record. But I intend to marry Deety at once, if she will have me.” “I know your name and record, sir. It doesn’t require my approval; Deety is of age. But you have it anyhow.” He looked thoughtful. “If you two are getting married at once, you’ll be too busy for shop talk. Or would you be?” “Pop – let it be; it’s all set.” “So? Thank you, Hilda, for a pleasant evening. I’ll call you tomorrow.” “You’ll do no such thing; you’ll come straight back and give me a full report. Jake, you are not going on their honeymoon – I heard you.” “Aunt Hilda – please! I’ll manage everything.” We were out the side door close on schedule. At the parking lot there was a bobble: which heap, mine or theirs. Mine is intended for two but can take four. The rear seats are okay for two for short trips. Theirs was a four-passenger family saloon, not fast but roomy – and their luggage was in it. “How much luggage?” I asked Deety, while I visualized two overnight bags strapped into one back seat with my prospective father-in-law stashed in the other. “I don’t have much, but Pop has two big bags and a fat briefcase. I had better show you.” (Damn.) “Perhaps you had better.” I like my own rig, I don’t like to drive other people’s cars, and, while Deety probably handled controls as smoothly as she danced, I did not know that she did – and I’m chicken. I didn’t figure her father into the equation; trusting my skin to his temper did not appeal. Maybe Deety would settle for letting him trail us – but my bride-to-be was going to ride with me! “Where?” “Over in the far corner. I’ll unlock it and turn on the lights.” She reached into her father’s inside jacket pocket, took out a Magic Wand. “Wait for baby!” The shout was from our hostess. Hilda was running down the path from her house, purse clutched in one hand and about eight thousand newdollars of sunset mink flying like a flag from the other. So the discussion started over. Seems Sharpie had decided to come along to make certain that Jake behaved himself and had taken just long enough to tell Max (her bouncer-butler-driver) when to throw the drunks out or cover them with blankets, as needed. She listened to Deety’s summary, then nodded. “Got it. I can handle yours, Deety; Jake and I will go in it. You ride with Zebbie, dear.” She turned to me. “Hold down the speed, Zebbie, so that I can follow. No tricks, Buster. Don’t try to lose us or you’ll have cops busting out of your ears.” I turned my sweet innocent eyes toward her. “Why, Sharpie darling, you know I wouldn’t do anything like that.” “You’d steal city hall if you could figure a way to carry it. Who dumped that load of lime Jello into my swimming pool?” “I was in Africa at that time, as you know.” “So you say. Deety darling, keep him on a short leash and don’t feed him meat. But marry him; he’s loaded. Now where’s that radio link? And your car.” “Here,” said Deety, pointed the Magic Wand and pressed the switch. I gathered all three into my arms and dived. We hit the ground as the blast hit everything else. But not us. The blast shadow of other cars protected us.
Chapter III
” – Professor Moriarty isn’t fooled – “
Zeb: Don’t ask me how. Ask a trapeze artist how he does a triple ‘sault. Ask a crapshooter how he knows when he’s “hot.” But don’t ask me how I know it’s going to happen just before it hits the fan. It doesn’t tell me anything I don’t need to know. I don’t know what’s in a letter until I open it (except the time it was a letter bomb). I have no precognition for harmless events. But this split-second knowledge when I need it has kept me alive and relatively unscarred in an era when homicide kills more people than does cancer and the favorite form of suicide is to take a rifle up some tower and keep shooting until the riot squad settles it. I don’t see the car around the curve on the wrong side; I automatically hit the ditch. When the San Andreas Fault cut loose, I jumped out a window and was in the open when the shock arrived – and didn’t know why I had jumped. Aside from this, my E.S.P. is erratic; I bought it cheap from a war-surplus outlet. I sprawled with three under me. I got up fast, trying to avoid crushing them. I gave a hand to each woman, then dragged Pop to his feet. No one seemed damaged. Deety stared at the fire blazing where their car had been, face impassive. Her father was looking at the ground, searching. Deety stopped him. “Here, Pop.” She put his glasses back on him. “Thank you, my dear.” He started toward the fire. I grabbed his shoulder. “No! Into my car – fast!” “Eh? My briefcase – could have blown clear.” “Shut up and move! All of you!” “Do it, Pop!” Deety grabbed Hilda’s arm. We stuffed the older ones into the after space; I shoved Deety into the front passenger seat and snapped: “Seat belts!” as I slammed the door – then was around to the left so fast that I should have caused a sonic boom. “Seat belts fastened?” I demanded as I fastened my own and locked the door. “Jake’s is fastened and so is mine, Zebbie dear,” Hilda said cheerfully. “Belt tight, door locked,” Deety reported. The heap was hot; I had left it on trickle – what use is a fast car that won’t go scat? I switched from trickle to full, did not turn on lights, glanced at the board and released the brake. It says here that duos must stay grounded inside city limits – so I was lifting her nose before she had rolled a meter and she was pointed straight up as we were clearing the parking lot. Half a klick straight up while the gee meter climbed – two, three, four – I let it reach five and held it, not being sure what Pop’s heart would take. When the altimeter read four klicks, I cut everything – power, transponder, the works – while hitting a button that dropped chaff, and let her go ballistic. I didn’t know that anyone was tracking us – I didn’t want to find out. When the altimeter showed that we had topped out, I let the wings open a trifle. When I felt them bite air, I snap-rolled onto her belly, let wings crawl out to subsonic aspect and let her glide. “Everybody okay?” Hilda giggled. “Whoops, dear! Do that again! This time, somebody kiss me.” “Pipe down, you shameless old strumpet. Pop?” “I’m okay, son.” “Deety?” “Okay here.” “Did that fall in the parking lot hurt you?” “No, sir. I twisted in the air and took it on one buttock while getting Pop’s glasses. But next time put a bed under me, please. Or a wrestling mat.” “I’ll remember.” I switched on radio but not transponder, tried all police frequencies. If anyone had noticed our didoes, they weren’t discussing it on the air. We were down to two klicks; I made an abrupt wingover to the right, then switched on power. “Deety, where do you and your Pop live?” “Logan, Utah.” “How long does it take to get married there?” “Zebbie,” Hilda cut in, “Utah has no waiting time -“ “So we go to Logan.” ” – but does require blood test. Deety, do you know Zebbie’s nickname around campus? The Wasp. For ‘Wassermann Positive.’ Zebbie, everybody knows that Nevada is the only state that offers twenty-four-hour service, no waiting time, no blood test. So point this bomb at Reno and sign off.” “Sharpie darling,” I said gently, “would you like to walk home from two thousand meters?” “I don’t know; I’ve never tried it.” “That’s an ejection seat… but no parachutes.” “Oh, how romantic! Jake darling, we’ll sing the Liebestod on the way down – you sing tenor, I’ll force a soprano and we’ll die in each other’s arms. Zebbie, could we have more altitude? For the timing.” “Doctor Burroughs, gag that hitchhiker. Sharpie, Liebestod is a solo.” “Picky, picky! Isn’t dead-on-arrival enough? Jealous because you can’t carry a tune? I told Dicky Boy that should be a duet and Cosima agreed with me -“ “Sharpie, button your frimpin’ lip while I explain. One: Everybody at your party knows why we left and will assume that we headed for Reno. You probably called out something to that effect as you left -“ “I believe I did. Yes, I did.” “Shut up. Somebody made a professional effort to kill Doctor Burroughs. Not just kill but overkill; that combo of high explosive and Thermit was intended to leave nothing to analyze. But it is possible that no one saw us lift. We were into this go-wagon and I was goosing it less than thirty seconds after that booby trap exploded. Innocent bystanders would look at the fire, not at us. Guilty bystanders – There wouldn’t be any. A professional who booby-traps a car either holes up or crosses a state line and gets lost. The party or parties who paid for the contract may be nearby, but if they are, Hilda, they’re in your house.” “One of my guests?” “Oh, shut it, Sharpie; you are never interested in the morals of your guests. If they can be depended on to throw custard pies or do impromptu strips or some other prank that will keep your party from growing dull, that qualifies them. However, I am not assuming that the boss villain was at your party; I am saying that he would not be lurking where the Man might put the arm on him. Your house would be the best place to hide and watch the plot develop. “But, guest or not, he was someone who knew that Doctor Burroughs would be at your party. Hilda, who knew that key fact?” She answered with uncustomary seriousness. “I don’t know, Zebbie. I would have to think.” “Think hard.” “Mmm, not many. Several were invited because Jake was coming – you, for example -“ “I became aware of that.” ” – but you weren’t told that Jake would be present. Some were told – ‘No Brain,’ for example – but I can’t imagine that old fool booby-trapping a car.” “I can’t either, but killers don’t look like killers; they look like people. How long before the party did you tell ‘Brainy’ that Pop would be present?” “I told him when I invited him. Mmm, eight days ago.” I sighed. “The possibles include not only the campus but the entire globe. So we must try to figure probables. Doctor Burroughs, can you think of anyone who would like to see you dead?” “Several!” “Let me rephrase it. Who hates your guts so bitterly that he would not hesitate to kill your daughter as long as he got you? And also bystanders such as Hilda and me. Not that we figure, save to show that he didn’t give a hoot who caught it. A deficient personality. Amoral. Who is he?” Pop Burroughs hesitated. “Doctor Carter, disagreement between mathematicians can be extremely heated… and I am not without fault.” (You’re telling me, Pop!) “But these quarrels rarely result in violence. Even the death of Archimedes was only indirectly related to his – our – profession. To encompass my daughter as well – no, even Doctor Brain, much as I despise him, does not fit the picture.” Deety said, “Zeb, could it have been me they were shooting at?” “You tell me. Whose dolly have you busted?” “Hmm – I can’t think of anyone who dislikes me even enough to snub me. Sounds silly but it’s true.” “It’s the truth,” put in Sharpie. “Deety is just like her mother was. When Jane – Deety’s mother, and my best friend until we lost her-when Jane and I were roommates in college, I was always getting into jams and Jane was always getting me out-and never got into one herself. A peacemaker. So is Deety.” “Okay, Deety, you’re out of it. So is Hilda and so am I, as whoever placed that booby trap could not predict that either Hilda or I would be in blast range. So it’s Pop they’re gunning for. Who we don’t know, why we don’t know. When we figure out why, we’ll know who. Meantime we’ve got to keep Pop out of range. I’m going to marry you as fast as possible, not only because you smell good but to give me a legitimate interest in this fight.” “So we go first to Reno.” “Shut up, Sharpie. We’ve been on course for Reno since we leveled off.” I flipped on the transponder, but to the left, not right. It would now answer with a registered, legal signal… but not one registered to my name. This cost me some shekels I did not need but were appreciated by a tight – lipped family man in Indio. Sometimes it is convenient not to be identified by sky cops every time one crosses a state line. “But we aren’t going to Reno. Those cowboy maneuvers were intended to deceive the eye, radar, and heat seekers. The evasion against the heat seekers – that rough turn while we were still in glide – either worked or was not needed, as we haven’t had a missile up the tail. Probably wasn’t needed; people who booby-trap cars aren’t likely to be prepared to shoot a duo out of the sky. But I couldn’t be certain, so I ducked. We may be assumed to be dead in the blast and fire, and that assumption may stand up until the mess has cooled down and there is daylight to work by. Even later it may stand up, as the cops may not tell anyone that they were unable to find organic remains. But I must assume that Professor Moriarty isn’t fooled, that he is watching by repeater scope in his secret HQ, that he knows we are headed for Reno, and that hostiles will greet us there. So we won’t go there. Now quiet, please; I must tell this baby what to do.” The computer-pilot of my car can’t cook but what she can do, she does well. I called for display map, changed scale to include Utah, used the light pen to trace route – complex as it curved around Reno to the south, back north again, made easting over some very empty country, and passed north of Hill Air Force Range in approaching Logan. I fed in height-above-ground while giving her leeway to smooth out bumps, and added one change in speed-over-ground once we were clear of Reno radar. “Got it, girl?” I asked her. “Got it, Zeb.” “Ten-minute call, please.” “Call you ten minutes before end of routing – right!” “You’re a smart girl, Gay.” “Boss, I bet you tell that to all the girls. Over.” “Roger and out, Gay.” The display faded. Certainly I could have programmed my autopilot to accept a plan in response to a punched “Execute.” But isn’t it pleasanter to be answered by a warm contralto? But the “smart girl” aspect lay in the fact that it took my voice to make a flight plan operative. A skilled electron pusher might find a way to override my lock, then drive her manually. But the first time he attempted to use autopilot, the car would not only not accept the program but would scream for help on all police frequencies. This causes car thieves to feel maladjusted. I looked up and saw that Deety had been following this intently. I waited for some question. Instead Deety said, “She has a very pleasant voice, Zeb.” “Gay Deceiver is a very nice girl, Deety.” “And talented. Zeb, I have never before been in a Ford that can do the things this car – Gay Deceiver? – can do.” “After we’re married I’ll introduce you to her more formally. It will require reprogramming.” “I look forward to knowing her better.” “You will. Gay is not exactly all Ford. Her external appearance was made by Ford of Canada. Most of the rest of her once belonged to Australian Defense Forces. But I added a few doodads. The bowling alley. The powder room. The veranda. Little homey touches.” “I’m sure she appreciates them, Zeb. I know I do. I suspect that, had she not had them, we would all be as dead as canasta.” “You may be right. If so, it would not be the first time Gay has kept me alive. You have not seen all her talents.” “I’m beyond being surprised. So far as I could see you didn’t tell her to land at Logan.” “Logan seems to be the next most likely place for a reception committee. Who in Logan knows that you and your father were going to visit Hilda?” “No one, through me.” “Mail? Milk cartons? Newspapers?” “No deliveries to the house, Zeb.” She turned her head, “Pop, does anyone in Logan know where we went?” “Doctor Carter, to the best of my knowledge, no one in Logan knows that We left. Having lived many years in the buzzing gossip of Academe, I have learned to keep my life as private as possible.” “Then I suggest that you all ease your belts and sleep. Until ten minutes before reaching Logan there is little to do.” “Doctor Carter -“ “Better call me Zeb, Pop. Get used to it.” “‘Zeb’ it is, son. On page eighty-seven of your monograph, after the equation numbered one-twenty-one in your discussion of the rotation of six-dimensional spaces of positive curvature, you said, ‘From this it is evident that – ‘ and immediately write your equation one-twenty-two. How did you do it? I’m not disagreeing, sir – on the contrary! But in an unpublished paper of my own I used a dozen pages to arrive at the same transformation. Did you have a direct intuition? Or did you simply omit publishing details? No criticism, I am impressed either way. Sheer curiosity.” “Doctor, I did not write that paper. I told Deety so.” “That is what he claimed, Pop.” “Oh, come now! Two Doctors Zebulon E. Carter on one campus?” “No. But that’s not my name. I’m Zebadiah J. Carter. Zebulon E.-for-Edward Carter and called ‘Ed’ is my cousin. While he is probably listed as being on campus, in fact he is doing an exchange year in Singapore. It’s not as improbable as it sounds; all male members of my family have first names starting with ‘Z.’ It has to do with money and a will and a trust fund and the fact that my grandfather and his father were somewhat eccentric.” “Whereas you aren’t,” Hilda said sweetly. “Quiet, dear.” I turned toward Deety. “Deety, do you want to be released from our engagement? I did try to tell you that you had trapped the wrong bird.” “Zebadiah – “ “Yes, Deety?” “I intend to marry you before this night is over. But you haven’t kissed me. I want to be kissed.” I unfastened my seat belt, started to unfasten hers, found that she had done so. Deety kisses even better than she tangos. During a break for oxygen, I asked her in a whisper: “Deety, what do your initials stand for?” “Well… please don’t laugh.” “I won’t. But I have to know them for the ceremony.” “I know. All right, Dee Tee stands for Dejah Thoris.” Dejah Thoris – Dejah Thoris Burroughs – Dejah Thoris Carter! I cracked up. I got it under control after two whoops. Too many. Deety said sadly, “You said you wouldn’t laugh.” “Deety darling, I wasn’t laughing at your name; I was laughing at mine.” “I don’t think ‘Zebadiah’ is a funny name. I like it.” “So do I. It keeps me from being mixed up with the endless Bobs and Eds and Toms. But I didn’t tell my middle name. What’s a funny name starting with ‘J’?” “I won’t guess.” “Let me lead up to it. I was born near the campus of the university Thomas Jefferson founded. The day I graduated from college I was commissioned a second looie Aerospace Reserve. I’ve been promoted twice. My middle initial stands for ‘John.'” It took not quite a second for her to add it up. “Captain… John… Carter – of Virginia.” “‘A clean-limbed fighting man,'” I agreed. “Kaor, Dejah Thoris. At your service, my princess. Now and forever!” “Kaor, Captain John Carter. Helium is proud to accept.” We fell on each other’s shoulders, howling. After a bit the howling died down and turned into another kiss. When we came up for air, Hilda tapped me on a shoulder. “Would you let us in on the joke?” “Do we tell her, Deety?” “I’m not sure. Aunt Hilda talks.” “Oh, nonsense! I know your full name and I’ve never told anyone – I held you at your christening. You were wet, too. At both ends. Now give!” “All right. We don’t have to get married – we already are. For years. More than a century.” Pop spoke up. “Eh? What’s this?” I explained to him. He looked thoughtful, then nodded. “Logical.” He went back to figuring he was doing in a notebook, then looked up. “Your cousin Zebulon – Is he on the telephone?” “Probably not but he lives at the New Raffles.” “Excellent. I’ll try both the hotel and the university. Doctor – Son – Zeb, would you be so kind as to place the call? My comcredit code is Nero Aleph eight zero one dash seven five two dash three nine three two Zed Star Zed.” (Zed Star Zed credit rating – I was not going to have to support my prospective father-in-law.) Deety cut in. “Pop, you must not call Professor Carter – Zebulon Carter – at this hour.” “But, my dear daughter, it is not late at night in -“ “Of course it isn’t; I can count. You want a favor from him, so don’t interrupt his after-lunch nap. ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen.'” “It isn’t noon in Singapore; it’s -“ ” – siesta time, even hotter than noon. So wait.” “Deety is right, Pop,” I interrupted, “but for the wrong reasons. It doesn’t seem to be a matter of life and death to call him this minute. Whereas it might be a matter of life and death – ours, I mean – to make a call from this car… especially with your credit code. Until we find out who the Boys in the Black Hats are, I advise that you place calls from the ground and from public phones that you can feed with newdollars instead of your code. Say a phone in Peoria. Or Paducah. Can it wait?” “Since you put it that way, sir – yes, it can wait. Although I have trouble believing that anyone wishes to kill me.” “Available data indicate it.” “Agreed. But I have not yet grasped it emotionally.” “Takes a baseball bat,” said Hilda. “I had to sit on him while Jane proposed to him.” “Why, Hilda my dear, that is utterly unfactual. I wrote my late beloved a polite note saying -“ I let them argue while, I tried to add to available data. “Gay Deceiver.” “Yes, Boss?” “News, dear.” “Ready, Boss.” “Retrieval parameters. Time – since twenty-one hundred. Area – California, Nevada, Utah. Persons – your kindly boss, dear. Doctor Jacob Burroughs, Doctor D. T. Burroughs, Miz Hilda Corners – ” I hesitated. “Professor Neil O’Heret Brain.” I felt silly adding “Brainy” – but there had been a row between Pop and him, and years earlier my best teacher had said, “Never neglect the so-called ‘trivial’ roots of an equation,” and had pointed out that two Nobel prizes had derived from “trivial” roots. “Parameters complete, Boss?” Doctor Burroughs touched my shoulder. “Can your computer check the news if any on your cousin?” “Mmm, maybe. She stores sixty million bytes, then wipes last-in-last-out everything not placed on permanent. But her news storage is weighted sixty-forty in favor of North America. I’ll try. Smart Girl.” “Holding, Boss.” “Addendum. First retrieve by parameters given. Then retrieve by new program. Time – backwards from now to wipe time. Area – Singapore. Person – Zebulon Edward Carter aka Ed Carter aka Doctor Z. E. Carter aka Professor Z. E. Carter aka Professor or Doctor Carter of Raffles University.” “Two retrieval programs in succession. Got it, Zeb.” “You’re a smart girl, Gay.” “Boss, I bet you tell that to all the girls. Over.” “Roger, Gay. Execute!” “AP San Francisco. A mysterious explosion disturbed the academic quiet of – ” A story ending with the usual claim about an arrest being expected “momentarily” settled several points: All of us were believed dead. Our village top cop claimed to have a theory but was keeping it mum – meaning that he knew even less than we did. Since we were reported as “presumed dead” and since the news said nothing about an illegal lift-off and other capers that annoy sky cops, I assumed tentatively that police radar had not been looking at us until after we had become just one more blip behaving legally. The lack of mention of the absence of Gay Deceiver did not surprise me, as I had roaded in and had been last or nearly last to park – and could have arrived by taxi, public capsule, or on foot. Doctor Brain was not mentioned, nothing about the row. Guests had been questioned and released. Five cars parked near the, explosion had been damaged. “Nevada – null retrieval. Utah – UPI Salt Lake City. A fire near Utah State, University campus in Logan destroyed – ” “Blokes in Black Hats” again and Deety and her Pop were dead twice over, as they were presumed to have been overcome by smoke, unable to escape. No one else hurt or missing. Fire attributed to faulty wiring. “End of first retrieval, Zeb. Second retrieval starting.” Gay shut up. I said soberly, “Pop, somebody doesn’t like you.” He groaned, “Gone! All gone!” “No copies of your papers elsewhere? And your… gadget?” “Eh? No, no! – much worse! My irreplaceable collection of pulp magazines. Weird Tales, Argosy, All-Story, the early Gernsbachs, The Shadow, Black Mask – Ooooooh!” “Pop really does feel bad,” Deety whispered, “and I could manage tears myself. I taught myself to read from that collection. War Aces, Air Wonder, the complete Clayton Astoundings – It was appraised at two hundred and thirteen thousand newdollars. Grandpop started it, Pop continued it – I grew up reading them.” “I’m sorry, Deety.” I hugged her. “They should have been microfiched.” “They were. But that’s not having the magazines in your hands.” “I agree. Uh, how about the… thing in the basement?” “What ‘Thing in the Basement’?” demanded Sharpie. “Zebbie, you sound like H. P. Lovecraft.” “Later, Sharpie. Comfort Jake; we’re busy. Gay!” “Here, Zeb. Where’s the riot?” “Display map, please.” We were midway over northern Nevada. “Cancel routing and cruise random. Report nearest county seat.” “Winnemucca and Elko are equidistant to one percent. Elko closer by ETA as I am now vectored eleven degrees north of Elko bearing.” “Deety, would you like to be married in Elko?” “Zebadiah, I would love to be married in Elko.” “Elko it is, but loving may have to wait. Gay, vector for Elko and ground us, normal private cruising speed. Report ETA in elapsed minutes.” “Roger Wilco, Elko. Nine minutes seventeen seconds.” Hilda said soothingly, “There, there, Jake darling; Mama is here” – then added in her top sergeant voice, “Quit stalling, Zebbie! What ‘Thing’ in which basement?” “Sharpie, you’re nosy. It belonged to Pop and now it’s destroyed and that’s all you need to know.” “Oh, but it wasn’t,” Doctor Burroughs said. “Zeb is speaking of my continua craft, Hilda. It’s safe. Not in Logan.” “What in the Name of the Dog is a ‘continua craft’?” “Pop means,” Deety explained, “his time machine.” “Then why didn’t he say so? Everybody savvies ‘Time Machine.’ George Pal’s ‘Time Machine’ – a classic goodie. I’ve caught it on the late-late-early show more than once.” “Sharpie,” I asked, “can you read?” “Certainly I can read! ‘Run, Spot, run See Spot run.’ Smarty.” “Have you ever heard of H. G. Wells?” “Heard of him? I’ve had him.” “You are a boastful old tart, but not that old. When Mr. Wells died, you were still a virgin.” “Slanderer! Hit him, Jake – he insulted me.” “Zeb didn’t mean to insult you, I feel sure. Deety won’t permit me to hit people, even when they need it.” “We’ll change that.” “Second retrieval complete,” Gay Deceiver reported. “Holding.” “Report second retrieval, please.” “Reuters, Singapore. The Marston expedition in Sumatra is still unreported according to authorities at Palembang. The party is thirteen days overdue. Besides Professor Marston and native guides and assistants, the party included Doctor Z.E. Carter, Doctor Cecil Yang, and Mr. Giles Smythe-Belisha. The Minister of Tourism and Culture stated that the search will be pursued assiduously. End of retrieval.” Poor Ed. We had never been close but he had never caused me grief. I hoped that he was shacked up with something soft and sultry – rather than losing his head to a jungle machete, which seemed more likely. “Pop, a few minutes ago I said that somebody doesn’t like you. I now suspect that somebody doesn’t like n-dimensional geometers.” “It would seem so, Zeb. I do hope your cousin is safe – a most brilliant mind! He would be a great loss to all mankind.” (And to himself, I added mentally. And me, since family duty required that I do something about it. When what I had in mind was a honeymoon.) “Gay.” “Here, Zeb.” “Addendum. Third news retrieval program. Use all parameters second program. Add Sumatra to area. Add all proper names and titles found in second retrieval. Run until canceled. Place retrievals in permanent memory. Report new items soonest. Start.” “Running, Boss.” “You’re a good girl, Gay.” “Thank you, Zeb. Grounding Elko two minutes seven seconds.” Deety squeezed my hand harder. “Pop, as soon as I’m legally Mrs. John Carter I think we should all go to Snug Harbor.” “Eh? Obviously.” “You, too, Aunt Hilda. It might not be safe for you to go home.” “Change in plans, dear. It’s going to be a double wedding. Jake. Me.” Deety looked alert but not displeased. “Pop?” “Hilda has at last consented to marry me, dear.” “Rats,” said Sharpie. “Jake has never asked me in the past and didn’t this time; I simply told him. Hit him with it while he was upset over losing his comic books and unable to defend himself. It’s necessary, Deety – I promised Jane I would take care of Jake and I have – through you, up to now. But from here on you’ll be taking care of Zebbie, keeping him out of trouble, wiping his nose… so I’ve got to hogtie Jake into marriage to keep my promise to Jane. Instead of sneaking into his bed from time to time as in the past.” “Why, Hilda dear, you have never been in my bed!” “Don’t shame me in front of the children, Jake. I gave you a test run before I let Jane marry you and you don’t dare deny it.” Jake shrugged helplessly. “As you wish, dear Hilda.” “Aunt Hilda… do you love Pop?” “Would I marry him if I didn’t? I could carry out my promise to Jane more simply by having him committed to a shrink factory. Deety, I’ve loved Jake longer than you have. Much! But he loved Jane… which shows that he is basically rational despite his weird ways. I shan’t try to change him, Deety; I’m simply going to see to it that he wears his overshoes and takes his vitamins – as you’ve been doing. I’ll still be ‘Aunt Hilda,’ not ‘Mother.’ Jane was and is your mother.” “Thank you, Aunt Hilda. I thought I was happy as a woman can be, getting Zebadiah. But you’ve made me still happier. No worries.” (I had worries. Blokes with Black Hats and no faces. But I didn’t say so, as Deety was snuggling closer and assuring me that it was all right because Aunt Hilda wouldn’t fib about loving Pop… but I should ignore that guff about her sneaking into Pop’s bed – on which I had no opinion and less interest.) “Deety, where and what is ‘Snug Harbor’?” “It’s… a nowhere place. A hideout. Land Pop leased from the government when he decided to build his time twister instead of just writing equations. But we may have to wait for daylight. Unless – Can Gay Deceiver home on a given latitude and longitude?” “She certainly can! Precisely.” “Then it’s all right. I can give it to you in degrees, minutes, and fractions of a second.” “Grounding,” Gay warned us. The Elko County Clerk did not object to getting out of bed and seemed pleased with the century note I slipped him. The County Judge was just as accommodating and pocketed her honorarium without glancing at it. I stammered but managed to say, “I, Zebadiah John, take thee, Dejah Thoris – ” Deety went through it as solemnly and perfectly as if she had rehearsed it… while Hilda sniffled throughout. A good thing that Gay can home on a pin point; I was in no shape to drive even in daylight. I had her plan her route, too, a dogleg for minimum radar and no coverage at all for the last hundred-odd kilometers to this place in the Arizona Strip north of the Grand Canyon. But I had her hover before grounding – I being scared silly until I was certain there was not a third fire there. A cabin, fireproof, with underground parking for Gay – I relaxed. We split a bottle of chablis. Pop seemed about to head for the basement. Sharpie tromped on it and Deety ignored it. I carried Deety over the threshold into her bedroom, put her gently down, faced her. “Dejah Thoris -“ “Yes, John Carter?” “I did not have time to buy you a wedding present -“ “I need no present from my captain.” “Hear me out, my princess. My Uncle Zamir did not have as fine a collection as your father had… but may I gift you with a complete set of Clayton Astoundings -“ She suddenly smiled. ” – and first editions of the first six Oz books, quite worn but with the original color plates? And a first in almost mint condition of ‘A Princess of Mars’?” The smile became a grin and she looked nine years old. “Yes!” “Would your father accept a complete set of Weird Tales?” “Would he! Northwest Smithand Jirel of Joiry? I’m going to borrow them – or he can’t look at my Oz books. I’m stubborn, I am. And selfish. And mean!” “‘Stubborn’ stipulated. The others denied.” Deety stuck out her tongue. “You’ll find out.” Suddenly her face was solemn. “But I sorrow, my prince, that I have no present for my husband.” “But you have!” “I do?” “Yes. Beautifully wrapped and making me dizzy with heavenly fragrance.” “Oh.” She looked solemn but serenely happy. “Will my husband unwrap me? Please?” I did. That is all anyone is ever going to know about our wedding night.
Chapter IV
Because two things equal to the same thing are never equal to each other.
Deety: I woke early as I always do at Snug Harbor, wondered why I was ecstatically happy – then remembered, and turned my head. My husband – “husband!” – what a heart-filling word – my husband was sprawled face down beside me, snoring softly and drooling onto his pillow. I held still, thinking how beautiful he was, how gently strong and gallantly tender. I was tempted to wake him but I knew that my darling needed rest. So I eased out of bed and snuck noiselessly into my bath – our bath – and quietly took care of this and that. I did not risk drawing a tub – although I needed one. I have a strong body odor that calls for at least one sudsy bath a day, two if I am going out that evening – and this morning I was certainly whiff as a polecat. I made do with a stand-up bath by letting water run in a noiseless trickle into the basin – I would grab that proper bath after my Captain was awake; meanwhile I would stay downwind. I pulled on briefs, started to tie on a halter – stopped and looked in the mirror. I have a face-shaped face and a muscular body that I keep in top condition. I would never reach semifinals in a beauty contest but my teats are shapely, exceptionally firm, stand out without sagging and look larger than they are because my waist is small for my height, shoulders and hips. I’ve known this since I was twelve, from mirror and from comments by others. Now I was acutely aware of them from what Zebadiah calls his “infantile bias.” I was awfully glad I had them; my husband liked them so much and had told me so again and again, making me feel warm and tingly inside. Teats get in the way, and I once found out painfully why Amazons are alleged to have removed their starboard ones to make archery easier. Today I was most pleased that Mama had required me to wear a bra for tennis and horseback and such – no stretch marks, no “Cooper’s droop,” no sag, and my husband called them “wedding presents”! Hooray! Doubtless they would become baby-chewed and soft – but by then I planned to have Zebadiah steadfastly in love with me for better reasons. You hear that, Deety? Don’t be stubborn, don’t be bossy, don’t be difficult – and above all don’t sulk! Mama never sulked, although Pop wasn’t and isn’t easy to live with. For example he dislikes the word “teat” even though I spell it correctly and pronounce it correctly (as if spelled “tit”). Pop insists that teats are on cows, not women. After I started symbolic logic and information theory I became acutely conscious of precise nomenclature, and tried to argue with Pop, pointing out that “breast” denoted the upper frontal torso of male and female alike, that “mammary gland” was medical argot, but “teat” was correct English. He had slammed down a book. “I don’t give a damn what The Oxford English Dictionary says! As long as I am head of this house, language used in it will conform to my notions of propriety!” I never argued such points with Pop again. Mama and I went on calling them “teats” between ourselves and did not use such words in Pop’s presence. Mama told me gently that logic had little to do with keeping a husband happy and that anyone who “won” a family argument had in fact lost it. Mama never argued and Pop always did what she wanted – if she really wanted it. When at seventeen I had to grow up and try to replace her, I tried to emulate her – not always successfully. I inherited some of Pop’s temper, some of Mama’s calm. I try to suppress the former and cultivate the latter. But I’m not Jane, I’m Deety. Suddenly I wondered why I was putting on a halter. The day was going to be hot. While Pop is so cubical about some things that he turns up at the corners, skin is not one of them. (Possibly he had been, then Mama had gently gotten her own way.) I like to be naked and usually am at Snug Harbor, weather permitting. Pop is almost as casual. Aunt Hilda was family-by-choice; we had often used her pool and never with suits – screened for the purpose. That left just my lovely new husband, and if there was a square centimeter of me he had not examined (and praised), I could not recall it. Zebadiah is easy to be with, in bed or out. After our hasty wedding I was slightly tense lest he ask me when and how I had mislaid my virginity… but when the subject could have come up I forgot it and he apparently never thought about it. I was the lusty wench I have always been and he seemed pleased – I know he was. So why was I tying on this teat hammock? I was – but why? Because two things equal to the same thing are never equal to each other. Basic mathematics if you select the proper sheaf of postulates. People are not abstract symbols. I could be naked with any one of them but not all three. I felt a twinge that Pop and Aunt Hilda might be in the way on my honeymoon… then realized that Zebadiah and I were just as much in the way on theirs – and stopped worrying; it would work out. Took one last look in the mirror, saw that my scrap of halter, like a good evening gown, made me nakeder than skin would. My nipples popped out; I grinned and stuck out my tongue at them. They stayed up; I was happy. I started to cat-foot through our bedroom when I noticed Zebadiah’s clothes – and stopped. The darling would not want to wear evening dress to breakfast. Deety, you are not being wifely – figure this out. Are any of Pop’s clothes where I can get them without waking the others? Yep! An old shirt that I had liberated as a house coat, khaki shorts I had been darning the last time we had been down – both in my wardrobe in my – our! – bathroom. I crept back, got them, laid them over my darling’s evening clothes so that he could not miss them. I went through and closed after me two soundproof doors, then no longer had to keep quiet. Pop does not tolerate anything shoddy – if it doesn’t work properly, he fixes it. Pop’s B.S. was in mechanical engineering, his M.S. in physics, his Ph.D. in mathematics; there isn’t anything he can’t design and build. A second Leonardo da Vinci – or a Paul Dirac. No one in the everything room. I decided not to head for the kitchen end yet; if the others slept a bit longer I could get in my morning tone-up. No violent exercise this morning, mustn’t get more whiff than I am – just controlled limbering. Stretch high, then palms to the floor without bending knees – ten is enough. Vertical splits, both legs, then the same to the floor with my forehead to my shin, first right, then left. I was doing a back bend when I heard, “Ghastly. The battered bride. Deety, stop that.” I continued into a backwards walkover and stood up facing Pop’s bride. “Good morning, Aunt Hillbilly.” I kissed and hugged her. “Not battered. Bartered, maybe.” “Battered,” she repeated, yawning. “Who gave you those bruises? What’s-his-name? – your husband.” “Not a bruise on me and you’ve known his name longer than I have. What causes those circles under the bags under the rings under your eyes?” “Worry, Deety. Your father is very ill.” “What? How?” “Satyriasis. Incurable – I hope.” I let out my breath. “Aunt Hillbilly, you’re a bitchie, bitchie tease.” “Not a bitch this morning, dear. A nanny goat – who has been topped all night by the most amazing billy goat on the ranch. And him past fifty and me only twenty-nine. Astounding.” “Pop’s forty-nine, you’re forty-two. You’re complaining?” “Oh, no! Had I known twenty-four years ago what I know now, I would never have let Jane lay eyes on him.” ” – what you know now – Last night you were claiming to have sneaked into Pop’s bed, over and over again. Doesn’t jibe, Aunt Nanny Goat.” “Those were quickies. Not a real test.” She yawned again. “Auntie, you lie in your teeth. You were never in his bed until last night.” “How do you know, dear? Unless you were in it yourself? Were you? Incest?” “What have you got against incest, you bawdy old nanny goat? Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.” “Oh, so you have? How fascinating – tell Auntiet!” “I’ll tell you the truth, Aunt Hilda. Pop has never laid a hand on me. But if he had… I would not have refused. I love him.” Hilda stopped to kiss me more warmly than before. “So do I, dear one. I honor you for what you just told me. He could have had me, too. But never did. Until last night. Now I’m the happiest woman in America.” “Nope. Second happiest. You’re looking at the happiest.” “Mmm, a futile discussion. So my problem child is adequate?” “Well… he’s not a member of the Ku Klux Klan -“ “I never thought he was! Zebbie isn’t that sort.” ” – but he’s a wizard under a sheet!” Aunt Hilda looked startled, then guffawed. “I surrender. We’re both the happiest woman in the world.” “And the luckiest. Aunt Nanny Goat, that robe of Pop’s is too hot. I’ll get something of mine. How about a tie-on fit-anybody bikini?” “Thanks, dear, but you might wake Zebbie.” Aunt Hilda opened Pop’s robe and held it wide, fanning it. I looked at her with new eyes. She’s had three or four term contracts, no children. At forty-two her face looks thirty-five, but from her collarbones down she could pass for eighteen. Little bitty teats – I had more at twelve. Flat belly and lovely legs. A china doll – makes me feel like a giant. She added, “If it weren’t for your husband, I would simply wear this old hide. It is hot.” “If it weren’t for your husband, so would I.” “Jacob? Deety, he’s changed your diapers. I know how Jane reared you. True modesty, no false modesty.” “It’s not the same, Aunt Hilda. Not today.” “No, it’s not. You always did have a wise head, Deety. Women are toughminded, men are not; we have to protect them … while pretending to be fragile ourselves, to build up their fragile egos. But I’ve never been good at it – I like to play with matches.” “Aunt Hilda, you are very good at it, in your own way. I’m certain Mama knows what you’ve done for Pop and blesses it and is happy for Pop. For all of us – all five of us.” “Don’t make me cry, Deety. Let’s break out the orange juice; our men will wake any time. First secret of living with a man: Feed him as soon as he wakes.” “So I know.” “Yes, of course you know. Ever since we lost Jane. Does Zebbie know how lucky he is?” “He says so. I’m going to try hard not to disillusion him.”
Chapter V
” – a wedding ring is not a ring in my nose – “
Jake: I woke in drowsy euphoria, became aware that I was in bed in our cabin that my daughter calls “Snug Harbor” – then woke completely and looked at the other pillow – the dent in it. Not a dream! Euphoric for the best of reasons! Hilda was not in sight. I closed my eyes and simulated sleep as I had something to do. “Jane?” I said in my mind. “I hear you, dearest one. It has my blessing. Now we are all happy together.” “We couldn’t expect Deety to become a sour old maid, just to take care of her crotchety old father. This young man, he’s okay, to the nth power. I felt it at once, and Hilda is certain of it.” “He is. Don’t worry, Jacob. Our Deety can never be sour and you will never be old. This is exactly as Hilda and I planned it, more than five of your years ago. Predestined. She told you so, last night.” “Okay, darling.” “Get up and brush your teeth and take a quick shower. Don’t dawdle, breakfast is waiting. Call me when you need me. Kiss.” So I got up, feeling like a boy on Christmas morning. Everything was jake with Jake; Jane had put her stamp of approval on it. Let me tell you, you nonexistent reader sitting there with a tolerant sneer: Don’t be smug. Jane is more real than you are. The spirit of a good woman cannot be coded by nucleic acids arranged in a double helix, and only an overeducated fool could think so. I could prove that mathematically save that mathematics can never prove anything. No mathematics has any content. All any mathematics can do is – sometimes – turn out to be useful in describing some aspects of our so-called “physical universe.” That is a bonus; most forms of mathematics are as meaning-free as chess. I don’t know any final answers. I’m an all-around mechanic and a competent mathematician… and neither is of any use in unscrewing the inscrutable. Some people go to church to talk to God, Whoever He is. When I have something on my mind, I talk to Jane. I don’t hear “voices,” but the answers that, come into my mind have as much claim to infallibility, it seems to me, as any handed down by any Pope speaking ex cathedra. If this be blasphemy, make the most of it; I won’t budge. Jane is, was, and ever shall be, worlds without end. I had the priceless privilege of living with her for eighteen years and I can never lose her. Hilda was not in the bath but my toothbrush was damp. I smiled at this. Logical, as any germs I was harboring, Hilda now had – and Hilda, for all her playfulness, is no-nonsense practical. She faces danger without a qualm (had done so last night) but she would say “Gesundheit!” to an erupting volcano even as she fled from it. Jane is equally brave but would omit the quip. They are alike only in – no, not that way, either. Different but equal. Let it stand that I have been blessed in marriage by two superb women. (And blessed by a daughter whose Pop thinks she is perfect.) I showered, shaved, and brushed my teeth in nine minutes and dressed in under nine seconds as I simply wrapped around my waist a terry-cloth sarong Deety had bought for me – the day promised to be a scorcher. Even that hip wrap was a concession to propriety, i.e., I did not know my new son-in-law well enough to subject him abruptly to our casual ways; it might offend Deety. I was last up, and saw that all had made much the same decision. Deety was wearing what amounted to a bikini minimum (indecently “decent”!) and my bride was “dressed” in a tie-on job belonging to Deety. The tie-ties had unusually large bows; Hilda is tiny, my daughter is not. Zeb was the only one fully dressed: an old pair of working shorts, a worn-out denim shirt Deety had confiscated, and his evening shoes. He was dressed for the street in any western town save for one thing: I’m built like a pear, Zeb is built like the Gray Lensman. My shorts fitted him well enough – a bit loose – but his shoulders were splitting the shirt’s seams. He looked uncomfortable. I took care of amenities – a good-morning to all, a kiss for my bride, one for my daughter, a handshake for my son-in-law-good hands, calloused. Then I said, “Zeb, take that shirt off. It’s hot and getting hotter. Relax. This is your home.” “Thanks, Pop.” Zeb peeled off my shirt. Hilda stood up on her chair, making her about as tall as Zeb. “I’m a militant women’s-rights gal,” she announced, “and a wedding ring is not a ring in my nose – a ring that you have not yet given me, you old goat.” “When have I had time? You’ll get one, dear – first chance.” “Excuses, excuses! Don’t interrupt when I’m orating. Sauce for the gander is no excuse for goosing the goose. If you male chauvinist pigs – I mean ‘goats’ – can dress comfortably, Deety and I have the same privilege.” Whereupon my lovely little bride untied that bikini top and threw it aside like a stripper. “‘”What’s for breakfast?” asked Pooh,'” I misquoted. I was not answered. Deety made me proud of her for the nth time. For years she had consulted me, at least with her eyes, on “policy decisions.” Now she looked not at me but at her husband. Zeb was doing Old Stone Face, refusing assent or dissent. Deety stared at him, gave a tiny shrug, reached behind her and untied or unsnapped something and discarded her own top. “I said, ‘What’s for breakfast?'” I repeated. “Greedy gut,” my daughter answered. “You men have had baths, while Aunt Hilda and I haven’t had a chance to get clean for fear of waking you slugabeds.” “Is that what it is? I thought a skunk had wandered past. ‘What’s for breakfast?'” “Aunt Hilda, in only hours Pop has lost all the training I’ve given him for five years. Pop, it’s laid out and ready to go. How about cooking while Hilda and I grab a tub?” Zeb stood up. “I’ll cook, Deety; I’ve been getting my own breakfast for years.” “Hold it, Buster!” my bride interrupted. “Sit down, Zebbie. Deety, never encourage a man to cook breakfast; it causes him to wonder if women are necessary. If you always get his breakfast and don’t raise controversial issues until after his second cup of coffee, you can get away with murder the rest of the time. They don’t notice other odors when they smell bacon. I’m going to have to coach you.” My daughter reversed the field, fast. She turned to her husband and said meekly, “What does my Captain wish for breakfast?” “My Princess, whatever your lovely hands offer me.” What we were offered, as fast as Deety could pour batter and Hilda could serve, was a gourmet specialty that would enrage a Cordon Bleu but which, for my taste, is ambrosia: A one-eyed Texas stack – a tall stack of thin, tender buttermilk pancakes to Jane’s recipe, supporting one large egg, up and easy, surrounded by hot sausage, and the edifice drowned in melting butter and hot maple syrup, with a big glass of orange juice and a big mug of coffee on the side. Zeb ate two stacks. I concluded that my daughter would have a happy marriage.
Chapter VI
Are men and women one race?
Hilda: Deety and I washed dishes, then soaked in her tub and talked about husbands. We giggled, and talked with the frankness of women who trust each other and are sure that no men can overhear. Do men talk that openly in parallel circumstances? From all I have been able to learn in after-midnight horizontal conversations, all passion spent, men do not. Or not men I would take to bed. Whereas a “perfect lady” (which Jane was, Deety is, and I can simulate) will talk with another “perfect lady” she trusts in a way that would cause her father, husband, or son to faint. I had better leave out our conversation; this memoir might fall into the hands of one of the weaker sex and I would not want his death on my conscience. Are men and women one race? I know what biologists say – but history is loaded with “scientists” jumping to conclusions from superficial evidence. It seems to me far more likely that they are symbiotes. I am not speaking from ignorance; I was one trimester short of a B.S. in biology (and a straight-A student) when a “biology experiment” blew up in my face and caused me to leave school abruptly. Not that I need that degree – I’ve papered my private bath with honorary degrees, mostly doctorates. I hear that there are things no whore will do for money but I have yet to find anything that a university chancellor faced with a deficit will boggle at. The secret is never to set up a permanent fund but to dole it out when need is sharpest, once every academic year. Done that way, you not only own a campus but also the town cops learn that it’s a waste of time to hassle you. A univer$ity alway$ $tand$ $taunchly by it$ $olvent a$$ociate$; that’$ the ba$ic $ecret of $chola$tic $ucce$$. Forgive my digre$$ion; we were speaking of men and women. I am strong for women’s rights but was never taken in by unisex nonsense. I don’t yearn to be equal; Sharpie is as unequal as possible, with all the perks and bonuses and special privileges that come from being one of the superior sex. If a man fails to hold a door for me, I fail to see him and step on his instep. I feel no shame in making lavish use of the strongest muscles, namely male ones (but my own strongest muscle is dedicated to the service of men – noblesse oblige). I don’t begrudge men one whit of their natural advantages as long as they respect mine. I am not an unhappy pseudomale; I am female and like it that way. I borrowed makeup that Deety rarely uses, but I carry my own perfume in my purse and used it in the twenty-two classic places. Deety uses only the basic aphrodisiac: soap and water. Perfume on her would be gilding the lily; fresh out of a hot tub she smells like a harem. If I had her natural fragrance, I could have saved at least ten thousand newdollars over the years as well as many hours spent dabbing bait here and there. She offered me a dress and I told her not to be silly; any dress of hers would fit me like a tent. “You put something bridal and frilly around your hips and lend me your boldest G-string job. Dear, I surprised you when I jockeyed you into taking off your halter, after telling you that you were wise not to rush it. But the chance showed up and I grabbed the ring on the fly. We’ve got our men gentled to nearly naked and we’ll hold that gain. At first opportunity we’ll get pants off all of us, too, without anything as childish as strip poker. Deety, I want us to be a solid family, and relaxed about it. So that skin doesn’t mean sex, it just means we are home, en famille.” “Your skin is pretty sexy, Nanny Goat.” “Deety, do you think I’m trying to make a pass at Zebbie?” “Heavens, no, Aunt Hilda. You would never do that.” “Piffle, dear. I don’t have morals, just customs. I don’t wait for a man to make a pass; they fumble around and waste time. But when I met him I picked Zebbie for a chum – so I gave him an opening; he made a polite pass, I carefully failed to see it, and that ended it. I’m sure he’s as much fun on the workbench as you tell me he is – but bedmates are easy to find, while worthwhile male friends are scarce. Zebbie is one to whom I can holler for help in the middle of the night and be certain he’ll rally around. I’m not going to let that change merely because a weird concatenation now makes him my son-in-law. Besides, Deety, although your old Aunt Sharpie may seem undignified, I refuse to be the campus widow who seduces younger men. Save for minor exceptions close to my age, I always have bedded older men. When I was your age, I tripped several three times my age. Educational.” “It certainly is! Aunt Hilda, I got ninety percent of my instruction two years ago – a widower three times my age. I was programming for him and we took shared time when we could get it, often after midnight. I didn’t think anything of it until one night I was startled to find that I was helping him to take off my panties. Then I was still more surprised to learn how little I had learned in seven years. He gave me a tutored seminar, usually three times a week- all the time he was willing to spare me – for the next six months. I’m glad I got tutoring from an expert before last night rolled around – or Zebadiah would have found me a dead arse, willing but clumsy. I didn’t tell this to my darling; I let him think he was teaching me.” “That’s right, dear. Never tell a man anything he doesn’t need to know, and lie with a straight face rather than hurt his feelings or diminish his pride.” “Aunt Nanny Goat, I just plain love you.” We quit yakking and looked for our men. Deety said that they were certain to be in the basement. “Aunt Hilda, I don’t go there without invitation. It’s Pop’s sanctum sanctorum.” “You’re warning me not to risk a faux pas?” “I’m his daughter, you’re his wife. Not the same.” “Well… he hasn’t told me not to – and today he’ll forgive me, if ever. Where do you hide the stairs?” “That bookcase swings out.” “Be darned! For a so-called cabin this place is loaded with surprises. A bidet in each bath didn’t startle me; Jane would have required them. Your walk-in freezer startled me only by being big enough for a restaurant. But a bookcase concealing a priest’s hole – as Great-Aunt Nettie used to say, ‘I do declare!'” “You should see our septic tank – yours, now.” “I’ve seen septic tanks. Pesky things – always need pumping at the most inconvenient time.” “This one won’t have to be pumped. Over three hundred meters deep. An even thousand feet.” “For the love of – Why?” “It’s an abandoned mine shaft below us that some optimist dug a hundred years back. Here was this big hole, so Pop used it. There is a spring farther up the mountain. Pop cleaned that out, covered it, concealed it, put pipe underground, and we have lavish pure water under pressure. The rest of Snug Harbor Pop designed mostly from prefab catalogs, fireproof and solid and heavily insulated. We have – you have, I mean – this big fireplace and the little ones in the bedrooms, but you won’t need them, other than for homeyness. Radiant heat makes it skin-comfortable even in a blizzard.” “Where do you get your power? From the nearest town?” “Oh, no! Snug Harbor is a hideout, nobody but Pop and me – and now you and Zebadiah – knows it’s here. Power packs, Aunt Hilda, and an inverter in a space behind the back wall of the garage. We bring in power packs ourselves, and take them out the same way. Private. Oh, the leasehold record is buried in a computer in Washington or Denver, and the Federal rangers know the leaseholds. But they don’t see us if we see or hear them first. Mostly they cruise on past. Once one came by on horseback. Pop fed him beer out under the trees – and from outside this is just a prefab, a living room and two shedroof bedrooms. Nothing to show that important parts are underground.” “Deety, I’m beginning to think that this place – this cabin – cost more than my townhouse.” “Uh, probably.” “I think I’m disappointed. Sugar Pie, I married your papa because I love him and want to take care of him and promised Jane that I would. I’ve been thinking happily that my wedding present to my bridegroom would be his weight in bullion, so that dear man need never work again.” “Don’t be disappointed, Aunt Hilda. Pop has to work; it’s his nature. Me, too. Work is necessary to us. Without it, we’re lost.” “Well… yes. But working because you want to is the best sort of play.” “Correct!” “That’s what I thought I could give Jacob. I don’t understand it. Jane wasn’t rich, she was on a scholarship. Jacob had no money – still a teaching fellow, a few months shy of his doctorate. Deety, Jacob’s suit that he wore to be married in was threadbare. I know that he pulled up from that; he made full professor awfully fast. I thought it was that and Jane’s good management.” “It was both.” “That doesn’t account for this. Forgive me, Deety, but Utah State doesn’t pay what Harvard pays.” “Pop doesn’t lack offers. We like Logan. Both the town and the civilized behavior of Mormons. But – Aunt Hilda, I must tell you some things.” The child looked worried. I said, “Deety, if Jacob wants me to know something he’ll tell me.” “Oh, but he won’t and I must!” “No, Deety!” “Listen, please! When I said, ‘I do,’ I resigned as Pop’s manager. When you said, ‘I do,’ the load landed on you. It has to be that way, Aunt Hilda. Pop won’t do it; he has other things to think about, things that take genius. Mama did it for years, then I learned how, and now it’s your job. Because it can’t be farmed out. Do you understand accountancy?” “Well, I understand it, I took a course in it. Have to understand it, or the government will skin you alive. But I don’t do it, I have accountants for that – and smart shysters to keep it inside the law.” “Would it bother you to be outside the law? On taxes?” “What? Heavens, no! But Sharpie wants to stay outside of jail – I detest an institutional diet.” “You’ll stay out of jail. Don’t worry, Aunt Hilda – I’ll teach you double-entry bookkeeping they don’t teach in school. Very double. One set for the revenooers and another set for you and Jake.” “It’s that second set that worries me. That one puts you in the pokey. Fresh air alternate Wednesdays.” “Nope. The second set is not on paper; it’s in the campus computer at Logan.” “Worse!” “Aunt Hilda, please! Certainly my computer address code is in the department’s vault and an I.R.S. agent could get a court order. It wouldn’t do him any good. It would spill out our first set of books while wiping every trace of the second set. Inconvenient but not disastrous. Aunt Hillbilly, I’m not a champion at anything else but I’m the best software artist inthe business. I at your elbow until you are sure of yourself. “Now about how Pop got rich – All the time he’s been teaching he’s also been inventing gadgets – as automatically as a hen lays eggs. A better can opener. A lawn irrigation system that does a better job, costs less, uses less water. Lots of things. But none has his name on it and royalties trickle back in devious ways. “But we aren’t freeloaders. Every year Pop and I study the Federal Budget and decide what is useful and what is sheer waste by fat-arsed chairwarmers and pork-barrel raiders. Even before Mama died we were paying more income tax than the total of Pop’s salary, and we’ve paid more each year while I’ve been running it. It does take a bundle to run this country. We don’t begrudge money spent on roads and public health and national defense and truly useful things. But we’ve quit paying for parasites wherever we can identify them. “It’s your job now, Aunt Hilda. If you decide that it’s dishonest or too risky, I can cause the computer to make it all open and legal so smoothly that hankypanky would never show. It would take me maybe three years, and Pop would pay high capital gains. But you are in charge of Pop now.” “Deety, don’t talk dirty.” “Dirty, how? I didn’t even say ‘spit.'” “Suggesting that I would willingly pay what those clowns in Washington want to squeeze out of us. I would not be supporting so many accountants and shysters if I didn’t think we were being robbed blind. Deety, how about being manager for all of us?” “No, ma’am! I’m in charge of Zebadiah. I have my own interests to manage, too. Mama wasn’t as poor as you thought. When I was a little girl, she came into a chunk from a trust her grandmother had set up. She and Pop gradually moved it over into my name and again avoided inheritance and estate taxes, all legal as Sunday School. When I was eighteen, I converted it into cash, then caused it to disappear. Besides that, I’ve been paying me a whopping salary as Pop’s manager. I’m not as rich as you are, Aunt Hilda, and certainly not as rich as Pop. But I ain’t hurtin’.” “Zebbie may be richer than all of us.” “You said last night that he was loaded but I didn’t pay attention because I had already decided to marry him. But after experiencing what sort of car he drives I realize that you weren’t kidding. Not that it matters. Yes, it did matter – it took both Zebadiah’s courage and Gay Deceiver’s unusual talents to save our lives.” “You may never find out how loaded Zebbie is, dear. Some people don’t let their left hands know what their right hands are doing. Zebbie doesn’t let his thumb know what his fingers are doing.” Deety shrugged. “I don’t care. He’s kind and gentle and he’s a storybook hero who saved my life and Pop’s and yours … and last night he proved to me that life is worth living when I’ve been uncertain about it since Mama had to leave us. Let’s go find our men, Aunt Nanny Goat. I’ll risk Pop’s Holy of Holies if you’ll go first.” “Suits. Lay on your duff and cursed be he who first cries, ‘Nay, enough.” “I don’t think they’re interested in that now, Nanny Goat.” “Spoilsport. How do you swing back this bookcase?” “Switch on the cove lights, then turn on the cold water at the sink. Then switch off the cove lights, then turn off the water – in that order.” “‘”Curiouser and curiouser,” said Alice.'” The bookcase closed behind us and was a door with a knob on the upper landing side. The staircase was wide, treads were broad and nonskid, risers gentle, guard rails on both sides – not the legbreaker most houses have as cellar stairs. Deety went down beside me, holding my hand like a child needing reassurance. The room was beautifully lighted, well ventilated, and did not seem like a basement. Our men were at the far end, bent over a table, and did not appear to notice us. I looked around for a time machine, could not spot it – at least not anything like George Pal’s or any I had ever read about. All around was machinery. A drill press looks the same anywhere and so does a lathe, but others were strange – except that they reminded me of machine shops. My husband caught sight of us, stood up, and said, “Welcome, ladies!” Zebbie turned his head and said sharply, “Late to class! Find seats, no whispering during the lecture, take notes; there will be a quiz at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. If you have questions, raise your hands and wait to be called on. Anyone who misbehaves will remain after class and wash the chalk boards.” Deety stuck out her tongue, sat down quietly. I rubbed his brush cut and whispered an indecency into his ear. Then I kissed my husband and sat down. My husband resumed talking to Zebbie. “I lost more gyroscopes that way.” I held up my hand. My husband said, “Yes, Hilda dear?” “Monkey Ward’s sells gyro tops – I’ll buy you a gross.” “Thank you, dearest, but these weren’t that sort. They were made by Sperry Division of General Foods.” “So I’ll get them from Sperry.” “Sharpie,” put in Zeb, “you’re honing to clean the erasers, too.” “Just a moment, Son. Hilda may be the perfect case to find out whether or not what I have tried to convey to you – and which really can’t be conveyed save in the equations your cousin Zebulon used, a mathematics you say is unfamiliar to you -“ “It is!” ” – but which you appear to grasp as mechanics. Would you explain the concept to Hilda? If she understands it, we may hypothesize that a continua craft can be designed to be operated by a nontechnical person.” “Sure,” I said scornfully, “poor little me, with a button for a head. I don’t have to know where the electrons go to use television or holovision. Ijust twist knobs. Go ahead, Zebbie. Take a swing at it, I dare you.” “I’ll try,” Zebbie agreed. “But, Sharpie, don’t chatter and keep your comments to the point. Or I’ll ask Pop to give you a fat lip.” “He wouldn’t dast!” “So? I’m going to give him a horsewhip for a wedding present – besides the Weird Tales, Jake; you get those too. But you need a whip. Attention, Sharpie.” “Yes, Zebbie. And the same to you doubled.” “Do you know what ‘precess’ means?” “Certainly. Precession of the equinoxes. Means that Vega will be the North Star when I’m a great-grandmother. Thirty thousand years or some such.” “Correct in essence. But you’re not even a mother yet.” “You don’t know what happened last night. I’m an expectant mother. Jacob doesn’t dare use a whip on me.” My husband looked startled but pleased – and I felt relieved. Zebbie looked at his own bride. Deety said solemnly, “It is possible, Zebadiah. Neither of us was protected, each was on or close on ovulation. Hilda is blood type B Rhesus positive and my father is AB positive. I am A Rh positive. May I inquire yours, sir?” “I’m an 0 positive. Uh… I may have shot you down the first salvo.” “It would seem likely. But – does this meet with your approval?” “‘Approval’!” Zebbie stood up, knocking over his chair. “Princess, you could not make me happier! Jake! This calls for a toast!” My husband stopped kissing me. “Unanimous! Daughter, is there champagne chilled?” “Yes, Pop.” “Hold it!” I said. “Let’s not get excited over a normal biological function. Deety and I don’t know that we caught; we just hope so. And -“ “So we try again,” Zebbie interrupted. “What’s your calendar?” “Twenty-eight and a half days, Zebadiah. My rhythm is pendulum steady.” “Mine’s twenty-seven; Deety and I just happen to be in step. But I want that toast at dinner and a luau afterwards; it might be the last for a long time. Deety, do you get morning sick?” “I don’t know; I’ve never been pregnant… before.” “I have and I do and it’s miserable. Then I lost the naked little grub after trying hard to keep it. But I’m not going to lose this one! Fresh air and proper exercise and careful diet and nothing but champagne for me tonight, then not another drop until I know. In the meantime – Professors, may I point out that class is in session? I want to know about time machines and I’m not sure I could understand with champagne buzzing my buttonhead.” “Sharpie, sometimes you astound me.” “Zebbie, sometimes I astound myself. Since my husband builds time machines, I want to know what makes them tick. Or at least which knobs to turn. He might be clawed by the Bandersnatch and I would have to pilot him home. Get on with your lecture.” “I read you loud and clear.” But we wasted (“wasted?”) a few moments because everybody had to kiss everybody else – even Zebbie and my husband pounded each other on the back and kissed both cheeks Latin style. Zebbie tried to kiss me as if I were truly his mother-in-law but I haven’t kissed that way since junior high. Once I was firm with him he gave in and kissed me better than he ever had before – whew! I’m certain Deety is right but I won’t risk worrying my older husband over a younger man and I’d be an idiot to risk competing with Deety’s teats et cetera when all I have is fried eggs and my wonderful old goat seems so pleased with my et cetera. Class resumed. “Sharpie, can you explain precession in gyroscopes?” “Well, maybe. Physics One was required but that was a long time ago. Push a gyroscope and it doesn’t go the way you expect, but ninety degrees from that direction so that the push lines up with the spin. Like this – ” I pointed a forefinger like a little boy going: “Bang! – you’re dead!” “My thumb is the axis, my forefinger represents the push, the other fingers show the rotation.” “Go to the head of the class. Now – think hard! – suppose we put a gyroscope in a frame, then impress equal forces at all three spatial coordinates at once; what would it do?” I tried to visualize it. “I think it would either faint or drop dead.” “A good first hypothesis. According to Jake, it disappears.” “They do disappear, Aunt Hilda. I watched it happen several times.” “But where do they go?” “I can’t follow Jake’s math; I have to accept his transformations without proof. But it is based on the notion of six space-time coordinates, three of space, the usual three that we see – marked x, y, and z – and three time coordinates: one marked ‘t’ like this – ” (t) ” – and one marked ‘tau,’ Greek alphabet – ” (T) ” – and the third from the Cyrillic alphabet, ‘teh’ – ” (M) “Looks like an ‘m’ with a macron over it.” “So it does, but it’s what the Russians use for ‘t’.” “No, the Russians use ‘chai’ for tea. In thick glasses with strawberry jam.” “Stow it, Sharpie. So we have x, y, and z; t, tau, and teh, six dimensions. It is basic to the theory that all are at right angles to each other, and that any one may be swapped for any of the others by rotation – or that a new coordinate may be found (not a seventh but replacing any of the six) by translation – say ‘tau’ to ‘tau prime’ by displacement along ‘x.'” “Zebbie, I think I fell off about four coordinates back.” My husband suggested, “Show her the caltrop, Zeb.” “Good idea.” Zeb accepted a widget from my husband, placed it in front of me. It looked like jacks I used to play with as a little girl but not enough things sticking out – four instead of six. Three touched the table, a tripod; the fourth stuck straight up. Zeb said, “This is a weapon, invented centuries ago. The points should be sharp but these have been filed down.” He flipped it, let it fall to the table. “No matter how it falls, one prong is vertical. Scatter them in front of cavalry; the horses go down – discouraging. They came into use again in Wars One and Two against anything with pneumatic tires – bicycles, motorcycles, lorries, and so forth. Big enough, they disable tanks and tracked vehicles. A small sort can be whittled from thorn bushes for guerrilla warfare – usually poisoned and quite nasty. “But here this lethal toy is a geometrical projection, a drawing of the coordinates of a four-dimensional space-time continuum. Each spike is exactly ninety degrees from every other spike.” “But they aren’t,” I objected. “Each angle is more than a right angle.” “I said it was a projection. Sharpie, it’s an isometric projection of four-dimensional coordinates in three-dimensional space. That distorts the angles… and the human eye is even more limited. Cover one eye and hold still and you see only two dimensions. The illusion of depth is a construct of the brain.” “I’m not very good at holding still -“ “No, she isn’t,” agreed my bridegroom whom I love dearly and at that instant could have choked. “But I can close both eyes and feel three dimensions with my hands.” “A good point. Close your eyes and pick this up and think of the prongs as the four directions of a four-dimensional space. Does the word tesseract mean anything to you?” “My high school geometry teacher showed us how to construct them – projections – with modeling wax and toothpicks. Fun. I found other four-dimensional figures that were easy to project. And a number of ways to project them.” “Sharpie, you must have had an exceptional geometry teacher.” “In an exceptional geometry class. Don’t faint, Zebbie, but I was grouped with what they called ‘overachievers’ after it became ‘undemocratic’ to call them ‘gifted children.'” “Be durned! Why do you always behave like a fritterhead?” “Why don’t you ever look beneath the surface, young man! I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke. That doesn’t mean I don’t read and can’t think. I read everything from Giblett to Hoyle, from Sartre to Pauling. I read in the tub, I read on the john, I read in bed, I read when I eat alone, and I would read in my sleep if I could keep my eyes open. Deety, this is proof that Zebbie has never been in my bed: the books downstairs are display; the stuff I read is stacked in my bedroom.” “Deety, did you think I had been sleeping with Sharpie?” “No, Zebadiah.” “And you never will! Deety told me what a sex maniac you are! You lay your lecherous hands on me and I’ll scream for Jacob and he’ll beat you to a pulp.” “Don’t count on it, dear one,” my husband said mildly. “Zeb is bigger and younger and stronger than I… and if I found it needful to try, Deety would cry and beat me to a pulp. Son, I should have warned you: my daughter is vicious at karate. The killer instinct.” “Thanks. Forewarned, forearmed. I’ll use a kitchen chair in one hand, a revolver in the second, and a whip in the other, just as I used to do in handling the big cats for Ringling, Barnum, and Bailey.” “That’s three hands,” said Deety. “I’m four-dimensional, darling. Professor, we can speed up this seminar; we’ve been underrating our overachiever. Hilda is a brain.” “Zebbie, can we kiss and make up?” “Class is in session.” “Zebadiah, there is always time for that. Right, Pop?” “Kiss her, Son, or she’ll sulk.” “I don’t sulk, I bite.” “I think you’re cute, too,” Zebbie answered, grabbed me by both shoulders, dragged me over the table, and kissed me hard. Our teeth grated and my nipples went spung! Sometimes I wish I weren’t so noble. He dropped me abruptly and said, “Attention, class. The two prongs of the caltrop painted blue represent our three-dimensional space of experience. The third prong painted yellow is the t-time we are used to. The red fourth prong simulates both Tau-time and Teh-time, the unexplored time dimensions necessary to Jake’s theory. Sharpie, we have condensed six dimensions into four, then we either work by analogy into six, or we have to use math that apparently nobody but Jake and my cousin Ed understands. Unless you can think of some way to project six dimensions into three – you seem to be smart at such projections.” I closed my eyes and thought hard. “Zebbie, I don’t think it can be done. Maybe Escher could have done it.” “It can be done, my dearest,” answered my dearest, “but it is unsatisfactory. Even with a display computer with capacity to subtract one or more dimensions at a time. A superhypertesseract – a to the sixth power – has too many lines and corners and planes and solids and hypersolids for the eye to grasp. Cause the computer to subtract dimensions and what you have left is what you already knew. I fear it is an innate incapacity of visual conception in the human brain.” “I think Pop is right,” agreed Deety. “I worked hard on that program. I don’t think the late great Dr. Marvin Minsky could have done it better in flat projection. Holovision? I don’t know. I would like to try if I ever get my hands on a computer with holovideo display and the capacity to add, subtract, and rotate six coordinates.” “But why six dimensions?” I asked. “Why not five? Or even four, since you speak of rotating them interchangeably.” “Jake?” said Zeb. My darling looked fussed. “It bothered me that a space-time continuum seemed to require three space dimensions but only one time dimension. Granted that the universe is what it is, nevertheless nature is filled with symmetries. Even after the destruction of the parity principle, scientists kept finding new ones. Philosophers stay wedded to symmetry – but I don’t count philosophers.” “Of course not,” agreed Zeb. “No philosopher allows his opinions to be swayed by facts – he would be kicked out of his guild. Theologians, the lot of them.” “I concur. Hilda my darling, after I found a way to experiment, it turned out that six dimensions existed. Possibly more – but I see no way to reach them.” “Let me see,” I said. “If I understood earlier, each dimension can be swapped for any other.” “By ninety-degree rotation, yes.” “Wouldn’t that be the combinations taken four at a time out of a set of six? How many is that?” “Fifteen,” Zebbie answered. “Goodness! Fifteen whole universes? And we use only one?” “No, no, my darling! That would be ninety-degree rotations of one Euclidean universe. But our universe, or universes, has been known to be non-Euclidean at least since 1919. Or 1886 if you prefer. I stipulate that cosmology is an imperfect discipline, nevertheless, for considerations that I cannot state in nonmathematical terms, I was forced to assume a curved space of positive radius – that is to say, a closed space. That makes the universes possibly accessible to use either by rotation or by translation this number.” My husband rapidly wrote three sixes. “Six sixty-six,” I said wonderingly. “‘The Number of the Beast.'” “Eh? Oh! The Revelation of Saint John the Divine. But I scrawled it sloppily. You took it that I wrote this: ‘666.’ But what I intended to write was this: ‘6^6^6.’ Six raised to its sixth power, and the result in turn raised to its sixth power. That number is this:” 1.03144+ X 10^28 ” – or written in full:” 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056 ” – or more than ten million sextillion universes in our group.” What can one say to that? Jacob went on, “Those universes are our nextdoor neighbors, one rotation or one translation away. But if one includes combinations of rotation and translation – think of a hyperplane slicing through superhypercontinua not at the point of here-now – the total becomes indenumerable. Not infinity – infinity has no meaning. Uncountable. Not subject to manipulation by mathematics thus far invented. Accessible to continua craft but no known way to count them.” “Pop -“ “Yes, Deety?” “Maybe Aunt Hilda hit on something. Agnostic as you are, you nevertheless keep the Bible around as history and poetry and myth.” “Who said I was agnostic, my daughter?” “Sorry, sir. I long ago reached that conclusion because you won’t talk about it. Wrong of me. Lack of data never justifies a conclusion. But this key number – one-point-oh-three-one-four-four-plus times ten to its twenty-eighth power – perhaps that is the ‘Number of the Beast.'” “What do you mean, Deety?” “That Revelation isn’t history, it’s not good poetry, and it’s not myth. There must have been some reason for a large number of learned men to include it – while chucking out several dozen gospels. Why not make a first hypothesis with Occam’s Razor and read it as what it purports to be? Prophecy.” “Hmm. The shelves under the stairs, next to Shakespeare. The King James version, never mind the other three.” Deety was back in a moment with a well-worn black book – which surprised me. I read the Bible for my own reasons but it never occurred to me that Jacob would. We always marry strangers. “Here,” said Deety. “Chapter thirteen, verse eighteen: ‘Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” “That can’t be read as exponents, Deety.” “But this is a translation, Pop. Wasn’t the original in Greek? I don’t remember when exponents were invented but the Greek mathematicians of that time certainly understood powers. Suppose the original read ‘Zeta, Zeta, Zeta!’ – and those scholars, who weren’t mathematicians, mistranslated it as six hundred and sixty-six?” “Uh… moondrift, Daughter.” “Who taught me that the world is not only stranger than we imagine but stranger than we can imagine? Who has already taken me into two universes that are not this one… and brought me safely home?” “Wait a half!” Zebbie said. “You and Pop have already tried the time-space machine?” “Didn’t Pop tell you? We made one minimum translation. We didn’t seem to have gone anywhere and Pop thought he had failed. Until I tried to look up a number in the phone book. No ‘J’ in the book. No ‘J’ in the Britannica. No ‘J’ in any dictionary. So we popped back in, and Pop returned the verniers to zero, and we got out, and the alphabet was back the way it ought to be and I stopped shaking. But our rotation was even more scary and we almost died. Out in space with blazing stars – but air was leaking out and Pop just barely put it back to zero before we passed out… and came to, back here in Snug Harbor.” “Jake,” Zebbie said seriously, “that gadget has got to have more fail-safes, in series with deadman switches for homing.” He frowned. “I’m going to keep my eye open for both numbers, six sixty-six and the long one. I trust Deety’s hunches. Deety, where is the verse with the description of the Beast? It’s somewhere in the middle of the chapter.” “Here. ‘And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.'” “Hmm – I don’t know how dragons speak. But if something comes up out of the earth and has two horns… and I see or hear either number – I’m going to assume that he has a ‘Black Hat’ and try to do unto him before he does unto us. Deety, I’m peaceable by policy… but two near misses is too many. Next time I shoot first.” I would as lief Zebbie hadn’t mentioned “Black Hats.” Hard to believe that someone was trying to kill anyone as sweet and innocent and harmless as my darling Jacob. But they were – and we knew it. I said, “Where is this time machine? All I’ve seen is a claptrap.” “‘Caltrop,’ Aunt Hilda. You’re looking at the space-time machine.” “Huh? Where? Why aren’t we in it and going somewhere fast? I don’t want my husband killed; he’s practically brand-new. I expect to get years of wear out of him.” “Sharpie, stop the chatter,” Zebbie put in. “It’s on that bench, across the table from you.” “All I see is a portable sewing machine.” “That’s it.” “What? How do you get inside? Or do you ride it like a broom?” “Neither. You mount it rigidly in a vehicle – one airtight and watertight by strong preference. Pop had it mounted in their car – not quite airtight and now kaputt. Pop and I are going to mount it in Gay Deceiver, which is airtight. With better fail-safes.” “Much better fail-safes, Zebbie,” I agreed. “They will be. I find that being married makes a difference. I used to worry about my own skin. Now I’m worried about Deety’s. And yours. And Pop’s. All four of us.” “Hear, hear!” I agreed. “All for one, and one for all!” “Yup,” Zebbie answered. “Us four, no more. Deety, when’s lunch?”
Chapter VII
“Avete, alieni, nos morituri vos spernimus!”
Deety: While Aunt Hilda and I assembled lunch, our men disappeared. They returned just in time to sit down. Zebadiah carried an intercom unit; Pop had a wire that he plugged into a jack in the wall, then hooked to the intercom. “Gentlemen, your timing is perfect; the work is all done,” Aunt Hilda greeted them. “What is that?” “A guest for lunch, my dearest,” Pop answered. “Miss Gay Deceiver.” “Plenty for all,” Aunt Hilda agreed. “I’ll set another place.” She did so; Zebadiah placed the intercom on the fifth plate. “Does she take coffee or tea?” “She’s not programmed for either, Hilda,” Zebadiah answered, “but I thank you on her behalf. Ladies, I got itchy about news from Singapore and Sumatra. So I asked my autopilot to report. Jake came along, then pointed out that he had spare cold circuits here and there, just in case – and this was a just-in-case. Gay is plugged to the garage end of that jack, and this is a voice-switched master-master intercom at this end. I can call Gay and she can call me if anything new comes in – and I increased her programming by reinstating the earlier programs, Logan and back home, for running retrieval of new data.” “I’ll add an outlet in the basement,” agreed Pop. “But, Son, this is your home – not California.” “Well -“ “Don’t fight it, Zebbie. This is my home since Jacob legalized me… and any step-son-in-law of mine is at home here; you heard Jacob say so. Right, Deety?” “Of course,” I agreed. “Aunt Hilda is housewife and I’m scullery maid. But Snug Harbor is my home, too, until Pop and, Aunt Hilda kick me out into the snow – and that includes my husband.” “Not into snow, Deety,” Aunt Hilda corrected me. “Jacob would insist on a sunny day; he’s kind and gentle. But that would not leave you with no roof over your head. My California home – mine and Jacob’s – has long been your home-from-home, and Zebbie has been dropping in for years, whenever he was hungry.” “I had better put my bachelor flat into the pot.” “Zebbie, you can’t put Deety on your day bed. It’s lumpy, Deety. Broken springs. Bruises. Zebbie, break your lease and send your furniture back to Good Will.” “Sharpie, you’re at it again. Deety, there is no day bed in my digs. An emperor-size bed big enough for three – six if they are well acquainted.” “My Captain, do you go in for orgies?” I asked. “No. But you can’t tell what may turn up in the future.” “You always look ahead, Zebadiah,” I said approvingly. “Am I invited?” “At any orgy of mine, my wife will pick the guests and send the invitations.” “Thank you, sir. I’ll wait until you seem to be bored, then look over the crop and pick out choice specimens for you. Assorted flavors and colors.” “My Princess, I will not spank a pregnant woman. But I can think about it. Pop, Snug Harbor continues to impress me. Did you use an architect?” “Hrrumph! ‘Architect’ is a dirty word. I studied engineering. Architects copy each other’s mistakes and call it ‘Art.’ Even Frank Lloyd Wright never understood what the Gilbreths were doing. His houses looked great from the outside – inside they were hideously inefficient. Dust collectors. Gloomy. Psych lab rat mazes. Pfui!” “How about Neutra?” “If he hadn’t been hamstrung by building codes and union rules and zoning laws, Neutra could have been great. But people don’t want efficient machines for living; they prefer to crouch in medieval hovels, as their flea-bitten forebears did. Cold, drafty, unsanitary, poor lighting, and no need for any of it.” “I respect your opinion, sir. Pop – three fireplaces… no chimneys. How? Why?” “Zeb, I like fireplaces – and a few cords of wood can save your life in the mountains. But I see no reason to warm the outdoors or to call attention to the fact that we are in residence or to place trust in spark arresters in forestfire country. Lighting a fire in a fireplace here automatically starts its exhaust fan. Smoke and particles are electrostatically precipitated. The precipitators are autoscrubbed when stack temperature passes twenty-five Celsius, dropping. Hot air goes through labyrinths under bathtubs and floors, then under other floors, thence into a rock heat-sink under the garage, a sink that drives the heat pump that serves the house. When flue gas finally escapes, at points distant from the house, it is so close to ambient temperature that only the most sensitive heat-seeker could sniff it. Thermal efficiency plus the security of being inconspicuous.” “But suppose you are snowed in so long that your power packs play out?” “Franklin stoves in storage, stove pipe to match, stops in the walls removable from inside to receive thimbles for flue pipes.” “Pop,” I inquired, “is this covered by Rule One? Or was Rule One abolished last night in Elko?” “Eh? The chair must rule that it is suspended until Hilda ratifies or cancels it. Hilda my love, years back Jane instituted Rule One -“ “I ratify it!” “Thank you. But listen first. It applies to meals. No news broadcasts -“ “Pop,” I again interrupted, “while Rule One is still in limbo – did Gay Deceiver have any news? I worry, I do!” “Null retrievals, dear. With the amusing conclusion that you and I are still presumed to have died twice, but the news services do not appear to have noticed the discrepancy. However, Miss Gay Deceiver will interrupt if a bulletin comes in; Rule One is never invoked during emergencies. Zeb, do you want this rig in your bedroom at night?” “I don’t want it but should have it. Prompt notice might save our skins.” “We’ll leave this here and parallel another into there, with gain stepped to wake you. Back to Rule One: No news broadcasts at meals, no newspapers. No shop talk, no business or financial matters, no discussion of ailments. No political discussion, no mention of taxes, or of foreign or domestic policy. Reading of fiction permitted en famille – not with guests present. Conversation limited to cheerful subjects -“ “No scandal, no gossip?” demanded Aunt Hilda. “A matter of your judgment, dear. Cheerful gossip about friends and acquaintances, juicy scandal about people we do not like – fine! Now – do you wish to ratify, abolish, amend, or take under advisement?” “I ratify it unchanged. Who knows some juicy scandal about someone we don’t like?” “I know an item about ‘No Brain’ – Doctor Neil Brain,” Zebadiah offered. “Give!” “I got this from a reliable source but can’t prove it.” “Irrelevant as long as it’s juicy. Go ahead, Zebbie.” “Well, a certain zaftig coed told this on herself. She tried to give her all to ‘Brainy’ in exchange for a passing grade in the general math course necessary to any degree on our campus. It is rigged to permit prominent but stupid athletes to graduate. Miss Zaftig was flunking it, which takes exceptional talent. “So she arranged an appointment with the department head – ‘Brainy’ – and made her quid-pro-quo clear. He could give her horizontal tutoring then and there or in her apartment or his apartment or in a motel and she would pay for it or whenever and wherever he chose. But she had to pass.” “Happens on every campus, Son,” Pop told him. “I haven’t reached the point. She blabbed the story – not angry but puzzled. She says that she was unable to get her intention over to him (which seems impossible, I’ve seen this young woman). ‘Brainy’ didn’t accept, didn’t refuse, wasn’t offended, didn’t seem to understand. He told her that she had better talk to her instructor about getting tutoring and a re-exam. Now Miss Zaftig is circulating the story that Prof ‘No Brain’ must be a eunuch or a robot. Not even a homo. Totally sexless.” “He’s undoubtedly stupid,” Aunt Hilda commented. “But I’ve never met a man I couldn’t get that point across to, if I tried. Even if he was uninterested in my fair virginal carcass. I’ve never tried with Professor Brain because I’m not interested in his carcass. Even barbecued.” “Then, Hilda my darling, why did you invite him to your party?” “What? Because of your note, Jacob. I don’t refuse you favors.” “But, Hilda, I don’t understand. When I talked to you by telephone, I asked you to invite Zeb – under the impression that he was his cousin Zebulon – and I did say that two or three others from the department of mathematics might make it less conspicuously an arranged meeting. But I didn’t mention Doctor Brain. And I did not write.” “Jacob – I have your note. In California. On your University stationery with your name printed on it.” Professor Burroughs shook his head, looked sad. Zebadiah Carter said, “Sharpie – handwritten or typed?” “Typed. But it was signed! Wait a moment, let me think. It has my name and address down in the lower left. Jacob’s name was typed, too, but it was signed ‘Jake.’ Uh… ‘My dear Hilda, A hasty P.S. to my phone call of yesterday – Would you be so kind as to include Doctor Neil O. Brain, chairman of mathematics? I don’t know what possessed me that I forgot to mention him. Probably the pleasure of hearing your dear voice. “‘Deety sends her love, as do I. Ever yours, Jacob J. Burroughs’ with ‘Jake’ signed above the typed name.” Zebadiah said to me, “Watson, you know my methods.” “Certainly, my dear Holmes. A ‘Black Hat.’ In Logan.” “We knew that. What new data?” “Well… Pop made that call from the house; I remember it. So somebody has a tap on our phone. Had, I mean; the fire probably destroyed it.” “A recording tap. The purpose of that fire may have been to destroy it and other evidence. For now we know that the ‘Blokes in the Black Hats’ knew that your father – and you, but it’s Pop they are after – was in California last evening. After ‘killing’ him in California, they destroyed all they could in Utah. Professor, I predict that we will learn that your office was robbed last night – any papers on six-dimensional spaces.” Pop shrugged. “They wouldn’t find much. I had postponed my final paper after the – humiliating – reception my preliminary paper received. I worked on it only at home, or here, and moved notes made in Logan to our basement here each time we came down.” “Any missing here?” “I am certain this place has not been entered. Not that papers would matter; I have it in my head. The continua apparatus has not been touched.” “Zebadiah, is Doctor Brain a ‘Black Hat’?” I asked. “I don’t know, Deety. He may be a stooge in their hire. But he’s part of their plot, or they would not have risked forging a letter to put him into Hilda’s house. Jake, how difficult is it to steal your professional stationery?” “Not difficult. I don’t keep a secretary; I send for a stenographer when I need one. I seldom lock my office when I’m on campus.” “Deety, can you scrounge pen and paper? I want to see how Jake signs ‘Jake.'” “Sure.” I fetched them. “Pop’s signature is easy; I often sign it. I hold his power of attorney.” “It’s the simple signatures that are hardest to forge well enough to fool a handwriting expert. But their scheme did not require fooling an expert – phrasing the note was more difficult… since Hilda accepted it as ringing true.” “It does ring true, Son; it is very like what I would have said had I written such a note to Hilda.” “The forger probably has read many of your letters and listened to many of your conversations. Jake, will you write ‘Jake’ four or five times, the way you sign a note to a friend?” Pop did so, my husband studied the specimens. “Normal variations.” Zebadiah then signed “Jake” about a dozen times, looked at his work, took a fresh sheet, signed “Jake” once, passed it to Aunt Hilda. “Well, Sharpie?” Aunt Hilda studied it. “It wouldn’t occur to me to question it – on Jacob’s stationery under a note that sounded like his phrasing. Where do we stand now?” “Stuck in the mud. But we have added data. At least three are involved, two ‘Black Hats’ and Doctor Brain, who may or may not be a ‘Black Hat.’ He is, at minimum, a hired hand, an unwitting stooge, or a puppet they can move around like a chessman. “While two plus ‘Brainy’ is minimum, it is not the most probable number. This scheme was not whipped up overnight. It involves arson, forgery, booby-trapping a car, wiretapping, theft, and secret communications between points widely separated, with coordinated criminal actions at each end – and it may involve doing in my cousin Zebulon. We can assume that the ‘Black Hats’ know that I am not the Zeb Carter who is the n-dimensional geometer; I’m written off as a bystander who got himself killed. “Which doesn’t bother them. These playful darlings would swat a fly with a sledgehammer, or cure a cough with a guillotine. They are smart, organized, efficient, and vicious – and the only clue is an interest in six-dimensional non-Euclidean geometry. “We don’t have a glimmer as to ‘who’ – other than Doctor Brain, whose role is unclear. But, Jake, I think I know ‘why’ – and that will lead us to ‘who.” “Why, Zebadiah?” I demanded. “Princess, your father could have worked on endless other branches of mathematics and they would not have bothered him. But he happened – I don’t mean chance; I don’t believe in ‘chance’ in this sense – he worked on the one variety of the endless possible number of geometries – the only one that correctly describes how space-time is put together. Having found it, because he is a genius in both theory and practice, he saw that it was a means by which to build a simple craft – amazingly simple, the greatest invention since the wheel – a space-time craft that offers access to all universes to the full Number of the Beast. Plus undenumerable variations of each of those many universes. “We have one advantage.” “I don’t see any advantage! They’re shooting at my Jacob!” “One strong advantage, Sharpie. The ‘Black Hats’ know that Jake has worked out this mathematics. They don’t know that he has built his space-time tail-twister; they think he has just put symbols on paper. They tried to discredit his work and were successful. They tried to kill him and barely missed. They probably think Jake is dead – and it seems likely that they have killed Ed. But they don’t know about Snug Harbor.” “Why do you say that, Zeb? Oh, I hope they do not! – but why do you feel sure?” “Because these blokes aren’t fooling. They blew up your car and burned your flat; what would they do here? – if they knew. An A-bomb?” “Son, do you think that criminals can lay hands on atomic weapons?” “Jake, these aren’t criminals. A ‘criminal’ is a member of the subset of the larger set ‘human beings.’ These creatures are not human.” “Eh? Zeb, your reasoning escapes me.” “Deety. Run it through the computer. The one between your ears.” I did not answer; I just sat and thought. After several minutes of unpleasant thoughts I said, “Zebadiah, the ‘Black Hats’ don’t know about the apparatus in our basement.” “Conclusive assumption,” my husband agreed, “because we are still alive.” “They are determined to destroy a new work in mathematics… and to kill the brain that produced it.” “A probability approaching unity,” Zebadiah again agreed. “Because it can be used to travel among the universes.” “Conclusive corollary,” my husband noted. “For this purpose, human beings fall into three groups. Those not interested in mathematics more complex than that needed to handle money, those who know a bit about other mathematics, and a quite small third group who could understand the possibilities.” “Yes.” “But our race does not know anything of other universes so far as I know.” “They don’t. Necessary assumption.” “But that third group would not try to stop an attempt to travel among the universes. They would wait with intellectual interest to see how it turned out. They might believe or disbelieve or suspend judgment. But they would not oppose; they would be delighted if my father succeeded. The joy of intellectual discovery – the mark of a true scientist.” I sighed and added, “I see no other grouping. Save for a few sick people, psychotic, these three subsets complete the set. Our opponents are not psychotic; they are intelligent, crafty, and organized.” “As we all know too well,” Zebadiah echoed. “Therefore our opponents are not human beings. They are alien intelligences from elsewhere.” I sighed again and shut up. Being an oracle is a no-good profession! “Or elsewhen. Sharpie, can you kill?” “Kill whom, Zebbie? Or what?” “Can you kill to protect Jake?” “You bet your frimpin’ life I’ll kill to protect Jacob!” “I won’t ask you, Princess; I know Dejah Thoris.” Zebadiah went on, “That’s the situation, ladies. We have the most valuable man on this planet to protect. We don’t know from what. Jake, your bodyguard musters two Amazons, one small, one medium large, both probably knocked up, and one Cowardly Lion. I’d hire the Dorsai if I knew their P.O. Box. Or the Gray Lensman and all his pals. But we are all there are and we’ll try! Avete, alieni, nos morituri vos spernimus! Let’s break out that champagne.” “My Captain, do you think we should?” I asked. “I’m frightened.” “We should. I’m no good for more work today, and neither is Jake. Tomorrow we’ll start installing the gadget in Gay Deceiver, do rewiring and reprogramming so that she will work for any of us. Meanwhile we need a couple of laughs and a night’s sleep. What better time to drink life to the dregs than when we know that any hour may be our last?” Aunt Hilda punched Zebadiah in the ribs. “Yer dern tootin’, Buster! I’m going to get giggle happy and make a fool of myself and then take my man and put him to sleep with Old Mother Sharpie’s Time-Tested Nostrum. Deety, I prescribe the same for you.” I suddenly felt better. “Check, Aunt Hilda! Captain John Carter always wins. ‘Cowardly Lion’ my foot! Who is Pop? The Little Wizard?” “I think he is.” “Could be. Pop, will you open the bubbly? I always hurt my thumbs.” “Right away, Deety. I mean ‘Dejah Thoris, royal consort of the Warlord.'” “No need to be formal, Pop. This is going to be an informal party. Very! Pop! Do I have to keep my pants on?” “Ask your husband. You’re his problem now.”
Chapter VIII
“Let us all preserve our illusions – “
Hilda: In my old age, sucking my gums in front of the fire and living over my misdeeds, I’ll remember the next few days as the happiest in my life. I’d had three honeymoons earlier, one with each of my term-contract husbands: two had been good, one had been okay and (eventually) very lucrative. But my honeymoon with Jacob was heavenly. The whiff of danger sharpened the joy. Jacob seemed unworried, and Zebbie has hunches, like a horseplayer. Seeing that Zebbie was relaxed, Deety got over being jumpy – and I never was, as I hope to end like a firecracker, not linger on, ugly, helpless, useless… A spice of danger adds zest to life. Even during a honeymoon – especially during a honeymoon. An odd honeymoon. We worked hard but our husbands seemed never too busy for pat fanny, squeeze titty, and unhurried kisses. Not a group marriage but two twosomes that were one family, comfortable each with the others. I dropped most of my own sparky-bitch ways, and Zebbie sometimes called me “Hilda” rather than “Sharpie.” Jacob and I moved into marriage like ham and eggs. Jacob is not tall (178 centimeters) (but tall compared with my scant one fifty-two) and his hairline recedes and he has a paunch from years at a desk – but he looks just right to me. If I wanted to look at male beauty, I could always look at Deety’s giant – appreciate him without lusting: my own loving goat kept Sharpie quite blunted. I did not decide, when Zebbie came on campus, to make a pet of him for his looks but for his veering sense of humor. But if there was ever a man who could have played the role of John Carter, Warlord of Mars, it was Zebadiah Carter whose middle name just happens to be “John.” Indoors with clothes and wearing his fake horn-rims he looks awkward, too big, clumsy. I did not realize that he was beautiful and graceful until the first time he used my pool. (That afternoon I was tempted to seduce him. But, as little dignity as I have, I had resolved to stick to older men, so I shut off the thought.) Outdoors at Snug Harbor, wearing little or no clothes, Zebbie looked at home – a mountain lion in grace and muscle. An incident one later afternoon showed me how much he was like the Warlord of Mars. A sword – Those old stories were familiar to me. My father had acquired the Ballantine Del Rey paperback reissues; they were around the house when I was a little girl. Once I learned to read, I read everything, and vastly preferred Barsoom stories to “girls” books given to me for birthdays and Christmas. Thuvia was the heroine I identified with – “toy” of the cruel priests of Issus, then with virginity miraculously restored in the next book: Thuvia, Maid of Mars. I resolved to change my name to Thuvia when I was old enough. When I was eighteen, I did not consider it; I had always been “Hilda,” a new name held no attraction. I was responsible in part for Deety’s name, one that embarrassed her until she discovered that her husband liked it. Jacob had wanted to name his daughter “Dejah Thoris” (Jacob looks like and is a professor, but he is incurably romantic). Jane had misgivings. I told her, “Don’t be a chump, Janie. If your man wants something, and you can accommodate him with no grief, give it to him! Do you want him to love this child or to resent her?” Jane looked thoughtful and “Doris Anne” became “Dejah Thoris” at christening, then “Deety” before she could talk – which satisfied everyone. We settled into a routine: Up early every day; our men worked on instruments and wires and things and installing the time-space widget into Gay Deceiver’s gizzard – while Deety and I gave the housework a lick and a promise (our mountain home needed little attention – more of Jacob’s genius), then Deety and I got busy on a technical matter that Deety could do with some help from me. I’m not much use for technical work, biology being the only thing I studied in depth and never finished my degree. This was amplified by almost six thousand hours as volunteer nurse’s aid in our campus medical center and I took courses that make me an uncertified nurse or medical tech or even jackleg paramedic – I don’t shriek at the sight of blood and can clean up vomit without a qualm and would not hesitate to fill in as scrub nurse. Being a campus widow with too much money is fun but not soul filling. I like to feel that I’ve paid rent on the piece of earth I’m using. Besides that, I have a smattering of everything from addiction to the printed page, plus attending campus lectures that sound intriguing… then sometimes auditing a related course. I audited descriptive astronomy, took the final as if for credit – got an “A.” I had even figured a cometary orbit correctly, to my surprise (and the professor’s). I can wire a doorbell or clean out a stopped-up soil pipe with a plumber’s “snake” – but if it’s really technical, I hire specialists. So Hilda can help but usually can’t do the job alone. Gay Deceiver had to be reprogrammed – and Deety, who does not look like a genius, is one. Jacob’s daughter should be a genius and her mother had an I.Q. that startled even me, her closest friend. I ran across it while helping poor grief-stricken Jacob to decide what to save, what to burn. (I burned unflattering pictures, useless papers, and clothes. A dead person’s clothes should be given away or burned; nothing should be kept that does not inspire happy memories. I cried a bit and that saved Jacob and Deety from having to cry later.) We all held private duo licenses; Zebbie, as Captain Z. J. Carter, U.S.A.S.R., held “command” rating as well – he told us that his space rating was largely honorary, just some free-fall time and one landing of a shuttle. Zebbie is mendacious, untruthful, and tells fibs; I got a chance to sneak a look at his aerospace log and shamelessly took it. He had logged more than he claimed in one exchange tour with Australia. Someday I’m going to sit on his chest and make him tell Mama Hilda the truth. Should be interesting… if I can sort out fact from fiction. I do not believe his story about intimate relations with a female kangaroo. Zebbie and Jacob decided that we all must be able to control Gay Deceiver all four ways, on the road, in the air, in trajectory (she’s not a spaceship but can make high-trajectory jumps), and in space-time, i.e. among the universes to the Number of the Beast, plus variants impossible to count. I had fingers crossed about being able to learn that, but both men assured me that they had worked out a fail-safe that would get me out of a crunch if I ever had to do it alone. Part of the problem lay in the fact that Gay Deceiver was a one-man girl; her doors unlocked only to her master’s voice or to his thumbprint, or to a tapping code if he were shy both voice and right thumb; Zeb tended to plan ahead – “Outwitting Murphy’s Law,” he called it, “‘Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.'” (Grandma called it “The Butter-Side Down Rule.”) First priority was to introduce us to Gay Deceiver – teach her that all four voices and right thumbprints were acceptable. That took a couple of hours, with Deety helping Zebbie. The tapping code took even less, it being based on an old military cadence – its trickiness being that a thief would be unlikely to guess that this car would open if tapped a certain way and in guessing the correct cadence. Zebbie called the cadence “Drunken Soldier.” Jacob said that it was “Bumboat.” Deety claimed that its title was “Pay Day,” because she had heard it from Jane’s grandfather. Our men conceded that she must be right, as she had words for it. Her words included “Drunken Sailor” instead of “Drunken Soldier” – plus both “Pay Day” and “Bumboat.” Introductions taken care of, Zeb dug out Gay’s anatomy, one volume her body, one her brain. He handed the latter to Deety, took the other into our basement. The next two days were easy for me, hard for Deety. I held lights and made notes on a clip board while she studied that book and frowned and got smudged and sweaty getting herself into impossible positions and once she cursed in a fashion that would have caused Jane to scold. She added, “Aunt Nanny Goat, your step-son-in-law has done things to this mass of spaghetti that no decent computer should put up with! It’s a bastard hybrid.” “You shouldn’t call Gay ‘it,’ Deety. And she’s not a bastard.” “She can’t hear us; I’ve got her ears unhooked – except that piece that is monitoring news retrieval programs – and that goes through this wire to that jack in the wall; she can talk with Zebadiah only in the basement now. Oh, I’m sure she was a nice girl until that big ape of mine raped her. Aunt Hilda, don’t worry about hurting Gay’s feelings; she hasn’t any. This is an idiot as computers go. Any one-horse college and most high schools own or share time in computers much more complex. This one is primarily cybernetics, an autopilot plus limited digital capacity and limited storage. But the mods Zebadiah has tacked on make it more than an autopilot but not a general-purpose computer. A misbegotten hybrid. It has far more random-number options than it needs and it has extra functions that IBM never dreamed of.” “Deety, why are you taking off cover plates? I thought you were strictly a programmer? Software. Not a mechanic.” “I am strictly a software mathematician. I wouldn’t attempt to modify this monster even on written orders from my lovable but sneaky husband. But how in the name of Allah can a software hack think about simplification analysis for program if she doesn’t know the circuitry? The first half of this book shows what this autopilot was manufactured to do… and the second half, the Xeroxed pages, show the follies Zebadiah has seduced her into. This bleedin’ bundle of chips now speaks three logic languages, interfaced – when it was built to use only one. But it won’t accept any of them until it has been wheedled with Zebadiah’s double talk. Even then it rarely answers a code phrase with the same answer twice in a row. What does it say in answer to: ‘You’re a smart girl, Gay.’?” “I remember. ‘Boss, I bet you tell that to all the girls. Over.” “Sometimes. Oftenest, as that answer is weighted to come up three times as often as any of the others. But listen to this: “‘Zeb, I’m so smart I scare myself.’ “‘Then why did you turn me down for that raise?’ “‘Never mind the compliments! Take your hand off my knee!’ “‘Not so loud, dear. I don’t want my boyfriend to hear.’ ” – and there are more. There are at least four answers to any of Zebadiah’s code phrases. He uses just one list, but the autopilot answers several ways for each of his phrases – and all any of them mean is either ‘Roger’ or ‘Null program; rephrase.'” “I like the idea. Fun.” “Well… I do myself. I animize a computer; I think of them as people… and this semirandom answer list makes Gay Deceiver feel much more alive… when she isn’t. Not even versatile compared with a ground-based computer. But – ” Deety gave a quick smile. “I’m going to hand my husband some surprises.” “How, Deety?” “You know how he says, ‘Good morning, Gay. How are you?’ when we sit down for breakfast.” “Yes. I like it. Friendly. She usually answers, ‘I’m fine, Zeb.'” “Yes. It’s a test code. It orders the autopilot to run a self-check throughout and to report any running instruction. Which takes less than a millisecond. If he didn’t get that or an equivalent answer, he would rush straight here to find out what’s wrong. But I’m going to add another answer. Or more.” “I thought you refused to modify anything.” “Aunt Hillbilly, this is software, not hardware. I’m authorized and directed to amplify the answers to include all of us, by name for each of our voices. That is programming, elementary. You say good morning to this gadget and it will – when I’m finished – answer you and call you either ‘Hilda’ or ‘Mrs. Burroughs.'” “Oh, let her call me Hilda.'” “All right, but let her call you ‘Mrs. Burroughs’ now and then for variety.” “Well… all right. Keep her a personality.” “I could even have her call you – low weighting! – ‘Nanny Goat.'” I guffawed. “Do, Deety, please do. But I want to be around to see Jacob’s face.” “You will be; it won’t be programmed to answer that way to any voice but yours. Just don’t say, ‘Good morning, Gay’ unless Pop is listening. But here’s one for my husband: Zebadiah says, ‘Good morning, Gay. How are you?’ – and the speaker answers, ‘I’m fine, Zeb. But your fly is unzipped and your eyes are bloodshot. Are you hung over again?'” Deety is so solemn and yet playful. “Do it, dear! Poor Zebbie – who drinks least of any of us. But he might not be wearing anything zippered.” “Zebadiah always wears something at meals. Even his underwear shorts are zippered. He dislikes elastic.” “But he’ll recognize your voice, Deety.” “Nope. Because it will be your voice – modified.” And it was. I’m contralto about the range of the actress – or girl friend – who recorded Gay Deceiver’s voice originally. I don’t think my voice has her sultry, bedroom quality but I’m a natural mimic. Deety borrowed a wigglescope – oscilloscope? – from her father, my Jacob, and I practiced until my patterns for Gay Deceiver’s original repertoire matched hers well enough – Deety said she could not tell them apart without close checking. I got into the spirit of it, such as having Deety cause Gay Deceiver occasionally to say to my husband, “Fine – except for my back ache, you wicked old Billy Goat!” – and Jacob tripped that reply one morning when I did have a back ache, and I feel sure he had one, too. We didn’t put in answers that Deety felt might be too bawdy for Jacob’s “innocent” mind – I didn’t even hint how her father actually talked, to me in private. Let us all preserve our illusions; it lubricates social relations. Possibly Deety and Zebbie talked the same way to each other in private – and regarded us “old folks” as hopelessly square.
Chapter IX
Most males have an unhealthy tendency to obey laws.
Deety: Aunt Hilda and I finished reprogramming in the time it took Zebadiah and Pop to design and make the fail-safes and other mods needed to turn Gay Deceiver, with the time-space widget installed, into a continua traveler – which included placing the back seats twenty centimeters farther back (for leg room) after they had been pulled out to place the widget abaft the bulkhead and weld it to the shell. The precessing controls and triple verniers were remoted to the driver’s instrument board – with one voice control for the widget, all others manual: If any of our voices said, “Gay Deceiver, take us home!” car and passengers would instantly return to Snug Harbor. I don’t know but I trust my Pop. He brought us home safe twice, doing it with no fail-safes and no dead-man switch. The latter paralleled the “Take us home!” voice order, was normally clamped closed and covered – but could be uncovered and held in a fist, closed. There were other fail-safes for temperature, pressure, air, radar collision course, and other dangers. If we wound up inside a star or planet, none of this could save us, but it is easy to prove that the chances of falling downstairs and breaking your neck are enormously higher than the chance of co-occupying space with other matter in our native universe – space is plentiful, mass is scarce. We hoped that this would be true of other universes. No way ahead of time to check on the Number-of-the-Beast spaces – but “The cowards never started and the weaklings died on the way.” None of us ever mentioned not trying to travel the universes. Besides, our home planet had turned unfriendly. We didn’t discuss “Black Hats” but we all knew that they were still here, and that we remained alive by lying doggo and letting the world think we were dead. We ate breakfast better each morning after hearing Gay Deceiver offer “null report” on news retrievals. Zebadiah, I am fairly certain, had given up his cousin for dead. I feel sure Zebadiah would have gone to Sumatra to follow a lost hope, were it not that he had acquired a wife and a prospective child. I missed my next period, so did Hilda. Our men toasted our not-yet bulging bellies; Hilda and I smugly resolved to be good girls, yes, sir! – and careful. Hilda joined my morning toning up, and the men joined us the first time they caught us at it. Zebadiah did not need it but seemed to enjoy it. Pop brought his waistline down five centimeters in one week. Shortly after that toast Zebadiah pressure-tested Gay Deceiver’s shell – four atmospheres inside her and a pressure gauge sticking out through a fitting in her shell. There being little we could do while our space-time rover was sealed, we knocked off early. “Swim, anybody?” I asked. Snug Harbor doesn’t have a citytype pool, and a mountain stream is too cooold. Pop had fixed that when he concealed our spring. Overflow was piped underground to a clump of bushes and thereby created a “natural” mountain rivulet that passed near the house; then Pop had made use of a huge fallen boulder, plus biggish ones, to create a pool, one that filled and spilled. He had done work with pigments in concrete to make this look like an accident of water flow. This makes Pop sound like Paul Bunyan. Pop could have built Snug Harbor with his own hands. But Spanish-speaking labor from Nogales built the underground and assembled the prefab shell of the cabin. An air crane fetched parts and materials from an Albuquerque engineering company Jane had bought for Pop through a front – lawyers in Dallas. The company’s manager drove the air crane himself, having had it impressed on him that this was for a rich client of the law firm, and that it would be prudent to do the job and forget it. Pop bossed the work in TexMex, with help from his secretary – me – Spanish being one language I had picked for my doctorate. Laborers and mechanics never got a chance to pinpoint where they were, but they were well paid, well fed, comfortably housed in prefabs brought in by crane, and the backbreaking labor was done by power – who cares what “locos gringos” do? Two pilots had to know where we were building, but they homed in on a radar beacon that is no longer there. “Blokes in Black Hats” had nothing to do with this secrecy; it was jungle caution I had learned from Mama: Never let the revenooers know anything. Pay cash, keep your lips closed, put nothing through banks that does not appear later in tax returns – pay taxes greater than your apparent standard of living and declare income accordingly. We had been audited three times since Mama died; each time the government returned a small “overpayment” – I was building a reputation of being stupid and honest. My inquiry of “Swim, anybody?” was greeted with silence. Then Pop said, “Zeb, your wife is too energetic. Deety, later the water will be warmer and the trees will give us shade. Then we can walk slowly down to the pool. Zeb?” “I agree, Jake. I need to conserve ergs.” “Nap?” “I don’t have the energy to take one. What were you saying this morning about reengineering the system?” Aunt Hilda looked startled. “I thought Miss Gay Deceiver was already engineered? Are you thinking of changing everything?” “Take it easy, Sharpie darlin’. Gay Deceiver is finished. A few things to stow that have been weighed and their moment arms calculated.” I could have told her. In the course of figuring what could be stowed in every nook and cranny and what that would do to Gay’s balance, I had discovered that my husband had a highly illegal laser cannon. I said nothing, merely included its mass and distance from optimum center of weight in my calculations. I sometimes wonder which of us is the outlaw: Zebadiah or I? Most males have an unhealthy tendency to obey laws. But that concealed L-cannon made me wonder. “Why not leave well enough alone?” Aunt Hilda demanded. “Jacob and God know I’m happy here… But You All Know Why We Should Not Stay Here Longer Than We Must.” “We weren’t talking about Gay Deceiver; Jake and I were discussing reengineering the Solar System.” “The Solar System! What’s wrong with it the way it is?” “Lots of things,” Zebadiah told Aunt Hilda. “It’s untidy. Real estate going to waste. This tired old planet is crowded and sort o’ worn in spots. True, industry in orbit and power from orbit have helped, and both Lagrange-Four and -Five have self-supporting populations; anybody who invested in space stations early enough made a pile.” (Including Pop, Zebadiah!) “But these are minor compared with what can be done – and this planet is in worse shape each year. Jake’s six-dimensional principle can change that.” “Move people into another universe? Would they go?” “We weren’t thinking of that, Hilda. We’re trying to apply Clarke’s Law.” “I don’t recall it. Maybe it was while I was out with mumps.” “Arthur C. Clarke,” Pop told her. “Great man – too bad he was liquidated in The Purge. Clarke defined how to make a great discovery or create a key invention. Study what the most respected authorities agree can not be done – then do it. My continua craft is a godchild of Clarke via his Law. His insight inspired my treatment of six-dimensional continua. But this morning Zeb added corollaries.” “Jake, don’t kid the ladies. I asked a question; you grabbed the ball and ran.” “Uh, we heterodyned. Hilda, you know that the time-space traveler doesn’t require power.” “I’m afraid I don’t know, darling man. Why were you installing power packs in Gay Deceiver?” “Auxiliary uses. So that you won’t have to cook over an open fire, for example.” “But the pretzel bender doesn’t use power,” agreed Zebadiah. “Don’t ask why. I did, and Jake started writing equations in Sanskrit and I got a headache.” “It doesn’t use power, Aunt Hilda,” I agreed. “Just parasitic power. A few microwatts so that the gyros never slow down, milliwatts for instrument readouts and for controls – but the widget itself uses none.” “What happened to the law of conservation of energy?” “Sharpie,” my husband answered, “as a fairish mechanic, an amateur electron pusher, and as a bloke who has herded unlikely junk through the sky, I never worry about theory as long as machinery does what it is supposed to do. I worry when a machine turns and bites me. That’s why I specialize in fail-safes and backups and triple redundancy. I try never to get a machine sore at me. There’s no theory for that but every engineer knows it.” “Hilda my beloved, the law of conservation of mass-energy is not broken by our continua craft; it is simply not relevant to it. Once Zeb understood that -“ “I didn’t say I understood it.” “Well… once Zeb stipulated that, he raised interesting questions. For example: Jupiter doesn’t need Ganymede – “ “Whereas Venus does. Although Titan might be better.” “Mmm… possible.” “Yes. Make an inhabitable base more quickly. But the urgent problem, Jake, is to seed Venus, move atmosphere to Mars, put both of them through forced aging. Then respot them. Earth-Sol Trojan points?” “Certainly. We’ve had millions of years of evolution this distance from the Sun. We had best plan on living neither closer nor farther. With careful attention to stratospheric protection. But I still have doubts about anchoring in the Venerian crust. We wouldn’t want to lose the planet on Tau axis.” “Mere R. & D., Jake. Calculate pressures and temperatures; beef up the vehicle accordingly – spherical, save for exterior anchors – then apply a jigger factor of four. With automatic controls quintuply redundant. Catch it when it comes out and steady it down in Earth’s orbit, sixty degrees trailing – and start selling subdivisions the size of old Spanish Land Grants. Jake, we should gather enough mass to create new earths at all Trojan points, a hexagon around the Sun. Five brand-new earths would give the race room enough to breed. On this maiden voyage let’s keep our eyes open.” Aunt Hilda looked at Zebadiah with horror. “Zebbie! Creating planets indeed! Who do you think you are? Jesus Christ?” “I’m not that junior. That’s the Holy Ghost over there, scratching his belly, The Supreme Inseminator. I’m the other one, the Maker and Shaper. But in setting up a pantheon for the Celestial Age, we’re going to respect women’s rights, Hilda. Deety is Earth Mother; she’s perfect for the job. You are Moon Goddess, Selene. Good job, dear – more moons than earths. It fits you. You’re little and silvery and you wax and wane and you’re beautiful in all your phases. How about it? Us four and no more.” “Quit pulling my leg!” My husband answered, “I haven’t been pulling your leg. Come closer and I will; you have pretty legs, Step-Mother-in-Law. These things Jake and I have been discussing are practical – once we thought about the fact that the spacetime twister uses no power. Move anything anywhere – all spaces, all times. I add the plural because at first I could not see what Jake had in mind when he spoke of forced aging of a planet. Rotate Venus into the Tau axis, fetch it back along Teh axis, reinsert it centuries – or millennia – older at this point in ‘t’ axis. Perhaps translate it a year or so into the future – our future – so as to be ready for it when it returns, all sweet and green and beautiful and ready to grow children and puppies and butterflies. Terraformed but virginal.” Aunt Hilda looked frightened. “Jacob? Would one highball do any harm to this peanut inside me? I need a bracer.” “I don’t think so. Jane often had a drink with me while she was pregnant. Her doctor did not have her stop until her third trimester. Can’t see that it hurt Deety. Deety was so healthy she drove Jane home from the hospital.” “Pop, that’s a fib. I didn’t learn to drive until I was three months old. But I need one, too,” I added. “Zebadiah?” “Certainly, Princess. A medicinal drink should be by body mass. That’s half a jigger for you, Sharpie dear, a jigger for Deety, a jigger and a half for Jake – two jiggers for me.” “Oh, how unfair!” “It certainly is,” I agreed. “I outweigh Pop – he’s been losing, I’ve been gaining. Pick us up and see!” My husband took us each around the waist, crouched, then straightened and lifted us. “Close to a standoff,” he announced. “Pop may be a trifle heavier, but you’re more cuddly” – kissed me and put us down. “There is no one more cuddly than Jacob!” “Hilda, you’re prejudiced. Let’s each mix our own drinks, at the strength required for our emotional and physical conditions.” So we did – it wound up with Hilda and me each taking a jigger with soda, Pop taking a jigger and a half over ice – and Zebadiah taking a half jigger of vodka and drowning it with Coke. While we were sipping our “medicine,” Zebadiah, sprawled out, looked up over the fireplace. “Pop, you were in the Navy?” “No – Army. If you count ‘chair-borne infantry.’ They handed me a commission for having a doctorate in mathematics, told me they needed me for ballistics. Then I spent my whole tour as a personnel officer, signing papers.” “Standard Operating Procedure. That’s a Navy sword and belt up there. Thought it might be yours.” “It’s Deety’s – belonged to Jane’s Grandfather Rodgers. I have a dress saber. Belonged to my Dad, who gave it to me when the Army took me. Dress blues, too. I took them with me, never had occasion to wear either.” Pop got up and went into his – their bedroom, calling back, “I’ll show you the saber.” My husband said to me, “Deety, would you mind my handling your sword?” “My Captain, that sword is yours.” “Heavens, dear, I can’t accept an heirloom.” “If my warlord will not permit his princess to gift him with a sword, he can leave it where it is! I’ve been wanting to give you a wedding present – and did not realize that I had the perfect gift for Captain John Carter.” “My apologies, Dejah Thoris. I accept and will keep it bright. I will defend my princess with it against all enemies.” “Helium is proud to accept. If you make a cradle of your hands, I can stand in them and reach it down.” Zebadiah grasped me, a hand above each knee, and I was suddenly three meters tall. Sword and belt were on hooks; I lifted them down, and myself was placed down. My husband stood straight while I buckled it around him – then he dropped to one knee and kissed my hand. My husband is mad north-northwest but his madness suits me. I got tears in my eyes which Deety doesn’t do much but Dejah Thoris seems prone to, since John Carter made her his. Pop and Aunt Hilda watched – then imitated, including (I saw!) tears in Hilda’s eyes after she buckled on Pop’s saber, when he knelt and kissed her hand. Zebadiah drew sword, tried its balance, sighted along its blade. “Handmade and balanced close to the hilt. Deety, your great-grandfather paid a pretty penny for this. It’s an honest weapon.” “I don’t think he knew what it cost. It was presented to him.” “For good reason, I feel certain.” Zebadiah stood back, went into hanging guard, made fast moulinets vertically, left and right, then horizontally clockwise and counterclockwise – suddenly dropped into swordsman’s guard – lunged and recovered, fast as a striking cat. I said softly to Pop, “Did you notice?” Pop answered quietly. “Know saber. Sword, too.” Hilda said loudly, “Zebbie! You never told me you went to Heidelberg.” “You never asked, Sharpie. Around the Red Ox they called me ‘The Scourge of the Neckar.'” “What happened to your scars?” “Never got any, dear. I hung around an extra year, hoping for one. But no one got through my guard – ever. Hate to think about how many German faces I carved into checkerboards.” “Zebadiah, was that where you took your doctorate?” My husband grinned and sat down, still wearing sword. “No, another school.” “M.I.T.?” inquired Pop. “Hardly. Pop, this should stay in the family. I undertook to prove that a man can get a doctorate from a major university without knowing anything and without adding anything whatever to human knowledge.” “I think you have a degree in aerospace engineering,” Pop said flatly. “I’ll concede that I have the requisite hours. I hold two degrees – a baccalaureate in humane arts… meaning I squeaked through… and a doctorate from an old and prestigious school – a Ph.D. in education.” “Zebadiah! You wouldn’t!” (I was horrified.) “But I did, Deety. To prove that degrees per se are worthless. Often they are honorifics of true scientists or learned scholars or inspired teachers. Much more frequently they are false faces for overeducated jackasses.” Pop said, “You’ll get no argument from me, Zeb. A doctorate is a union card to get a tenured job. It does not mean that the holder thereof is wise or learned.” “Yes, sir. I was taught it at my grandfather’s knee – my Grandfather Zachariah, the man responsible for the initial ‘Z’ in the names of his male descendants. Deety, his influence on me was so strong that I must explain him – no, that’s impossible; I must tell about him in order to explain me… and how I happened to take a worthless degree.” Hilda said, “Deety, he’s pulling a long bow again.” “Quiet, woman. ‘Get thee to a nunnery, go!” “I don’t take orders from my step-son-in-law. Make that a monastery and I’ll consider it.” I kept my blinkin’ mouf shut. My husband’s fibs entertain me. (If they are fibs.) “Grandpa Zach was as cantankerous an old coot as you’ll ever meet. Hated government, hated lawyers, hated civil servants, hated preachers, hated automobiles, public schools, and telephones, was contemptuous of most editors, most writers, most professors, most of almost anything. But he overtipped waitresses and porters and would go out of his way to avoid stepping on an insect. “Grandpa had three doctorates: biochemistry, medicine, and law – and he regarded anyone who couldn’t read Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and German as illiterate.” “Zebbie, can you read all those?” “Fortunately for me, my grandfather had a stroke while filling out a tax form before he could ask me that question. I don’t know Hebrew. I can read Latin, puzzle out Greek, speak and read French, read technical German, understand it in some accents, swear in Russian – very useful! – and speak an ungrammatical smattering of Spanish picked up in cantinas and from horizontal dictionaries. “Grandpa would have classed me as subliterate as I don’t do any of these well – and I sometimes split infinitives which would have infuriated him. He practiced forensic medicine, medical jurisprudence, was an expert witness in toxicology, pathology, and traumatology, bullied judges, terrorized lawyers, medical students, and law students. He once threw a tax assessor out of his office and required him to return with a search warrant setting forth in detail its constitutional limitations, He regarded the income tax and the Seventeenth Amendment and the direct primary as signs of the decay of the Republic.” “How did he feel about the Nineteenth?” “Hilda, Grandpa Zach supported female suffrage. I remember hearing him say that if women were so dad-burned foolish as to want to assume the burden, they should be allowed to – they couldn’t do the country more harm than men had. ‘Votes for Women’ didn’t annoy him but nine thousand other things did. He lived at a slow simmer, always ready to break into a rolling boil. “He had one hobby: collecting steel engravings.” “‘Steel engravings’?” I repeated. “Of dead presidents, my Princess. Especially of McKinley, Cleveland, and Madison – but he didn’t scorn those of Washington. He had that instinct for timing so necessary to a collector. In 1929 on Black Thursday he held not one share of common stock; instead he had sold short. When the 1933 Bank Holiday came along every old-dollar he owned, except current cash, was in Zurich in Swiss money. Eventually U.S. citizens were forbidden by ’emergency’ decree to own gold even abroad. “Grandpa Zach ducked into Canada, applied for Swiss citizenship, got it, and thereafter split his time between Europe and America, immune to inflation and the confiscatory laws that eventually caused us to knock three zeros off the old-dollar in creating the newdollar. “So he died rich, in Locarno – beautiful place; I stayed with him two summers as a boy. His will was probated in Switzerland and the U.S. Revenue Service could not touch it. “Most of it was a trust with its nature known to his offspring before his death or I would not have been named Zebadiah. “Female descendants got pro-rata shares of income with no strings attached but males had to have first names starting with ‘Z’ – and even that got them not one Swiss franc; there was a ‘Root, hog, or die!’ clause. Zachariah believed in taking care of daughters, but sons and grandsons had to go out and scratch, with no help from their fathers, until they had earned and saved on their own – or accumulated without going to jail – assets equal to one pro-rata share of the capital sum of the trust before they shared in the trust’s income.” “Sexism,” said Aunt Hilda. “Raw, unadulterated sexism. Any FemLib gal would sneer at his dirty old money, on those terms.” “Would you have refused it, Sharpie?” “Me? Zebbie dear, are you feverish? I would have both greedy hands out. I’m strong for women’s rights but no fanatic. Sharpie wants to be pampered and that’s what men are best at – their natural function.” “Pop, do you need help in coping with her?” “No, Son. I like pampering Hilda. I don’t see you abusing my daughter.” “I don’t dare; you told me she’s vicious at karate.” (I am good at karate; Pop made sure that I learned all the dirty fighting possible. But not against Zebadiah! If I ever do – Heaven forbid! – find myself opposed to my husband, I’ll quiver my chin and cry.) “On my graduation from high school my father had a talk with me. ‘Zeb,’ he told me. ‘The time has come. I’ll put you through any school you choose. Or you can take what you have saved, strike out on your own, and try to qualify for a share in your grandfather’s will. Suit yourself, I shan’t influence you.’ “Folks, I had to think. My father’s younger brother was past forty and still hadn’t qualified. The size of the trust made a pro-rata of its assets amount to a requirement that a male descendant had to get rich on his own – well-to-do at least – whereupon he was suddenly twice as rich. But with over half of this country’s population living on the taxes of the lesser number it is not as easy to get rich as it was in Grandpa’s day. “Turn down a paid-for education at Princeton, or M.I.T.? Or go out and try to get rich with nothing but a high school education? – I hadn’t learned much in high school; I had majored in girls. “So I had to think hard and long. Almost ten seconds. I left home next day with one suitcase and a pitiful sum of money. “Wound up on campus that had two things to recommend it: an Aerospace R.O.T.C. that would pick up part of my expenses, and a phys. ed. department willing to award me a jockstrap scholarship in exchange for daily bruises and contusions, plus all-out effort whenever we played. I took the deal.” “What did you play?” asked my father. “Football, basketball, and track – they would have demanded more had they been able to figure a way to do it.” “I had thought you were going to mention fencing.” “No, that’s another story. These did not quite close the gap. So I also waited tables for meals – food so bad the cockroaches ate out. But that closed the gap, and I added to it by tutoring in mathematics. That gave me my start toward piling up money to qualify.” I asked, “Did tutoring math pay enough to matter? I tutored math before Mama died; the hourly rate was low.” “Not that sort of tutoring, Princess. I taught prosperous young optimists not to draw to inside straights, and that stud poker is not a game of chance, but that craps is, controlled by mathematical laws that cannot be flouted with impunity. To quote Grandfather Zachariah, ‘A man who bets on greed and dishonesty won’t be wrong too often.’ There is an amazingly high percentage of greedy people and it is even easier to win from a dishonest gambler than it is from an honest one… and neither is likely to know the odds at craps, especially side bets, or all of the odds in poker, in particular how odds change according to the number of players, where one is seated in relation to the dealer, and how to calculate changes as cards are exposed in stud. “That was also how I quit drinking, my darling, except for special celebrations. In every ‘friendly’ game some players contribute, some take a profit; a player determined to take a profit must be neither drunk nor tired. Pop, the shadows are growing long – I don’t think anybody wants to know how I got a worthless doctorate.” “I do!” I put in. “Me, too!” echoed Aunt Hilda. “Son, you’re outvoted.” “Okay. Two years active duty after I graduated. Sky jockeys are even more optimistic than students and have more money – meanwhile I learned more math and engineering. Was sent inactive just in time to be called up again for the Spasm War. Didn’t get hurt, I was safer than civilians. But that kept me on another year even though fighting was mostly over before I reported in. That made me a veteran, with benefits. I went to Manhattan and signed up for school again. Doctoral candidate. School of Education. Not serious at first, simply intending to use my veteran’s benefits while enjoying the benefits of being a student – and devote most of my time to piling up cash to qualify for the trust. “I knew that the stupidest students, the silliest professors, and the worst bull courses are concentrated in schools of education. By signing for large-class evening lectures and the unpopular eight a.m. classes I figured I could spend most of my time finding out how the stock market ticked. I did, by working there, before I risked a dime. “Eventually I had to pick a research problem or give up the advantages of being a student. I was sick of a school in which the pie was all meringue and no filling but I stuck as I knew how to cope with courses in which the answers are matters of opinion and the opinion that counts is that of the professor. And how to cope with those large-class evening lectures: Buy the lecture notes. Read everything that professor ever published. Don’t cut too often and when you do show up, get there early, sit front row center, be certain the prof catches your eye every time he looks your way – by never taking your eyes off him. Ask one question you know he can answer because you’ve picked it out of his published papers – and state your name in asking a question. Luckily ‘Zebadiah Carter’ is a name easy to remember. Family, I got straight ‘A’s’ in both required courses and seminars… because I did not study ‘education,’ I studied professors of education. “But I still had to make that ‘original contribution to human knowledge’ without which a candidate may not be awarded a doctor’s degree in most so-called disciplines… and the few that don’t require it are a tough row to hoe. “I studied my faculty committee before letting myself be tied down to a research problem… not only reading everything each had published but also buying their publications or paying the library to make copies of out-of-print papers.” My husband took me by my shoulders. “Dejah Thoris, here follows the title of my dissertation. You can have your divorce on your own terms.” “Zebadiah, don’t talk that way!” “Then brace yourself. ‘An Ad-Hoc Inquiry Concerning the Optimization of the Infrastructure of Primary Educational Institutions at the Interface Between Administration and Instruction, with Special Attention to Group Dynamics Desiderata.” “Zebbie! What does that mean?” “It means nothing, Hilda.” “Zeb, quit kidding our ladies. Such a title would never be accepted.” “Jake, it seems certain that you have never taken a course in a school of education.” “Well… no. Teaching credentials are not required at university level but -“ “But me no ‘buts,’ Pop. I have a copy of my dissertation; you can check its authenticity. While that paper totally lacks meaning it is a literary gem in the sense in which a successful forging of an ‘old master’ is itself a work of art. It is loaded with buzz words. The average length of sentences is eighty-one words. The average word length, discounting ‘of,’ ‘a,’ ‘the,’ and other syntactical particles, is eleven-plus letters in slightly under four syllables. The bibliography is longer than the dissertation and cites three papers of each member of my committee and four of the chairman, and those citations are quoted in part – while avoiding any mention of matters on which I knew that members of the committee held divergent (but equally stupid) opinions. “But the best touch was to get permission to do field work in Europe and have it count toward time on campus; half the citations were in foreign languages, ranging from Finnish to Croatian – and the translated bits invariably agreed with the prejudices of my committee. It took careful quoting out of context to achieve this, but it had the advantage that the papers were unlikely to be on campus and my committee were not likely to go to the trouble of looking them up even if they were. Most of them weren’t at home in other languages, even easy ones like French, German, and Spanish. “But I did not waste time on phony field work; I simply wanted a trip to Europe at student air fares and the use of student hostels – dirt cheap way to travel. And a visit to the trustees of Grandpa’s fund. “Good news! The fund was blue chips and triple-A bonds and, at that time, speculative stocks were rising. So the current cash value of the fund was down, even though income was up. And two more of my cousins and one uncle had qualified, again reducing the pro-rata… so, Glory Be! – I was within reaching distance. I had brought with me all that I had saved, swore before a notary that it was all mine, nothing borrowed, nothing from my father – and left it on deposit in Zurich, using the trustees as a front. And I told them about my stamp and coin collection. “Good stamps and coins never go down, always up. I had nothing but proof sets, first-day covers, and unbroken sheets, all in perfect condition – and had a notarized inventory and appraisal with me. The trustees got me to swear that the items I had collected before I left home had come from earned money – true, the earliest items represented mowed lawns and such – and agreed to hold the pro-rata at that day’s cash value – lower if the trend continued – if I would sell my collection and send a draft to Zurich, with businesslike speed as soon as I returned to the States. “I agreed. One trustee took me to lunch, tried to get me liquored up – then offered me ten percent over appraisal if I would sell that very afternoon, then send it to him by courier at his expense (bonded couriers go back and forth between Europe and America every week). “We shook hands on it, went back and consulted the other trustees. I signed papers transferring title, the trustee buying signed his draft to me, I endorsed it to the trustees to add to the cash I was leaving in their custody. Three weeks later I got a cable certifying that the collection matched the inventory. I had qualified. “Five months later I was awarded the degree of doctor of philosophy, summa cum laude, And that, dear ones, is the shameful story of my life, Anyone have the energy to go swimming?” “Son, if there is a word of truth in that, it is indeed a shameful story.” “Pop! That’s not fair! Zebadiah used their rules – and outsmarted them!” “I didn’t say that Zeb had anything to be ashamed of. It is a commentary on American higher education. What Zeb claims to have written is no worse than trash I know is accepted as dissertations these days. His case is the only one I have encountered wherein an intelligent and able scholar – you, Zeb – set out to show that an ‘earned’ Ph.D. could be obtained from a famous institution – I know which one! – in exchange for deliberately meaningless pseudoresearch. The cases I have encountered have involved button-counting by stupid and humorless young persons under the supervision of stupid and humorless old fools. I see no way to stop it; the rot is too deep. The only answer is to chuck the system and start over.” My father shrugged. “Impossible.” “Zebbie,” Aunt Hilda asked, “what do you do on campus? I’ve never asked.” My husband grinned. “Oh, much what you do, Sharpie.” “I don’t do anything. Enjoy myself.” “Me, too. If you look, you will find me listed as ‘research professor in residence.’ An examination of the university’s books would show that I am paid a stipend to match my rank. Further search would show that slightly more than that amount is paid by some trustees in Zurich to the university’s general fund… as long as I remain on campus, a condition not written down. I like being on campus, Sharpie; it gives me privileges not granted the barbarians outside the pale. I teach a course occasionally, as supply for someone on sabbatical or ill.” “Huh? What courses? What departments?” “Any department but education. Engineering mathematics. Physics One-Oh-One. Thermogoddamics. Machine elements. Saber and dueling sword. Swimming. And – don’t laugh – English poetry from Chaucer through the Elizabethans. I enjoy teaching something worth teaching. I don’t charge for courses I teach; the Chancellor and I understand each other.” “I’m not sure I understand you,” I said, “but I love you anyhow. Let’s go swimming.”
Chapter X
“‘ – and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon’!”
Zeb: Before heading for the pool our wives argued over how Barsoomian warriors dress – a debate complicated by the fact that I was the only one fairly sober. While I was telling my “shameful story,” Jake had refreshed his Scotch-on-rocks and was genially argumentative, Our brides had stuck to one highball each but, while one jigger gave Deety a happy glow, Sharpie’s mass is so slight that the same dosage made her squiffed. Jake and I agreed to wear side arms. Our princesses had buckled them on; we would wear them. But Deety wanted me to take off the grease-stained shorts I had worn while working. “Captain John Carter never wears clothes. He arrived on Barsoom naked, and from then on never wore anything but the leather and weapons of a fighting man. Jeweled leather for state occasions, plain leather for fighting – and sleeping silks at night. Barsoomians don’t wear clothes. When John Carter first laid eyes on Dejah Thoris,” Deety closed her eyes and recited: “‘She was as destitute of clothes as the Green Martians… save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked… ‘” Deety opened her eyes, stared solemnly. “The women never wear clothes, just jewelry.” “Purty shilly,” said her father, with a belch. “Scuse me!” “When they were chilly, they wrapped furs around them, Pop. I mean ‘Mors Kajak, my revered father.'” Jake answered with slow precision. “Not… ‘chilly.’ Silly! With a clash of blades and flash of steel, man doesn’t want family treasures swinging in the breeze ‘n’ banging his knees. Distracts him. Might get ’em sliced off. Correc’, Captain John Carter?” “Logical,” I agreed. “Besides, illustrations showed men wearing breech clouts. Pro’ly steel jockstrap underneath. I would.” “Those pictures were painted early in the twentieth century, Pop. Censored. But the stories make it clear. Weapons for men, jewelry for women – furs for cold weather.” “I know how I should dress,” put in Sharpie. “Thuvia wears jewels on bits of gauze – I remember the book cover. Not clothes. Just something to fasten jewels to. Deety – Dejah Thoris, I mean – do you have a gauze scarf I can use? Fortunately I was wearing pearls when Mors Kajak kidnapped me.” “Sharpie,” I objected, “you can’t be Thuvia. She married Carthoris. Mors Kajak – or Mors Kajake, might be a misspelling – is your husband.” “Cer’nly Mors Jake is my husband! But I’m his second wife; that explains everything. But it ill becomes the Warlord to address a princess of the House of Ptarth as ‘Sharpie.” Mrs. Burroughs drew herself up to her full 152 centimeters and tried to look offended. “My humble apologies, Your Highness.” Sharpie giggled. “Can’t stay mad at our Warlord. Dejah Thoris hon – Green tulle? Blue? Anything but white.” “I’ll go look.” “Ladies,” I objected, “if we don’t get moving, the pool will cool off. You can sew on pearls this evening. Anyhow, where do pearls come from on Barsoom? Dead sea bottoms – no oysters.” “From Korus, the Lost Sea of Dor,” Deety explained. “They’ve got you, Son. But I either go swimming right now – or I have another drink… and then another, and then another. Working too hard. Too tense. Too much worry.” “Okay, Pop; we swim. Aunt H – Aunt Thuvia?” “All right, Dejah Thoris. To save Mors Jacob from himself. But I won’t wear earthling clothes. You can have my mink cape; may be chilly coming back.” Jake wrapped his sarong into a breech clout, strapped it in place with his saber belt. I replaced those grimy shorts with swim briefs which Deety conceded were “almost Barsoomian.” I was no longer dependent on Jake’s clothes; my travel kit, always in my car, once I got at it, supplied necessities from passport to poncho. Sharpie wore pearls and rings she had been wearing at her party, plus a scarf around her waist to which she attached all the costume jewelry Deety could dig up. Deety carried Hilda’s mink cape – then wrapped it around her. “My Captain, someday I want one like this.” “I’ll skin the minks personally,” I promised her. “Oh, dear! I think this is synthetic.” “I don’t. Ask Hilda.” “I will most carefully not ask her. But I’ll settle for synthetic.” I said, “My beloved Princess, you eat meat. Minks are vicious carnivores and the ones used for fur are raised for no other purpose – not trapped. They are well treated, then killed humanely. If your ancestors had not killed for meat and fur as the last glaciation retreated, you would not be here. Illogical sentiment leads to the sort of tragedy you find in India and Bangladesh.” Deety was silent some moments as we followed Jake and Hilda down toward the pool. “My Captain -“ “Yes, Princess?” “I stand corrected. But your brain works so much like a computer that you scare me.” “I don’t ever want to scare you. I’m not bloodthirsty – not with minks, not with steers, not with anything. But I’ll kill without hesitation… for you.” “Zebadiah -“ “Yes, Deety?” “I am proud that you made me your wife. I will try to be a good wife… and your princess.” “You do. You have. You always will. Dejah Thoris, my princess and only love, until I met you, I was a boy playing with oversized toys. Today I am a man. With a wife to protect and cherish… a child to plan for. I’m truly alive, at last! Hey! What are you sniffling about? Stop it!” “I’ll cry if I feel like it!” “Well… don’t get it on Hilda’s cape.” “Gimme a hanky.” “I don’t even have a Kleenex.” I brushed away her tears with my fingers. “Sniff hard. You can cry on me tonight. In bed.” “Let’s go to bed early.” “Right after dinner. Sniffles all gone?” “I think so. Do pregnant women always cry?” “So I hear.” “Well… I’m not going to do it again. No excuse for it; I’m terribly happy.” “The Polynesians do something they call ‘Crying happy.’ Maybe that’s what you do.” “I guess so. But I’ll save it for private.” Deety started to shrug the cape off. “Too hot, lovely as it feels.” She stopped with the cape off her shoulders, suddenly pulled it around her again. “Who’s coming up the hill?” I looked up, saw that Jake and Hilda had reached the pool – and a figure was appearing from below, beyond the boulder that dammed it. “I don’t know. Stay behind me.” I hurried toward the pool. The stranger was dressed as a Federal Ranger. As I closed in, I heard the stranger say to Jake, “Are you Jacob Burroughs?” “Why do you ask?” “Are you or aren’t you? If you are, I have business with you. If you’re not, you’re trespassing. Federal land, restricted access.” “Jake!” I called out. “Who is he?” The newcomer turned his head. “Who are you?” “Wrong sequence,” I told him. “You haven’t identified yourself.” “Don’t be funny,” the stranger said. “You know this uniform. I’m Bennie Hibol, the Ranger hereabouts.” I answered most carefully, “Mr. Highball, you are a man in a uniform, wearing a gun belt and a shield. That doesn’t make you a Federal officer. Show your credentials and state your business.” The uniformed character sighed. “I got no time to listen to smart talk.” He rested his hand on the butt of his gun. “If one of you is Burroughs, speak up. I’m going to search this site and cabin. There’s stuff coming up from Sonora; this sure as hell is the transfer point.” Deety suddenly came out from behind me, moved quickly and placed herself beside her father. “Where’s your search warrant? Show your authority!” She had the cape clutched around her; her face quivered with indignation. “Another joker!” This clown snapped open his holster. “Federal land – here’s my authority!” Deety suddenly dropped the cape, stood naked in front of him. I drew, lunged, and cut down in one motion – slashed the wrist, recovered, thrust upward from low line into the belly above the gun belt. As my point entered, Jake’s saber cut the side of the neck almost to decapitation. Our target collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, lay by the pool, bleeding at three wounds. “Zebadiah, I’m sorry!” “About what, Princess?” I asked as I wiped my blade on the alleged ranger’s uniform. I noticed the color of the blood with distaste. “He didn’t react! I thought my strip act would give you more time.” “You did distract him,” I reassured her. “He watched you and didn’t watch me. Jake, what kind of a creature has bluish green blood?” “I don’t know.” Sharpie came forward, squatted down, dabbed a finger in the blood, sniffed it. “Hemocyanin. I think,” she said calmly. “Deety, you were right. Alien. The largest terrestrial fauna with that method of oxygen transport is a lobster. But this thing is no lobster, it’s a ‘Black Hat.’ How did you know?” “I didn’t. But he didn’t sound right. Rangers are polite. And they never fuss about showing their I.D.’s.” “I didn’t know,” I admitted. “I wasn’t suspicious, just annoyed.” “You moved mighty fast,” Jake approved. “I never know why till it’s over. You didn’t waste time yourself, tovarishch. Drawing saber while he was pulling a gun – that takes guts and speed. But let’s not talk now – where are his pals? We may be picked off getting back to the house.” “Look at his pants,” Hilda suggested. “He hasn’t been on horseback. Hasn’t climbed far, either. Jacob, is there a jeep trail?” “No. This isn’t accessible by jeep – just barely by horse.” “Hasn’t been anything overhead,” I added. “No chopper, no air car.” “Continua craft,” said Deety. “Huh?” “Zebadiah, the ‘Black Hats’ are aliens who don’t want Pop to build a time-space machine. We know that. So it follows that they have continua craft.” I thought about it. “Deety. I’m going to bring you breakfast in bed. Jake, how do we spot an alien continua craft? It doesn’t have to look like Gay Deceiver.” Jake frowned. “No. Any shape. But a one-passenger craft might not be much larger than a phone booth.” “If it’s a one-man – one-alien – job, it should be parked down in that scrub,” I said, pointing. “We can find it.” “Zebadiah,” protested Deety, “we don’t have time to search. We ought to get out of here! Fast!” Jake said, “My daughter is right but not for that reason. Its craft is not necessarily waiting. It could be parked an infinitesimal interval away along any of six axes, and either return automatically, preprogrammed, or by some method of signaling that we can postulate but not describe. The alien craft would not be here-now… but will be here-later. For pickup.” “In that case, Jake, you and I and the gals should scram out of here-now to there-then. Be missing. How long has our pressure test been running? What time is it?” “Seventeen-seventeen,” Deety answered instantly. I looked at my wife. “Naked as a frog. Where do you hide your watch, dearest? Surely, not there.” She stuck out her tongue. “Smarty. I have a clock in my head. I never mention it because people give me funny looks.” “Deety does have innate time sense,” agreed her father, “accurate to thirteen seconds plus or minus about four seconds; I’ve measured it.” “I’m sorry, Zebadiah – I don’t mean to be a freak.” “Sorry about what, Princess? I’m impressed. What do you do about time zones?” “Same as you do. Add or subtract as necessary. Darling, everyone has a built-in circadian. Mine is merely more nearly exact than most people’s. Like having absolute pitch – some do, some don’t.” “Are you a lightning calculator?” “Yes… but computers are so much faster that I no longer do it much. Except one thing – I can sense a glitch – spot a wrong answer. Then I look for garbage in the program. If I don’t find it, I send for a hardware specialist. Look, sweetheart, discuss my oddities later. Pop, let’s dump that thing down the septic tank and go. I’m nervous, I am.” “Not so fast, Deety.” Hilda was still squatting by the corpse. “Zebbie. Consult your hunches. Are we in danger?” “Well… not this instant.” “Good. I want to dissect this creature.” “Aunt Hilda!” “Take a Miltown, Deety. Gentlemen, the Bible or somebody said, ‘Know thy enemy.’ This is the only ‘Black Hat’ we’ve seen… and he’s not human and not born on earth. There is a wealth of knowledge lying here and it ought not to be shoved down a septic tank until we know more about it. Jacob, feel this.” Hilda’s husband got down on his knees, let her guide his hand through the “ranger’s” hair. “Feel those bumps, dearest?” “Yes!” “Much like the budding horns of a lamb, are they not?” “Oh – ‘And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon’!” I squatted down, felt for horn buds. “Be damned! He did come up out of the earth – up this slope anyhow – and he spake as a dragon. Talked unfriendly, and all the dragons I’ve ever heard of talked mean or belched fire. Hilda, when you field-strip this critter, keep an eye out for the Number of the Beast.” “I shall! Who’s going to help me get this specimen up to the house? I want three volunteers.” Deety gave a deep sigh, “I volunteer. Aunt Hilda… must you do this?” “Deety, it ought to be done at Johns Hopkins, with x-ray and proper tools and color holovision. But I’m the best biologist for it because I’m the only biologist. Honey child, you don’t have to watch. Aunt Sharpie has helped in an emergency room after a five-car crash; to me, blood is just a mess to clean up. Green blood doesn’t bother me even that much.” Deety gulped. “I’ll help carry. I said I would!” “Dejah Thoris!” “Sir? Yes, my Captain?” “Back away from that. Take this. And this.” I unbuckled sword and belt, shoved down my swimming briefs, handed all of it to Deety. “Jake, help me get him up into fireman’s carry.” “I’ll help carry, Son.” “No, I can tote him easier than two could. Sharpie, where do you want to work?” “It will have to be the dining table.” “Aunt Hilda, I don’t want that thing on my – ! I beg your pardon; it’s your dining table.” “You’re forgiven only if you’ll concede that it is our dining table. Deety, how many times must I repeat that I am not crowding you out of your home? We are co-housewives – my only seniority lies in being twenty years older. To my regret.” “Hilda my dear one, what would you say to a workbench in the garage with a drop cloth on it and flood lights over it?” “I say, ‘Swell!’ I don’t think a dining table is the place for a dissection, either. But I couldn’t think of anywhere else.” With help from Jake, I got that damned carcass draped across my shoulders in fireman’s carry. Deety started up the path with me, carrying my belt and sword and my briefs in one arm so that she could hold my free hand – despite my warning that she might be splashed with alien blood. “No, Zebadiah, I got overtaken by childishness. I won’t let it happen again. I must conquer all squeamishness – I’ll be changing diapers soon.” She was silent a moment. “That is the first time I’ve seen death. In a person, I mean. An alien humanoid person I should say… but I thought he was a man. I once saw a puppy run over – I threw up. Even though it was not my puppy and I didn’t go close.” She added, “An adult should face up to death, should she not?” “Face up to it, yes,” I agreed. “But not grow calloused. Deety, I’ve seen too many men die. I’ve never grown inured to it. One must accept death, learn not to fear it, then never worry about it. ‘Make Today Count!’ as a friend whose days are numbered told me. Live in that spirit and when death comes, it will come as a welcome friend.” “You say much what my mother told me before she died.” “Your mother must have been an extraordinary woman. Deety, in the two weeks I’ve known you, I’ve heard so much about her from all three of you that I feel as if I knew her. A friend I hadn’t seen lately. She sounds like a wise woman.” “I think she was, Zebadiah. Certainly she was good. Sometimes, when I have a hard choice, I ask myself, ‘What would Mama do?’ – and everything falls into place.” “Both good and wise… and her daughter shows it. Uh, how old are you, Deety?” “Does it matter, sir?” “No. Curiosity.” “I wrote my birth date on our marriage license application.” “Beloved, my head was spinning so hard that I had trouble remembering my own. But I should not have asked – women have birthdays, men have ages. I want to know your birthday; I have no need to know the year.” “April twenty-second, Zebadiah – one day older than Shakespeare.” “‘Age could not wither her – ‘ Woman, you carry your years well.” “Thank you, sir.” “That snoopy question came from having concluded in my mind that you were twenty-six… figuring from the fact that you have a doctor’s degree. Although you look younger.” “I think twenty-six is a satisfactory age.” “I wasn’t asking,” I said hastily. “I got confused from knowing Hilda’s age… then hearing her say that she is – or claims to be – twenty years older than you. It did not jibe with my earlier estimate, based on your probable age on graduating from high school plus your two degrees.” Jake and Hilda had lingered at the pool while Jake washed his hands and rinsed from his body smears of alien ichor. Being less burdened, they climbed the path faster than we and came up behind us just as Deety answered, “Zebadiah, I never graduated from high school.” “Oh.” “That’s right,” agreed her father. “Deety matriculated by taking College Boards. At fourteen. No problem since she stayed home and didn’t have to live in a dorm. Got her B.S. in three years… and that was a happy thing, as Jane lived to see Deety move the tassel from one side of her mortar board to the other. Jane in a wheelchair and happy as a child – her doctor said it couldn’t hurt her… meaning she was dying anyhow.” He added, “Had her mother been granted only three more years she could have seen Deety’s doctorate conferred, two years ago.” “Pop… sometimes you chatter.” “Did I say something out of line?” “No, Jake,” I assured him. “But I’ve just learned that I robbed the cradle. I knew I had but hadn’t realized how much. Deety darling, you are twenty-two.” “Is twenty-two an unsatisfactory age?” “No, my Princess. Just right.” “My Captain said that women have birthdays while men have ages. Is it permitted to inquire your age, sir? I didn’t pay close attention to that form we had to fill out, either.” I answered solemnly. “But Dejah Thoris knows that Captain John Carter is centuries old, cannot recall his childhood, and has always looked thirty years old.” “Zebadiah, if that is your age, you’ve had a busy thirty years. You said you left home when you graduated from high school, worked your way through college, spent three years on active duty, then worked your way through a doctor’s degree -“ “A phony one!” “That doesn’t reduce required residence. Aunt Hilda says you’ve been a professor four years.” “Uh… will you settle for nine years older than you are?” “I’ll settle for whatever you say.” “He’s at it again,” put in Sharpie. “He was run off two other campuses. Co-ed scandals. Then he found that in California nobody cared, so he moved west.” I tried to look hurt. “Sharpie darling, I always married them. One gal turned out already to be married and in the other case the child wasn’t mine; she slipped one over on me.” “The truth isn’t in him, Deety. But he’s brave and he bathes every day and he’s rich – and we love him anyhow.” “The truth isn’t in you either, Aunt Hilda. But we love you anyhow. It says in ‘Little Women’ that a bride should be half her husband’s age plus seven years. Zebadiah and I hit close to that.” “A rule that makes an old hag out of me. Jacob, I’m just Zebbie’s age – thirty-one. But we’ve both been thirty-one for ages.” “I’ll bet he does feel aged after carrying that thing uphill. Atlas, can you support your burden while I get the garage open, a bench dragged out and covered? Or shall I help you put it down?” “I’d just have to pick it up again. But don’t dally.”
Chapter XI
” – citizens must protect themselves.”
Zeb: I felt better after I got that “ranger’s” corpse dumped and the garage door closed, everyone indoors. I had told Hilda that I felt no “immediate” danger – but my wild talent does not warn me until the Moment of Truth. The “Blokes in the Black Hats” had us located. Or possibly had never lost us; what applies to human gangsters has little to do with aliens whose powers and motives and plans we had no way to guess. We might be as naive as a kitten who thinks he is hidden because his head is, unaware that his little rump sticks out. They were alien, they were powerful, they were multiple (three thousand? three million? – we didn’t know the Number of the Beast) – and they knew where we were. True, we had killed one – by luck, not by planning. That “ranger” would be missed; we could expect more to call in force. Foolhardiness has never appealed to me. Given a chance to run, I run. I don’t mean I’ll bug out on wing mate when the unfriendlies show up, and certainly not on a wife and unborn child. But I wanted us all to run – me, my wife, my blood brother who was also my father-in-law, and his wife, my chum Sharpie who was brave, practical, smart, and unsqueamish (that she would joke in the jaws of Moloch was not a fault but a source of esprit). I wanted us to go! – Tau axis, Teh axis, rotate, translate, whatever – anywhere not infested by gruesomes with green gore. I checked the gauge and felt better; Gay’s inner pressure had not dropped. Too much to expect Gay to be a spaceship – not equipped to scavenge and replenish air. But it was pleasant to know that she would hold pressure much longer than it would take us to scram for home if we had to – assuming that unfriendlies had not shot holes in her graceful shell. I went by the inside passageway into the cabin, used soap and hot water, rinsed off and did it again, dried down and felt clean enough to kiss my wife, which I did. Deety held onto me and reported. “Your kit is packed, sir. I’m finishing mine, the planned weight and space, and nothing but practical clothes -“ “Sweetheart.” “Yes, Zebadiah?” “Take the clothes you were married in and mine too. Same for Jake and Hilda. And your father’s dress uniform. Or was it burned in Logan?” “But, Zebadiah, you emphasized rugged clothes.” “So I did. To keep your mind on the fact that we can’t guess the conditions we’ll encounter and don’t know how long we’ll be gone or if we’ll be back. So I listed everything that might be useful in pioneering a virgin planet – since we might be stranded and never get home. Everything from Jake’s microscope and water-testing gear to technical manuals and tools. And weapons – and flea powder. But it’s possible that we will have to play the roles of ambassadors for humanity at the court of His Extreme Majesty, Overlord of Galactic Empires in thousandth-and-third continuum. We may need the gaudiest clothes we can whip up. We don’t know, we can’t guess.” “I’d rather pioneer.” “We may not have a choice. When you were figuring weights, do you recall spaces marked ‘Assigned mass such and such – list to come’?” “Certainly. Total exactly one hundred kilos, which seemed odd. Space slightly less than one cubic meter split into crannies.” “Those are yours, snubnose. And Pop or Hilda. Mass can be up to fifty percent over; I’ll tell Gay to trim to match. Got an old doll? A security blanket? A favorite book of poems? Scrapbook? Family photographs? Bring ’em all!” “Golly!” (I never enjoy looking at my wife quite so much as when she lights up and is suddenly a little girl.) “Don’t leave space for me. I have only what I arrived with. What about shoes for Hilda?” “She claims she doesn’t need any, Zebadiah – that her calluses are getting calluses on them. But I’ve worked out expedients. I got Pop some Dr. Scholl’s shoe liners when we were building; I have three pairs left and can trim them. Liners and enough bobby sox make her size three-and-half feet fit my clodhoppers pretty well. And I have a sentimental keepsake; Keds Pop bought me when I first went to summer camp, at ten. They fit Aunt Hilda.” “Good girl!” I added, “You seem to have everything in hand. How about food? Not stores we are carrying, I mean now. Has anybody thought about dinner? Killing aliens makes me hungry.” “Buffet style, Zebadiah. Sandwiches and stuff on the kitchen counter, and I thawed and heated an apple pie. I fed one sandwich to Hilda, holding it for her; she says she’s going to finish working, then scrub before she eats anything more.” “Sharpie munched a sandwich while she carved that thing?” “Aunt Hilda is rugged, Zebadiah – almost as rugged as you are.” “More rugged than I am. I could do an autopsy if I had to – but not while eating. I think I speak for Jake, too.” “I know you speak for Pop. He saw me feeding her, turned green and went elsewhere. Go look at what she’s been doing, Zebadiah; Hilda has found interesting things.” “Hmmm – Are you the little girl who had a tizzy at the idea of dissecting a dead alien?” “No, sir, I am not. I’ve decided to stay grown up. It’s not easy. But it’s more satisfying. An adult doesn’t panic at a snake; she just checks to see if it’s got rattles. I’ll never squeal again. I’m grown up at last… a wife instead of a pampered princess.” “You will always be my Princess!” “I hope so, my Chieftain. But to merit that, I must learn to be a pioneer mother – wring the neck of a rooster, butcher a hog, load while my husband shoots, take his place and his rifle when he is wounded. I’ll learn – I’m stubborn, I am. Grab a hunk of pie and go see Hilda. I know just what to do with the extra hundred kilos: books, photographs, Pop’s microfilm files and portable viewer, Pop’s rifle and a case of ammo that the weight schedule didn’t allow for -“ “Didn’t know he had it – what calibre?” “Seven point six two millimeters, long cartridge.” “Glory be! Pop and I use the same ammo!” “Didn’t know you carried a rifle, Zebadiah.” “I don’t advertise it, it’s unlicensed. I must show all of you how to get at it.” “Got any use for a lady’s purse gun? A needle gun, Skoda fléchettes. Not much range but either they poison or they break up and expand… and it fires ninety times on one magazine.” “What are you, Deety? Honorable Hatchet Man?” “No, sir. Pop got it for me – black market – when I started working nights. He said he would rather hire shysters to get me acquitted – or maybe probation – than to have to go down to the morgue to identify my body. Haven’t had to use it; in Logan I hardly need it. Zebadiah, Pop has gone to a great deal of trouble to get me the best possible training in self-defense. He’s just as highly trained – that’s why I keep him out of fist fights. Because it would be a massacre. He and Mama decided this when I was a baby. Pop says cops and courts no longer protect citizens, so citizens must protect themselves.” “I’m afraid he’s right.” “My husband, I can’t evaluate my opinions of right and wrong because I learned them from my parents and haven’t lived long enough to have formed opinions in disagreement with theirs.” “Deety, your parents did okay.” “I think so… but that’s subjective. As may be, I was kept out of blackboard jungles – public schools – until we moved to Utah. And I was trained to fight – armed or unarmed. Pop and I noticed how you handled a sword. Your moulinets are like clockwork. And when you drop into point guard, your forearm is perfectly covered.” “Jake is no slouch. He drew so fast I never saw it, and cut precisely above the collar.” “Pop says you are better at it.” “Mmm – Longer reach. He’s probably faster. Deety, the best swordmaster I ever had was your height and reach. I couldn’t even cross blades with him unless he allowed me to.” “You never did say where you had taken up swordsmanship.” I grinned down at her. “Y.M.C.A. in downtown Manhattan. I had foil in high school. I fiddled with saber and épée in college. But I never encountered swordsmen until I moved to Manhattan. Took it up because I was getting soft. Then during that so-called ‘research trip’ in Europe I met swordsmen with family tradition – sons and grandsons and great-grandsons of maîtres d’armes. Learned that it was a way of life – and I had started too late. Deety, I fibbed to Hilda; I’ve never fought a student duel. But I did train in saber in Heidelberg under the Säbelmeister reputed to coach one underground Korps. He was the little guy I couldn’t cross steel with. Fast! Up to then I had thought I was fast. But I got faster under his tutelage. The day I was leaving he told me that he wished he had had me twenty years sooner; he might have made a swordsman of me.” “You were fast enough this afternoon!” “No, Deety. You had his eye, I attacked from the flank. You won that fight – not me, not Pop. Although what Pop did was far more dangerous than what I did.” “My Captain, I will not let you disparage yourself! I cannot hear you!” Women, bless their warm hearts and strange minds – Deety had appointed me her hero; that settled it. I would have to try to measure up. I cut a piece of apple pie, ate it quickly while I walked slowly through the passage into the garage – didn’t want to reach the “morgue” still eating. The “ranger” was on its back with clothes cut away, open from chin to crotch, and spread. Nameless chunks of gizzard were here and there around the cadaver. It gave off a fetid odor. Hilda was still carving, ice tongs in left hand, knife in her right, greenish goo up over her wrists. As I approached she put down the knife, picked up a razor blade – did not look up until I spoke. “Learning things, Sharpie?” She put down her tools, wiped her hands on a towel, pushed back her hair with her forearm. “Zebbie, you wouldn’t believe it.” “Try me.” “Well… look at this.” She touched the corpse’s right leg, and spoke to the corpse itself. “What’s a nice joint like this doing in a girl like you?” I saw what she meant: a long, gaunt leg with an extra knee lower than the human knee; it bent backwards. Looking higher, I saw that its arms had similar extra articulation. “Did you say ‘girl’?” “I said ‘girl.’ Zebbie, this monster is either female or hermaphroditic. A fully developed uterus, two-horned like a cat, one ovary above each horn. But there appear to be testes lower down and a dingus that may be a retractable phallus. Female – but probably male as well. Bisexual but does not impregnate itself; the plumbing wouldn’t hook up. I think these critters can both pitch and catch.” “Taking turns? Or simultaneously?” “Wouldn’t that be sump’n? No, for mechanical reasons I think they take turns. Whether ten minutes apart or ten years, deponent sayeth not. But I’d give a pretty to see two of ’em going to it!” “Sharpie, you’ve got a one-track mind.” “It’s the main track. Reproduction is the main track; the methods and mores of sexual copulation are the central feature of all higher developments of life.” “You’re ignoring money and television.” “Piffle! All human activities including scientific research are either mating dances and care of the young, or the dismal sublimations of born losers in the only game in town. Don’t try to kid Sharpie. Took me forty-two years to grab a real man and get myself knocked up – but I made it! Everything I’ve done up to the last two weeks has been ‘vamp till ready.’ How about you, you shameless stud? Am I not right? Careful how you answer; I’ll tell Deety.” “I’ll take the Fifth.” “Make mine a quart. Zebbie, I hate these monsters; they interfere with my plans – a rose-covered cottage, a baby in the crib, a pot roast in the oven, me in a gingham dress, and my man coming down the lane after a hard day flunking freshmen – me with his slippers and his pipe and a dry martini waiting for him. Heaven! All else is vanity and vexation. Four fully developed mammary glands but lacking the redundant fat characteristic of the human female – ‘cept me, damn it. A double stomach, a single intestine. A two-compartment heart that seems to pump by peristalsis rather than by beating. Cordate. I haven’t examined the brain; I don’t have a proper saw – but it must be as well developed as ours. Definitely humanoid, outrageously nonhuman. Don’t knock over those bottles; they are specimens of body fluids.” “What are these things?” “Splints to conceal the unhuman articulation. Plastic surgery on the face, too, I’m pretty sure, and cheaters to reshape the skull. The hair is fake; these Boojums don’t have hair. Something like tattooing – or maybe masking I haven’t been able to peel off – to make the face and other exposed skin look human instead of blue-green. Zeb, seven-to-two a large number of missing persons have been used as guinea pigs before they worked out methods for this masquerade. Swoop! A flying saucer dips down and two more guinea pigs wind up in their laboratories.” “There hasn’t been a flying saucer scare in years.” “Poetic license, dear. If they have space-time twisters, they can pop up anywhere, steal what they want – or replace a real human with a convincing fake – and be gone like switching off a light.” “This one couldn’t get by very long. Rangers have to take physical examinations.” “This one may be a rush job, prepared just for us. A permanent substitution might fool anything but an x-ray – and might fool even x-ray if the doctor giving the examination was one of Them … a theory you might think about. Zebbie, I must get to work. There is so much to learn and so little time. I can’t learn a fraction of what this carcass could tell a real comparative biologist.” “Can I help?” (I was not anxious to.) “Well -“ “I haven’t much to do until Jake and Deety finish assembling the last of what they are going to take. So what can I do to help?” “I could work twice as fast if you would take pictures. I have to stop to wipe my hands before I touch the camera.” “I’m your boy, Sharpie. Just say what angle, distance, and when.” Hilda looked relieved. “Zebbie, have I told you that I love you despite your gorilla appearance and idiot grin? Underneath you have the soul of a cherub. I want a bath so badly I can taste it – could be the last hot bath in a long time. And the bidet – the acme of civilized decadence. I’ve been afraid I would still be carving strange meat when Jacob said it was time to leave.” “Carve away, dear; you’ll get your bath.” I picked up the camera, the one Jake used for record-keeping: a Polaroid Stereo-Instamatic-self-focusing, automatic irising, automatic processing, the perfect camera for engineer or scientist who needs a running record. I took endless pictures while Hilda sweated away. “Sharpie, doesn’t it worry you to work with bare hands? You might catch the Never-Get-Overs.” “Zebbie, if these critters could be killed by our bugs, they would have arrived here with no immunities and died quickly. They didn’t. Therefore it seems likely that we can’t by hurt by their bugs. Radically different biochemistries.” It sounded logical – but I could not forget Kettering’s Law: “Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.” Deety appeared, set down a loaded hamper. “That’s the last.” She had her hair up in a bath knot and was dressed solely in rubber gloves. “Hi, dearest. Aunt Hilda, I’m ready to help.” “Not much you can do, Deety hon – unless you want to relieve Zebbie.” Deety was staring at the corpse and did not look happy – her nipples were down flat. “Go take a bath!” I told her. “Scram.” “Do I stink that badly?” “You stink swell, honey girl. But Sharpie pointed out that this may be our last chance at soap and hot water in quite a while. I’ve promised her that we won’t leave for Canopus and points east until she has her bath. So get yours out of the way, then you can help me stow while she gets sanitary.” “All right.” Deety backed off and her nipples showed faintly – not rigid but she was feeling better. My darling keeps her feelings out of her face, mostly – but those pretty pink spigots are barometers of her morale. “Just a sec, Deety,” Hilda added. “This afternoon you said, ‘He didn’t react!’ What did you mean?” “What I said. Strip in front of a man and he reacts, one way or another. Even if he tries to ignore it, his eyes give him away. But he didn’t. Of course he’s not a man – but I didn’t know that when I tried to distract him.” I said, “But he did notice you, Deety – and that gave me my chance.” “But only the way a dog, or a horse, or any animal, will notice any movement. He noticed but ignored it. No reaction.” “Zebbie, does that remind you of anything?” “Should it?” “The first day we were here you told us a story about a ‘zaftig co-ed.'” “I did?” “She was flunking math.” “Oh! ‘Brainy.'” “Yes, Professor N. O’Heret Brain. See any parallel?” “But ‘No Brain’ has been on campus for years. Furthermore he turns red in the face. Not a tattoo job.” “I said this one might be a rush job. Would anyone be in a better position to discredit a mathematical theory than the head of the department of mathematics at a very prominent university? Especially if he was familiar with that theory and knew that it was correct?” “Hey, wait a minute!” put in Deety. “Are you talking about that professor who argued with Pop? The one with the phony invitation? I thought he was just a stooge? Pop says he’s a fool.” “He behaves like a pompous old fool,” agreed Hilda. “I can’t stand him. I plan to do an autopsy on him.” “But he’s not dead.” “That can be corrected!” Sharpie said sharply.
Chapter XII
“They might fumigate this planet and take it.”
Hilda: By the time I was out of my bath, Jacob, Deety, and Zebbie had Gay Deceiver stowed and lists checked (can opener, cameras, et cetera) – even samples of fluids and tissues from the cadaver, as Zebbie’s miracle car had a small refrigerator. Deety wasn’t happy about my specimens being in the refrigerator but they were very well packed, layer on layer of plastic wrap, then sealed into a freezer box. Besides, that refrigerator contained mostly camera film, dynamite caps, and other noneatables. Food was mostly freeze-dried and sealed in nitrogen, except foods that won’t spoil. We were dog tired. Jacob moved that we sleep, then leave. “Zeb, unless you expect a new attack in the next eight hours, we should rest. I need to be clearheaded in handling verniers. This house is almost a fortress, will be pitch black, and does not radiate any part of the spectrum. They may conclude that we ran for it right after we got their boy – hermaphrodite, I mean; the fake ‘ranger’ – what do you think?” “Jake, I wouldn’t have been surprised had we been clobbered at any moment. Since they didn’t – Well, I don’t like to handle Gay when I’m not sharp. More mistakes are made in battle through fatigue than from any other cause. Let’s sack in. Anybody need a sleeping pill?” “All I need is a bed. Hilda my love, tonight I sleep on my own side.” I said, “Can’t I even cuddle up your back?” “Promise not to tickle?” I made a face at my darling. “I promise.” “Zebadiah,” Deety said. “I don’t want to cuddle; I want to be held… so I’ll know I’m safe. For the first time since my twelfth birthday I don’t feel sexy.” “Princess, it’s settled; we sleep. But I suggest that we be up before daylight. Let’s not crowd our luck.” “Sensible,” agreed Jacob. I shrugged. “You men have to pilot; Deety and I are cargo. We can nap in the back seats – if we miss a few universes, what of it? If you’ve seen one universe, you’ve seen ’em all. Deety?” “If it were up to me, I would lam out of here so fast my shoes would be left standing. But Zebadiah has to pilot and Pop has to set verniers… and both are tired and don’t want to chance it. But, Zebadiah… don’t fret if I rest with my eyes and ears open.” “Huh? Deety – why?” “Somebody ought to be on watch. It might give us that split-second advantage – split seconds have saved us at least twice. Don’t worry, darling; I often skip a night to work a long program under shared time. Doesn’t hurt me; a nap next day and I’m ready to bite rattlesnakes. Tell him, Pop.” “That’s correct, Zeb, but -“ Zebbie cut him off. “Maybe you gals can split watches and have breakfast ready. Right now I’ve got to hook up Gay Deceiver so that she can reach me in our bedroom. Deety, I can add a program so that she can listen around the cabin, too. Properly programmed, Gay’s the best watch dog of any of us. Will that satisfy you duty-struck little broads?” Deety said nothing so I kept quiet. Zebbie, frowning, turned back to his car, opened a door and prepared to hook Gay’s voice and ears to the three house intercoms. “Want to shift the basement talky-talk to your bedroom, Jake?” “Good idea,” Jacob agreed. “Wait a half while I ask Gay what she has. Hello, Gay.” “Howdy, Zeb. Wipe off your chin.” “Program. Running new retrievals. Report new items since last report.” “Null report, Boss.” “Thank you, Gay.” “You’re welcome, Zeb.” “Program, Gay. Add running news retrieval. Area, Arizona Strip north of Grand Canyon plus Utah. Persons: all persons listed in current running news retrieval programs plus rangers, Federal rangers, forest rangers, park rangers, state rangers. End of added program.” “New program running, Boss.” “Program. Add running acoustic report, maximum gain.” “New program running, Zeb.” “You’re a smart girl, Gay.” “Isn’t it time you married me?” “Good night, Gay.” “Good night, Zeb. Sleep with your hands outside the covers.” “Deety, you’ve corrupted Gay. I’ll run a lead outdoors for a microphone while Jake moves the basement intercom to the master bedroom. But maximum gain will put a coyote yapping ten miles away right into bed with you. Jake, I can tell Gay to subtract acoustic report from the news retrieval for your bedroom.” “Hilda my love, do you want the acoustic subtracted?” I didn’t but didn’t say so; Gay interrupted: “Running news retrieval, Boss.” “Report!” “Reuters, Straits Times, Singapore. Tragic News of Marston Expedition. Indonesian News Service, Palembang. Two bodies identified as Dr. Cecil Yang and Dr. Z. Edward Carter were brought by jungle buggy to National Militia Headquarters, Telukbetung. The district commandant stated that they will be transferred by air to Palembang for further transport to Singapore when the commandant-in-chief releases them to the Minister of Tourism and Culture. Professor Marston and Mr. Smythe-Belisha are still unreported. Commandants of both districts concede that hopes of finding them alive have diminished. However, a spokesman for the Minister of Tourism and Culture assured a press conference that the Indonesian government would pursue the search more assiduously than ever.” Zebbie whistled tunelessly. Finally, he said, “Opinions, anyone?” “He was a brilliant man, Son,” my husband said soberly. “An irreplaceable loss. Tragic.” “Ed was a good Joe, Jake. But that’s not what I mean. Our tactical situation. Now. Here.” My husband paused before answering, “Zeb, whatever happened in Sumatra apparently happened about a month ago. Emotionally I feel great turmoil. Logically I am forced to state that I cannot see that our situation has changed.” “Hilda? Deety?” “News retrieval report,” announced Gay. “Report!” “AP San Francisco via satellite from Saipan, Marianas. TWA hypersonicsemiballistic liner Winged Victory out of San Francisco International at twenty o’clock this evening Pacific Coast Time was seen by eye and radar to implode on reentry. AP Honolulu US Navy Official. USS Submersible Carrier Flying Fish operating near Wake Island has been ordered to proceed flank speed toward site of Winged Victory reentry. She will surface and launch search craft at optimum point. Navy PIO spokesman, when asked what was ‘optimum,’ replied ‘No comment.’ Associated Press’s military editor noted that submerged speed of Flying Fish class, and type and characteristics of craft carried, are classified information. AP-UPI add San Francisco, Winged Victory disaster. TWA public relations released a statement quote if reports received concerning Winged Victory are correct it must be tentatively assumed that no survivors can be expected. But our engineering department denies that implosion could be cause. Collision with orbital debris decaying into atmosphere or even a strike by a meteor could repeat could endrep cause disaster by mischance so unlikely that it can only be described as an Act of God endquote TWA spokesmen released passenger list by order of the Civil Aerospace Board. List follows: California -“ The list was longish. I did not recognize any names until Gay reached: “Doctor Neil O. Brain -“ I gasped. But no one said a word until Gay announced: “End running news retrieval.” “Thank you, Gay.” “A pleasure, Zeb.” Zebbie said, “Professor?” “You’re in command, Captain!” “Very well, sir! All of you – lifeboat rules! I expect fast action and no back talk. Estimated departure – five minutes! First everybody take a pee! Second, put on the clothes you’ll travel in. Jake, switch off, lock up – whatever you do to secure your house for long absence. Deety – follow Jake, make sure he hasn’t missed anything – then you, not Jake, switch out lights and close doors. Hilda, bundle what’s left of that Dutch lunch and fetch it – fast, not fussy. Check the refrigerator for solid foods – no liquids – and cram what you can into Gay’s refrigerator. Don’t dither over choices. Questions, anyone? Move!” I gave Jacob first crack at our bathroom because the poor dear tenses up; I used the time to slide sandwiches into a freezer sack and half a pie into another. Potato salad? Scrape it into a third and stick in one plastic picnic spoon; germs were now community property. I stuffed this and some pickles into the biggest freezer sack Deety stocked, and closed it. Jake came out of our bedroom; I threw him a kiss en passant, ducked into our john, turned on water in the basin, sat down, and recited mantras – that often works when I’m jumpy – then used the bidet – patted it and told it goodbye without stopping. My travel clothes were Deety’s baby tennis shoes with a green-and-gold denim miniskirt dress of hers that came to my knees but wasn’t too dreadful with a scarf to belt it. Panties? I had none. Deety had put a pair of hers out for me – but her size would fall off me. Then I saw that the dear baby had gotten at the elastic and knotted it. Yup! pretty good fit – and, with no telling when our next baths would be, panties were practical even though a nuisance. I spread my cape in front of the refrigerator, dumped my purse and our picnic lunch into it, started salvaging – half a boned ham, quite a bit of cheese, a loaf and a half of bread, two pounds of butter (freezer sacks, and the same for the ham – if Deety hadn’t had a lavish supply of freezer sacks I could not have salvaged much – as it was, I didn’t even get spots on my cape). I decided that jams and jellies and catsup were liquid within Zebbie’s meaning – except some in squeeze tubes. Half a chocolate cake, and the cupboard was bare. By using my cape as a Santa Claus pack, I carried food into the garage and put it down by Gay – and was delighted to find that I was first. Zebbie strode in behind me, dressed in a coverall with thigh pockets, a pilot suit. He looked at the pile on my cape. “Where’s the elephant, Sharpie?” “Cap’n Zebbie, you didn’t say how much, you just said what. What won’t go she can have.” I hooked a thumb at the chopped-up corpse. “Sorry, Hilda; you are correct.” Zebbie glanced at his wrist watch, the multiple-dial sort they call a “navigator’s watch.” “Cap’n, this house has loads of gimmicks and gadgets and bells and whistles. You gave them an impossible schedule.” “On purpose, dear. Let’s see how much food we can stow.” Gay’s cold chest is set flush in the deck of the driver’s compartment. Zebbie told Gay to open up, then with his shoulders sideways, reached down and unlocked it. “Hand me stuff.” I tapped his butt. “Out of there, you overgrown midget, and let Sharpie pack. I’ll let you know when it’s tight as a girdle.” Space that makes Zebbie twist and grunt is roomy for me. He passed things in, I fitted them for maximum stowage. The third item he handed me was the leavings of our buffet dinner. “That’s our picnic lunch,” I told him, putting it on his seat. “Can’t leave it loose in the cabin.” “Cap’n, we’ll eat it before it can spoil. I will be strapped down; is it okay if I clutch it to my bosom?” “Sharpie, have I ever won an argument with you?” “Only by brute force, dear. Can the chatter and pass the chow.” With the help of God and a shoehorn it all went in. I was in a back seat with our lunch in my lap and my cape under me before our spouses showed up. “Cap’n Zebbie? Why did the news of Brainy’s death cause your change of mind?” “Do you disapprove, Sharpie?” “On the contrary, Skipper. Do you want my guess?” “Yes.” “Winged Victory was booby-trapped. And dear Doctor Brain, who isn’t the fool I thought he was, was not aboard. Those poor people were killed so that he could disappear.” “Go to the head of the class, Sharpie. Too many coincidences… and they – the ‘Blokes in the Black Hats’ – know where we are.” “Meaning that Professor No Brain, instead of being dead in the Pacific, might show up any second.” “He and a gang of green-blooded aliens who don’t like geometers.” “Zebbie, what do you figure their plans are?” “Can’t guess. They might fumigate this planet and take it. Or conquer us as cattle or as slaves. The only data we have is that they are alien, that they are powerful – and that they have no compunction about killing us. So I have no compunction about killing them. To my regret, I don’t know how. So I’m running – running scared – and taking the three I’m certain are in danger with me.” “Will we ever be able to find them and kill them?” Zebbie didn’t answer because Deety and my Jacob arrived, breathless. Father and daughter were in jump suits. Deety looked chesty and cute; my darling looked trim – but worried. “We’re late. Sorry!” “You’re not late,” Zeb told them. “But into your seats on the bounce.” “As quick as I open the garage door and switch out the lights.” “Jake, Jake – Gay is now programmed to do those things herself. In you go, Princess, and strap down. Seat belts, Sharpie. Copilot, after you lock the starboard door, check its seal all the way around by touch before you strap down.” “Wilco, Cap’n.” It tickled me to hear my darling boning military. He had told me privately that he was a reserve colonel of ordnance – but that Deety had promised not to tell this to our smart young captain and that he wanted the same promise from me – because the T.O. was as it should be; Zeb should command while Jacob handled space-time controls – to each his own. Jacob had asked me to please take orders from Zeb with no back talk… which had miffed me a little. I was an unskilled crew member; I am not stupid, I knew this. In direst emergency I would try to get us home. But even Deety was better qualified than I. Checkoffs completed, Gay switched off lights, opened the garage door, and backed out onto the landing flat. “Copilot, can you read your verniers?” “Captain, I had better loosen my chest belt.” “Do so if you wish. But your seat adjusts forward twenty centimeters – here, I’ll get it.” Zeb reached down, did something between their seats. “Say when.” “There – that’s about right. I can read ’em and reach ’em, with chest strap in place. Orders, sir?” “Where was your car when you and Deety went to the space-time that lacked the letter ‘J’?” “About where we are now.” “Can you send us there?” “I think so. Minimum translation, positive – entropy increasing – along Tau axis.” “Please move us there, sir.” My husband touched the controls. “That’s it, Captain.” I couldn’t see any change. Our house was still a silhouette against the sky, with the garage a black maw in front of us. The stars hadn’t even flickered. Zebbie said, “Let’s check,” and switched on Gay’s roading lights, brightly lighting our garage. Empty and looked normal. Zebbie said, “Hey! Look at that!” “Look at what?” I demanded, and tried to see around Jacob. “At nothing, rather. Sharpie, where’s your alien?” Then I understood. No corpse. No green-blood mess. Workbench against the wall and flood lights not rigged. Zebbie said, “Gay Deceiver, take us home!” Instantly the same scene… but with carved-up corpse. I gulped. Zebbie switched out the lights. I felt better but not much. “Captain?” “Copilot.” “Wouldn’t it have been well to have checked for that letter ‘J’? It would have given me a check on calibration.” “I did check, Jake.” “Eh?” “You have bins on the back of your garage neatly stenciled. The one at left center reads ‘Junk Metal.” “Oh!” “Yes, and your analog in that space – your twin, Jake-prime, or what you will – has your neat habits. The left-corner bin read ‘Iunk Metal’ spelled with an ‘I.’ A cupboard above and to the right contained ‘Iugs & Iars.’ So I told Gay to take us home. I was afraid they might catch us. Embarrassing.” Deety said, “Zebadiah – I mean ‘Captain’ – embarrassing how, sir? Oh, that missing letter in the alphabet scared me but it no longer does. Now I’m nervous about aliens. ‘Black Hats.'” “Deety, you were lucky that first time. Because Deety-prime was not at home. But she may be, tonight. Possibly in bed with her husband, named Zebadiah-prime. Unstable cuss. Likely to shoot at a strange car shining lights into his father-in-law’s garage. A violent character.” “You’re teasing me.” “No, Princess; it did worry me. A parallel space, with so small a difference as the lack of one unnecessary letter, but with house and grounds you mistook for your own, seems to imply a father and daughter named ‘Iacob’ and ‘Deiah Thoris.” (Captain Zebbie pronounced the names ‘Yacob’ and ‘Deyah Thoris.’) “Zebadiah, that scares me almost as much as aliens.” “Aliens scare me far more. Hello, Gay.” “Howdy, Zeb. Your nose is runny.” “Smart Girl, one gee vertically to one klick. Hover.” “Roger dodger, you old codger.” We rested on our backs and head rests for a few moments, then with the stomach-surging swoosh of a fast lift, we leveled off and hovered. Zebbie said, “Deety, can the autopilot accept a change in that homing program by voice? Or does it take an offset in the verniers?” “What do you want to do?” “Same ell-and-ell two klicks above ground.” “I think so. Shall I? Or do you want to do it, Captain?” “You try it, Deety.” “Yes, sir. Hello, Gay.” “Hi, Deety!” “Program check. Define ‘Home.” “‘Home.’ Cancel any-all inertials transitions translations rotations. Return to preprogrammed zero latitude longitude, ground level.” “Report present location.” “One klick vertically above ‘Home.” “Gay. Program revision.” “Waiting, Deety.” “Home program. Cancel ‘Ground level.’ Substitute ‘Two klicks above ground level, hovering.” “Program revision recorded.” “Gay Deceiver, take us home!” Instantly, with no feeling of motion, we were much higher. Zeb said, “Two klicks on the nose! Deety, you’re a smart girl!” “Zebadiah, I bet you tell that to all the girls.” “No, just to some. Gay, you’re a smart girl.” “Then why are you shacked up with that strawberry blonde with the fat knockers?” Zebbie craned his neck and looked at me. “Sharpie, that’s your voice.” I ignored him with dignity. Zebbie drove south to the Grand Canyon, eerie in starlight. Without slowing, he said, “Gay Deceiver, take us home!” – and again we were hovering over our cabin. No jar, no shock, no nothing. Zebbie said, “Jake, once I figure the angles, I’m going to quit spending money on juice. How does she do it when we haven’t been anywhere? – no rotation, no translation.” “I may have given insufficient thought to a trivial root in equation ninety-seven. But it is analogous to what we were considering doing with planets. A five-dimensional transform simplified to three.” “‘I dunno, I just work here,'” Captain Zebbie admitted. “But it looks like we will be peddling gravity and transport, as well as real estate and time. Burroughs and Company, Space Warps Unlimited – ‘No job too large, no job too small.’ Send one newdollar for our free brochure.” “Captain,” suggested Jacob, “would it not be prudent to translate into another space before experimenting further? The alien danger is still with us – is it not?” Zebbie sobered at once. “Copilot, you are right and it is your duty to advise me when I goof off. However, before we leave, we have one duty we must carry out.” “Something more urgent than getting our wives to safety?” my Jacob asked – and I felt humble and proud. “‘Something more urgent.’ Jake, I’ve bounced her around not only to test but to make it hard to track us. Because we must break radio silence. To warn our fellow humans.” “Oh. Yes, Captain. My apologies, sir. I sometimes forget the broader picture.” “Don’t we all! I’ve wanted to run and hide ever since this rumpus started. But that took preparation and the delay gave me time to think. Point number one: We don’t know how to fight these critters so we must take cover. Point number two: We are duty-bound to tell the world what we know about aliens. While that little isn’t much – we’ve stayed alive by the skin of our teeth – if five billion people are watching for them, they can be caught. I hope.” “Captain,” asked Deety, “may I speak?” “Of course! Anyone with ideas about how to cope with these monsters must speak.” “I’m sorry but I don’t have such ideas. You must warn the world, sir – of course! But you won’t be believed.” “I’m afraid you’re right, Deety. But they don’t have to believe me. That monster in the garage speaks for itself. I’m going to call rangers – real rangers! – to pick it up.” I said, “So that was why you told me just to leave it! I thought it was lack of time.” “Both, Hilda. We didn’t have time to sack that cadaver and store it in the freezer room. But, if I can get rangers – real rangers – to that garage before ‘Black Hats’ get there, that corpse tells its own story: an undeniable alien lying in its goo on a ranger’s uniform that has been cut away from it. Not a ‘close encounter’ UFO that can be explained away, but a creature more startling than the duckbill platypus ever was. But we have to hook it in with other factors to show them what to look for. Your booby-trapped car, an arson case in Logan, Professor Brain’s convenient disappearance, my cousin’s death in Sumatra – and your six-dimensional non-Euclidean geometry.” I said, “Excuse me, gentlemen. Can’t we move somewhere away from right over our cabin before you break silence? I’m jumpy – ‘Black Hats’ are hunting us.” “You’re right, Sharpie; I’m about to move us. The story isn’t long – all but the math – so I taped a summary while the rest of you were getting ready. Gay will speed-zip it, a hundred to one.” Zebbie reached for the controls. “All secure?” “Captain Zebadiah!” “Trouble, Princess?” “May I attempt a novel program? It may save time.” “Programming is your pidgin. Certainly.” “Hello, Gay.” “Hi, Deety!” “Retrieve last program. Report execute code.” “Reporting, Deety. ‘Gay Deceiver, take us home!'” “Negative erase permanent program controlled by execute-code Gay Deceiver take us home. Report confirm.” “Confirmation report. Permanent program execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home negative erase. I tell you three times.” “Deety,” said Zeb, “a neg scrub to Gay tells her to place item in perms three places. Redundancy safety factor.” “Don’t bother me, dear! She and I sling the same lingo. Hello, Gay.” “Hello, Deety!” “Analyze latest program execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home. Report.” “Analysis complete.” “Invert analysis.” “Null program.” Deety sighed. “Typing a program is easier. New program.” “Waiting, Deety.” “Execute-code new permanent program. Gay Deceiver, countermarch! At new execute-code, repeat reversed in real time latest sequence inertials transitions translations rotations before last use of program execute-code Gay Deceiver take us home.” “New permanent program accepted.” “Gay, I tell you three times.” “Deety, I hear you three times.” “Gay Deceiver – countermarch!” Instantly we were over the Grand Canyon, cruising south. I saw Zeb reach for the manual controls. “Deety, that was slick.” “I didn’t save time, sir – I goofed. Gay, you’re a smart girl.” “Deety, don’t make me blush.” “You’re both smart girls,” said Captain Zebbie. “If anyone had us on radar, he must think he’s getting cataracts. Vice versa, if anyone picked us up here, he’s wondering how we popped up. Smart dodge, dear. You’ve got Gay Deceiver so deceptive that nobody can home on us. We’ll be elsewhere.” “Yes – but I had something else in mind, too, my Captain.” “Princess, I like your ideas. Spill it.” “Suppose we used that homing preprogram and went from frying pan into fire. It might be useful to have a preprogram that would take us back into the frying pan, then do something else quickly. Should I try to think up a third escape-maneuver preprogram?” “Sure – but discuss it with the court magician, your esteemed father – not me. I’m just a sky jockey.” “Zebadiah, I will not listen to you disparage yours -“ “Deety! Lifeboat rules. Jake, are your professional papers aboard? Both theoretical and drawings?” “Why, no, Zeb – Captain. Too bulky. Microfilms I brought. Originals are in the basement vault. Have I erred?” “Not a bit! Is there any geometer who gave your published paper on this six-way system a friendly reception?” “Captain, there aren’t more than a handful of geometers capable of judging my postulate system without long and intensive study. It’s too unorthodox. Your late cousin was one – a truly brilliant mind! Uh… I now suspect that Doctor Brain understood it and sabotaged it for his own purposes.” “Jake, is there anyone friendly to you and able to understand the stuff in your vault? I’m trying to figure out how to warn our fellow humans. A fantastic story of apparently unrelated incidents is not enough. Not even with the corpse of an extra-terrestrial to back it up. You should leave mathematical theory and engineering drawings to someone able to understand them and whom you trust. We can’t handle it; every time we stick our heads up, somebody takes a shot at us and we have no way to fight back. It’s a job that may require our whole race. Well? Is there a man you can trust as your professional executor?” “Well… one, perhaps. Not my field of geometry but brilliant. He did write me a most encouraging letter when I published my first paper – the paper that was so sneered at by almost everyone except your cousin and this one other. Professor Seppo Rãikannonen. Turku. Finland.” “Are you certain he’s not an alien?” “What? He’s been on the faculty at Turku for years! Over fifteen.” I said, “Jacob… that is about how long Professor Brain was around.” “But – ” My husband looked around at me and suddenly smiled. “Hilda my love, have you ever taken sauna?” “Once.” “Then tell our Captain why I am sure that my friend Seppo is not an alien in disguise. I – Deety and I – attended a professional meeting in Helsinki last year. After the meeting we visited their summer place in the Lake Country… and took sauna with them.” “Papa, Mama, and three kids.” agreed Deety. “Unmistakably human.” “‘Brainy’ was a bachelor,” I added thoughtfully. “Cap’n Zebbie, wouldn’t disguised aliens have to be bachelors?” “Or single women. Or pseudo-married couples. No kids, the masquerade wouldn’t hold up. Jake, let’s try to phone your friend. Mmm, nearly breakfast time in Finland – or we may wake him. That’s better than missing him.” “Good! My comcredit number is Nero Aleph -“ “Let’s try mine. Yours might trigger something… if ‘Black Hats’ are as smart as I think they are. Smart Girl.” “Yes, Boss.” “Don Ameche.” “To hear is to obey, O Mighty One.” “Deety, you’ve been giving Gay bad habits.” Shortly a flat male voice answered, “The communications credit number you have cited is not a valid number. Please refer to your card and try again. This is a recording.” Zebbie made a highly unlikely suggestion. “Gay can’t send out my comcredit code incorrectly; she has it tell-me-three-times. The glitch is in their system. Pop, we have to use yours.” I said, “Try mine, Zebbie. My comcredit is good; I predeposit.” A female voice this time: ” – not a valid number. Puh-lease refer to your card and try again. This is a recording.” Then my husband got a second female voice: ” – try again. This is a recording.” Deety said, “I don’t have one. Pop and I use the same number.” “It doesn’t matter,” Cap’n Zebbie said bitterly. “These aren’t glitches. We’ve been scrubbed. Unpersons. We’re all dead.” I didn’t argue. I had suspected that we were dead since the morning two weeks earlier when I woke up in bed with my cuddly new husband. But how long had we been dead? Since my party? Or more recently? I didn’t care. This was a better grade of heaven than a Sunday School in Terre Haute had taught me to expect. While I don’t think I’ve been outstandingly wicked, I haven’t been very good either. Of the Ten Commandments I’ve broken six and bent some others. But Moses apparently had not had the last Word from on High – being dead was weird and wonderful and I was enjoying every minute… or eon, as the case may be.
Chapter XIII
Being too close to a fireball can worry a man –
Zeb: Not being able to phone from my car was my most frustrating experience since a night I spent in jail through mistake (I made the mistake). I considered grounding to phone – but the ground did not seem healthy. Even if all of us were presumed dead, nullifying our comcredit cards so quickly seemed unfriendly; all of us had high credit ratings. Canceling Sharpie’s comcredit without proof of death was more than unfriendly; it was outrageous as she used the predeposit method. I was forced to the decision that it was my duty to make a military report; I radioed NORAD, stated name, rank, reserve commission serial number, and asked for scramble for a crash priority report. and ran into “correct” procedure that causes instant ulcers. What was my clearance? What led me to think that I had crash priority intelligence? By what authority did I demand a scramble code? Do you know how many screwball calls come in here every day? Get off this frequency; it’s for official traffic only. One more word out of you and I shall alert the civil sky patrol to pick you up. I said one more word after I chopped off. Deety and her father ignored it; Hilda said, “My sentiments exactly!” I tried the Federal Rangers Kaibab Barracks at Jacob Lake, then the office at Littlefield and back to Kaibab. Littlefield didn’t answer; Jacob Lake answered: “This is a recording. Routine messages may be recorded during beep tone. Emergency reports should be transmitted to Flagstaff HQ. Stand by for beep tone… Beep!… Beep!… Beep!” I was about to tell Gay to zip my tape – when the whole world was lighted by the brightest light imaginable. Luckily we were cruising south with that light behind us. I goosed Gay to flank speed while telling her to tuck in her wings. Not one of my partners asked a foolish question, although I suspect that none had ever seen a fireball or mushroom cloud. “Smart Girl.” “Here, Boss.” “DR problem. Record true bearing light beacon relative bearing astern. Record radar range and bearing same beacon. Solve latitude longitude beacon. Compare solution with fixes in perms. Confirm.” “Program confirmed.” “Execute.” “Roger Wilco, Zeb. Heard any new ones lately?” She added at once, “Solution. True bearing identical with fix execute-coded ‘Gay Deceiver take us home.’ True range identical plus-minus zero point six klicks.” “You’re a smart girl, Gay.” “Flattery will get you anywhere, Zeb. Over.” “Roger and out. Hang onto your hats, folks; we’re going straight up.” I had outraced the shock wave but we were close to the Mexican border; either side might send sprint birds homing on us. “Copilot!” “Captain.” “Move us! Out of this space!” “Where, Captain?” “Anywhere! Fast!” “Uh, can you ease the acceleration? I can’t lift my arms.” Cursing myself, I cut power, let Gay Deceiver climb free. Those vernier controls should have been mounted on arm rests. (Designs that look perfect on the drawing board can kill test pilots.) “Translation complete, Captain.” “Roger, Copilot. Thank you.” I glanced at the board: six-plus klicks height-above-ground and rising – thin but enough air to bite. “Hang onto our lunch, Sharpie!” I leaned us backwards while doing an Immelman into level flight, course north, power still off. I told Gay to stretch the glide, then tell me when we had dropped to three klicks H-above-G. What should be Phoenix was off to the right; another city – Flagstaff? – farther away, north and a bit east; we appeared to be headed home. There was no glowing cloud on the horizon. “Jake, where are we?” “Captain, I’ve never been in this universe. We translated ten quanta positive Tau axis. So we should be in analogous space close to ours – ten minimum intervals or quanta.” “This looks like Arizona.” “I would expect it to, Captain. You recall that one-quantum translation on this axis was so very like our own world that Deety and I confused it with our own, until she picked up a dictionary.” “Phone book, Pop.” “Irrelevant, dear. Until she missed the letter ‘J’ in an alphabetical list. Ten quanta should not change geological features appreciably and placement of cities is largely controlled by geography.” “Approaching three klicks, Boss.” “Thanks, Gay. Hold course and H-above-G. Correction! Hold course and absolute altitude. Confirm and execute.” “Roger Wilco, Zeb.” I had forgotten that the Grand Canyon lay ahead – or should. “Smart Girl” is smart, but she’s literal-minded. She would have held height-above-ground precisely and given us the wildest roller-coaster ride in history. She is very flexible but the “garbage-in-garbage-out” law applies. She had many extra fail-safes – because I make mistakes. Gay can’t; anything she does wrong is my mistake. Since I’ve been making mistakes all my life, I surrounded her with all the safeguards I could think of. But she had no program against wild rides – she was beefed up to accept them. Violent evasive tactics had saved our lives two weeks ago, and tonight as well. Being too close to a fireball can worry a man – to death. “Gay, display map, please.” The map showed Arizona – our Arizona; Gay does not have in her gizzards any strange universes. I changed course to cause us to pass over our cabin site – its analog for this space-time. (Didn’t dare tell her: “Gay, take us home!” – for reasons left as an exercise for the class.) “Deety, how long ago did that bomb go off?” “Six minutes twenty-three seconds. Zebadiah, was that really an A-bomb?” “Pony bomb, perhaps. Maybe two kilotons. Gay Deceiver.” “I’m all ears, Zeb.” “Report time interval since radar-ranging beacon.” “Five minutes forty-four seconds, Zeb.” Deety gasped. “Was I that far off?” “No, darling. You reported time since flash. I didn’t ask Gay to range until after we were hypersonic.” “Oh. I feel better.” “Captain,” inquired Jake, “how did Gay range an atomic explosion? I would expect radiation to make it impossible. Does she have instrumentation of which I am not aware?” “Copilot, she has several gadgets I have not shown you. I have not been holding out – any more than you held out in not telling me about guns and ammo you -“ “My apologies, sir!” “Oh, stuff it, Jake. Neither of us held out; we’ve been running under the whip. Deety, how long has it been since we killed that fake ranger?” “That was seventeen fourteen. It is now twenty-two twenty. Five hours six minutes,” I glanced at the board; Deety’s “circadian clock” apparently couldn’t be jarred by anything; Gay’s clock showed 0520 (Greenwich) with “ZONE PLUS SEVEN” display. “Call it five hours – feels like five weeks. We need a vacation.” “Loud cheers!” agreed Sharpie. “Check. Jake, I didn’t know that Gay could range an atomic blast. Light ‘beacon’ means a visible light to her just as ‘radar beacon’ means to her a navigational radar beacon. I told her to get a bearing on the light beacon directly aft; she selected the brightest light with that bearing. Then I told her to take radar range and bearing on it – spun my prayer wheel and prayed. “There was ‘white noise’ possibly blanketing her radar frequency. But her own radar bursts are tagged; it would take a very high noise level at the same frequency to keep her from recognizing echoes with her signature. Clearly she had trouble for she reported ‘plus-minus’ of six hundred meters. Nevertheless range and bearing matched a fix in her permanents and told us our cabin had been bombed. Bad news. But the aliens got there too late to bomb us. Good news.” “Captain, I decline to grieve over material loss. We are alive.” “I agree – although I’ll remember Snug Harbor as the happiest home I’ve ever had. But there is no point in trying to warn Earth – our Earth – about aliens. That blast destroyed the clincher: that alien’s cadaver. And papers and drawings you were going to turn over to your Finnish friend. I’m not sure we can go home again.” “Oh, that’s no problem, Captain. Two seconds to set the verniers. Not to mention the ‘deadman switch’ and the program in Gay’s permanents.” “Jake, I wish you would knock off ‘Captain’ other than for command conditions.” “Zeb, I like calling you ‘Captain.” “So do I! – my Captain.” “Me, too, Cap’n Zebbie!” “Don’t overdo it. Jake, I didn’t mean that you can’t pilot us home; I mean we should not risk it. We’ve lost our last lead on the aliens. But they know who we are and have shown dismaying skill in tracking us down. I’d like to live to see two babies born and grown up.” “Amen!” said Sharpie. “This might be the place for it. Out of a million billion zillion earths this one may be vermin-free. Highly likely.” “Hilda my dear, there are no data on which to base any assumption.” “Jacob, there is one datum.” “Eh? What did I miss, dear?” “That we do know that our native planet is infested. So I don’t want to raise kids on it. If this isn’t the place we’re looking for, let’s keep looking.” “Mmm, logical. Yes. Cap – Zeb?” “I agree. But we can’t tell much before morning. Jake, I’m unclear on a key point. If we translated back to our own earth now, where would we find ourselves? And when?” “Pop, may I answer that?” “Go ahead, Deety.” “The time Pop and I translated to the place with no ‘J’ we thought we had failed. Pop stayed in our car, trying to figure it out. I went inside, intending to fix lunch. Everything looked normal. But the phone book was on the kitchen counter and doesn’t belong there. That book had a toll area map on its back cover. My eye happened to land on ‘Juab County’ – and it was spelled ‘Iuab’ – and I thought, ‘What a funny misprint!’ Then I looked inside and couldn’t find any ‘J’s’ and dropped the book and went running for Pop.” “I thought Deety was hysterical. But when I checked a dictionary and the Britannica we got out in a hurry.” “This is the point, Zebadiah. When we flipped back, I dashed into the house. The phone book was where it belonged. The alphabet was back the way it ought to be. The clock in my head said that we had been gone twenty-seven minutes. The kitchen clock confirmed it and it agreed with the clock in the car. Does that answer you, sir?” “I think so. In a translation, duration just keeps chugging along. I wondered because I’d like to check that crater after it has had time to cool down. What about that one rotation?” “Harder to figure, Zebadiah. We weren’t in that other space-time but a few seconds and we both passed out. Indeterminate.” “I’m convinced. But, Jake, what about Earth’s proper motions? Rotation, revolution around the Sun, sidereal motion, and so forth.” “A theoretical answer calls for mathematics you tell me are outside your scope of study, uh – Zeb.” “Beyond my capacity, you mean.” “As you will, sir. An excursion elsewhere-and-elsewhen… and return… brings you back to where you would have been had you experienced that duration on earth. But ‘when’ requires further definition. As we were discussing, uh… earlier this afternoon but it seems longer, we can adjust the controls to reenter any axis at any point with permanent change of interval. For planetary engineering. Or other purposes. Including reentry reversed against the entropy arrow. But I suspect that would cause death.” “Why, Pop? Why wouldn’t it just reverse your memory?” “Memory is tied to entropy increase, my darling daughter. Death might be preferable to amnesia combined with prophetic knowledge. Uncertainty may be the factor that makes life tolerable. Hope is what keeps us going. Captain!” “Copilot.” “We have just passed over North Rim.” “Thank you, Copilot.” I placed my hands lightly on the controls. “Pop, our cabin is still there. Lights in it, too.” “So I see. They’ve added a wing on the west.” “Yes. Where we discussed adding a library.” I said, “Family, I’m not going closer. Your analogs in this world seem to be holding a party. Flood lights show four cars on the grounding flat.” I started Gay into a wide circle. “I’m not going to hover; it could draw attention. A call to their sky cops – Hell’s bells, I don’t even know that they speak English.” “Captain, we’ve seen all we need. It’s not our cabin.” “Recommendation?” “Sir, I suggest maximum altitude. Discuss what to do while we get there.” “Gay Deceiver.” “On deck, Captain Ahab.” “One gee, vertical.” “Aye aye, sir.” (How many answers had Deety taped?) “Anybody want a sandwich?” asked Sharpie. “I do – I’m a pregnant mother.” I suddenly realized that I had had nothing but a piece of pie since noon. As we climbed we finished what was left of supper. “Zat Marsh?” “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Sharpie.” “Zebbie you brute, I said, ‘Is that Mars?’ Over there.” “That’s Antares. Mars is – Look left about thirty degrees. See it? Same color as Antares but brighter.” “Got it. Jacob darling, let’s take that vacation on Barsoom!” “Hilda dearest, Mars is uninhabitable. The Mars Expedition used pressure suits. We have no pressure suits.” I added, “Even if we did, they would get in the way of a honeymoon.” Hilda answered, “I read a jingle about ‘A Space Suit Built for Two.’ Anyhow, let’s go to Barsoom! Jacob, you did tell me we could go anywhere in Zip – nothing flat.” “Quite true.” “So let’s go to Barsoom.” I decided to flank her. “Hilda, we can’t go to Barsoom. Mors Kajak and John Carter don’t have their swords.” “Want to bet?” Deety said sweetly. “Huh?” “Sir, you left it to me to pick baggage for that unassigned space. If you’ll check that long, narrow stowage under the instrument board, you’ll find the sword and saber, with belts. With socks and underwear crammed in to keep them from rattling.” I said soberly, “My Princess, I couldn’t moan about my sword when your father took the loss of his house so calmly – but thank you, with all my heart.” “Let me add my thanks, Deety. I set much store by that old saber, unnecessary as it is.” “Father, it was quite necessary this afternoon.” “Hi ho! Hi ho! It’s to Barsoom we go!” “Captain, we could use the hours till dawn for a quick jaunt to Mars. Uh – Oh, dear, I have to know its present distance – I don’t.” “No problem,” I said. “Gay gobbles the Aerospace Almanac each year.” “Indeed! I’m impressed.” “Gay Deceiver.” “You again? I was thinking.” “So think about this. Calculation program. Data address, Aerospace Almanac. Running calculation, line-of-sight distance to planet Mars. Report current answers on demand. Execute.” “Program running.” “Report.” “Klicks two-two-four-zero-nine-zero-eight-two-seven point plus-minus nine-eight-zero.” “Display running report.” Gay did so. “You’re a smart girl, Gay.” “I can do card tricks, too. Program continuing.” “Jake, how do we this?” “Align ‘L’ axis with your gun sight. Isn’t that easiest?” “By far!” I aimed at Mars as if to shoot her out of the sky – then got cold feet. “Jake? A little Tennessee windage? I think those figures are from center-of-gravity to center-of-gravity. Half a mil would place us a safe distance away. Over a hundred thousand klicks.” “A hundred and twelve thousand,” Jake agreed, watching the display. I offset one half mil. “Copilot.” “Captain.” “Transit when ready. Execute.” Mars in half phase, big and round and ruddy and beautiful, was swimming off our starboard side.
Chapter XIV
“Quit worrying and enjoy the ride.”
Deety: Aunt Hilda said softly, “Barsoom. Dead sea bottoms. Green giants.” I just gulped. “Mars. Hilda darling.” Pop gently corrected her. “Barsoom is a myth.” “Barsoom.” she repeated firmly. “It’s not a myth, it’s there. Who says its name is Mars? A bunch of long-dead Romans. Aren’t the natives entitled to name it? Barsoom.” “My dearest, there are no natives. Names are assigned by an international committee sponsored by Harvard Observatory. They confirmed the traditional name.” “Pooh! They don’t have any more right to name it than I have. Deety, isn’t that right?” I think Aunt Hilda had the best argument but I don’t argue with Pop unless necessary; he gets emotional. My husband saved me. “Copilot, astrogation problem. How are we going to figure distance and vector? I would like to put this wagon into orbit. But Gay is no spaceship; I don’t have instruments. Not even a sextant!” “Mmm, suppose we try it one piece at a time, Captain. We don’t seem to be falling fast and – ulp!” “What’s the trouble, Jake!” Pop turned pale, sweat broke out, he clenched his jaws, swallowed and reswallowed. Then his lips barely opened. “M’sheashick.” “No, you’re space sick. Deety!” “Yessir!” “Emergency kit, back of my seat. Unzip it, get Bonine. One pill – don’t let the others get loose.” I got at the first-aid kit, found a tube marked Bonine. A second pill did get loose but I snatched it out of the air. Free fall is funny – you don’t know whether you are standing on your head or floating sideways. “Here, Captain.” Pop said, “Mall righ’ now. Jus’ took all over queer a moment.” “Sure, you’re all right. You can take this pill – or you can have it pushed down your throat with my dirty, calloused finger. Which?” “Uh, Captain, I’d have to have water to swallow it – and I don’t think I can.” “Doesn’t take water, pal. Chew it. Tastes good, raspberry flavor. Then keep gulping your saliva. Here.” Zebadiah pinched Pop’s nostrils. “Open up.” I became aware of a strangled sound beside me. Aunt Hilda had a hanky pressed to her mouth and her eyes were streaming tears – she was split seconds from adding potato salad and used sandwich to the cabin air. Good thing I was still clutching that wayward pill. Aunt Hilda struggled but she’s a little bitty. I treated her the way my husband had treated her husband, then clamped my hand over her mouth. I don’t understand seasickness (or free-fall nausea); I can walk on bulkheads with a sandwich in one hand and a drink in the other and enjoy it. But the victims really are sick and somewhat out of their heads. So I held her mouth closed and whispered into her ear. “Chew it, Aunty darling, and swallow it, or I’m going to spank you with a club.” Shortly I could feel her chewing. After several minutes she relaxed. I asked her, “Is it safe for me to ungag you?” She nodded. I took my hand away. She smiled wanly and patted my hand. “Thanks, Deety.” She added, “You wouldn’t really beat Aunt Sharpie.” “I sure would, darling. I’d cry and cry and wallop you and wallop you. I’m glad I don’t have to.” “I’m glad, too. Can we kiss and make up – or is my breath sour?” It wasn’t but I wouldn’t have let that stop me. I loosened my chest strap and hers, and put both arms around her. I have two ways of kissing: one is suitable for faculty teas; the other way I mean it. I never got a chance to pick; Aunt Hilda apparently never found out about the faculty-tea sort. No, her breath wasn’t sour – just a slight taste of raspberry. Me, I’m the wholesome type; if it weren’t for those advertisements on my chest, men wouldn’t give me a second glance. Hilda is a miniature Messalina, pure sex in a small package. Funny how a person can grow up never really believing that the adults you grow up with have sex – just gender. Now my saintly father turns out to be an insatiable goat, and Aunt Hilda, who had babied me and changed my diapers, is sexy enough for a platoon of Marines. I let her go while thinking pleasant thoughts about teaching my husband technique I had learned – unless Hilda had taught him in the past. No, or he would have taught me – and he hadn’t shown her style of virtuosity. Zebadiah, just wait till I get you alone! Which might not be too soon. Gay Deceiver is wonderful but no honeymoon cottage. There was space back of the bulkhead behind my head – like a big phone booth on its side – where Zebadiah kept a sleeping bag and (he says) sometimes sacked out. But it had the space-time twister in it and nineteen dozen other things. Hilda and I were going to have to repress our primary imperative until our men found us a pied-à-terre on some planet in some universe, somewhere, somewhen. Mars-Barsoom seemed to have grown while I was curing Aunt Hilda’s space sickness. Our men were talking astrogation. My husband was saying, “Sorry, but at extreme range Gay’s radar can see a thousand kilos. You tell me our distance is about a hundred times that.” “About. We’re falling toward Mars. Captain, we must do it by triangulation.” “Not even a protractor where I can get at it. How?” “Hmmmm – If the Captain pleases, recall how you worked that ‘Tennessee windage.'” My darling looked like a school boy caught making a silly answer. “Jake, if you don’t quit being polite when I’m stupid, I’m going to space you and put Deety in the copilot’s seat. No, we need you to get us home. I’d better resign and you take over.” “Zeb, a captain can’t resign while his ship is underway. That’s universal.” “This is another universe.” “Transuniversal. As long as you are alive, you are stuck with it. Let’s attempt that triangulation.” “Stand by to record.” Zebadiah settled into his seat, pressed his head against its rest. “Copilot.” “Ready to record, sir.” “Damn!” “Trouble, Captain?” “Some. This reflectosight is scaled fifteen mils on a side, concentric circles crossed at center point horizontally and vertically. Normal to deck and parallel to deck, I mean. When I center the fifteen-mil ring on Mars, I have a border around it. I’m going to have to guesstimate. Uh, the border looks to be about eighteen mils wide. So double that and add thirty.” “Sixty-six mils.” “And a mil is one-to-one-thousand. One-to-one-thousand-and-eighteen and a whisker, actually – but one-to-a-thousand is good enough. Wait a half! I’ve got two sharp high lights near the meridian – if the polar caps mark the meridian. Le’me tilt this buggy and put a line crossing them – then I’ll yaw and what we can’t measure in one jump, we’ll catch in three.” I saw the larger “upper” polar cap (north? south? well, it felt north) roll gently about eighty degrees, while my husband fiddled with Gay’s manual controls. “Twenty-nine point five, maybe… plus eighteen point seven… plus sixteen point three. Add.” My father answered, “Sixty-four and a half” while I said, six four point five in my mind and kept quiet. “Who knows the diameter of Mars? Or shall I ask Gay?” Hilda answered, “Six thousand seven hundred fifty kilometers, near enough.” Plenty near enough for Zebadiah’s estimates. Zebadiah said, “Sharpie! How did you happen to know that?” “I read comic books. You know – ‘Zap! Polaris is missing.'” “I don’t read comic books.” “Lots of interesting things in comic books, Zebbie. I thought the Aerospace Force used comic-book instruction manuals.” My darling’s ears turned red. “Some are,” he admitted, “but they are edited for technical accuracy. Hmm – Maybe I had better check that figure with Gay.” I love my husband but sometimes women must stick together. “Don’t bother, Zebadiah,” I said in chilly tones. “Aunt Hilda is correct. The polar diameter of Mars is six seven five two point eight plus. But surely three significant figures is enough for your data.” Zebadiah did not answer… but did not ask his computer. Instead he said, “Copilot, will you run it off on your pocket calculator? We can treat it as a tangent at this distance.” This time I didn’t even try to keep still. Zebadiah’s surprise that Hilda knew anything about astronomy caused me pique. “Our height above surface is one hundred four thousand six hundred and seventy-two kilometers plus or minus the error of the data supplied. That assumes that Mars is spherical and ignores the edge effect or horizon bulge… negligible for the quality of your data.” Zebadiah answered so gently that I was sorry that I had shown off: “Thank you, Deety. Would you care to calculate the time to fall to surface from rest at this point?” “That’s an unsmooth integral, sir. I can approximate it but Gay can do it faster and more accurately. Why not ask her? But it will be many hours.” “I had hoped to take a better look. Jake, Gay has enough juice to put us into a tight orbit, I think… but I don’t know where or when I’ll be able to juice her again. If we simply fall, the air will get stale and we’ll need the panic button – or some maneuver – without ever seeing the surface close up.” “Captain, would it suit you to read the diameter again? I don’t think we’ve simply been falling.” Pop and Zebadiah got busy again. I let them alone, and they ran even the simplest computations through Gay. Presently, Pop said, “Over twenty-four kilometers per second! Captain, at that rate we’ll be there in a little over an hour.” “Except that we’ll scram before that. But, ladies, you’ll get your closer look. Dead sea bottoms and green giants. If any.” “Zebadiah, twenty-four kilometers per second is Mars’ orbital speed.” My father answered, “Eh? Why, so it is!” He looked very puzzled, then said, “Captain – I confess to a foolish mistake.” “Not one that will keep us from getting home, I hope.” “No, sir. I’m still learning what our continua craft can do. Captain, we did not aim for Mars.” “I know. I was chicken.” “No, sir, you were properly cautious. We aimed for a specific point in empty space. We transited to that point… but not with Mars’ proper motion. With that of the Solar System, yes. With Earth’s motions subtracted; that is in the program. But we are a short distance ahead of Mars in its orbit… so it is rushing toward us.” “Does that mean we can never land on any planet but Earth?” “Not at all. Any vector can be included in the program – either before or after transition, translation or rotation. Any subsequent change in motion is taken into account by the inertial integrator. But I am learning that we still have things to learn.” “Jake, that is true even of a bicycle. Quit worrying and enjoy the ride. Brother, what a view!”
“Jake, that doesn’t look like the photographs the Mars Expedition brought back.” “Of course not,” said Aunt Hilda. “I said it was Barsoom.” I kept my mouth shut. Ever since Dr. Sagan’s photographs anyone who reads The National Geographic – or anything – knows what Mars looks like. But when it involves changing male minds, it is better to let men reach their own decisions; they become somewhat less pig-headed. That planet rushing toward us was not the Mars of our native sky. White clouds at the caps, big green areas that had to be forest or crops, one deep blue area that almost certainly was water – all this against ruddy shades that dominated much of the planet. What was lacking were the rugged mountains and craters and canyons of “our” planet Mars. There were mountains – but nothing like the Devil’s Junkyard known to science. I heard Zebadiah say, “Copilot, are you certain you took us to Mars?” “Captain, I took us to Mars-ten, via plus on Tau axis. Either that or I’m a patient in a locked ward.” “Take it easy, Jake. It doesn’t resemble Mars as much as Earth-ten resembles Earth.” “Uh, may I point out that we saw just a bit of Earth-ten, on a moonless night?” “Meaning we didn’t see it. Conceded.” Aunt Hilda said, “I told you it was Barsoom. You wouldn’t listen.” “Hilda, I apologize. ‘Barsoom.’ Copilot, log it. New planet, ‘Barsoom,’ named by right of discovery by Hilda Corners Burroughs, Science Officer of Continua Craft Gay Deceiver. We’ll all witness: Z. J. Carter, Commanding – Jacob J. Burroughs, Chief Officer – D. T. B. Carter, uh, Astrogator. I’ll send certified copies to Harvard Observatory as soon as possible.” “I’m not astrogator, Zebadiah!” “Mutiny. Who reprogrammed this cloud buster into a continua craft? I’m pilot until I can train all of you in Gay’s little quirks. Jake is copilot until he can train more copilots in setting the verniers. You are astrogator because nobody else can acquire your special knowledge of programming and skill at calculation. None of your lip, young woman, and don’t fight the Law of Space. Sharpie is chief of science because of her breadth of knowledge. She not only recognized a new planet as not being Mars quicker than anyone else but carved up that double-jointed alien with the skill of a born butcher. Right, Jake?” “Sure thing!” agreed Pop. “Cap’n Zebbie,” Aunt Hilda drawled, “I’m science officer if you say so. But I had better be ship’s cook, too. And cabin boy.” “Certainly, we all have to wear more than one hat. Log it, Copilot. ‘Here’s to our jolly cabin girl, the plucky little nipper – ‘” “Don’t finish it. Zebbie,” Aunt Hilda cut in, “I don’t like the way the plot develops.”
‘ – she carves fake ranger, ‘Dubs planet stranger, ‘And dazzles crew and skipper.’
Aunt Hilda looked thoughtful. “That’s not the classic version. I like the sentiment better… though the scansion limps.” “Sharpie darling, you are a floccinaucinihilipilificatrix.” “Is that a compliment?” “Certainly! Means you’re so sharp you spot the slightest flaw.” I kept quiet. It was possible that Zebadiah meant it as a compliment. Just barely – “Maybe I’d better check it in a dictionary.” “By all means, dear – after you are off watch.” (I dismissed the matter. Merriam Microfilm was all we had aboard and Aunt Hilda would not find that word in anything less than the O.E.D.) “Copilot, got it logged?” “Captain, I didn’t know we had a log.” “No log? Even Vanderdecken keeps a log. Deety, the log falls in your department. Take your father’s notes, get what you need from Gay, and let’s have a taut ship. First time we pass a Woolworth’s we’ll pick up a journal and you can transcribe it – notes taken now are your rough log.” “Aye aye, sir. Tyrant.” “‘Tyrant,’ sir, please. Meanwhile let’s share the binoculars and see if we can spot any colorful exotic natives in colorful exotic costumes singing colorful exotic songs with their colorful exotic hands out for baksheesh. First one to spot evidence of intelligent life gets to wash the dishes.”
Chapter XV
“We’ll hit so hard we’ll hardly notice it.”
Hilda: I was so flattered by Cap’n Zebbie’s crediting me with “discovering” Barsoom that I pretended not to understand the jibe he added. It was unlikely that Deety would know such a useless word, or my beloved Jacob. It was gallant of Zeb to give in all the way, once he realized that this planet was unlike its analog in “our” universe. Zebbie is a funny one – he wears rudeness like a Hallowe’en mask, afraid that someone will discover the Galahad underneath. I knew that “my” Barsoom was not the planet of the classic romances. But there are precedents: The first nuclear submarine was named for an imaginary undersea vessel made famous by Jules Verne; an aircraft carrier of the Second Global War had been named “Shangri La” for a land as nonexistent as “Erewhon”; the first space freighter had been named for a starship that existed only in the hearts of its millions of fans – the list is endless. Nature copies art. Or as Deety put it: “Truth is more fantastic than reality.” During that hour Barsoom rushed at us. It began to swell and swell, so rapidly that binoculars were a nuisance – and my heart swelled with it, in childlike joy. Deety and I unstrapped so that we could see better, floating just “above” and behind our husbands while steadying ourselves on their headrests. We were seeing it in half phase, one half dark, the other in sunlight – ocher and umber and olive green and brown and all of it beautiful. Our pilot and copilot did not sightsee; Zebbie kept taking sights, kept Jacob busy calculating. At last he said, “Copilot, if our approximations are correct, at the height at which we will get our first radar range, we will be only a bit over half a minute from crashing. Check?” “To the accuracy of our data, Captain.” “Too close. I don’t fancy arriving like a meteor. Is it time to hit the panic button? Advise, please – but bear in mind that puts us – should put us – two klicks over a hot, new crater… possibly in the middle of a radioactive cloud. Ideas?” “Captain, we can do that just before crashing – and it either works or it doesn’t. If it works, that radioactive cloud will have had more time to blow away. If it doesn’t work – “ “We’ll hit so hard we’ll hardly notice it. Gay Deceiver isn’t built to reenter at twenty-four klicks per second. She’s beefed up – but she’s still a Ford, not a reentry vehicle.” “Captain, I can try to subtract the planet’s orbital speed. We’ve time to make the attempt.” “Fasten seat belts and report! Move it, gals!” Free fall is funny stuff. I was over that deathly sickness – was enjoying weightlessness, but didn’t know how to move in it. Nor did Deety. We floundered the way one does the first time on ice skates – only worse. “Report, damn it!” Deety got a hand on something, grabbed me. We started getting into seats – she in mine, I in hers. “Strapping down, Captain!” she called out, while frantically trying to loosen my belts to fit her. (I was doing the same in reverse.) “Speed it up!” Deety reported, “Seat belts fastened,” while still getting her chest belt buckled – by squeezing out all her breath. I reached over and helped her loosen it. “Copilot.” “Captain!” “Along ‘L’ axis, subtract vector twenty-four klicks per second – and for God’s sake don’t get the signs reversed.” “I won’t!” “Execute.” Seconds later Jacob reported, “That does it, Captain. I hope.” “Let’s check. Two readings, ten seconds apart. I’ll call the first, you call the end of ten seconds. Mark!” Zeb added, “One point two. Record.” After what seemed a terribly long time Jacob said, “Seven seconds… eight seconds… nine seconds… mark!” Our men conferred, then Jacob said, “Captain, we are still falling too fast.” “Of course,” said Deety. “We’ve been accelerating from gravity. Escape speed for Mars is five klicks per second. If Barsoom has the same mass as Mars -“ “Thank you, Astrogator. Jake, can you trim off, uh, four klicks per second?” “Sure!” “Do it.” “Uh… done! How does she look?” “Uh… distance slowly closing. Hello, Gay.” “Howdy, Zeb.” “Program. Radar. Target dead ahead. Range.” “No reading.” “Continue ranging. Report first reading. Add program. Display running radar ranges to target.” “Program running. Who blacked your eye?” “You’re a Smart Girl, Gay.” “I’m sexy, too. Over.” “Continue program.” Zeb sighed, then said, “Copilot, there’s atmosphere down there. I plan to attempt to ground. Comment? Advice?” “Captain, those are words I hoped to hear. Let’s go!” “Barsoom – here we come!”
Chapter XVI
a maiden knight, eager to break a lance –
Jake: My beloved bride was no more eager than I to visit “Barsoom.” I had been afraid that our captain would do the sensible thing: establish orbit, take pictures, then return to our own space-time before our air was stale. We were not prepared to explore strange planets. Gay Deceiver was a bachelor’s sports car. We had a little water, less food, enough air for about three hours. Our craft refreshed its air by the scoop method. If she made a “high jump,” her scoop valves sealed from internal pressure just as did commercial ballistic-hypersonic intercontinental liners – but “high jump” is not space travel. True, we could go from point to point in our own or any universe in null time, but how many heavenly bodies have breathable atmospheres? Countless billions – but a small fraction of one percent from a practical viewpoint – and no publication lists their whereabouts. We had no spectroscope, no star catalogs, no atmosphere testing equipment, no radiation instruments, no means of detecting dangerous organisms. Columbus with his cockleshells was better equipped than we. None of this worried me. Reckless? Do you pause to shop for an elephant gun while an elephant is chasing you? Three times we had escaped death by seconds. We had evaded our killers by going to earth – and that safety had not lasted. So again we fled like rabbits. At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that “news” is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different – in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness. I was not distressed. I felt more alive than I had felt since the death of my first wife. Underneath the persona each shows the world lies a being different from the masque. My own persona was a professorial archetype. Underneath? Would you believe a maiden knight, eager to break a lance? I could have avoided military service – married, a father, protected profession. But I spent three weeks in basic training, sweating with the rest, cursing drill instructors – and loving it! Then they took my rifle, told me I was an officer, gave me a swivel chair and a useless job. I never forgave them for that. Hilda, until we married, I knew not at all. I had valued her as a link to my lost love but I had thought her a lightweight, a social butterfly. Then I found myself married to her and learned that I had unnecessarily suffered lonely years. Hilda was what I needed, I was what she needed – Jane had known it and blessed us when at last we knew it. But I still did not realize the diamondhard quality of my tiny darling until I saw her dissecting that pseudo “ranger.” Killing that alien was easy. But what Hilda did – I almost lost my supper. Hilda is small and weak; I’ll protect her with my life. But I won’t underrate her again! Zeb is the only one of us who looks the part of intrepid explorer – tall, broadshouldered, strongly muscled, skilled with machines and with weapons, and (sine qua non!) cool-headed in crisis and gifted with the “voice of command.” One night I had been forced to reason with my darling; Hilda felt that I should lead our little band. I was oldest, I was inventor of the time-space “distorter” – it was all right for Zeb to pilot – but I must command. In her eyes Zeb was somewhere between an overage adolescent and an affectionate Saint Bernard. She pointed out that Zeb claimed to be a “coward by trade” and did not want responsibility. I told her that no born leader seeks command; the mantle descends on him, he wears the burden because he must. Hilda could not see it – she was willing to take orders from me but not from her pet youngster “Zebbie.” I had to be firm: Either accept Zeb as commander or tomorrow Zeb and I would dismount my apparatus from Zeb’s car so that Mr. and Mrs. Carter could go elsewhere. Where? Not my business or yours, Hilda. I turned over and pretended to sleep. When I heard sobs, I turned again and held her. But I did not budge. No need to record what was said; Hilda promised to take any orders Zeb might give – once we left. But her capitulation was merely coerced until the gory incident at the pool. Zeb’s instantaneous attack changed her attitude. From then on my darling carried out Zeb’s orders without argument – and between times kidded and ragged him as always. Hilda’s spirit wasn’t broken; instead she placed her indomitable spirit subject to the decisions of our captain. Discipline – self-discipline; there is no other sort. Zeb is indeed a “coward by trade” – he avoids trouble whenever possible – a most commendable trait in a leader. If a captain worries about the safety of his command, those under him need not worry.
Barsoom continued to swell. At last Gay’s voice said, “Ranging, Boss” as she displayed “1000 km,” and flicked at once to “999 km.” I started timing when Zeb made it unnecessary: “Smart Girl!” “Here, Zeb.” “Continue range display. Show as H-above-G. Add dive rate.” “Null program.” “Correction. Add program. Display dive rate soonest.” “New program dive rate stored. Display starts H-above-G six hundred klicks.” “You’re a smart girl, Gay.” “‘Smartest little girl in the County, Oh! Daddy and Mommy told me so!’ Over.” “Continue programs.” Height-above-ground seemed to drop both quickly and with stomach-tensing slowness. No one said a word; I barely breathed. As “600 km” appeared the figures were suddenly backed by a grid; on it was a steep curve, height-against-time, and a new figure flashed underneath the H-above-G figure: 1968 km/hr. As the figure changed, a bright abscissa lowered down on the grid. Our captain let out a sigh. “We can handle that. But I’d give fifty cents and a double-dip ice-cream cone for a parachute brake.” “What flavor?” “Your choice, Sharpie. Don’t worry, folks; I can stand her on her tail and blast. But it’s an expensive way to slow up. Gay Deceiver.” “Busy, Boss.” “I keep forgetting that I can’t ask her to display too many data at once. Anybody know the sea level – I mean ‘surface’ atmospheric pressure of Mars? Don’t all speak at once.” My darling said hesitantly, “It averages about five millibars. But, Captain – this isn’t Mars.” “Huh? So it isn’t – and from the looks of that green stuff, Barsoom must have lots more atmosphere than Mars.” Zeb took the controls, overrode the computer, cautiously waggled her elevons. “Can’t feel bite. Sharpie, how come you bone astronomy? Girl Scout?” “Never got past tenderfoot. I audited a course, then subscribed to ‘Astronomy’ and ‘Sky and Telescope.’ It’s sort o’ fun.” “Chief of Science, you have again justified my faith in you. Copilot, as soon as I have air bite, I’m going to ease to the east. We’re headed too close to the terminator. I want to ground in daylight. Keep an eye out for level ground. I’ll hover at the last – but I don’t want to ground in forest. Or in badlands.” “Aye aye, sir.” “Astrogator.” “Yessir!” “Deety darling, search to port – and forward, as much as you can see around me. Jake can favor the starboard side.” “Captain – I’m on the starboard side. Behind Pop.” “Huh? How did you gals get swapped around?” “Well… you hurried us, sir – any old seat in a storm.” “Two demerits for wrong seat – and no syrup on the hot cakes we’re going to have for breakfast as soon as we’re grounded.” “Uh, I don’t believe hot cakes are possible.” “I can dream, can’t I? Chief Science Officer, watch my side.” “Yes, Cap’n.” “While Deety backs up Jake. Any cow pasture.”
“Hey! I feel air! She bites!” I held my breath while Zeb slowly brought the ship out of dive, easing her east. “Gay Deceiver.” “How now, Brown Cow?” “Cancel display programs. Execute.” “Inshallâh, ya sayyid.” The displays faded. Zeb held her just short of stalling. We were still high, about six klicks, still hypersonic. Zeb slowly started spreading her wings as air speed and altitude dropped. After we dropped below speed of sound, he opened her wings full for maximum lift. “Did anyone remember to bring a canary?” “A canary!” said Deety. “What for, Boss Man?” “My gentle way of reminding everyone that we have no way to test atmosphere. Copilot.” “Captain,” I acknowledged. “Uncover deadman switch. Hold it closed while you remove clamp. Hold it high where we all can see it. Once you report switch ready to operate, I’m going to crack the air scoops. If you pass out, your hand will relax and the switch will get us home. I hope. But – All hands! – if anyone feels dizzy or woozy or faint… or sees any of us start to slump, don’t wait! Give the order orally. Deety, spell the order I mean. Don’t say it – spell it.” “G, A, Y, D, E, C, I, E, V, E, R, T, A, K, E, U, S, H, O, M, E.” “You misspelled it.” “I did not!” “You did so; ‘”i” before “e” except after “c.”‘ You reversed ’em.” “Well… maybe I did. That diphthong has always given me trouble. Floccinaucinihilipilificator!” “So you understood it? From now on, on Barsoom, ‘i’ comes before ‘e’ at all times. By order of John Carter, Warlord. I have spoken. Copilot?” “Deadman switch ready, Captain,” I answered. “You gals hold your breaths or breathe, as you wish. Pilot and copilot will breathe. I am about to open air scoops.” I tried to breathe normally and wondered if my hand would relax if I passed out. The cabin got suddenly chilly, then the heaters picked up. I felt normal. Cabin pressure slightly higher, I thought, under ram effect. “Everybody feel right? Does everybody look right? Copilot?” “I feel fine. You look okay. So does Hilda. I can’t see Deety.” “Science Officer?” “Deety looks normal. I feel fine.” “Deety. Speak up.” “Golly, I had forgotten what fresh air smells like!” “Copilot, carefully – most carefully! – put the clamp back on the switch, then rack and cover it. Report completion.” A few seconds later I reported, “Deadman switch secured, Captain.” “Good. I see a golf course; we’ll ground.” Zeb switched to powered flight; Gay responded, felt alive. We spiraled, hovered briefly, grounded with a gentle bump. “Grounded on Barsoom. Log it, Astrogator. Time and date.” “Huh?” “On the instrument board.” “But that says oh-eight-oh-three and it’s just after dawn here.” “Log it Greenwich. With it, log estimated local time and Barsoom day one.” Zeb yawned. “I wish they wouldn’t hold mornings so early.” “Too sleepy for hot cakes?” my wife inquired. “Never that sleepy.” “Aunt Hilda!” “Deety, I stowed Aunt Jemima mix. And powdered milk. And butter. Zebbie, no syrup – sorry. But there is grape jelly in a tube. And freeze-dried coffee. If one of you will undog this bulkhead door, we’ll have breakfast in a few minutes.” “Chief Science Officer, you have a duty to perform.” “I do? But – Yes, Captain?” “Put your dainty toe to the ground. It’s your planet, your privilege. Starboard side of the car, under the wing, is the ladies’ powder room – portside is the men’s jakes. Ladies may have armed escort on request.” I was glad Zeb remembered that. The car had a “honey bucket” under the cushion of the port rear seat, and, with it, plastic liners. I did not ever want to have to use it. Gay Deceiver was wonderful but, as a spaceship, she left much to be desired. However, she had brought us safely to Barsoom. Barsoom! Visions of thoats and beautiful princesses –
Chapter XVII
The world wobbled –
Deety: We spent our first hour on “Barsoom” getting oriented. Aunt Hilda stepped outside, then stayed out. “Isn’t cold,” she told us. “Going to be hot later.” “Watch where you step!” my husband warned her. “Might be snakes or anything.” He hurried after her – and went head over heels. Zebadiah was not hurt; the ground was padded, a greenish-yellow mat somewhat like “ice plant” but looking more like clover. He got up carefully, then swayed as if walking on a rubber mattress. “I don’t understand it,” he complained. “This gravity ought to be twice that of Luna. But I feel lighter.” Aunt Hillbilly sat down on the turf. “On the Moon you were carrying pressure suit and tanks and equipment.” She unfastened her shoes. “Here you aren’t.” “Yeah, so I was,” agreed my husband. “What are you doing?” “Taking off my shoes. When were you on the Moon? Cap’n Zebbie, you’re a fraud.” “Don’t take off your shoes! You don’t know what’s in this grass.” The Hillbilly stopped, one shoe off. “If they bite me, I bite ’em back. Captain, in Gay Deceiver you are absolute boss. But doesn’t your crew have any free will? I’ll play it either way: free citizen… or your thrall who dassn’t even take off a shoe without permission. Just tell me.” “Uh -“ “If you try to make all decisions, all the time, you’re going to get as hysterical as a hen raising ducklings. Even Deety can be notional. But I won’t even pee without permission. Shall I put this back on? Or take the other off?” “Aunt Hilda, quit teasing my husband!” (I was annoyed!) “Dejah Thoris, I am not teasing your husband; I am asking our captain for instructions.” Zebadiah sighed. “Sometimes I wish I’d stayed in Australia.” I said, “Is it all right for Pop and me to come out?” “Oh. Certainly. Watch your step; it’s tricky.” I jumped down, then jumped high and wide, with entrechats as I floated – landed sur les pointes. “Oh, boy! What a wonderful place for ballet!” I added, “Shouldn’t do that on a full bladder. Aunt Hilda, let’s see if that powder room is unoccupied.” “I was about to, dear, but I must get a ruling from our captain.” “You’re teasing him.” “No, Deety; Hilda is right; doctrine has to be clear. Jake? How about taking charge on the ground?” “No, Captain. Druther be a Balkan general, given my druthers.” Aunt Hilda stood up, shoe in hand, reached high with her other hand, patted my husband’s cheek. “Zebbie, you are a dear. You worry about us all – me especially, because you think I’m a featherhead. Remember how we did at Snug Harbor? Each one did what she could do best and there was no friction. If that worked there, it ought to work here.” “Well… all right. But will you gals please be careful?” “We’ll be careful. How’s your E.S.P.? Any feeling?” Zebadiah wrinkled his forehead. “No. But I don’t get advance warning. Just barely enough.” “‘Just barely’ is enough. Before we had to leave, you were about to program Gay to listen at high gain. Would that change ‘just barely’ to ‘ample’?” “Yes! Sharpie, I’ll put you in charge, on the ground.” “In your hat, Buster. Ole Massa done freed us slaves. Zebbie, the quicker you quit dodging, the sooner you get those hot cakes. Spread my cape down and put the hot plate on the step.” We ate breakfast in basic Barsoomian dress: skin. Aunt Hilda pointed out that laundries seemed scarce, and the car’s water tanks had to be saved for drinking and cooking. “Deety, I have just this dress you gave me; I’ll air it and let the wrinkles hang out. Panties, too. An air bath is better than no bath. I know you’ll divvy with me but you are no closer to a laundry than I am.” My jump suit joined Hilda’s dress. “Aunt Hilda, you could skip bathing a week. Me, right after a bath I have a body odor but not too bad. In twenty four hours I’m whiff. Forty-eight and I smell like a skunk. An air bath may help.” The same reasoning caused our men to spread their used clothing on the port wing, and caused Zebadiah to pick up Hilda’s cape. “Sharpie, you can’t get fur Hollanderized in this universe. Jake, you stowed some tarps?” After dishes were “washed” (scoured with turf, placed in the sun) we were sleepy. Zebadiah wanted us to sleep inside, doors locked. Aunt Hilda and I wanted to nap on a tarpaulin in the shade of the car. I pointed out that moving rear seats aft in refitting had made it impossible to recline them. Zebadiah offered to give up his seat to either of us women. I snapped, “Don’t be silly, dear! You barely fit into a rear seat and it brings your knees so far forward that the seat in front can’t be reclined.” Pop intervened. “Hold it! Daughter, I’m disappointed – snapping at your husband. But, Zeb, we’ve got to rest. If I sleep sitting up, I get swollen ankles, half crippled, not good for much.” “I was trying to keep us safe,” Zebadiah said plaintively. “I know, Son; you’ve been doing so – and a smart job, or we all would be dead three times over. Deety knows it, I know it, Hilda knows it -“ “I sure do, Zebbie!” “My Captain, I’m sorry I snapped at you.” “We’ll need you later. Flesh has its limits – even yours. If necessary, we would bed you down and stand guard over you -“ “No!” “We sure would, Zebbie!” “We will, my Captain.” “But I doubt that it’s necessary. When we sat on the ground to eat, did anyone get chigger bites or anything?” My husband shook his head. “Not me,” Aunt Hilda agreed. I added, “I saw some little beasties but they didn’t bother me.” “Apparently,” Pop went on, “they don’t like our taste. A ferocious-looking dingus sniffed at my ankle – but it scurried away. Zeb, Gay can hear better than we can?” “Oh, much better!” “Can her radar be programmed to warn us?” Zebadiah looked thoughtful. “Uh… anti-collision alarm would wake the dead. If I pulled it in to minimum range, then – No, the display would be cluttered with ‘grass.’ We’re on the ground. False returns.” I said, “Subtract static display, Zebadiah.” “Eh? How, Deety?” “Gay can do it. Shall I try?” “Deety, if you switch on radar, we have to sleep inside. Microwaves cook your brains.” “I know, sir. Gay has sidelookers, eyes fore and aft, belly, and umbrella – has she not?” “Yes. That’s why -“ “Switch off her belly eye. Can sidelookers hurt us if we sleep under her?” His eyes widened. “Astrogator, you know more about my car than I do. I’d better sign her over to you.” “My Captain, you have already endowed me with all your worldly goods. I don’t know more about Gay; I know more about programming.”
We made a bed under the car by opening Zebadiah’s sleeping bag out flat, a tarpaulin on each side. Aunt Hilda dug out sheets: “In case anyone gets chilly.” “Unlikely,” Pop told her. “Hot now, not a cloud and no breeze.” “Keep it by you, dearest. Here’s one for Zebbie.” She dropped two more on the sleeping bag, lay down on it. “Down flat, gentlemen” – waited for them to comply, then called to me: “Deety! Everybody’s down.” From inside I called back, “Right with you!” – then said, “Hello, Gay.” “Hi, Deety!” “Retrieve newest program. Execute.” Five scopes lighted, faded to dimness; the belly eye remained blank. I told her, “You’re a good girl, Gay.” “I like you, too, Deety. Over.” “Roger and out, sister.” I scrunched down, got at the stowage under the instrument board, pulled out padding and removed saber and sword, each with belt. These I placed at the door by a pie tin used at breakfast. I slithered head first out the door, turned without rising, got swords and pie plate, and crawled toward the pallet, left arm cluttered with hardware. I stopped. “Your sword, Captain.” “Deety! Do I need a sword to nap?” “No, sir. I shall sleep soundly knowing that my captain has his sword.” “Hmm – ” Zebadiah withdrew it a span, returned it with a click. “Silly… but I feel comforted by it, too.” “I see nothing silly, sir. Ten hours ago you killed a thing with it that would have killed me.” “I stand – sprawl – corrected, my Princess. Dejah Thoris is always correct.” “I hope my Chieftain will always think so.” “He will. Give me a big kiss. What’s the pie pan for?” “Radar alarm test.” Having delivered the kiss, I crawled past Hilda and handed Pop his saber. He grinned at me. “Deety hon, you’re a one! Just the security blanket I need. How did you know?” “Because Aunt Hilda and I need it. With our warriors armed, we will sleep soundly.” I kissed Pop, crawled out from under. “Cover your ears!” I got to my knees, sailed that pan far and high, dropped flat and covered my ears. As the pan sailed into the zone of microwave radiation, a horrid clamor sounded inside the car, kept up until the pan struck the ground and stopped rolling – chopped off. “Somebody remind me to recover that. Good night, all!” I crawled back, stretched out by Hilda, kissed her goodnight, set the clock in my head for six hours, went to sleep.
The sun was saying that it was fourteen instead of fourteen-fifteen and I decided that my circadian did not fit Barsoom. Would the clock in my head “slow” to match a day forty minutes longer? Would it give me trouble? Not likely – I’ve always been able to sleep anytime. I felt grand and ready for anything. I crept off the pallet, snaked up into the car’s cabin, and stretched. Felt good! I crawled through the bulkhead door back of the rear seats, got some scarves and my jewelry case, went forward into the space between seats and instrument board. I tried tying a filmy green scarf as a bikini bottom, but it looked like a diaper. I took it off, folded it corner to corner, pinned it at my left hip with a jeweled brooch. Lots better! “Indecently decent” Pop would say. I looped a rope of imitation pearls around my hips, arranged strands to drape with the cloth, fastened them at the brooch. I hung around my neck a pendant of pearls and cabochon emeralds – from my father the day I received the title doctor of philosophy. I was adding bracelets and rings when I heard “Psst!” – looked down and saw the Hillbilly’s head and hands at the doorsill. Hilda put a finger to her lips. I nodded, gave her a hand up, whispered, “Still asleep?” “Like babies.” “Let’s get you dressed… ‘Princess Thuvia.'” Aunt Hilda giggled. “Thank you… ‘Princess’ Dejah Thoris.” “Want anything but jewelry?” “Just something to anchor it. That old-gold scarf if you can spare it.” “Course I can! Nothing’s too good for my Aunt Thuvia and that scarf is durn near nothing. Baby doll, we’re going to deck you out for the auction block. Will you do my hair?” “And you mine. Deety – I mean ‘Dejah Thoris’ – I miss a three-way mirror.” “We’ll be mirrors for each other,” I told her. “I don’t mind camping out. My great-great-great-grandmother had two babies in a sod house. Except” – I ducked my head, sniffed my armpit – “we’d better find a stream.” I added, “Hold still. Or shall I pin it through your skin?” “Either way, dear. We’ll find water – all this ground cover.” “Ground cover doesn’t prove running water. This place may be a ‘dead sea bottom of Barsoom.'” “Doesn’t look dead,” Aunt Hilda countered. “It’s pretty.” “Yes, but this looks like a dead sea bottom. Which gave me an idea. Hold up your hair; I want to arrange your necklaces.” “What idea?” Aunt Hilda demanded. “Zebadiah told me to figure a third escape program. The first two – I’ll paraphrase, Gay is awake. One tells her to take us back to a height over Snug Harbor; the other tells her to scoot back to where she was before she was last given the first order.” “I thought that one told her to place us over the Grand Canyon?” “It does, at present. But if she got the first order now, that would change the second order. Instead of over the Grand Canyon, we would be back here quicker’n a frog could wink its eye.” “Okay if you say so.” “She’s programmed that way. Hit the panic button and we are over our cabin site. Suppose we arrive there and find trouble, then use the ‘C’ order. She takes us back to wherever she last got the ‘T’ order. Dangerous or we would not have left in a rush. So we need a third escape program, to take us to a safe place. This looks safe.” “It’s peaceful.” “Seems so. There! – more doodads than a Christmas tree and you look nakeder than ever.” “That’s the effect we want, isn’t it? Sit down in the copilot’s seat; I’ll do your hair.” “Want shoes?” I asked. “On Barsoom? Dejah Thoris, thank you for your little-girl shoes. But they pinch my toes. You’re going to wear shoes?” “Not bleedin’ likely, Aunt Nanny Goat. I toughened my feet for karate – I can break a four-by-nine with my feet and get nary a bruise. Or run on sharp gravel. What’s a good escape phrase? I plan to store in Gay an emergency signal for every spot we visit that looks like a safe hidey-hole. So give me a phrase.” “Your mudder chaws terbacker!” “Nanny Goat! A code-phrase should have a built-in mnemonic.” “‘Bug Out’?” “A horrid expression and just what we need. ‘Bug Out’ will mean to take us to this exact spot. I’ll program it. And post it and others on the instrument board so that, if anyone forgets, she can read it.” “And so could any outsider, if she got in.” “Fat lot of good it would do her! Gay ignores an order not in our voices. Hello, Gay.” “Hello, Deety!” “Retrieve present location. Report.” “Null program.” “Are we lost?” “Not at all, Aunt Hilda. I was sloppy. Gay, program check. Define ‘Home.'” “Cancel any-all transitions translations rotations inertials. Return to zerodesignated latitude longitude two klicks above ground level hovering.” “Search memory reversed-real-time for last order execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home.” “Retrieved.” “From time of retrieved order integrate to time-present all transitions translations rotations inertials.” “Integrated.” “Test check. Report summary of integration.” “Origin ‘Home.’ Countermarch program executed. Complex maneuver inertials. Translation Tau axis ten minimals positive. Complex maneuver inertials. Translation Ell axis two-two-four-zero-nine-zero-eight-two-seven point zero klicks. Negative vector Ell axis twenty-four klicks per sec. Negative vector Ell axis four klicks per sec. Complex maneuver inertials. Grounded here-then oh-eight-oh-two-forty-nine. Grounded inertials continuing eight hours three minutes nineteen seconds mark! Grounded inertials continue running realtime.” “New program. Here-now grounded inertial location real-time running to real-time new execute order equals code-phrase bug-out. Report new program.” Gay answered: “New program code-phrase bug-out: Definition: Here-now grounded inertials running real-time to future-time execute order code-phrase bug-out.” “Gay, I tell you three times.” “Deety, I hear you three times.” “New program. Execute-coded Gay Deceiver Bug Out. At execute-code move to location coded ‘bug-out.’ I tell you three times.” “I hear you three times.” “Gay Deceiver, you’re a smart girl.” “Deety, why don’t you leave that big ape and live with me? Over.” “Good night, Gay. Roger and out. Hillbilly, I didn’t give you that answer.” I tried to look fierce. “Why, Deety, how could you say such a thing?” “I know I didn’t. Well?” “I ‘fess up, Deetikins. A few days ago while you and I were working, you were called away. While I waited, I stuck that in. Want it erased?” I don’t know how to look fierce; I snickered. “No. Maybe Zebadiah will be around the next time it pops up. I wish our men would wake, I do.” “They need rest, dear.” “I know. But I want to check that new program.” “It sounded complex.” “Can be, by voice. I’d rather work on paper. A computer doesn’t accept excuses. A mistake can be anything from ‘null program’ to disaster. This one has features I’ve never tried. I don’t really understand what Pop does. Non-Euclidean n-dimensional geometry is way out in left field.” “To me it’s not in the ball park.” “So I’m itchy.” “Let’s talk about something else.” “Did I show you our micro walky-talkies?” “Jacob gave me one.” “There’s one for each. Tiny but amazingly long-ranged. Uses less power than a hand calculator and weighs less – under two hundred grams. Mass, I mean – weight here is much less. Today I thought of a new use. Gay can accept their frequency.” “That’s nice. How do you plan to use this?” “This car can be remote-controlled.” “Deety, who would you want to do that?” I admitted that I did not know. “But Gay can be preprogrammed to do almost anything. For example, we could go outside and tell Gay, via walky-talky, to carry out two programs in succession: H, O, M, E, followed by B, U, G, O, U, T. Imagine Zebadiah’s face when he wakes up from sun in his eyes – because his car has vanished – then his expression two hours later when it pops back into existence.” “Deety, go stand in the corner for thinking such an unfunny joke!” Then Aunt Hilda looked thoughtful. “Why would it take two hours? I thought Gay could go anywhere in no time.” “Depends on your postulates, Princess Thuvia. We took a couple of hours to get here because we fiddled. Gay would have to follow that route in reverse because it’s the only one she knows. Then – ” I stopped, suddenly confused. “Or would it be four hours? No, vectors would cancel and – But that would make it instantaneous; we would never know that she had left. Or would we? Aunt Hilda, I don’t know! Oh, I wish our men would wake up, I do!” The world wobbled and I felt scared. “I’m awake,” Pop answered, his head just showing above the doorsill. “What’s this debate?” He gave Aunt Hilda a lecherous leer. “Little girl, if you’ll come up to my room, I’ll give you some candy.” “Get away from me, you old wolf!” “Hilda my love, I could sell you down to Rio and retire on the proceeds. You look like expensive stuff.” “I’m very expensive stuff, darling wolf. All I want is every cent a man has and constant pampering – then a fat estate when he dies.” “I’ll try to die with plenty of money in the bank, dearest.” “Instead we’re both dead and our bank accounts have gone Heaven knows where and I haven’t a rag to my back – and I’m wonderfully happy. Come inside – mind the radar! – and kiss me, you old wolf; you don’t have to buy me candy.” “Pop,” I asked, “is Zebadiah asleep?” “Just woke up.” I spoke to Gay, then to Pop: “Will you tell Zebadiah radar is off? He can stand up without getting his ears fried.” “Sure.” Pop ducked down and yelled, “Zeb, it’s safe; her husband left.” “Coming!” Zebadiah’s voice rumbled back. “Tell Deety to put the steaks on.” My darling appeared wearing sword, carrying pie pan and sheets. “Are the steaks ready?” he asked, then kissed me. “Not quite, sir,” I told him. “First, go shoot a thoat. Or will you settle for peanut butter sandwiches?” “Don’t talk dirty. Did you say ‘thoat’?” “Yes. This is Barsoom.” “I thoat that was what you said.” “If that’s a pun, you can eat it for supper. With peanut butter.” Zebadiah shuddered. “I’d rather cut my thoat.” Pop said, “Don’t do it, Zeb. A man can’t eat with his thoat cut. He can’t even talk clearly.” Aunt Hilda said mildly, “If you three will cease those atrocities, I’ll see what I can scrape up for dinner.” “I’ll help,” I told her, “but can we run my test first? I’m itchy.” “Certainly, Deety. It will be a scratch meal.” Pop looked at Aunt Hilda reproachfully. “And you told us to stop.” “What test?” demanded my husband. I explained the Bug-Out program. “I think I programmed it correctly. But here is a test. Road the car a hundred meters. If my program works – fine! If it tests null, no harm done but you and Pop will have to teach me more about the twister before I’ll risk new programming.” “I don’t want to road the car, Deety; I’m stingy with every erg until I know when and where I can juice Gay. However – Jake, what’s your minimum transition?” “Ten kilometers. Can’t use spatial quanta for transitions – too small. But the scale goes up fast – logarithmic. That’s short range. Middle range is in light-years – logarithmic again.” “What’s long range, Jake?” “Gravitic radiation versus time. We won’t use that one.” “Why not, Jacob?” asked Aunt Hilda. Pop looked sheepish. “I’m scared of it, dearest. There are three major theories concerning gravitic propagation. At the time I machined those controls, one theory seemed proved. Since then other physicists have reported not being able to reproduce the data. So I blocked off long range.” Pop smiled sourly. “I know the gun is loaded but not what it will do. So I spiked it.” “Sensible,” agreed my husband. “Russian roulette lacks appeal. Jake, do you have any guess as to what options you shut off?” “Better than a guess, Zeb. It reduces the number of universes accessible to us on this axis from the sixth power of six-to-the-sixth-power to a mere six to the sixth power. Forty-six thousand, six hundred, fifty-six.” “Gee, that’s tough!” “I didn’t mean it as a joke, Zeb.” “Jake, I was laughing at me. I’ve been looking forward to a lifetime exploring universes – and now I learn that I’m limited to a fiddlin’ forty-six thousand and some. Suppose I have a half century of exploration left in me. Assume that I take off no time for eating, sleeping, or teasing the cat, how much time can I spend in each universe?” “About nine hours twenty minutes per universe,” I told him. “Nine hours, twenty-three minutes, thirty-eight point seven-two-two seconds, plus, to be more nearly accurate.” “Deety, let’s do be accurate,” Zebadiah said solemnly. “If we stayed a minute too long in each universe, we would miss nearly a hundred universes.” I was getting into the spirit. “Let’s hurry instead. If we work at it, we can do three universes a day for fifty years – one of us on watch, one on standby, two off duty – and still squeeze in maintenance, plus a few hours on the ground, once a year. If we hurry.” “We haven’t a second to lose!” Zebadiah answered. “All hands! – places! Stand by to lift! Move!” I was startled but hurried to my seat. Pop’s chin dropped but he took his place. Aunt Hilda hesitated a split second before diving for her seat, but, as she strapped herself in, wailed, “Captain? Are we really leaving Barsoom?” “Quiet, please. Gay Deceiver, close doors! Report seat belts. Copilot, check starboard door seal.” “Seat belt fastened,” I reported with no expression. “Mine’s fastened. Oh, dear!” “Copilot, by low range, ‘H’ axis upward, minimum transition.” “Set, Captain.” “Execute.” Sky outside was dark, the ground far below. “Ten klicks exactly,” my husband approved. “Astrogator, take the conn, test your new program. Science Officer observe.” “Yessir. Gay Deceiver – Bug Out!” We were parked on the ground. “Science Officer – report,” Zebadiah ordered. “Report what?” Aunt Hilda demanded. “We tested a new program. Did it pass test?” “Uh, we seem to be back where we were. We were weightless maybe ten seconds. I guess the test was okay, Except -“ “‘Except’ what?” “Captain Zebbie, you’re the worst tease on Earth! And Barsoom! You did so put lime Jello in my pool!” “I was in Africa.” “Then you arranged it!” “Hilda – please! I never said we were leaving Barsoom. I said that we haven’t a second to waste. We don’t, with so much to explore.” “Excuses. What about my clothes? All on the starboard wing. Where are they now? Floating up in the stratosphere? Coming down where? I’ll never find them.” “I thought you preferred to dress Barsoomian style?” “Doesn’t mean I want to be forced to! Besides, Deety lent them to me. I’m sorry, Deety.” I patted her hand. “‘S’all right, Aunt Hilda. I’ll lend you more. Give them, I mean.” I hesitated, then said firmly, “Zebadiah, you should apologize to Aunt Hilda.” “Oh, for the love of – Sharpie? Sharpie darling.” “Yes, Zebbie?” “I’m sorry I let you think that we were leaving Barsoom. I’ll buy you clothes that fit. We’ll make a quick trip back to Earth -“ “Don’t want to go back to Earth! Aliens! They scare me.” “They scare me, too. I started to say: ‘Earth-without-a-J.’ It’s so much like our own that I can probably use U.S. money. If not, I have gold. Or I can barter. For you, Sharpie, I’ll steal clothes. We’ll go to Phoenix-without-a-J – tomorrow – today we take a walk and see some of this planet – your planet – and we’ll stay on your planet until you get tired of it. Is that enough? Or must I confess putting Jello into your pool when I didn’t?” “You really didn’t?” “Cross my heart.” “Be darned. Actually I thought it was funny. I wonder who did it? Aliens, maybe?” “They play rougher than that. Sharpie darling, I’m not the only weirdo in your stable – not by dozens.” “Guess maybe. Zebbie? Will you kiss Sharpie and make up?”
On the ground, under the starboard wing, we found our travel clothes, and under the port wing, those of our husbands. Zebadiah looked bemused. “Jake? I thought Hilda was right. It had slipped my mind that we had clothing on the wings.” “Use your head, Son.” “I’m not sure I have one.” “I don’t understand it either, darling,” Aunt Hilda added. “Daughter?” Pop said. “Pop, I think I know. But – I pass!” “Zeb, the car never moved. Instead -“ Aunt Hilda interrupted, “Jacob, are you saying that we did not go straight up? We were there – five minutes ago.” “Yes, my darling. But we didn’t move there. Motion has a definable meaning: A duration of changing locations. But no duration was involved. We did not successively occupy loci between here-then and there-then.” Aunt Hilda shook her head. “I don’t understand. We went whoosh! up into the sky… then whoosh! back where we started.” “My darling, we didn’t whoosh! Deety! Don’t be reticent.” I sighed. “Pop, I’m not sure there exists a symbol for the referent. Aunt Hilda. Zebadiah. A discontinuity. The car -“ “Got it!” said Zebadiah. “I didn’t,” Aunt Hilda persisted. “Like this, Sharpie,” my husband went on. “My car is here. Spung! – it vanishes. Our clothes fall to the ground. Ten seconds later – flip! – we’re back where we started. But our clothes are on the ground. Get it now?” “I – I guess so. Yes.” “I’m glad you do… because I don’t. To me, it’s magic.” Zebadiah shrugged. “‘Magic.'” “‘Magic’,” I stated, “is a symbol for any process not understood.” “That’s what I said, Deety. ‘Magic.’ Jake, would it have mattered if the car had been indoors?” “Well… that fretted me the first time Deety and I translated to Earth-without-the-letter-J. So I moved our car outdoors. But now I think that only the destination matters. It should be empty – I think. But I’m too timid to experiment.” “Might be interesting. Unmanned vehicle. Worthless target. A small asteroid. A baby sun?” “I don’t know, Zeb. Nor do I have apparatus to spare. It took me three years to build this one.” “So we wait a few years. Jake? Air has mass.” “That worried me also. But any mass, other than degenerate mass, is mostly empty space. Air – Earth sea-level air – has about a thousandth the density of the human body. The body is mostly water and water accepts air readily. I can’t say that it has no effect – twice I’ve thought that my temperature went up a trifle at transition or translation in atmosphere but it could have been excitement. I’ve never experienced caisson disease from it. Has any of us felt discomfort?” “Not me, Jake.” “I’ve felt all right, Pop,” I agreed. “I got space sick. Till Deety cured it,” Aunt Hilda added. “So did I, my darling. But that was into vacuo and could not involve the phenomenon.” “Pop,” I said earnestly, “we weren’t hurt; we don’t have to know why. A basic proposition of epistemology, bedrock both for the three basic statements of semantics and for information theory, is that an observed fact requires no proof. It simply is, self-demonstrating. Let philosophers worry about it; they haven’t anything better to do.” “Suits me!” agreed Hilda. “You big brains had Sharpie panting. I thought we were going to take a walk?” “We are, dear,” agreed my husband. “Right after those steaks.”
Chapter XVIII
” – the whole world is alive.”
Zebadiah: Four Dagwoods later we were ready to start walkabout. Deety delayed by wanting to repeat her test by remote control. I put my foot down. “No!” “Why not, my Captain? I’ve taught Gay a program to take her straight up ten klicks. It’s G, A, Y, B, O, U, N, C, E – a new fast-escape with no execution word necessary. Then I’ll recall her by B, U, G, O, U, T. If one works via walky-talky, so will the second. It can save our lives, it can!” “Uh – ” I went on folding tarps and stowing my sleeping bag. The female mind is too fast for me. I often can reach the same conclusion; a woman gets there first and never by the route I have to follow. Besides that, Deety is a genius. “You were saying, my Captain?” “I was thinking. Deety, do it with me aboard. I won’t touch the controls. Check pilot, nothing more.” “Then it won’t be a test.” “Yes, it will. I promise, Cub Scout honor, to let it fall sixty seconds. Or to three klicks H-above-G, whichever comes first.” “These walky-talkies have more range than ten kilometers even between themselves. Gay’s reception is much better.” “Deety, you trust machinery; I don’t. If Gay doesn’t pick up your second command – sun spots, interference, open circuit, anything – I’ll keep her from crashing.” “But if something else goes wrong and you did crash, I would have killed you!” She started to cry. So we compromised. Her way. The exact test she had originally proposed. I wasted juice by roading Gay Deceiver a hundred meters, got out, and we all backed off. Deety said into her walky-talky, “Gay Deceiver… Bug Out!” It’s more startling to watch than it is to be inside. There was Gay Deceiver off to our right, then she was off to our left. No noise – not even an implosion splat! Magic. “Well, Deety? Are you satisfied?” “Yes, Zebadiah. Thank you, darling. But it had to be a real test. You see that – don’t you?” I agreed, while harboring a suspicion that my test had been more stringent. “Deety, could you reverse that? Go somewhere else and tell Gay to come to you?” “Somewhere she’s never been?” “Yes.” Deety switched off her walky-talky and made sure that mine was off. “I don’t want her to hear this. Zebadiah, I always feel animistic about a computer. The Pathetic Fallacy – I know. But Gay is a person to me.” Deety sighed. “I know it’s a machine. It doesn’t have ears; it can’t see; it doesn’t have a concept of space-time. What it can do is manipulate circuitry in complex ways – complexities limited by its grammar and vocabulary. But those limits are exact. If I don’t stay precisely with its grammar and vocabulary, it reports ‘Null program.’ I can tell it anything by radio that I can tell it by voice inside the cabin – and so can you. But I can’t tell it to come look for me in a meadow beyond a canyon about twelve or thirteen klicks approximately southwest of here-now. That’s a null program – five undefined terms.” “Because you made it null. You fed ‘garbage in’ and expect me to be surprised at ‘garbage out’ – when you did it a-purpose.” “I did not either, I didn’t!” I kissed the end of her nose. “Deety darling, you should trust your instincts. Here’s one way to tell Gay to do that without defining even one new term into her vocabulary. Tell her to expect a three-part program. First part: bounce one minimum, ten klicks. Second part: transit twelve point five klicks true course two-two-five. Third part: drop to one klick H-over-G and hover. At that point, if what you described as your location is roughly correct, you will see her and can coach her to a landing without using Jake’s twister.” “Uh… twelve and a half kilometers can’t be done in units of ten kilometers. Powered flight?” “Waste juice? Hon, you just flunked high school geometry. Using Euclid’s tools, compass and straight edge, lay out that course and distance, then lay out how to get there in ten-klick units – no fractions.” My wife stared. Then her eyes cleared. “Transit one minimum true course one-seven-three and two thirds, then transit one minimum true course two-seven-six and one third. The mirror image solution uses the same courses in reverse. Plus endless trivial solutions using more than two minima.” “Go to the head of the class. If you don’t spot her, have her do a retreating search curve – in her perms, in an Aussie accent. Honey girl, did you actually do that Euclid style?” “I approximated it Euclid style – but you didn’t supply compass and straight edge! Scribe circle radius twelve point five. Bisect circle horizontally by straight edge through origin; quarter it by dropping a vertical. Bisect lower left quadrant – that gives true course two-two-five or southwest. Then set compass at ten units and scribe arcs from origin and from southwest point of circle; the intersections give courses and vertices for both major roots to the accuracy of your straight edge and compass. But simply to visualize that construction – well, I got visualized angles of two-seven-five and one-seven-five. Pretty sloppy. “So I did it accurately by Pythagorean proposition by splitting the isosceles triangle into two right triangles. Hypotenuse is ten, one side is six and a quarter – and that gives the missing side as seven point eight-zero-six-two-four-seven plus – which gives you one course and you read off the other by the scandalous Fifth Axiom. But I did check by trig. Arc sine point seven-eight-zero-six-two-four-seven – “ “Hold it! I believe you. What other ways can you program Gay to find you, using her present vocabulary?” “Uh… burn juice?” “If necessary.” “I would have her bounce a minimum, then maximize my signal. Home on me.” “Certainly. Now do the same thing without using juice. Just Jake’s twister.” Deety looked thoughtful and about twelve years old, then suddenly said, “‘Drunkard’s Walk’!” – added at once, “But I would place a locus around the Walk just large enough to be certain that I’m inside it. Gay should plot signal level at each vertex. Such a plot would pinpoint the signal source.” “Which way is faster? Home straight in under power? Or Drunkard’s Walk?” Deety answered, “Why, the – ” – looked startled. “Those are solid-state relays.” “Jake sets verniers by hand – but when Gay is directing herself there are no moving parts. Solid state.” “Zebadiah, am I thinking straight? Using power, at that distance – call it twelve kilometers – Gay should be able to home on me in three or four minutes. But – Zebadiah, this can’t be right! – using no power and relying on random numbers and pure chance in a Drunkard’s Walk, Gay should find me in less than a second. Where did I go wrong?” “On the high side, Deety girl. Lost your nerve. The first fifty milliseconds should show the hot spot; in less than the second fifty she’ll part your hair. All over in a tenth of a second – or less. But, honey, we still haven’t talked about the best way. I said that you should trust your instincts. Gay is not an ‘it.’ She’s a person. You’ll never know how relieved I was when it turned out that you two were going to be friends. If she had been jealous of you – May the gods deliver us from a vindictive machine! But she’s not; she thinks you’re swell.” “Zebadiah, you believe that?” “Dejah Thoris, I know that.” Deety looked relieved. “I know it, too – despite what I said earlier.” “Deety, to me the whole world is alive. Some parts are sleeping and some are dozing and some are awake but yawning… and some are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and always ready to go. Gay is one of those.” “Yes, she is. I’m sorry I called her an ‘it.’ But what is this ‘best way’?” “Isn’t it obvious? Don’t tell her how – just tell her. Say to her, ‘Gay, come find me!’ All four words are in her vocabulary; the sentence is compatible with her grammar. She’ll find you.” “But how? Drunkard’s Walk?” “A tenth of a second might strike her as too long – she likes you, hon. She’ll look through her registers and pick the optimum solution. She might not be able to tell you how she did it, since she wipes anything she’s not told to remember. I think she does; I’ve never been certain.”
Jake and Hilda had wandered off while Deety and I had been talking. They had turned back, so we started toward them. Sharpie called out, “Zebbie, what happened to that hike?” “Right away,” I agreed. “Jake, we have about three hours. We ought to be buttoned up before sundown. Check?” “I agree. The temperature will drop rapidly at sundown.” “Yup. We can’t do real exploring today. So let’s treat it as drill. Fully armed, patrol formation, radio discipline, and always alert, as if there were a ‘Black Hat’ behind every bush.” “No bushes,” objected Hilda. I pretended not to hear. “But what constitutes ‘fully armed,’ Jake? We each have rifles. You have that oldstyle Army automatic that will knock down anything if you’re close enough but – how good a shot are you?” “Good enough.” “How good is ‘Good enough’?” (Most people are as accurate with a baseball as with a pistol.) “Skipper, I won’t attempt a target more than fifty meters away. But if I intend to hit, the target will be within range and I will hit it.” I opened my mouth… closed it. Fifty meters is a long range for that weapon. But hint that my father-in-law was boasting? Deety caught my hesitation. “Zebadiah – Pop taught me pistol in the campus R.O.T.C. range. I’ve seen him practice bobbing targets at thirty meters. I saw him miss one. Once.” Jake harrumphed. “My daughter omitted to mention that I skip most surprise targets.” “Father! ‘Most’ means ‘more than fifty percent.’ Not true!” “Near enough.” “Six occasions. Four strings, twenty-eight targets on three -“ “Hold it, honey! Jake, it’s silly to argue figures with your daughter. With my police special I won’t attempt anything over twenty meters – except covering fire. But I hand-load my ammo and pour my own dumdums; the result is almost as lethal as that howitzer of yours. But if it comes to trouble, or hunting for meat, we’ll use rifles, backed by Deety’s shotgun. Deety, can you shoot?” “Throw your hat into the air.” “I don’t like the sound of that. Sharpie, we have five firearms, four people – is there one that fits you?” “Cap’n Zebbie, the one time I fired a gun, I went backwards, the bullet went that-a-way, and I had a sore shoulder. Better have me walk in front to trip land mines.” “Zebadiah, she could carry my fléchette gun.” “Sharpie, we’ll put you in the middle and you carry the first-aid kit; you’re medical officer – armed with Deety’s purse gun for defense. Jake, it’s time we stowed these swords and quit pretending to be Barsoomian warriors. Field boots. I’m going to wear that same sweaty pilot suit, about equivalent to jump suits you and Deety wore – which I suggest you wear now. We should carry water canteens and iron rations. I can’t think of anything that would serve as a canteen. Damn! Jake, we aren’t doing this by the book.” “What book?” demanded Hilda. “Those romances about interstellar exploration. There’s always a giant mother ship in orbit, loaded with everything from catheters to Coca-Cola, and scouting is by landing craft, in touch with the mother ship. Somehow, we aren’t doing it that way.” (All the more reason to conduct drill as realistically as possible. Jake or I, one of us, is honor bound to stay alive to take care of two women and unborn children; exterminating ‘Black-Hat’ vermin holds a poor second to that.) “Zebbie, why are you staring at me?” I hadn’t known that I was. “Trying to figure how to dress you, dear. Sharpie, you look cute in jewelry and perfume. But it’s not enough for a sortie in the bush. Take ’em off and put ’em away. You, too, Deety. Deety, do you have another jump suit that can be pinned up or stitched up for Hilda?” “A something, sure. But it would take hours to do a good job. My sewing kit isn’t much.” “‘Hours’ will have to be another day. Today we’ll make do with safety pins. But take time to do a careful job of padding her feet into your stoutest shoes. Confound it, she should have field boots. Sharpie, remind me when we make that shopping trip to Earth-without-a-J.” “To hear is to obey, Exalted One. Is it permitted to make a parliamentary inquiry?” She startled me. “Hilda, what did I do to cause that frosty tone?” “It was what you didn’t do.” Suddenly she smiled, reached high and patted my cheek. “You mean well, Zebbie. But you slipped. While Gay Deceiver is on the ground, we’re equal. But you’ve been giving orders right and left.” I started to answer; Jake cut in. “Hilda my love, for a scouting expedition the situation becomes equivalent to a craft in motion. Again we require a captain.” Sharpie turned toward her husband. “Conceded, sir. But may I point out that we are not yet on that hike? Zebbie has consulted you; he has not consulted Deety and me. He asked us for information – darned seldom! Aside from that he has simply laid down the law. What are we, Zebbie? Poor little female critters whose opinions are worthless?” Caught with your hand in the cooky jar, throw yourself on the mercy of the court. “Sharpie, you’re right and I’m dead wrong. But before you pass sentence I claim extenuating circumstances: Youth and inexperience, plus long and faithful service.” “You can’t,” put in my helpful wife. “You can plead one or the other but not both. They can’t overlap.” Sharpie stood on tiptoes and kissed my chin. “In Zebbie’s case they do overlap. Do you still want to know what to use as water canteens?” “Certainly!” “Then why didn’t you ask?” “But I did!” “No, Cap’n Zebbie; you did not ask and did not even give us time to volunteer the answer.” “I’m sorry, Hilda. Too many things on my mind.” “I know, dear; Sharpie does not mean to scold. But I had to get your attention.” “That baseball bat?” “Almost. For an ersatz canteen – A hot-water bottle?” Again she startled me. “In the danger we were in when we left, you worried about cold feet in bed? And packed a hot-water bottle?” “Two,” answered Deety. “Aunt Hilda fetched one. So did I.” “Deety, you don’t have cold feet and neither do I.” Sharpie said, “Deety, is he actually that naïve?” “I’m afraid he is, Aunt Hilda. But he’s sweet.” “And brave,” added Hilda. “But retarded in spots. They do overlap in Zebbie’s case. He’s unique.” “What,” I demanded, “are you talking about?” “Aunt Hilda means that, when you refitted Gay, you neglected to install a bidet.” “Oh.” That was the wittiest I could manage. “It’s not a subject I give much thought to.” “No reason you should, Zebbie. Although men use them, too.” “Zebadiah does. Pop, too. Bidets, I mean. Not hot-water bottles.” “I meant hot-water bottles, dear. As medical officer I may find it necessary to administer an enema to the Captain.” “Oh, no!” I objected. “You’re not equipped.” “But she is, Zebadiah. We fetched both sorts of nozzles.” “But you didn’t fetch four husky orderlies to hold me down. Let’s move on. Sharpie, what was the advice you would have given if I had been bright enough to consult you?” “Some is not advice but a statement of fact. I’m not going for a hike on a hot day swaddled in a pinned-up jump suit eight sizes too big. While you all play Cowboys-and-Indians, I’m going to curl up in my seat and read ‘The Oxford Book of English Verse.’ Thank you for fetching it, Jacob.” “Hilda beloved, I will worry.” “No need to worry about me, Jacob. I can always tell Gay to lock her doors. But, were I to go with you, I would be a handicap. You three are trained to fight; I’m not.” Sharpie turned toward me. “Captain, since I’m not going, that’s all I have to say.” What was there for me to say? “Thank you, Hilda. Deety, do you have things on your mind?” “Yes, sir. I go along with field boots and jump suits and so forth even though they’ll be beastly hot. But I wish you would change your mind about your sword and Pop’s saber. Maybe they aren’t much compared with rifles but they’re good for my morale.” Hilda interjected, “Had I decided to go, Captain, I would have said the same. Possibly it is an emotional effect from what happened, uh – was it only yesterday? – but perhaps it is subconscious logic. Just yesterday bare blades defeated a man – a thing, an alien – armed with a firearm and ready to use it.” Jake spoke up. “Captain, I didn’t want to take off my saber.” “We’ll wear them.” Any excuse is a good excuse to wear a sword. “Are we through? We’ve lost an hour and the Sun is dropping. Deety?” “One more thing, Zebadiah – and I expect to be outvoted. I say to cancel the hike.” “So? Princess, you’ve said too much or not enough.” “If we do this, we spend the night here – sitting up. If we chase the Sun instead – There were lights on the night side that looked like cities. There was blue on the day side that looked like a sea. I think I saw canals. But whether we find something or not, at worst we’ll catch up with sunrise and be able to sleep outdoors in daylight, just as we did today.” “Deety! Gay can overtake the Sun. Once. You want to use all her remaining juice just to sleep outdoors?” “Zebadiah, I wasn’t planning on using any power.” “Huh? It sounded like it.” “Oh, no! Do transitions of three minima or more, bearing west. Aim us out of the atmosphere; we fall back in while looking for places of interest. As we reenter, we glide, but where depends on what you want to look at. When you have stretched the glide to the limit, unless you decide to ground, you do another transition. There is great flexibility, Zebadiah. You can reach sunrise line in the next few minutes. Or you could elect to stay on the day side for weeks, never land, never use any juice, and inspect the entire planet from pole to pole.” “Maybe Gay can stay up for weeks – but not me. I’m good for several more hours. With that limitation, it sounds good, How about it? Hilda? Jake?” “You mean that female suffrage is permanent? I vote Yes!” Jake said, “You have a majority; no need for a male vote.” “Jacob!” his wife said reproachfully. “Joking, my dear. It’s unanimous.” I said, “Somebody just cancelled the election. Look there.” We all looked. Deety said, “What is it? A pterodactyl?” “No, an ornithopter. A big one.”
PART TWO – The Butterfly’s Mandarin
Chapter XIX
Something is gained in translation –
Hilda: Jacob tightened his arm around me. “Zeb,” he said softly, “I don’t believe it.” He was staring (we all were) at this mechaniwockle pteranodon coming at us over the hills in the west. “Neither do I,” Zebbie answered. “Wrong wing loading. Impossible articulation. There’s a second one. A third! All hands! Grab your clothes! Man the ship! Prepare to lift! Move! Jake, unbuckle your saber and into your jump suit, fast!” Cap’n Zebbie was unhooking his sword belt and grabbing his coveralls as he yelped. I was inside first as I didn’t stop to dress – grabbed Deety’s baby shoes with one hand, my dress and panties with the other. I wiggled into panties, slid the dress over my head, slipped on Deety’s Keds. I anticipated the order to fasten seat belts – stopped suddenly and eased my belt. I had not stopped to take off the doodads that proclaimed me a Barsoomian “princess.” Now it seemed that every item of frippery was about to imprint me for life. Deety was cursing softly over the same problem. Deety’s jump suit was harder to reach into, even when she unbelted and opened the zipper all the way. I helped readjust the hardware but cautioned her not to remove it and to close the zipper clear to her chin. “Deety, if you get holes in your hide, you’ll get well. But if something loose catches our captain in the eye, the culprit will be broken on the wheel.” I clucked-clucked at her answer but big ones do get in the way. Meanwhile our men were having problems. That space under the instrument board could not be seen by a full-sized male. The best position to reach it was impossible for Jacob, ridiculously impossible for Zebbie. Zebbie’s profanity was louder than Deety’s but not as colorful. My own darling was keeping quiet which meant that he was really in trouble. I said, “Gentlemen -“ Zebbie grunted, “Shut up, Sharpie; we’ve got problems! Deety! How did you get these toadstickers into this compartment?” “I didn’t. Aunt Hilda did.” “Sharpie, can I apologize later? Those Martians are circling us now!” So they were, at least a dozen flapping monstrosities. One appeared about to ground. “Captain, I’ll do it – but there is a faster way.” “How?” “Unhook your scabbards, put on your sword belts. Saber and sword in scabbards fit easily if you point one right, the other left. They will rattle unless you stuff clothing around them.” “They can bloody well rattle!” In seconds, our gallants had blades and scabbards stowed. As Cap’n Zebbie resumed sword belt and started on his seat belt he called out, “Fasten belts, prepare to lift! Sharpie, have I told you today that in addition to loving you, I admire you?” “I think not, Captain.” “I do. Enormously. Report! Science Officer?” “Seat belt fastened. Thank you, Zebbie.” “Seat belt fastened,” reported Deety. “Bulkhead door dogged.” “Seat belt fastened, starboard door seal checked, copilot ready, sir!” “Port door seal checked, pilot strapped down; we’re ready – and none too soon! One has grounded and somebody is getting out. Hey! They’re human!” “Or disguised aliens,” said my darling. “Well… yes, there’s that. I may lift any second. Deety – that new program: Just G, A, Y, B, O, U, N, C, E? No ‘do-it’ word?” “Check.” “Good. I won’t use it unless forced to. This may be that ‘first contact’ the world has been expecting.” “Cap’n Zebbie, why would aliens disguise themselves when they outnumber us? I think they are human.” “I hope you’re right. Copilot, should I open the door? Advice, please.” “Captain, you can open the door anytime. But if it is open, it takes a few seconds to close it and the ship won’t lift with a door open.” “Too right. Gay Deceiver.” “Hi, Boss. Where did you pick up the tarts?” “Gay, check and report.” “All circuits checked, all systems go, juice point seven-eight – and I’m in the mood.” “Cast loose L-gun. Prepare to burn.” “Done!” “Captain,” my husband said worriedly, “are you planning to blast them?” “I hope not. I’d rather run than fight. I’d rather stay and get help than either. But they grounded where I can burn them – using offset.” “Captain, don’t do it!” “Copilot, I don’t plan to. Now drop it!” The grounded flappy bird was about two hundred meters and a few degrees left of dead ahead. Two men – they looked like men – had disembarked and headed toward us. They were dressed alike – uniforms? They seemed vaguely familiar – but all uniforms seem vaguely familiar, do they not? They were less than a hundred meters from us. Cap’n Zebbie did something at his instrument board and suddenly their voices were inside, blastingly loud. He adjusted the setting and we could hear clearly. Zebbie said, “That’s Russian! Isn’t it, Jake?” “Captain, I think so. A Slavic language, in any case.” Jacob added, “Do you understand it?” “Me? Jake, I said that I can swear in Russian; I didn’t say I could speak it. I can say ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ and ‘da’ and ‘nyet’ – maybe six more. How about you?” “I can puzzle out a paper about mathematics with the aid of a dictionary. But speak it? Understand it? No.” I tried to remember whether or not I had ever told Zebbie that I know Russian. My husband and Deety I had not told. Well, if Zebbie knew, he would call on me. It is not something I mention as it does not fit my persona. I started it out of curiosity; I wanted to read those great Russian novelists – Dostoievsky, Tolstoy, and so forth – in the original in order to find out why they were so celebrated. Why I had never been able to read one of those classic novels all the way through? (They had cured me of sleeping pills.) So I set out to learn Russian. Soon I was wearing earphones to bed, listening to Russian in my sleep, working with a tutor in the daytime. I never mastered a good accent; those six-consonants-in-a-row words tie knots in my tongue. But one cannot read a language easily unless one can “hear” the words. So I learned the spoken language along with the written. (Oh, yes, those “classic novels”: Having invested so much effort I carried out my purpose: War and Peace, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, and so forth. Would you believe it? Something is gained in translation; the originals are even more depressing and soporific than translations. I’m not sure what purpose Russian fiction has, but it can’t be entertainment.) I decided to wait. I was not eager to be interpreter and it would not be necessary if it turned out that Zebbie or Jacob had a language in common with our visitors – and I rationalized my decision by telling myself that it might turn out to be an advantage if the strangers thought that no one of us understood Russian. (At that point I realized that I had been thinking in Russian. It’s a wonderful language for paranoid thoughts.) When Zebbie switched on the outside mikes, the older was telling the Younger: ” – not let Fyodor Ivanovitch get wind of such thoughts, Yevgeny. He does not believe that (no good? stupid?) Britishers can excel us in anything. So don’t refer to that curious craft as ‘advanced engineering.’ A ‘weird assemblage of poorly organized experiments’ would be better.” “I will remember. Shall I loosen my holster and take off the safety? To guard you, sir?” The older man laughed. “You haven’t dealt with the damned British as long as I have. Never let them suspect that you are even mildly nervous. And always be sure to insult him first. Bear in mind that the lowliest serf in Ykraina is better than their so-called King-Emperor. That serf -“when Zebbie interrupted: “Arrêtez-là!” The younger hesitated but the older never broke stride. Instead he answered in French: “You are telling me to halt, you British swine? An officer of the Tsar on Russian soil! I spit on your mother. And your father if your mother can remember who he was. Why are you speaking French, you soiled British spy? You fool no one. Speak Russian – or, if you are uncultured, speak English.” Zebbie thumbed a button. “What about it, Jake? Switch to English when he’s so hipped on the subject of Englishmen? Or bull it through in French? My accent is better than his.” “Maybe you can get away with it, Captain. I can’t.” Zebbie nodded and opened the mike, spoke in English: “We are not British, not spies. We are American tourists and -“ “‘American’? What nonsense is this?” (He had shifted to English.) “A British colonial is still British – and a spy.” My husband reached over, shut off the microphone. “Captain, I advise lifting. He won’t listen to reason.” “Copilot, not till I must. We don’t even have enough water. I must try to parley.” Zebbie thumbed the switch. “I am not a British colonial. I am Zeb Carter of California, a citizen of the United States of America; I have my passport. If we have trespassed, we regret it and apologize.” “Spy, that is the most bold-faced bluff I have ever heard. There is no such country as the United States of America. I am placing you under arrest. In the name of His Imperial Majesty the Tsar of All the Russias, by authority delegated to me by His Viceroy for New Russia Grand Duke Fyodor Ivanovitch Romanov, I arrest you and your party for the crime of espionage. Open up!” By now they had reached Gay Deceiver and were at the portside door. Zebbie answered, “You haven’t told me your name, much less identified yourself as a Russian officer. Or shown any authority over what is clearly unoccupied land.” “What? Preposterous! I am Colonel the Count Morinosky of Novy Kiev, of the Viceroy’s Imperial Guard. As for my authority, look at the sky around you!” The self-proclaimed colonel drew his pistol, reversed it, and used the butt to pound on the door. “‘Open up!’ I said.” Zebbie has good temper and calm judgment. Both are likely to slip if anyone abuses Gay Deceiver. He said softly, “Colonel, your craft on the ground ahead – is there anyone in it?” “Eh? Of course not. It’s a two-seater, as anyone can see. My private scoutabout. Never mind that. Keep quiet and open up.” Zebbie again switched off his microphone. “Gay Deceiver, at command ‘Execute’ burn one tenth of a second at point of aim, intensity four.” “Gotcha, Boss.” “Colonel, how can you take four prisoners in a two-seater?” “Simple. You and I will ride in your vehicle. The other members of your party will be hostage for your good behavior and will ride where assigned. You won’t see which craft lest you get foolish ideas. My pilot will fly my craft.” “Execute.” The grounded ornithopter began to burn fiercely – but the colonel did not see it. We saw it – but he was looking at Zebbie. Zebbie said, “Colonel, please stand clear of the door so that I can open it.” “Oh. Very well.” “Colonel! Look!” The younger officer, in stepping back, caught sight of the fire – and I have rarely heard such anguish. Or, an instant later in the colonel’s face, such astonishment switching to rage. He attempted to shoot Zebbie – with his hand still gripping the barrel of his pistol. In a moment he realized what he was doing and flipped it to catch it by the grip. I never saw whether or not he made the catch; Cap’n Zebbie commanded, “Gay Bounce!” and the scene blacked out while the colonel’s hand was open for the catch. Zebbie was saying, “Jake, I lost my temper. I should not have done it; it ruined our last chance to deal with those Russians. But I hope it taught the ruddy snarf not to go around hammering dents into other people’s cars.” “Captain, you did not ruin our ‘last chance’; we never had one. You ran into classic Russian xenophobia. The Commies didn’t invent that attitude; it goes back at least a thousand years. Read your history.” Jacob added, “I’m not sorry you burned his kite. I wish he had to walk home. Regrettably one of his craft will pick him up.” “Jake, if I could afford to – in juice, in time – I would go back and keep him from being picked up. Harry them, not let them land. I won’t. Hmm – Shall we fall a bit farther and see what they are doing? Before we get on with our interrupted schedule?” “Uh… Captain, may I have a Bonine pill?” I squealed, “Me, too!” “Deety, take care of ’em. I’ll put her in dive and we’ll look.” “Captain, why not use the B, U, G, program?” “Deety, somebody might be on that spot. Wups! I’m biting air.” Cap’n Zebbie leaned us over, placed Barsoom – I mean “Mars” – Mars-10 or whatever-dead ahead. “Should spot flappy birds in few minutes. Jake, how about binoculars?” Zebbie didn’t want them himself while piloting. We passed them around and I spotted an ornithopter, then two more, and passed the glasses to Deety. “Zebadiah, there is no one where we were parked.” “You’re certain?” “Yessir. The colonel’s scoutabout is stifl burning; there are people near it, nowhere else. That’s why I’m certain there is no one where we were. B, U, G, O, U, T is safe.” Zebbie was slow to answer. “How about it, folks? It would be an unnecessary risk. Just one squawk and I’ll skip it.” I kept quiet and hoped the others would, too. I don’t worry; I’m going to live as long as Atropos permits – meanwhile I intend to enjoy every minute. Zebbie waited, then said, “Here we go. Gay – Bug Out!”
Chapter XX
right theory, wrong universe.
Zeb: Deety is going to force me to look like a hero because I don’t have the guts to let her down. I thought my copilot would veto going back to the scene of the crime; Jake is level-headed about safety precautions. I didn’t count on Sharpie; she’s unpredictable. But I thought Jake would object. He didn’t. I waited until I was certain that no one was going to get me off the spot… then waited some more… then said sadly, “Here we go,” and told Gay to “BUG OUT!” I expected to be a mushroom cloud. Instead we were parked where we had been and the colonel’s craft was burning briskly. (Someday I am going to run that experiment: a transition to attempt to cause two masses to occupy the same space. But I won’t be part of the experiment. The Bug-Out program scared me, and I liked the Take-Us-Home program a lot better after we made it two klicks H-above-G instead of parked. Could the Bug-Out program be modified so that Gay sneaked up on her target, checked it by radar, before accepting it? Take it up with Deety, Zeb – stick to what you know!) The Russians appeared to be slow to notice our return. One ornithopter had grounded not far from the fire; there were several bystanders. I could not see whether or not my erstwhile arresting officer, Colonel Somethingsky, was in the group. I assumed that he was. Then I was sure: A figure broke loose and headed toward us, waving a pistol. I said briskly, “Shipmates, is there any reason to hang around?” I waited a short beat. “Hearing no objection – Gay Bounce!” That black sky looked good. I wondered how Bumpsky was going to explain to the Grand Duke. Brass Hats are notoriously reluctant to believe unlikely stories. “Did I bounce too quickly? Have you all seen what you wanted to see?” Only Deety answered. “I was checking that program. I think I see a way to avoid two masses conflicting.” “Keep talking.” “Gay could sneak up on the target, inspect it by radar, accept it and ground, or refuse it and bounce – with no loss of time and with the same execute code. That spot could be knee-deep in Russians and Gay would simply whoosh us to where we are now.” (I said to leave it to Deety. You heard me.) “Good idea. Do it. Can’t have too many fail-safes.” “I’ll reprogram when we stop.” “Correction. I want that fail-safe programmed now. I might need your revised program any moment.” “Aye, aye, Captain.” “‘Captain darling,’ if you please. If you must call me ‘Captain.’ Then review all preprograms and debug them, if necessary, with analogous fail-safes. And any new ones in the future. Now – Just put her into glide, headed west, and transit three minima?” “Or more. Or less. I thought that a spot check every thirty kilometers would be about right for a rapid survey.” “What altitude will we wind up? Assuming I simply aim her at the horizon and transit tangent to the curve.” “Oh. What altitude do you want, Captain – Captain darling? A tangent does little in three minima, just a touch over a hundred meters. Is ten kilometers about right?” “Ten klicks is fine. I could aim at the horizon, make transition, then at once give the B, O, U, N, C, E order.” “So you could, Zebadiah, but if you will use the horizon as reference and aim eighteen and a half degrees above it – Will your gunsight depress that far?” “No, but I’ll tell Gay. No problem.” “Three minima on that upward slant will place you ten klicks H-above-G and a couple of klicks short of three minima on the curve.” “Plus my present altitude.” “No, no! Visualize the triangle, Zebadiah. It makes no real difference whether you do this from ten klicks H-above-G, or parked on the ground. Do you want exact figures?” “You visualize triangles, Deety; that’s your department. I’ve got air bite now; I’m going to head west; I want to see where those ornithopters came from. Meantime work out that new fail-safe.” Did it really make no difference whether I started from ten thousand meters or right on deck? Didn’t I have to add in – No, of course not … but one way was sine and the other way was tan. But which one? Hell, it didn’t matter; Deety was right. She always is, on figures – but someday I’m going to work it carefully, on paper, with diagrams and tables. “Copilot.” “Captain.” “L axis, transit, three minima.” “Transition, L axis, thirty kilometers – set!” “Gay Deceiver.” “I’m not at home but you may record a message.” “Change attitude to climb eighteen point five degrees and report.” “Roger Wilco. Climbing. Ten. Twelve. Fourteen. Sixteen. Eighteen. Mark!” “Execute!” We were somewhere else with black sky. “Gay, vertical dive. Execute.” “No trouble, Clyde; enjoy the ride.” “Zebadiah, may I talk with Gay while you look over the terrain? To reprogram that fail-safe.” “Sure, go ahead. Jake, want to scan with binox while I eyeball it? I’ll warn before transition.” “Zebadiah, I could give her a scouting program, automatic. Skip the vernliers, skip the climb order; just an ‘execute’ code word. Place her on course… or I could include course.” “I’ll head her manually; the rest is swell – after that fail-safe. What’s the code word?” “‘Scout’?” “Good. Include the ‘execute’ idea in the code word. Deety, I’ve decided that I love you for your brain. Not those irrelevant physical attributes.” “Zebadiah, once I’ve had a bath you may change your mind. I’ve had a sudden attack of brain fever. You had better program her yourself.” “Mutiny again. I retract and apologize. You smell yummy and should marinate another week. It’s not your cortex or your character I love but your carcass – delectable! If it weren’t for these seat belts, it would be rape, rape, rape, all the way to the ground. Actually you’re sort o’ stupid-but what a chassis!” “That’s better. Although I’m not stupid.” “You married me. Res ipsa loquitur! Jake, are you spotting anything?” “Dry hills, Captain. Might as well move on.” “Zebadiah, will you place her in glide and hold a few minutes?” “Sure. See something you want to check?” “No, sir, But when we emerged here, we had seventy-three seconds to impact. We’ve used twenty-one seconds. I’d like a few moments to insert those preprograms.” I overrode manually and started Gay into a stretched glide while I extended her wings. Then I let Deety and Gay talk to each other. Deety had both changes fully worked out; not once did Gay answer, “Null program.” I was about to warn Deety that Gay was not a sailplane when she reported, “All done, Captain. For the ‘S’ program I added in an alarm for two klicks H-above-G.” “Good idea. So now I head west again and give her that ‘S’ code word – no ‘Execute’?” “Yessir. ‘Cept I’d like to try the revised B, U, G, O, U, T program. It has been less than four minutes since we left. Someone may be in that exact spot.” “Deety, I share your curiosity. But it’s like testing a parachute the hard way. Can’t we save it until we need it? Then, if there is a glitch, we’ll be dead so fast we’ll hardly notice it.” Deety said nothing. I waited, then said, “Comment, please.” “No comment, Captain.” Deety’s answer was toneless. “Hmm – Science Officer… comment, please.” “I have no comment to offer, Captain.” (A slight chill?) “Copilot, I require your advice.” “Uh, if the Captain please. Am I privileged to ask for written orders?” “Well, I’ll be dipped in – Gay Bounce! Is there such a thing as a ‘space lawyer’? Like ‘sea lawyer’? Jake, in general, anyone, save in the face of the enemy, may demand written orders… if he’ll risk his career to ‘perpetuate evidence for the court-martial he knows will follow. Did it myself once and saved my neck and cost my temporary boss fifty numbers – and I wound up senior to him and he resigned. “But a second-in-command is in a special position; it is his duty to advise his C.O., even if the C.O. doesn’t ask for advice. So I don’t see how you can demand written orders on a point already one of your duties. But I won’t make an issue of it. I’ll direct the Astrogator to log your request, then I can dictate my reply into the log. Then I am going to ground this go-buggy and turn command over to you. Maybe you’ll have more luck chairing this debating society than I have had. I wish you luck – you’ll need it!” “But, Captain, I did not ask for written orders.” “Eh?” I thought back. He hadn’t, quite. “It sounded as if you were about to.” “I was stalling. I must advise you to follow the prudent course. Unofficially, I prefer to risk the test. But I should not have stalled. I’m sorry that my intransigence caused you to consider relinquishing command.” “I didn’t just consider it; I have. Resignation effective the first time we ground. You’ve bought it, Jake.” “Captain -“ “Yes, Deety?” “You are correct; the test I suggested is useless, and could be fatal. I should not have asked for it. I’m sorry… sir.” “Me, too! I felt you were being too strict with Deety. But you weren’t; you were taking care of us, as you always do, Zebbie. Captain Zebbie. Of course you shouldn’t make a risky test we don’t need.” I said, “Anyone anything to add?” No one spoke up, so I added, “I’m heading west,” and did so. “Gay Deceiver – Bug Out!” Black sky above us; that “dead sea bottom” far below… I remarked, “Looks as if a Russian, or one of their flappy craft, is in our parking spot. Deety, your revised program worked perfectly.” “But, Zebadiah – why did you risk it?” She sounded terribly distressed. “Because all of you wanted to, despite what you said later. Because it’s my last chance to make such a decision.” I added, “Jake, I’m going to tilt her over. Grab the binox and see if you can identify where we were parked. If that fire is smoking, you can use it for reference.” “But, Captain, I’m not taking command. I won’t accept it.” “Pipe down and carry out your orders! It’s this damned yack-yack and endless argument that’s giving me ulcers. If you won’t accept command, then it’s up for grabs. But not me! Oh, I’ll pilot as the new C.O. orders. But I won’t command. Deety, how long did Gay pause to make that radar check? At what height?” “H-above-G was half a klick. Duration I don’t know but I can retrieve it. Darling – Captain! You’re not really going to quit commanding us?” “Deety, I don’t make threats. Pipe down and retrieve that duration. Jake, what do you see?” “I’ve located the fire. Several ornithopters are on the ground. My guess places one of them about where we were parked. Captain, I advise not dropping lower.” “Advice noted. Deety, how about that duration?” I didn’t know how to ask for it myself, not having written the program. Deety retrieved it smoothly: 0.071 seconds – call it a fifteenth of a second. Radar is not instantaneous; Gay had to stop and sweep that spot long enough for a “picture” to form in her gizzards, to tell her whether or not she could park there. A fifteenth of a second is loads of time for the human eye. I hoped that Colonel Frimpsky had been watching when Gay popped up and blinked out. “Five klicks H-above-G, Captain.” “Thanks, Jake.” The board showed dive rate – straight down! – of over seven hundred kilometers per hour, and increasing so fast that the units figure was an unreadable blur, and the tens place next to it was blinking one higher almost by the second. Most carefully I eased her out of dive, and gently, slowly opened her wings part way for more lift as she slowed, while making a wide clockwise sweep to the east – slowed her dive, that is, not her speed through the air. When I had completed that sweep, and straightened out headed for that column of smoke on course west, I was making over eight hundred kilometers per hour in unpowered glide and still had almost a klick H-above-G I could turn into greater speed. Not that I needed it – I had satisfied myself by eye of what I had been certain of by theory: an ornithopter is slow. Jake said worriedly, “May I ask the Captain his plans?” “I’m going to give Colonel Pistolsky something to remember us by! Gay Deceiver.” “Still aboard, Boss.” I kept my eye on the flappy birds still in the air while I let Gay fly herself. Those silly contraptions could not catch us but there was always a chance that a pilot might dodge the wrong way. Most of them seemed anxious to be elsewhere: they were lumbering aside right and left. I looked at the smoke – dead ahead – and saw what I had not noticed before: an ornithopter beyond the smoke. Jake gasped but said nothing. We were on collision course closing at about 900 kms/hr, most of it ours. Suicide pilot? Idiot? Panicked and frozen? I let him get within one klick of us, which brought us almost to the smoke and near the deck, about 200 meters H-above-G-and I yelped, “Scout!” Yes, Deety is a careful programmer; the sky was black, we were ten klicks H-above-G, and so far as I could tell, the same barren hills under us that we had left five minutes earlier – and I was feeling cocky. My sole regret was that I would not hear Colonel Snarfsky try to explain to the Grand Duke the “ghost” craft now used by “British spies.” Did Russian nobility practice “honorable hara-kiri”? Perhaps the loaded-pistol symbol? You know that one: The officer in disgrace returns to his quarters and finds that someone has thoughtfully loaded his pistol and placed it on his desk… thereby saving the regiment the scandal of a court. I didn’t want the bliffy dead but busted to buck private. With time to reflect on politeness and international protocol while he cleaned stables. I checked our heading, found that we were still pointed west. “Gay Deceiver, Scout!” Black sky again, the same depressing landscape – “Copilot, is it worthwhile to tilt down for a better look? That either takes juice – not much but some – or it takes time to drop far enough to bite air and do it with elevons. We can’t afford to waste either time or juice.” “Captain, I don’t think this area is worth scouting.” “Careful of that participle; better say ‘exploring.'” “Captain, may I say something?” “Deety, if you are speaking as Astrogator, you not only may but must.” “I could reprogram to put us lower if I knew what altitude was just high enough to let you use elevons. Conserve both time and juice, I mean.” “It seems to be about eight klicks H-above-G, usually. Hard to say since we don’t have a sea-level.” “Shall I change angle to arrive at eight klicks H-above-G?” “How long does it take us to fall two klicks when we arrive?” She barely hesitated. “Thirty-two and a half seconds.” “Only half a minute? Seems longer.” “Three-two point six seconds, Captain, if this planet has the same surface gravity as Mars in our own universe – three-seven-six centimeters per second squared. I’ve been using it and haven’t run into discrepancies. But I don’t see how this planet holds so much atmosphere when Mars – our Mars – has so little.” “This universe may not have the same laws as ours. Ask your father. He’s in charge of universes.” “Yes, sir. Shall I revise the program?” “Deety, never monkey with a system that is working well enough – First Corollary of Murphy’s Law. If it is an area as unattractive as this, we’ll simply get out. If it has possibilities, half a minute isn’t too long to wait, and the additional height will give us a better idea of the whole area. Gay Deceiver, Scout!” We all gasped. Thirty kilometers and those barren hills were gone; the ground was green and fairly level – and a river was in sight. Or a canal. “Oh, boy! Copilot, don’t let me waste juice – be firm with me. Deety, count seconds. Everybody eyeball his sector, report anything interesting.” Deety started chanting “… thirteen… . fourteen… . fifteen – ” and each second felt like ten. I took my hands off the controls to keep from temptation. That was either a canal or a stream that had been straightened, revetted, and maintained for years, maybe eons. Professor Lowell had been right – right theory, wrong universe. “Deety, how far is the horizon?” ” – seventeen – about two hundred fifty klicks – twenty -“ I placed my hands gently on the controls. “Hon, that’s the first time you’ve ever used the word ‘about’ with reference to a number.” ” – twenty-four – insufficient data! – twenty-six -“ “You can stop counting; I felt a quiver.” I put a soft nose-down pressure on the elevons and decided to leave her wings spread; we might want to stretch this one. “Insufficient data?” “Zebadiah, it was changing steadily and you had me counting seconds. Horizon distance at ten klicks height above ground should be within one percent of two hundred and seventy kilometers. That assumes that this planet is a perfect sphere and that it is exactly like Mars in our universe – neither is true. It ignores refraction effects, tricky even at home – and unknown to me here. I treated it as geometry, length of tangent for an angle of four degrees thirty-seven minutes.” “Four and half degrees? Where in the world did you get that figure?” “Oh! Sorry, dear, I skipped about six steps. On Earth one nautical mile is one minute of arc – check?” “Yes. Subject to minor reservations. With a sextant, or in dead reckoning, or on a chart, a mile is a minute, a minute is a mile. Makes it simple. Otherwise we would be saying a minute is one thousand eight hundred fifty-three meters and the arithmetic would get hairy.” “One-eight-five-three point one-eight-seven-seven-oh-five plus,” she corrected me. “Very hairy. Best not convert to MKS until the last step. But, Zebadiah, there is a simpler relation here. One minute of arc equals one kilometer, near enough not to matter. So I treated H-above-G, ten klicks, as a versine, applied the haversine rule and got four degrees thirty-seven minutes or two hundred seventy-seven kilometers to the theoretical horizon. You see?” “I see everything but how you hide haversine tables in a jump suit. Me, I hide ’em in Gay… and make her do the work.” Yes, I could nose her over now – easy does it, boy. “Well, I didn’t, exactly. I calculated it, but I did it the easy way: Naperian logarithms and angles in radians, then converted back to degrees to show the relationship to kilometers on the ground.” “That’s ‘the easy way’?” “It is for me, sir!” “If you’re quivering your chin, stop it. I told you it was your luscious body, not your brain. Most idiots-savants are homely and can’t do anything but their one trick. But you’re an adequate cook, as well.” That got me a stony silence. I kept easing her nose down. “Time for binox, Jake.” “Aye aye, sir. Captain, I am required to advise you. With that last remark to the Astrogator you risked your life.” “Are you implying that Deety is an inadequate cook? Why, Jake!” Hilda interrupted. “She’s a gourmet cook!” “I know she is, Sharpie… but I don’t like to say it where Gay can hear – Gay can’t cook. Nor has she Deety’s other talent which ’tis death to hide. Jake, that’s a settlement below.” “Of sorts. A one-church village.” “Do you see ornithopters? Anything that could give us trouble?” “Depends. Are you interested in church architecture?” “Jake, this is no time for a cultural chat.” “I’m required to advise you, sir, This church has towers, something like minarets topped off with onion-shaped structures.” “Russian Orthodox!” Hilda said that. I said nothing. I eased Gay’s nose up to level flight, lined her up with what I thought was downstream, and snapped, “Gay, Scout!” The canal was still in sight, almost under us and stretching over the horizon. I was almost lined up with it. Gay, Scout! “Anybody see that settlement that was almost ahead before this last transition? Report.” “Captain Zebbie, it’s much closer now but on this side.” “I see. Or don’t. Jake isn’t transparent.” “Captain, the city – quite large – is about a forty-five-degree slant down to starboard, not in sight from your seat.” “If forty-five degrees is a close guess, a minimum transition on that bearing should place us over the city.” “Captain, I advise against it,” Jake told me. “Reasons, please.” “This is a large city that might be well defended. Their ornithopters look odd and ineffective but we must assume they have spaceships as good or better than ours or the Tsar could not have a colony here. This causes me to suspect that they may have smart missiles. Or weapons utterly strange. I would rather check for onion towers from a distance. And not stay long in one place – I think we’ve been here too long. I’m jumpy.” “I’m not” – my sixth sense was not jabbing me – “but set verniers for a minimum transition along L axis, then execute at will. No need to be a slow fat target.” “One minimum, L axis – set!” Suddenly my guardian angel goosed me. “Execute!” I noticed the transition principally because Gay was now live under my hand – air bite. Perhaps she had not been quite level. I turned her nose down to gather maneuvering speed unpowered, then did a skew turn – and yelped, “Gay Bounce!” having seen all that I wanted to see: an expanding cloud. Atomic? I think not. Lethal? You test it; I’m satisfied. I told Gay to bounce three more times, placing us a bit less than fifty klicks above ground. Then I spent a trifle of power to nose her over. “Jake, use the binox to see how far this valley runs, whether it is all cultivated, whether it has more settlements. We are not going to get close enough to look for onion spires; that last shot was unfriendly. Rude. Impetuous. Or am I prejudiced? Science Officer? Le mot juste, s’il vous plait.” “Nye kultoorni.” “I remember that one! Makes Russians turn green. What does it mean? How did you happen to know it, Sharpie?” “Means what it sounds like: ‘uncultured.’ I didn’t just ‘happen,’ Cap’n Zebbie; I know Russian.” I was flabbergasted. “Why didn’t you say so?” “You didn’t ask me.” “Sharpie, if you handled the negotiations, we might not have had trouble.” “Zebbie, if you’ll believe that, you’ll believe anything. He was calling you a spy and insulting you while the palaver was still in French. I thought it might be advantageous if they thought none of us knew Russian. They might spill something.” “Did they?” “No. The colonel was coaching his pilot in how to be arrogant. Then you told them to halt, in French, and no more Russian was spoken save for meaningless side remarks. Zebbie, when they tried to shoot us down just now, would they have refrained had they known that I had studied Russian?” “Mmm – Sharpie, I should know better than to argue with you. I’m going to vote for you for captain.” “Oh, No!” “Oh, Yes. Copilot, I’m going to assume that everything this side of the hills and involved with this watercourse – courses – twin canals – is New Russia and that honorary Englishmen – us! – aren’t safe here. So I’m going to look for the British colony. It may turn out that they won’t like us, either. But the British are strong on protocol; we’ll have a chance to speak our piece. They may hang us but they’ll give us a trial, with wigs and robes and rules of evidence and counsel who will fight for us.” I hesitated. “One hitch. Colonel Snotsky said there was no such country as the United States of America and I had the impression that he believed it.” Sharpie said, “He did believe it, Cap’n Zebbie. I caught some side chatter. I think we must assume that, in this universe, there was no American Revolution.” “So I concluded. Should we all be from the East Coast? I have a hunch that the West Coast may be part Russian, part Spanish – but not British. Where are we from? Baltimore, maybe? Philadelphia? Suggestions?” Sharpie said, “I have a suggestion, Cap’n Zebbie.” “Science Officer, I like your suggestions.” “You won’t like this one. When all else fails, tell the truth.”
Chapter XXI
three seconds is a long time –
Deety: Zebadiah is convinced that I can program anything. Usually I can, given a large and flexible computer – but my husband expects me to manage it with Gay Deceiver and Gay is not big. She started life as an autopilot and is one, mostly. But Gay is sweet-tempered and we both want to please him. While he and my father were looking over the area that we thought of as “Russian Valley” or “New Russia,” he asked me to work up a program to locate the British colony in minimum time, if it were in daylight. If not, then we would sleep near the sunrise line, and find it on the new daylight side. I thought of bouncing out about a thousand kilometers and searching for probable areas by color. Then I realized that I didn’t know that much about this planet. “Dead sea bottoms” from space looked like farm land. At last I recalled something Zebadiah had suggested yesterday – no, today! less than two hours ago. (So much had happened that my sense of time played tricks. It was still accurate – but I had to think instead of just knowing.) Random numbers – Gay had plenty of them. Random numbers are to a computer what free will is to a human being. I defined a locus for Gay: nothing east of where we were, nothing in “Russian Valley,” nothing on the dark side, nothing north of 45°, nothing south of 45° south. Yesterday I could not have told her the latter; but Mars has a good spin, one a gyrocompass can read. While we slept, Gay had noted that her gyrocompass did not have its axis parallel to that of this strange planet and had precessed it until it did. Inside that locus I told Gay to take a Drunkard’s Walk, any jumps that suited her, a three-second pause at each vertex, and, if one of us yelled “Bingo!” display latitude, longitude, and Greenwich, and log all three, so we could find it again. Oh, yes – she was to pause that three seconds exactly one minimum H-above-G at each vertex. I told her to run the program for one hour … but that any of us could yell “Stop!” and then say “Continue” and that would be time-out, not part of the hour. But I warned my shipmates that yelling “Stop!” not only slowed things but also gave Russians (or British or anybody) a chance to shoot at us. I emphasized that three seconds is a long time (most people don’t know it). One hour – Three seconds for each check – Twelve hundred random spot checks – This is not a “space-filling” curve. But it should locate where the British were most thickly settled. If one hour did not do it, ten hours certainly would. Without Gay, without her ability to do a Drunkard’s Walk, we could have searched that planet for a lifetime, and never found either colony. It took the entire human race (of our universe) thirty centuries to search Terra… and many spots were missing until they could be photographed from space. My husband said, “Let’s get this straight.” He bounced us four minima. “These subprograms – Gay, are you listening?” “Of course. Are you?” “Gay, go to sleep.” “Roger and out, Boss.” “Deety, I want to make sure of these subprograms but couldn’t use code words while she was awake. I -“ “Excuse me, Zebadiah, but you can. She will ignore code words for subprograms except while the general program is running. The code for the general program is unusual and requires the execution command, so it can’t be started by accident. You can wake Gay. We need her on some points.” “You’re a smart girl, Deety.” “I’ll bet you tell that to all adequate cooks, Boss.” “Ouch!” “Captain, it is not difficult to program a computer to supervise cooking machines. The software sold under the trademark ‘Cordon Bicu’ is reputed to be excellent. Before you wake Gay, would you answer a hypothetical question concerning computers and cooking?” “Captain!” “Copilot?” “I advise against permitting the Astrogator to discuss side issues – such as cooking – while we have this problem facing us.” “Thank you, Copilot. Astrogator, what was your hypothetical question?” Pop had been careful not to interfere between Zebadiah and me, But his advice from copilot to captain was intended for my ears – he was telling me to shut up, and I suddenly heard Jane saying, “Deety, anytime a wife thinks she has won an argument, she has lost it.” I’m not Jane, I’m Deety. I get my temper from my father. I’m not as quick to flare up as he is, but I do have his tendency to nurse a grievance. Zebadiah is sometimes a tease and knows how to get my goat. But Pop was telling me: “Drop it, Deety!” Maybe Zebadiah was right – too much argument, too much discussion, too much “sewing circle & debating society.” We were all intensely interested as we were all in the same peril… but how much tougher is it to be captain rather than one of the crew? Twice? Ten times? I didn’t know, Was my husband cracking under the pressure? “Getting ulcers”? Was I adding to his burden? I didn’t have to stop to think this through; it was preprogrammed below the conscious level; Pop pushed the “execute” button and the answers spilled out. I answered my husband at once, “What hypocritical question, sir?” “You said, ‘hypothetical.’ Something about computers and cooking.” “Captain, my mind has gone blank. Perhaps we had better get on with the job before I forget how it works.” “Deety, you wouldn’t fib to your pool’ old broken-down husband?” “Sir, when my husband is poor and old and broken-down, I will not fib to him.” “Hmm – If I hadn’t already promised my support to Hilda, I would vote for you for captain.” Aunt Hilda cut in: “Zebbie, I release you! I’m not a candidate.” “No, Sharpie, once having promised political support an honorable man never welches. So it’s all right for Gay to listen in?” “Certainly, sir. For display I must have her. Hello, Gay.” “Hi, Deety.” “Display dayside, globe.” At once Gay’s largest screen showed the western hemisphere of Earth, our Earth in our universe – Terra. Early afternoon at Snug Harbor? Yes, the clock in my head said so and GMT on the instrument board read 20:23:07. Good heavens, it had been only twenty hours since my husband and my father had killed the fake “ranger.” How can a lifetime be crowded into less than a day? Despite the clock in my head it seemed years since I had walked down to our pool, a touch tiddly and hanging onto my bridegroom for support. “Display meridians parallels. Subtract geographical features,” Gay did so. “From program coded ‘A Tramp Abroad’ display locus.” Gay used orthographic projection, so the 45th parallels were straight lines. Since I had told her to display dayside, these two bright lines ran to the left edge of the display, that being the sunrise line. But the right edge of the locus was an irregular line running southwest. “Add display Russian Valley.” To the right of the locus and touching it, Gay displayed as solid brightness a very long and quite wide blotch. “Subtract Russian Valley.” The area we had sketchily explored disappeared. “Deety,” my husband asked, “how is Gay doing this? Her perms have no reference points for Mars – not even Mars of our own universe.” “Oh. Gay, display ‘Touchdown.'” “Null program.” “Mmm, yes, that’s right; the Sun has just set where we were parked. Zebadiah, shall I have her rotate the globe enough to show it? All she would show would be a bright spot almost on the equator. I have defined the spot where we grounded as zero meridian – Greenwich for Mars. This Mars.” “And zero parallel? An arbitrary equator?” “Oh, no, no! While we slept Gay adjusted her gyrocompass to match this planet. Which gave her true north and latitude. She already knows the radius and curvature of Mars – I started to tell her and found she had retrieved it from her perms. Aerospace Almanac?” “I suppose so. But we discussed Mars’ diameter last night while Gay was awake. Both you and Hilda knew it; Jake and I did not.” As I remembered it, Aunt Hilda spoke up – then Pop kept quiet. If Pop wanted to sit back and be proud of Aunt Hilda’s encyclopedic memory that was all right with me. If my husband has a flaw, it is that he has trouble believing that females have brains… probably because he is so intensely interested in the other end. I went on with my lecture: “Once I start Gay, she will say and record nothing unless ordered. She will make random transitions inside that locus until someone yells ‘Bingo!’ She won’t slow down even then. She will place a bright point on the map at that latitude and longitude, record both latitude and longitude, and the exact time. She will display the Bingo time, too, for one second. If you want to retrieve that Bingo, you had better jot down that time – to the second. Because she’ll be doing twenty jumps each minute. Don’t worry about the hour, just the minute and the second. Oh, you could still retrieve it if you had the minute right, as I can ask her to run through all Bingoes in a given minute. Can’t be more than twenty and your Bingo might be the only one. “When we’ve done one hour of this, that map could, at most, have twelve hundred dots on it – but may have only a few – or none. If they are clustered, I’ll reduce the locus and we’ll run it again. If not, we can sleep and eat and do it for the other day side, the one twelve hours away. Either way, Gay will find the British – and we’ll be safe.” “I hope you’re right. Ever heard of the Opium Wars, Deety?” “Yes, Captain. Sir, every nation is capable of atrocities, including our own. But the British have a tradition of decent behavior no matter what blemishes there are.” “Sorry. Why a one-hour program?” “We may have to shorten it. A decision every three seconds for sixty minutes may be too tiring. If we start showing a marked hot spot sooner than that, we can shorten the first run and reduce the locus. We’ll have to try it and see. But I feel certain that a one-hour run, a short rest, then another one-hour run, will locate the British if they are now on the day side.” “Deety, what do you define as ‘Bingo’?” “Anything that suggests human settlement. Buildings. Roads. Cultivated fields. Walls, fences, dams, aircraft, vehicles – But it is not ‘Bingo’just because it looks interesting. Although it might be ‘Stop!” “What’s the difference?” “‘Stop’ does not tell Gay to record or to display. For that you must add ‘Bingo.’ ‘Stop’ is for anything you want to look at more than three seconds. Maybe it looks promising and a few seconds more will let you decide. But please, everyone! There should not be more than a dozen calls for ‘Stop!’ in the hour. Any more questions?” We started. Hilda gave the first Bingo. I saw it, too – farm buildings. Aunt Hilda is faster than I. I almost broke my own injunction; I had to bite down on “Stop!” The temptation to take a longer look was almost overpowering. All of us made mistakes – but none serious. Hilda racked up the most Bingoes and Zebadiah the fewest – but I’m fairly certain that my husband was “cheating” by waiting to give Pop or me first crack at it. (He would not be competing with Aunt Hilda; port-forward and starboard-after seats have little overlapping coverage.) I thought it would be tedious; instead it was exciting – but dreadfully tiring. Slowly, less than one a minute, bright dots appeared on the display. I saw with disappointment that most Bingoes were clustered adjacent to the irregular margin marking Russian territory. It seemed probable that these marked Russian territory, so very probable that it hardly seemed worthwhile to check for onion spires. Once my husband called “Stop” and then “Bingo” at a point north and far west, at least fifteen hundred kilometers from the nearest Bingo light. I noted the time – Greenwich 21:16:51 – then tried to figure out why Zebadiah had stopped us. It was pretty country, green hills and lightly wooded and I spotted a wild stream, not a canal. But I saw no buildings or anything suggesting settlement. Zebadiah wrote something on his knee pad, then said, “Continue.” I was itching to ask why he had stopped, but when a decision must be made every three seconds there is no time to chat. When the hour was nearly up, a single Bingo light in the far west that had been shining since the first five minutes was joined by another when Hilda scored another Bingo and two minutes later Pop said “Bingo!” and we had an equilateral triangle twenty kilometers on a side. I noted the time most carefully – then told myself not to be disappointed if inspection showed onion towers; we still had a hemisphere to go. I decided to believe in that British colony the way one has to believe hard in fairies to save Tinker Bell’s life. If there were no British colony, we might have to risk Earth-without-a-J. Gay Deceiver was a lovely car but as a spaceship she had shortcomings. No plumbing. Air for about four hours and no way to recycle. No plumbing. Limited food storage. No plumbing. No comfortable way to sleep in her. No plumbing. But she had talents no other spaceship had. Her shortcomings (according to my father and husband) could be corrected at any modern machine shop. But in the meantime we did not have even an outhouse behind the barn. At last Gay stopped, continued to display, and announced, “One hour of ‘A Tramp Abroad’ completed. Instructions, please.” “Gay, Bounce,” said Zebadiah. “Deety, I don’t think we’ve nailed down the piece The Sun Never Sets On. But this dense cluster here to the right – Too close to the Little Father’s little children. Eh?” “Yes. Zebadiah, I should tell Gay to trim the locus on the east to eliminate the clustered lights, and now we can add almost nine hundred kilometers on the west, to the present sunrise line. Gay can rotate the display to show the added area. I suspect that one more hour will fill in the picture sufficiently.” “Maybe even less. You were right; three seconds is not only a long time; it is excessively long. Isn’t two seconds enough? Can you change that without starting from scratch?” “Yes to both, Captain.” “Good. You can add thirty degrees on the west instead of fifteen. Because we are going to kill an hour – stretch our legs, eat a snack… and I for one want to find a bush. How do I tell Gay to return to a particular Bingo? Or will that mess up your program?” “Not a bit. Tell her to return to Bingo such-and-such, stating the time.” I was unsurprised when he said, “Gay, return to Bingo Greenwich twenty-one sixteen fifty-one.” It was indeed a pretty stream. Zebadiah said happily, “That beats burning juice. Who sees a clearing close to that creek, big enough for Gay? Hover and squat, I mean; I don’t dare make a glide landing, dead stick – the old girl is loaded.” “Zebbie, I’m sober as you are!” “Don’t boast about it, Sharpie. I think I see a spot. Close your eyes; I’m going to.” I almost wish I had. Zebadiah came in on a long glide, everything set for maximum lift – but no power. I kept waiting for that vibration that meant that Gay was alive and roaring… and waited… and waited – He said, “Gay – ” and I thought that he was going to tell her to turn herself on. No. We actually dropped below the level of that bank. Then he suddenly switched on power by hand but in reverse – flipped us up on that bank; we stalled, and dropped perhaps a meter – we just barely missed that bank. I didn’t say anything. Aunt Hilda was whispering, “Hail Mary Mother of God Om Mani Padme Hum There is No God but God and Mahomet is His Prophet – ” then some language I did not know but it sounded very sincere. Pop said, “Son, do you always cut it that fine?” “I saw a man do it that way when he had to; I’ve always wondered if I could. But what you didn’t know was – Gay, are you listening?” “Sure thing, Boss. You alerted me. Where’s the riot?” “You’re a smart girl, Gay.” “Then why am I pushing this baby carriage?” “Gay, go to sleep.” “Sleepy time. Roger and out, Boss.” “Jake, what you didn’t know was that I had my cheeks puffed to say B, O, U, N, C, E, explosively. Your gadget has made Gay’s reflexes so fast that I knew I could come within a split second of disaster and she would get us out. I wasn’t cutting didoes. Look at that meter. Seventy-four percent of capacity. I don’t know how many landings I’m going to have to make on that much juice.” “Captain, it was brilliant. Even though it almost scared it out of me.” “Wrong honorific, Captain. I’m the pilot going off duty. We’re landed; my resignation is effective; you’re holding the sack.” “Zeb, I told you that I would not be captain.” “You can’t help it; you are. The second-in-command takes command when the captain dies, or goes over the hill – or quits. Jake, you can cut your throat, or desert, or go on the binnacle list, or take other actions – but you can’t say you are not captain, when you are – Captain!” “If you can resign, I can resign!” “Obviously. To the Astrogator, she being next in line of command.” “Deety, I resign! Captain Deety, I mean.” “Pop, you can’t do this to me! I’ll – I’ll – ” I shut up because I didn’t know what to do. Then I did. “I resign… Captain Hilda.” “What? Why, that’s silly, Deety. A medical officer is not in line of command. But if ‘medical officer’ is a joke and ‘science officer,’ too, then I’m a passenger and still not in line of command.” My husband said, “Sharpie, you have the qualifications the rest of us have. You can drive a duo -“ “Suddenly I’ve forgotten how.” ” – but that’s not necessary. Mature judgment and the support of your crew are the only requirements, as we are millions of miles and several universes from licenses and such. You have my support; I think you have it from the rest. Jake?” “Me? Of course!” “Deety?” “Captain Hilda knows she has my support,” I agreed. “I was first to call her ‘Captain.'” Aunt Hilda said, “Deety, I’ve just resigned.” “Oh, no, you haven’t anybody to resign to!” I’m afraid I was shrill. “I resign to the Great Spirit Manitou. Or to you, Zebbie, and it comes around in a circle and you are captain again… as you should be.” “Oh, no, Sharpie. I’ve stood my watch; it’s somebody else’s turn. Now that you have resigned, we have no organization. If you think you’ve stuck me with it, think again. You have simply picked an unusual way to homestead on this spot. In the meantime, while nobody is in charge, I hope that you all are getting both ears and a belly full of what got me disgusted. Yack yack yack, argue, fuss, and jabber – a cross between a Hyde Park open forum and a high school debating society.” Aunt Hilda said, in sober surprise, “Why, Zebbie, you almost sound vindictive.” “Mrs. Burroughs, it is possible that you have hit upon the right word. I have taken a lot of guff… and quite a bit of it has been from you.” I haven’t seen Aunt Hilda look so distressed since Mama Jane died. “I am very sorry, Zebbie. I had not realized that my conduct had displeased you so. I did not intend it so, ever. I am aware – constantly! – that you have saved our – my – life five distinct times… as well as continuously by your leadership. I’m as grateful as my nature permits – a giant amount, even though you consider me a shallow person. But one can’t show deepest gratitude every instant, just as one cannot remain in orgasm continuously; some emotions are too strong to stay always at peak.” She sighed, and tears rolled down her face. “Zebbie, will you let me try again? I’ll quit being a Smart Aleck. It will be a hard habit to break; I’ve been one for years – my defense mechanism. But I will break it.” “Don’t be so tragic, Hilda,” Zebadiah said gently. “You know I love you… despite your little ways.” “Oh, I know you do! – you big ugly giant. Will you come back to us? Be our captain again?” “Hilda, I’ve never left. I’ll go right on doing the things I know how to do or can learn. And as I’m told. But I won’t be captain.” “Oh, dear!” “It’s not tragic. We simply elect a new C.O.” My father picked this moment to get hairy. “Zeb, you’re being pretty damned stiff-necked and self-righteous with Hilda. I don’t think she has misbehaved.” “Jake, you are in no position to judge. First, because she’s your bride. Second, because you haven’t been sitting in the worry seat; I have. And you have supplied some of the worst guff yourself.” “I was not aware of it… Captain.” “You’re doing it now… by calling me ‘Captain’ when I’m not. But do you recall a couple of hours ago when I asked my second-in-command for advice – and got some back chat about ‘written orders’?” “Mmm… I was out of line. Yes, sir.” “Do you want other examples?” “No. No, I stipulate that there are others. I understand your point, sir.” Pop gave a wry smile. “Well, I’m glad Deety hasn’t given you trouble.” “On the contrary, she has given me the most.” I had been upset – iI had never really believed that Zebadiah would resign. But now I was shocked and bewildered and hurt. “Zebadiah, what have I done?” “The same sort of nonsense as the other two… but harder for me because I’m married to you.” “But – But what?” “I’ll tell you in private.” “It’s all right for Pop and Aunt Hilda to hear.” “Not with me. We can share our joys with others but difficulties between us we settle in private.” My nose was stuffy and I was blinking back tears. “But I must know.” “Dejah Thoris, you can list the incidents if you choose to be honest with yourself. You have perfect memory and it all took place in the last twenty-four hours.” He turned his face away from me. “One thing I must urge before we choose a captain. I let myself be wheedled and bullied into surrendering authority on the ground. That was a bad mistake. A sea captain is still captain when his ship is anchored. Whoever becomes captain should profit by my mistake and not relinquish any authority merely because Gay is grounded. She can relax the rules according to the situation. But the captain must decide. The situation can be more dangerous on the ground than in air or in space. As it was today when the Russians showed up. Simply grounding must not be: ‘School’s out! Now we can play!'” “I’m sorry, Zebbie.” “Hilda, I was more at fault than you. I wanted to be free of responsibility. I let myself be talked into it, then my brain went on vacation. Take that ‘practice hike.’ I don’t recall who suggested it -“ “I did,” said my father. “Maybe you did, Jake; but we all climbed on the bandwagon. We were about to run off like a bunch of Scouts with no Scoutmaster. If we had started as quickly as we had expected to, where would we be now? In a Russian jail? Or dead? Oh, I’m not giving myself high marks; one reason I’ve resigned is that I haven’t handled it well. Planning to leave Gay Deceiver and everything we own unguarded while we made walkabout – good God! If I had felt the weight of command I would never have considered it.” Zebadiah made a sour face, then looked at my father. “Jake, you’re eldest. Why don’t you take the gavel while we pick a new C.O.? I so move.” “Second!” “Question!” “White ballot!” “What gavel? I’ll bet there isn’t a gavel on this planet.” In a moment Father quit stalling. We all voted, using a page from Zebadiah’s notebook torn in four. They were folded and handed to me and I was required to declare the vote. So I did:
Zeb Zebadiah Zebbie Sharpie
Zebadiah reached back, got the ballots from me, handed back the one that meant “Aunt Hilda,” took the other three and tore them into small pieces. “Apparently you did not understand me. I’ve stood my watch; someone else must take it – or we’ll park on this bank until we die of old age. Sharpie seems to have an overwhelming lead – is she elected? Or do we ballot again?” We balloted again:
Sharpie Jacob Jacob Hilda
“A tie,” Father said. “Shall we invite Gay to vote?” “Shut up and deal the cards.”
Sharpie Deety Deety Hilda
“Hey!” I protested. “Who switched?” (I certainly didn’t vote for me.)
Sharpie Hilda Zebbie Hilda
“One spoiled ballot,” said my husband. “A non-candidate. Will you confirm that, Mr. Chairman?” “Yes,” Pop agreed. “My dear … Captain Hilda. You are elected without a dissenting vote.” Aunt Hilda looked as if she might cry again. “You’re a bunch of stinkers!” “So we are,” agreed my husband, “But we are your stinkers, Captain Hilda.” That got him a wan smile. “Guess maybe. Well, I’ll try.” “We’ll all try,” said Pop. “And we’ll all help,” said my husband. “Sure we will!” I said, and meant it. Pop said, “If you will excuse me? I’ve been anxious to find a handy bush since before this started.” He started to get out. “Just a moment!” “Eh? Yes, my dear? Captain.” “No one is to seek out a bush without an armed guard. Not more – and not less – than two people are to leave the car’s vicinity at one time. Jacob, if your need is urgent, you must ask Zebbie to hurry – I want the guard to carry both rifle and pistol.” I think it worked out that Pop got the use of a bush last – and must have been about to burst his bladder. Later I overheard Pop say, “Son, you’ve read Aesop’s Fables?” “Certainly.” “Does anything remind you of King Log and King Stork?”
Chapter XXII
“‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.'”
Hilda: I could tell from the first ballot that Zebbie was determined to make me take a turn as captain. Once I realized that, I decided to be captain – let them get sick of me and anxious to have Zebbie back. Then suddenly I was captain – and it’s different. I did not ever again think of trying to make them sick of me; I just started to worry. And try. First my husband wanted to find a bush for the obvious reason – and I suddenly realized that a banth might get him. Not a Barsoomian banth but whatever this planet held in dangerous carnivores. So I ordered armed guards. With rules about not getting separated. It was a nuisance but I was firm… and knew at last what a crushing load there had been on Zebbie. But one thing I could improve: Arrange for us to sleep inside the car. The space back of the bulkhead behind the rear seats was not organized. We had about six hours till sundown (having gained on the Sun in going west), so I had everything in that space pulled out. Space enough for Zebbie and Deety, on his sleeping bag opened out, blankets over them. Jacob and I? The piloting chairs we moved forward all the set screws would allow, laid them back almost fh~t and padded the cracks with pillows, and, to support our legs, the cushions from the rear seats were placed on boxes we would otherwise discard once I had the car organized. It wasn’t the best bed but low gravity and my cuddlesome husband made it a most attractive one. Baths – In the stream and cold! Same rules as for bushes: armed guards. Soap thoroughly on the bank, get in and rinse fast, bounce out and towel till you glowed. Primitive? Luxurious! This did not go smoothly. Take the “handy bush” problem. I did not have to be told that a latrine should be downstream or that our shovel should be carried every time without fail – rules for a clean camp are as old as the Old Testment. But my first order called for no more than two and no less than two to leave the car at any time, and one must be armed – the other rifle and pistol must guard Gay. I blurted out that order when the truth landed on me like a load of bricks that I, the runt who had never grown up, was now responsible for the lives of four people. At the time my orders seemed not only logical but necessary and feasible: Jacob would guard me, Zebbie would guard Deety, our men would guard each other. There was a flaw. I did not realize that my edict required: a) one rifleman always to be at the car; b) both men to be away from the car from time to time. Since this is not possible I amended it: When the men had to answer calls of nature, we women would lock ourselves in. I didn’t know that this planet had anything more dangerous than Alice’s Bread-and-Butter Fly. But that was the point: I didn’t know and until I did, I must assume that something as dangerous as a tiger lurked behind every bush. Heavens! the bush might be carnivorous. I was learning, with breath-snatching speed, something that most people never learn: A commanding officer’s “unlimited” authority isn’t freedom; it’s a straitjacket. She can’t do as she pleases; she never can – because every minute, awake and asleep, she must protect those under her command. She can’t take any avoidable risk herself; her life does not belong to her; it belongs to her command. When the captaincy was thrust on me, I decided that we would stay where we were until Gay Deceiver was reorganized so that all four of us could sleep comfortably and safely – no swollen ankles. Sharpie hadn’t thought of this; Captain Hilda Burroughs thought of it at once. Captain Zebbie had thought of it when we first grounded, then had let himself be overruled. I knew that I could rearrange the car to let us all sleep behind locked doors. But it would take time, sweat, and muscles, and I had just proclaimed an order that would take one or both sets of big muscles off the job for… how many times a day? Four people? Such needs can’t be hurried. I had a horrid suspicion that having someone standing over you with a rifle, even your nearest and dearest, might cause a healthy reflex to fail. What to do? Cancel the order? No! Cancel if a better scheme turned up. But don’t cancel without finding something better. This was a pretty spot, but there still might be that “banth.” Or bandersnatch. Or boojum. Especially a boojum. What if Zebbie should wander off that distance dictated by modesty and/or relaxation of nerves… and “softly and silently vanish away”? And it was Zebbie I was having trouble with – Zebbie, who wasn’t going to give the new captain any back talk whatsoever. “Cap’n Hilda honey, I don’t need a chaperon, honest. I’ll carry my rifle and guard myself. No problem. Safety off and a cartridge under the firing pin. Promise.” “Zebbie, I am not asking you, I am telling you.” “But I don’t like to leave you girls unguarded!” “Chief Pilot.” “Ma’am. Captain.” “I am not a girl. I am eleven years your senior.” “I simply meant -“ “Pipe down!” The poor dear’s ears turned red but he shut up. I said, “Astrogator!” “Huh? Yes, Captain Auntie.” “Can you use a rifle?” “Oh, sure, Pop made me learn. But I don’t like a rifle; I like my shotgun.” “Take the Chief Pilot’s rifle and guard the camp -“ “Look, I can do it better with my shotgun.” “Pipe down and carry out your orders.” Deety looked startled, trotted over to Zebbie, who surrendered his rifle without comment, face frozen. “Copilot,” I said to my husband, “arm yourself with rifle and pistol, go with the Chief Pilot, guard him while he does what he has to do.” Zebbie swallowed. “Sharpie – I mean ‘Captain Sharpie.’ It won’t be necessary. The golden moment has passed. All this talk.” “Chief Pilot, please refrain from using my nickname while I am your commanding officer. Copilot, carry out your orders. Remain with the Chief Pilot and guard him continuously as long as necessary to accomplish the purpose of the trip.” (If Zebbie meant “constipation” – an emotional to-do can have that effect – I would act later in my capacity as “medical officer” – and it would not take four husky orderlies to make Zebbie hold still. The authority of a commanding officer almost never requires force. Odd but true – I wondered how I knew that.) Once our men were out of earshot, I said, “Deety, could I learn to shoot that rifle?” “I’m not sure I’m speaking to you. You humiliated my husband… when we all owe him so much.” “Astrogator!” Deety’s eyes got wide. “Good God – it’s gone to your head!” “Astrogator.” “Uh… yes, Captain.” “You will refrain from personal remarks to me or about me during my tenure as commanding officer. Acknowledge that order, then log it.” Deety’s face assumed the expression that means that she has shut out the world. “Aye aye, Captain. Gay Deceiver!” “Hello, Deety!” “Log mode. The Captain has ordered the Astrogator to refrain from personal remarks to her or about her during her tenure as commanding officer. I acknowledge receipt of order and will comply. Log date, time, and Bingo code. I tell you three times.” “Deety, I hear you three times.” “Back to sleep, Gay.” “Roger and out.” Deety turned to me, face and voice normal again. “Captain, I can teach you to shoot in such a way that you won’t get a sore shoulder or be knocked down. But to become a good shot with a rifle takes a long time. My shotgun doesn’t kick as hard… and you won’t need skill.” “I thought a shotgun was more difficult.” “Depends. A shotgun is usually for surprise targets in the air. That takes skill. But for a stationary target – within range – it’s about like a garden hose. The shot spreads in a cone. So easy that it’s not sporting.” “‘Not sporting’ suits me. Will you show me how? What kind of target do we need?” “It ought to be a large sheet of paper to show how the shot spreads. But, Captain, you know what will happen if I fire a gun?” “What?” “We will have two men back here at a dead run – one of them trying to dress as he runs. I don’t think he’ll be pleased.” “Meaning I shouldn’t get Zebbie angry twice in ten minutes.” “It might be your husband. Stands to reason that they’ll both take care of needs before returning. If I fire a shot, I’d better have a dead body to show for it, or one or the other will blow his top. Or both.” “Both! Thanks, Deety – I didn’t think it through.” “But also, the Captain will recall that she ordered me to guard camp. I can’t teach shooting at the same time.” (Sharpie, can’t you do anything right?) “No, of course you can’t! Deety, I’m off to a bad start. All of you annoyed at me and one, maybe two, really angry.” “Does the Captain expect me to comment?” “Deety, can’t you call me ‘Aunt Hilda’?” I wasn’t crying – I’ve trained myself not to. But I needed to. “Yes, I want your comment.” “Captain Aunt Hilda, I need to call you by your title to keep myself reminded that you are captain. Since you ordered me to refrain from personal remarks to you or about you, I needed a second order before I could comment.” “As bad as that? Don’t spare me but make it quick.” “The Captain hasn’t done badly.” “I haven’t? Deety, don’t fib to Hilda; you never used to.” “And I’m not going to now. Captain, I think you are off to a good start.” “But you said it had gone to my head!” “I was wrong. I realized how wrong when I was logging your order to me. What I said was worse than anything I said to Zebadiah while he was captain – he required me to review in my mind all the things I’ve said… and at least twice he should have given me a fat lip” – Deety smiled grimly – “‘cept that Zebadiah couldn’t bring himself to strike a woman even if she weren’t pregnant. Captain – Captain Aunt Hilda honey – Zebadiah didn’t crack down on us when he should have. He turned over to you a gang of rugged individualists, not one with any concept of discipline. I certainly had none. But I do now.” “I’m not sure that I do,” I said miserably. “It means obeying orders you don’t like and strongly disagree with – with no back talk. ‘Into the jaws of death rode the six hundred.’ Zebadiah would not do that to us… but he did let us annoy him into testing my new Bug-Out program. He had told me that the test was a useless risk; I should have agreed because it was useless. Instead I gave him a snooty ‘No comment,’ and you were as bad and Pop was worse. Mmm… I don’t think Zebadiah has had much experience as a commanding officer.” “Why so, Deety? He is a captain.” “That doesn’t mean that he has ever been a commanding officer. He has soloed quite a lot, in fighters. He has logged control time in larger craft or he wouldn’t hold a command pilot rating. But has he ever actually commanded? Nothing he has said to me indicated it… but he did tell me that before the last war a major was often captain of an air-and-space craft but now it almost always took a lieutenant colonel while majors wound up as copilots. He was explaining why he liked one-man fighters so well. Aunt Hilda – Captain – I think commanding was as new to Zebadiah as it is to you. Like sex, or having a baby, you can’t understand it till you’ve tried it.” She suddenly grinned. “So don’t hold Zebadiah’s mistakes against him.” “What mistakes? He’s saved our lives again and again. I don’t blame him – now – for wanting a rest from commanding. Deety, it’s the hardest work possible even if you don’t lift a finger. I never suspected it. I don’t expect to sleep a wink tonight.” “We’ll guard you!” “No.” “Yes, we will!” “Pipe down.” “Sorry, Ma’am.” “What mistakes did Zebbie make?” “Well… he didn’t crack down. You wasted no time in letting us know who is boss. You didn’t let us argue; you slapped us down at once. I hate to say this but I think you have more talent for command than Zebadiah has.” “Deety, that’s silly!” “Is it? Napoleon wasn’t tall.” “So I have a Napoleonic complex. Humph!” “Captain, I’m going to ignore that because, under that order you made me log, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.” “Well… I know how not to get a Napoleonic complex. Deety, you’re my second-in-command.” “But Pop is second-in-command.” “Wrong tense. ‘Was’ – he is no longer. As astrogator you may have inherited it anyhow; you can ask Zebbie – but in private; my decision is not subject to debate. Simply acknowledge it.” “I – Aye aye, Captain.” “You are now required to advise me whenever you think that I am about to make a serious mistake. You are also required to advise me on request.” “My advice isn’t worth much. Look how I goofed a few minutes ago.” “That was before you were appointed second-in-command. Deety, actually holding an office makes a big difference.” Deety blinked and looked solemn, then said soberly, “Yes, I think it does. Yes, it does. I feel it, I do! Weird.” “Wait till you’re captain. Eight times as weird.” “Never. Pop wouldn’t go for it, Zebadiah wouldn’t, I won’t – that’s three votes.” “I said No right up to the point where I could not avoid it. Don’t worry about it now. I’ll boss and you’ll advise me.” “In that case, Captain, I advise you to reconsider letting us guard you. After we eat and start scouting again, I advise that, even if we find the British quickly, instead of making contact, we should find a spot as deserted as this at the sunrise line and get a long day’s sleep. We crew can get eight hours – I’ll take the middle watch; the men can get eight hours solid each… and the Captain can get anything up to twelve.” “Advice noted. It’s good advice. But that’s not the program; we’re going to sleep here.” I told Deety what I had in mind. “When the car is restowed, we’ll eat. If there is daylight left, we’ll bathe before we eat. Otherwise in the morning.” “I’d rather hurry through eating and get a bath… since you tell me I’m going to be able to sleep with my husband. When I’m frightened I stink worse… and I’ve been much more scared than I’ve tried to let on.” “Into cold water after eating? Deety, you know better.” “Oh. I’ll skip eating, if necessary, to bathe.” “Astrogator, we’ll do it my way.” “Yes, Captain. But I stink, I do.” “We’ll all stink by the time we restow this car and may wind up eating sandwiches in the dark because everything that we don’t throw away is going to be inside with us and Gay locked and not a light showing by sundown.” I cocked my head. “Hear something, Deety?”
Our men came back looking cheerful, with Zebbie carrying Jacob’s rifle and wearing Jacob’s pistol. Zebbie gave me a big grin. “Cap’n, there wasn’t a durn thing wrong with me that Carter’s Little Liver Pills couldn’t have fixed. Now I’m right.” “Good.” “But just barely,” agreed my husband. “Hilda – Captain Hilda my beloved – your complex schedule almost caused me to have a childish accident.” “I think that unnecessary discussion wasted more time than did my schedule. As may be, Jacob, I would rather have to clean up a ‘childish accident’ than have to bury you.” “But -“ “Drop the matter!” “Pop, you had better believe it!” sang out Deety. Jacob looked startled (and hurt, and I felt the hurt). Zebbie looked sharply at me, no longer grinning. He said nothing, went to Deety, reached for his rifle. “I’ll take that, hon.” Deety held it away from him. “The Captain has not relieved me.” “Oh. Okay, we’ll do it by the book.” Zebbie looked at me. “Captain, I thoroughly approve of your doctrine of a continuous guard; I was too slack. It was my intention to relieve the watch. I volunteer to stand guard while you three eat -“ ” – then I’ll guard while Zeb eats,” added Jacob. “We already worked it out. When do we eat? I could eat an ostrich with the feathers left on.” He added, “Hilda my love, you’re captain… but you’re still cook, aren’t you? Or is Deety the cook?” (Decisions! How does the captain of a big ship cope?) “I’ve made changes. Deety remains astrogator but is now second-in-command and my executive officer. In my absence she commands. When I’m present, Deety’s orders are my orders; she will be giving them to implement what I want done. Neither she nor I will cook. Uh, medical officer – ” (Damn it, Sharpie, all those hours in the emergency room make you the only candidate. Or does it? Mmm – ) “Zebbie, does ‘command pilot’ include paramedical training?” “Yes. Pretty sketchy. What to do to keep the bloke alive until the surgeon sees him.” “You’re medical officer. I am assistant medical officer when you need me – if I don’t have something else that must be done.” “Captain, may I put in a word?” “Please do, Chief Pilot.” “Sometimes you have to let the bloke die because there is something else that has to be done.” Zebbie looked bleak. “Saw it happen. Does no good to worry ahead of time or grieve about it afterwards. You do what you must.” “So I am learning, Zebbie. Cook – Gentlemen, I’ve never eaten your cooking. You must assess yourselves. Which one of you is ‘adequate’ -“ “Ouch.” “Your wording, Zebbie. – and which one is inadequate?” They backed and filled and deferred to each other, so I put a stop to it. “You will alternate as first and second cook until evidence shows that one is chief cook and the other assistant. Jacob, today you are first cook -“ “Good! I’ll get busy at once!” “No, Jacob.” I explained what we were going to do. “While you two get everything out of the car, Deety will teach me the rudiments of shotgun. Then I will take over guard duty and she can help unload. But keep your rifles loaded and handy, ’cause if I shoot, I’ll need help in a hurry. Then, when we restow, I’ll do it because I’m smallest and can stand up, mostly, behind the bulkhead. While Zebbie stands guard, and Deety and Jacob pass things in to me.” Jacob wasn’t smiling – and I suddenly recognized his expression. I once had a dog who (theoretically) was never fed at the table. He would sit near my knee and look at me with that same expression. Why, my poor darling was hungry! Gut-rumble hungry. I had such a galloping case of nerves from becoming captain that I had no appetite. “Deety, in the pantry back at Snug Harbor I noticed a carton of Milky Way bars. Did that get packed?” “Certainly did! Those are Pop’s – his vice and eventual downfall.” “Really? I don’t recall seeing him eat one.” My husband said, “I haven’t been eating them lately. All things considered, my dear – my dear Captain – I prefer you to candy bars.” “Why, thank you, Jacob! Will you share those candy bars? We understand that they are your personal property.” “They are not my personal property; they belong to all of us. Share and share alike.” “Yup,” agreed Zebbie. “A perfect communism. ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’ With the usual communist dictator on top.” “Zebbie, I’ve been called everything from a black reactionary to a promiscuous old whore – but never before a communist dictator. Very well, you may address me as ‘Comrade Captain.’ When we come across those candy bars, everybody grab one for quick energy – unless somebody remembers where they were packed?” “Gay knows!” said Deety, and backed toward the car’s open door while still keeping her eyes swinging the arc away from the river-perfect sentry and looking cute at it. “Gay Deceiver!” “Hi, Deety! Getting any?” “Inventory. Food supplies. Candy. Milky Way bars. Report location.” “Frame twenty. Starboard. Closed storage seven-Ess-high. Bottom shelf.”
Five hours later everything was back inside except a heap of wrapping, packaging, and such – yet the increase in space was far greater than that pile. This was because storage did not have to be logical. Just tell Gay. A left shoe could fill an odd space in with the swords while the right shoe from the same pair was a space filler in a tool storage far to the rear – yet the only inconvenience lay in having to go to two places to get them. I did the stowing; Deety stayed in the cabin, received items handed from outside, described the item to Gay, then described to Gay where the item was stowed, as I reported it. Gay was under instruction to hear only Deety’s voice – and what Deety told Gay was so logical that no one need remember it. Like this: “Gay Deceiver.” “Boss, when will you learn to say ‘Please’?” “Clothing. Zeb. Shoes. Field boots.” “Right boot. Abaft bulkhead. Starboard. Frame forty. Under deckplate. Outboard compartment. Left boot. Abaft bulkhead. Portside. Frame sixty. Under deckplate, middle compartment. Warning: Both boots filled with rifle ammo padded with socks.” You see? If you got categories in the wrong order, Gay would restring them. Give her the basic category and the identification, leaving out the other steps, and Gay would search the “tree” (Deety’s words) and get the “twig” you identified. You could even fail to give category and she would search until she found it. But hardest was to build up the decking of the rear compartment about twenty centimeters with chattels or stores that would not crush, fasten it down to keep it from floating in free fall, and make it smooth enough that it would not be unbearably lumpy as a bed – while making some effort neither to build into this platform nor to store in compartments under it things needed frequently or quickly. I had to lower my standards. It is impossible to store so many things in such limited space and have all readily at hand. I studied things outside, admitted that I could not do it, then asked for advice. Zebbie solved it: “Captain, do a dry run.” “Uh… go on, Zebbie.” “Take my sleeping bag inside, open it out. It is too wide for the space, especially at the rear. So keep it as far forward as you can and still miss Jake’s twister and the bulkhead door. Mark the amount you have to lap it. Mark on the deck the foot of the opened-out bag. You’ll find space abaft that, frustum of a cone, sort of. Drag the sleeping bag outside, mark the tuck-in, build your platform on it. Then fill that rear space and build a bulkhead. Better get Jake; he’s a born mechanic.” “Zebbie, would you prefer to build this bed yourself?” “Nope.” “Why not? I’m not speaking as captain; I’m inquiring as your old friend Sharpie.” “Because I’m twice as big as you, which makes that space half as big for me. Tell you what, Cap’n Sharpie – excuse me! – Captain Hilda – do the measuring. Meanwhile we’ll pick out plunder that might be bricks in that platform. Then drag the sleeping bag outside. If you’ll let Jake relieve me, Deety and I can piece together the platform in jig time.” It changed “impossible” to “possible.” The cubbyhole was filled, contents held in place with opened-out cartons tied with wire to hold-downs – “padeyes” Jacob called them. The platform was built, chinked with this and that, covered with more flattened-out cartons, and topped off with sleeping bag and blankets. It was still light. Deety assured me that there was one hour and forty-three minutes till sundown. “Time enough if we hurry. Jacob, first bath. Deety, guard him. Both come back so Jacob can start dinner – then Zebbie and Deety go down – goodness, this sounds like the farmer and the rowboat with the fox and the geese – and bathe, taking turns guarding. Both come back; Deety relieves me; Zebbie takes me down to bathe while he guards. But please hurry; I want a bath, too. Forty minutes before sundown bathing stops and we eat – at sundown we are inside, dirty dishes and all, locked in till sunrise. If that does me out of a bath, we still hold to it. Jacob, how far is this ‘easy way’ down? I mean, ‘How many minutes?'” “Maybe five. Hilda my love, if you weren’t insisting on always-two-together there would be no hurry. All go down together; I hurry through my bath, grab my rifle and trot back. The rest needn’t hurry. You’ve got us going down and up, down and up, four times – forty minutes. Which squeezes four baths into twenty minutes, five minutes to undress, soap, squat down and rinse off, towel dry, and dress. Hardly worth the trip.” “Jacob, who guards you while you’re getting supper? No. I can bathe in the morning.” (Damn! I wanted that bath. I’m used to a shower in the morning, a tub at night, a bidet at any excuse. Decadent – that’s me.) “Beloved, this place is safe. While we were out earlier, Zeb and I scouted for sign. None. That’s when we found this way down to the creek. It would be a natural watering place. No sign. I don’t think there are any large fauna here.” I was wavering when Deety spoke up. “Pop, that’s three down-and-ups, not four, as Zebadiah and I get baths on one. But, Captain Hilda, if we all go down and come back together, there can’t be danger. Put that stuff back inside and lock up, of course.” She pointed at Jacob’s preparations. While Jacob had been handing stuff to Deety, he had set aside a hot plate, cooking and eating utensils, a tarpaulin, comestibles for supper and breakfast, and had passed word for me please to store food so that it could be reached easily. Jacob said hastily, “Deety, I’ve got it planned for minimum therbligs. Dried apricots soaking in that pan, soup mix in that one. There’s no level deck space left inside.” Deety started to say, “But, Pop, if we – ” when I cut in with, “Quiet, please” – not shouted. They kept quiet – “Captain Bligh” was being listened to. “Gay Deceiver will not be left unguarded. My orders will not be discussed further. One modification: Supper is cut from forty minutes to twenty-five. Astrogator adjust schedule accordingly. Sound a blast on the siren five minutes before suppertime. We lock up on the dot. I placed the honey bucket just beyond the swing of the bulkhead door as the car will not be unlocked for any reason until sunrise. Questions?” “Yes, Captain. Where are the towels?”
An hour later I was squatting in the stream, rinsing off and hurrying – covered with goose bumps. As I stepped out, Zebbie put down his rifle and had a big, fluffy towel, long as I am tall, waiting to wrap me. I should have required him to behave as a guard should. But I told myself that he was still wearing his revolver and, anyhow, he has this sixth sense about danger – lying in my teeth. Nothing makes a woman feel more cherished than to have a man wrap her in a big towel the instant she’s out of the water. I lack character, that’s all. Every woman has her price, and a big, fluffy towel at the right time comes close to being mine. Zebbie was rubbing firmly, getting me not only dry but warm. “Feels good, Captain?” “‘Captain Hilda’ never came down the bank, Zebbie. Feels swell!” “Remember the first time I gave you a rubdown?” “Sure do! Dressing room at my pool.” “Yup. I tried to lay you. I’ve never been turned down so smoothly.” “You tried to lay me, Zebbie? Truly?” I looked up at him, my best innocent look. “Sharpie darling, you lie as easily as I do. A man does this” – and he did – “even with a towel, a woman is certain what he means. But you refused to notice it, turned me down, without hurting my pride.” “I’m refusing to notice it now and find it just as difficult as I did that afternoon. Stop it, please!” He did. “Thanks, dear. You got me all shaky. Zebbie, do you think Deety thinks I rigged this to get you alone? I would not willingly upset her.” “On the contrary. She gave me a hunting license concerning you – you, not females in general – ten days back. In writing.” “Really?” “In writing so that she could limit it. I am required not to run any risk of hurting Jake.” “You haven’t tried to use that license.” “I took it as a compliment to you and to me, kissed Deety and thanked her. You settled this four years ago. But I’ve sometimes wondered why. I’m young, healthy, take care of my teeth, and keep my nails clean – mostly – and you seemed to like me. What made me ineligible? Not complaining, dear, just asking.” I tried to explain the difference between a male friend and a bedmate – the scarcity of the first, the boring plethora of applicants for the other. He listened, then shook his head. “Masochism.” “Hasn’t it worked out better this way? I do love you, Zebbie.” “I know you do, Sharpie.” Zebbie turned me around and looked down into my eyes. “And I love you and you know that, too” – and he kissed me. That kiss went on and neither of us seemed inclined to stop. My towel slipped to the ground. I noticed because it felt better to be closer and ever so much nicer to have his hands on me. Zebbie hadn’t given me a sexy kiss since the day I hadinvited a pass and then ignored it. I began to wonder why I had decided to ignore it. Then I was wondering how much time we had left in our schedule. Then I knew the exact time… for that infernal, earsplitting siren sounded. God watches over Hilda Mae and that’s why I keep Him on my payroll. But sometimes He is rough about it. We let go. I put on Deety’s Keds, slid my borrowed dress over my head, hung the towel over my arm – elapsed time: nine seconds. Zebbie was again carrying his rifle at the ready (is that correct? – both hands, I mean). “Captain, shall we go?” “Yes, Chief Pilot. Zebbie, when did I become ‘captain’ again? Just from putting on clothes? You’ve seen this old hide before.” “Skin has nothing to do with it, Captain. Quoting Deety quoting the Japanese: ‘Nakedness is often seen but never noticed.’ Except that sometimes I do notice, hot diggity dog and other comments. You have superior skin, Captain. You went back to being Captain when I picked up my rifle. But I was never off duty. Did you notice, when I dried you, that I picked you up and swung you around, so that I faced the bank? I kept alert even while I was nuzzling you… and you make fine nuzzle, Captain Step-Mother-in-Law Hilda.” “So do you, Zebbie. I’m still Sharpie till we get to your car.” We reached the top of the bank. “Ten seconds to catch my breath. Zebbie -“ “Yes, Sharpie?” “Four years ago – I’m sorry I turned away your pass.” He patted my bottom. “So am I, dear. But it has worked out quite well. And” – he grinned that irresistible, ugly grin – “who knows? – we aren’t dead yet.” When we arrived, Jacob was slurping soup. “You’re late,” he stated. “So we waited.” “So I see.” “Don’t listen to Pop, Captain Auntie; you are two minutes seventeen seconds ahead of time. Are you sure you stayed in long enough to get clean?” “I stayed in long enough to get freezing cold. Aren’t you chilly?” Deety had worn skin most of the day and so had I; we had been doing sweaty work. But she had been dressed when I last saw her. “Jacob, is there no soup for Zebbie and me?” “A smidgen. You get this pan as soon as I’m through – now! – and that means one less dish to wash.” “And Zebadiah gets mine – also now – and I took that jump suit off because it’s dirty and I’m clean. I still haven’t figured out how to do a laundry. Nothing for a tub, no way to heat water. What’s that other way? Pound them on a rock the way it shows in National Geographic? I don’t believe it!” We were in bed by sundown, Gay’s doors locked – pitch dark in minutes. According to Deety and Gay sunrise was ten hours and forty-three minutes away. “Deety, please tell Gay to wake us at sunrise.” “Aye aye, Captain Auntie.” “Zebbie, you told us that the air in the car was good for about four hours.” “In space; The scoops are open now.” “But do you get air back there? Should the bulkhead door be open?” “Oh. Top scoop serves this space. The cabin is ventilated by the chin scoop. Scoops stay open unless internal pressure closes them.” “Can anything get in through them? Snakes or such?” “Hilda my dear, you worry too much.” “My very own darling Copilot, will you please pipe down while I’m speaking to the Chief Pilot? There are many things about this car that I do not know – yet I am responsible.” Zebbie answered, “Each scoop has a grid inside and a fine screen at the inner end; nothing can get in. Have to clean ’em occasionally. Remind me, Deety.” “I’ll tell Gay.” She did – and almost at once there was a crash of metal. I sat up abruptly. “What’s that?” “Hilda, I am afraid that I have kicked over the supper dishes.” My husband added, “Zeb, how do I find the cabin light?” “No, no! Jacob, don’t try to find it. No light at all until sunrise. Don’t fret about dishes. But what happened? I thought they were under the instrument board.” “I couldn’t quite reach with this bed made up. But the carton that supports my feet sticks out beyond the seat cushion on it. So I stacked them there.” “No harm done. We can expect bobbles as we shake down.” “I suppose so.” “We can cope. Jacob, that was an excellent dinner.” Deety called out, “Good night, chatterboxes! We want to sleep.” She closed the bulkhead door, dogged it.
Chapter XXIII
“The farce is over.”
Jake: For me, the best soporific is to hold Hilda in my arms. I slept ten hours. I might have slept longer had I not been blasted by a bugle call: Reveille. I thought I was back in basic, tried to rouse out fast – banged my head. That slowed me; I reoriented, saw my lovely bride beside me, yawning prettily – realized that we were on Mars. Mars! Not even our own Mars but another universe. That hateful tune started to repeat, louder. I banged on the bulkhead. “How do you shut this thing off?” Shortly I saw dogs of the bulkhead door turning, then the door swung – as the call went into its third time around still louder. Zeb showed, blinking. “Do you have a problem?” I couldn’t hear but I could piece out what he meant. “HOW DO YOU SHUT OFF THIS RACKET?” “No problem.” (I think that’s what he said.) “Good morning, Gay.” The bugle faded into the distance. “Good morning, Boss.” “I’m awake.” “Ah, but will you stay awake?” “I won’t go back to bed. Promise.” “I’ve dealt with your sort before, me bucko. If you aren’t out of here before my landlady wakes up, I’ll lose this room. Then another hassle with the cops. It’s not worth it… you cheapskate!” “You’re a smart girl, Gay.” “So smart I’m looking for another job.” “Back to sleep, Gay. Over.” “Roger and out, Boss” – and blessed silence. I said to my daughter, “Deety, how could you do this to us?” Her husband answered. “Deety didn’t, Jake. She was told to place a call for sunrise. But didn’t know what a morning call means to Gay.” I grumped, and opened the starboard door. Hilda’s rearrangements had given me the best rest I had had in days. But two double beds in a sports car left no room on arising to do anything but get out. So I slid out the door, groped for the step, paused to ask Hilda for shoes and coverall – caught sight of something and said quietly, “Hilda. My rifle. Quickly!” My little treasure is always reliable in emergency; her clowning is simply persona. (A most pleasant one; the worst aspect of the jest of making her “captain” was that she lost her smile – I hoped that Zeb would soon resume command. We had needed the lesson – but no need to go on.) I digress – I asked for my rifle; she whispered, “Roger,” and had it in my hand at once with the quiet report: “Locked, one in the chamber. Wait – I’m getting Zeb.” That made sense. By staying on the step in the corner formed by door and car, my rear was safe and I need cover only a small sector. I prefer a bolt action – correction: I have a bolt-action rifle I inherited from my father’s eldest brother, who had “liberated” it on leaving the Marine Corps. I unlocked it, opened the bolt slightly, saw that a cartridge was in the chamber, closed the bolt, left the piece unlocked. Zeb said at my ear, softly, “What’s the excitement?” “Over there.” I pulled my head out of the way, saw Hilda and Deety almost on top of Zeb – Hilda with Deety’s shotgun, Deety with her husband’s police special. Zeb said, “Pixies. They may still be around; let’s check. Cover me from here?” “No, Zeb. You to the right, me to the left, we check the port side, meet back at the dump. Make it fast.” “Say the word.” Zeb said over his shoulder, “You girls stay in the car. Jake?” “Now!” We came bursting out like greyhounds, guns at high port. The reason for my disquiet was simple: The dump of wrappings and cartons was no longer a heap. Something had spread it over many meters, and the litter was not nearly enough to account for the pile. Wind? Zeb had left the wings extended; the slightest wind would wake him, warn him of change in weather. The car had not rocked in the night; ergo, no wind. Ergo, nocturnal visitors. Nor were they small. I rounded the car to the left, seeing nothing until I spotted Zeb – waved at him, started back around to join him at the dump. He arrived before I did. “I told you girls to stay in the car!” He was quite angry, and the cause, both of them, were also at the dump. My darling answered, “Chief Pilot.” Zeb said, “Huh? Sharpie, there’s no time for that; there’s something dangerous around! You girls get inside before I -“ “Pipe DOWN!” One would not believe that so small a body could produce such a blast. It caught Zeb mouth open and jammed his words down his throat. Hilda did not give him opportunity to answer. She continued, forcefully: “Chief Pilot, there are no ‘girls’ here; there are four adult humans. One of them is my second-in-command and executive officer. My executive officer; I am in command.” Hilda looked at my daughter. “Astrogator, did you tell anyone to remain in the car?” “No, Captain.” Deety was wearing her “Name, rank, and serial number” face. “Nor did I.” Hilda looked at Zeb. “There is no need to discuss it.” She stirred litter with a toe. “I had hoped that we could find salvage. But three fourths of it has been eaten. By large animals from those tooth marks. I would have trouble visualizing a large animal that eats cellulose but is nevertheless carnivorous – save that I know one. So we will get as much done as possible while keeping a tight guard. I have the program planned but I’m open to advice.” “Hilda!” I let my tone get a bit sharp. My wife looked around with features as impassive as those of my daughter. “Copilot, are you addressing me officially or socially?” “Uh… as your husband! I must put my foot down! Hilda, you don’t realize the situation. We’ll lift as soon as possible – and Zeb will be in command. The farce is over.” I hated to speak to my beloved that way but sometimes one must. I braced myself for a blast. None came. Hilda turned to Zeb and said quietly, “Chief Pilot, was my election a farce?” “No, Captain.” “Astrogator, did you think of it as farce?” “Me? Heavens, no, Captain Auntie!” Hilda looked at me. “Jacob, from the balloting you voted for me at least once, possibly three times. Were you joking?” I could not remember how I had felt when it dawned on me that Zeb really did intend to resign – panic, I think, that I was about to be stuck with the job. That was now irrelevant as I knew that I was not more than one micron from again being a bachelor… so I resorted to Higher Truth. “No, no, my darling – my darling Captain! I was dead serious!” “Did you find some malfeasance?” “What? No! I – I made a mistake. Jumped to conclusions. I assumed that we would be leaving at once… and that Zeb would command once we lifted. After all, it’s his car.” Hilda gave me the briefest smile. “There is something to that last argument. Zebbie, did you intend – “ “Wait a half! Cap’n, that car belongs to all of us just like Jake’s Milky Way bars; we pooled resources.” “So I have heard you all say. Since I had nothing to pool but a fur cape, I took it with a grain of salt. Zebbie, do you intend to resume command when we lift?” “Captain, the only way you can quit is by resigning… whereupon Deety would be captain.” “No, sirree!” (My daughter is not often that shrill.) “Then Jake would wind up holding the sack. Captain, I’ll pilot when ordered, chop wood and carry water between times. But I didn’t sign up to boss a madhouse. I think you’re finding out what I mean.” “I think so, too, Zebbie. You thought there was an emergency and started giving orders. I would not want that to happen in a real emergency -“ “It won’t! Captain.” “And I find to my chagrin that my husband considers me to be a play captain. I think I must ask for a vote of confidence. Will you please find something to use as white and black balls?” “Captain Auntie!” “Yes, dear?” “I am required to advise you. A commanding officer commands; she doesn’t ask for votes. You can resign – or – die – or lose to a mutiny and get hanged from your own yardarm. But if you take a vote, you’re not a captain; you’re a politician.” “Deety’s right, Captain,” Zeb told my wife. “Had a case-law case in R.O.T.C. Naval vessel. Department told the skipper to pick one of two ports for ho1idays. He let his crew vote on it. Word got back to Washington and he was relieved at sea by his second-in-command and never again ordered to sea. C.O.’s don’t ask; they tell ’em. However, if it matters to you, I’m sorry I goofed, and you do enjoy my confidence.” “Mine, too!” “And mine, Hilda my dear Captain!” (In truth I wanted Zeb and only Zeb to command when the car was off the ground. But I made myself a solemn vow never again to say or do anything that might cause Hilda to suspect it. We would crash and die together rather than let her suspect that I thought her other than the ideal commanding officer.) Hilda said, “The incident is closed. Who can’t wait? Speak up.” I hesitated – my bladder is not used to bedtime right after dinner. When no one else spoke, I said, “Perhaps I had better be first; I have breakfast to prepare.” “Dear, you are not First Cook today; Zebbie is. Deety, grab a rifle and take your father to his ‘handy bush’ – and do make it handy; that giant termite might be lurking. Then hand Jacob the rifle and it’s your turn. Don’t dally.”
It was a busy day. Water tanks had to be topped off. Zeb and I used two collapsible buckets, taking turns (that hill got steeper every trip, even at 0.38 gee), while Deety guarded us. Endless trips – That afternoon I was a ladies’ tailor. Hilda had something for Deety to do. Zeb had a job to complete. The space behind the bulkhead has padeyes every 30 cms or so. No one wants the center of gravity to shift when one is in the air. Zeb’s arrangements were Samson cord in many lengths with snap hooks. Zeb told Hilda he wanted to secure the bed aft for air or space, and to store items used in rigging the forward bed so that they would be secure but available – and where were his Samson ties? – Gay didn’t know. He had to explain to Hilda what they looked like – whereupon Hilda said, “Oh! Thingammies! Gay Deceiver. Inventory. Incidentals. Small. Thingammies.” Zeb spent the afternoon making certain that the “bed” could not slide, then built a net of Samson cord to hold the items for turning seats into a bed, then, finding that he had Samson ties left, Zeb removed the wires with which I had secured the aftermost storage, and replaced them with ties. When he was through, he relieved me as guard, and I wound up as seamstress. Our wives had decided that one of Deety’s jump suits should be altered for Hilda until we reached some place where clothes could be purchased. Hilda had vetoed Earth-without-a-J. “Jacob, as captain I look at things from another perspective. It is better to be a lively frump than a stylish corpse. Wups! You pinned Sharpie.” “Thorry,” I said, around a mouthful of pins. Hilda was wearing the suit inside out; I was pinning excess material. Once this caused it to fit, lines held by pins would be tacked, pins removed, tacked lines sewed in short stitches (by hand; Deety’s sewing machine was ashes in another universe), and excess cloth trimmed away. Such was theory. I tackled reducing the waist line by pinning darts on both sides. Then I folded up the trousers so that the crease came at the instep – but had to pin them up 17 cms! Seventeen centimeters! I had taken in the waist first, knowing that doing so would, in effect, shorten the trousers. It did – one centimeter. The appearance was as if I were trying to fit her with a chimpanzee suit for a masquerade. Lift it at the shoulders? I tried, almost cutting off circulation. Still a horrid case of droopy drawers – Take a tuck all the way around the waist? That suit closed with one zipper. Have you ever tried to take a tuck in a zipper? I stepped back and looked at my creative artistry. Ghastly. “Hilda my love, Deety was better at this by the age of ten. Shall I fetch her?” “No, no!” “Yes, yes. If at first you don’t succeed, find the mistake. I’m the mistake. You need Deety.” “No, Jacob. It would be better for me to get along without clothes than to interrupt the work I have assigned to the Astrogator. With you at the verniers and Zebbie at the controls, Gay can do almost anything and quickly. Yes?” “I wouldn’t phrase it that way. But I understand you.” “If she’s been preprogrammed, she can do it even faster?” “Certainly. Why the quiz, dear?” “How much faster?” “Without preprogramming, it takes a few seconds to acknowledge and set it, about as long to check what I’ve done, then I report ‘Set!’ Zeb says ‘Execute!’ I punch the button. Five to fifteen seconds. With a preprogram – is it debugged in all ways, no conflicts, no ambiguities, no sounds easy to confuse?” “Darling, that is why I won’t let Deety be disturbed. Yes.” “So. Maximum time would be with Gay asleep. Wake her, she acknowledges, you state the preprogram in the exact words in her memory, then say ‘Execute!’ Call it three seconds. Minimum – That would be an emergency preprogram with ‘Execute’ included in the code word. My dear, we saw minimum time yesterday. When that Russian tried to shoot Zeb.” “Jacob, that is what caused me to put Deety to work. I saw his pistol in the air. His fingers were curled to catch it. Then we were in the sky. How long?” “I saw him start to reverse his weapon, and bent over my verniers to bounce us by switch… then stopped. Not needed. Mmm – A tenth of a second? A fifth?” “Whichever, it is the fastest we can manage. While you dears were carrying water, I was preparing a list of preprograms. Some are to save juice or time or to carry out something we do frequently; those require ‘Execute!’ Some are intended to save our lives and don’t require ‘Execute.’ Like ‘Bounce’ and ‘Bug Out’ and ‘Take us home!’ But more. Jacob, I did not tell Deety how to phrase these; that’s her specialty. I wrote out what I thought we ought to be able to do and told her to add any she wished.” “Did you consult Zeb?” “Copilot, the Captain did not consult the Chief Pilot.” “Whew! I beg your pardon – Captain.” “Only if I get a kiss – mind the pins! Deety will post a copy on the instrument board. After you and Zebbie read them, I want your advice and his.”
I gave up on that jump suit. I took out eighty-five or a thousand pins. Hilda was covered with sweat so I invited her to order me to take her down to bathe. She hesitated. I said, “Does the Captain have duties of which I am unaware?” “No. But everyone else is working, Jacob.” “Captain, Rank Hath Its Privileges. You are on duty twenty-four hours a day – twenty-four and a half here – “ “Twenty-four hours, thirty-nine minutes, thirty-five seconds – local day, not sidereal.” “Did you measure it? Or remember what some professor said?” “Neither, Jacob. It’s the figure Gay uses. I suppose she got it from the Aerospace Almanac.” “Are you going to believe an almanac? Or your husband?” “Excuse me, Jacob, while I tell Gay the correct figure.” “Hand back my leg, beloved. Captain, since you are on duty all the time, you are entitled to bathe, rest, or relax, at any time.” “Well… two seconds while I grab a towel – and tell Zebbie that I will start dinner while he is down bathing.” “Captain, I am number-two cook today. You said so.” “You will guard, Jacob, which you do better than I. While the Carters are guarding each other.” Hilda came trotting back with a towel. I said, “Cap’n, I’ve figured out clothes for you.” “Goody. Yes, dear?” We headed for the path down. “Were my Hawaiian shirts packed?” I had her fall in behind me. “Inventory. Clothing. Jacob. Shirts. Aloha.” “Do you recall a blue one with white flowers?” “Yes.” “I take ‘medium’ but can get into a ‘small’ and Andrade’s didn’t have this in ‘medium.’ But this one is so small I haven’t been wearing it. Hilda, you’ll like it – and it will be easy to cut down.” (A steep pitch – no place to lose your footing while carrying a gun.) “I won’t cut it down. Jacob, your shirt is my first maternity smock.” “A happy thought! Did Deety fetch sailor pants? White.” “I recall white duck slacks.” Hilda kicked off her Keds, stepped into the water. “That’s the pair. She wore them one summer while maturing. The following summer they were too tight. She was always about to alter them but never did.” “Jacob, if Deety likes those pants so well that she saved them and fetched them along, I won’t ask her to give them to me.” “I will ask her. Hilda, you worry about the wrong things. We pooled resources. I chucked in my candy bars, Zeb chucked in his car, Deety chucks in her sailor pants.” “And what did I chuck in? Nothing!” “Your mink cape. If you offered it to Deety in exchange for a pair of old white -“ “It’s a deal!” “It is like hell, Mistress Mine. That cape is valuta. Only days ago each of us was wealthy. Now we are unpersons who can’t go home. What happens to our bank accounts I do not know but it seems certain that we will never realize anything from them, or from stocks, bonds, and other securities. Any paper money we have is worthless. As you know, I have bullion and gold coins and Jake has, also; we each like money that clinks and we don’t trust governments. Gay must be juiced from time to time; that calls for valuta. Such as gold. Such as mink coats. Come out of there before you freeze! I would rub you dry but that giant termite worries me.” “Last night Zebbie rubbed me dry.” (Why do women have this compulsion to confess? It is not a typical male vice.) “He did? I should speak to him.” “Jacob, you are angry.” “Only somewhat, as yesterday we didn’t know about the giant termite, and Zeb and I considered your guard rules silly. Nevertheless Zeb neglected his duty.” “I meant ‘angry with me’!” “For what? Did you force it on him?” “No. He offered it – towel open and ready, just as you do. I went straight into it, let him wrap me and rub me down.” “Feel good?” “Golly, yes! I’m a bad girl, Jacob – but I loved it.” “Don’t give yourself airs, my darling; you are not a bad girl. Yesterday was not the first time Zeb has rubbed you dry.” “Well… no.” (They have to confess, they have to be shrived.) “Do you any harm, then or now?” “I don’t think so.” “I’m sure it didn’t. Listen, beloved – you are twenty-nine going on forty-two. You’ve had three term contracts and now have a traditional marriage. In college you were a scandal to the jaybirds. Zeb has been your chum for years. Both of you horny as goats. My darling, I assumed what is called ‘the worst’ and is often the best.” “But, Jacob, we didn’t, we didn’t! And we haven’t!” “So? People who pass up temptations have only themselves to blame. Just one thing, my only love, if you and Zeb ever pick up the matter, try not to look guilty.” “But we aren’t going to, ever!” “Should it come to pass, warn Zeb not to hurt Deety. She loves him deeply. Not surprising as Zeb is a lovable man. Get your shoes on, dearest one, and we’ll let someone else have the community bathtub.” “Jacob? You still think we have. Zebbie and I.” “Hilda, I married you convinced that Zeb was, at that time and for some years, your lover. Or one of them. Today you have convinced me that the matter is unproven… assuming that one or both of you have rocks in your head. But I can’t see that it makes a tinker’s dam either way. Jane taught me that the only important rule is not to hurt people… which very often – Jane’s words! – consists in not talking unnecessarily.” “Jane told me that, too. Jacob? Will you kiss me?” “Madame – what did you say your name was? – that is the toll I charge before a client starts up this bank.” As we climbed, I asked Hilda, “Darling, what is the animal that eats cellulose but is carnivorous?” “Oh. Two. H. sapiens and Rattus.” “Men? Cellulose?” “Sawdust is often processed as food. Have you ever eaten in a fast food joint?”
My daughter had done a wonderful job on preprograms; we all were eager to learn them. We placed guards, Zeb and me, at the doors, while Deety took Zeb’s seat and talked, and Hilda sat in mine. “Captain Auntie had two ideas,” Deety told us. “To optimize emergency escapes and to work out ways to use as near to no juice as possible. The latter involves figuring ways to ground us in strange places without the skill Zebadiah has in dead-stick grounding.” “I don’t depend on skill,” put in my son-in-law. “I won’t risk a dead-stick grounding other than on a hard-surfaced strip. You’ve seen me avoid it twice – by power-on just before grounding. Yesterday I cut it a bit fine.” I shuddered. My daughter continued, “We have this new program. Set it, by voice, for bearing and as many minima as you please. Our Smart Girl goes there and attempts to ground. She uses radar twice, once in range-finder mode, second time in precautionary mode as in ‘Bug Out.’ If her target is not clear, she does a Drunkard’s Walk in locus ten klicks radius, sampling spots two per second. When she finds a good spot, she grounds. Unless we don’t like it and order her to try again. “Study that and you will see that you can cruise all over this or any planet, land anywhere, and not use juice. “Escape programs – We must be most careful in saying G, A, Y. Refer to her as ‘smart girl’ or ‘the car’ or anything not starting with that syllable. That syllable will now wake her. If it is followed by her last name, she goes into ‘awaiting orders’ mode. But if G, A, Y, alone is followed by any of eight code words, she executes that escape instantly. I have tried to select monosyllables that ordinarily do not follow her first name. Gay Deceiver.” “Hi, Deety!” “Dictionary. G, A, Y. Read.” “Gayety, gayfeather, Gayle, Gaylord, Gay-Pay-Oo, gaywings -“
Chapter XXIV
Captains aren’t supposed to cry.
Hilda: I ordered an early dinner by starting it when Zebbie and Deety went down to bathe. I had ready a public reason but my motive was personal: I didn’t want a pillow talk with Jacob. Annoyed at him? At me! I had had a perfect chance to keep my lip zipped – and muffed it! Was I boasting? Or confessing? Or trying to hurt Jacob? (Oh, no! – can the id be that idiotic!) Don’t rationalize it, Sharpie! Had not your husband been kind, tolerant, and far more sophisticated than you ever dreamed, you would be in trouble. When dinner was over, Zebbie said lazily, “I’ll do the dishes in the morning.” I said, “I prefer that they be done tonight, please.” Zebbie sat up and looked at me. His thoughts were coming through so strongly that I was getting them as words. I never allow myself to be close with a person whose thoughts I can’t sense at all; I distrust a blank wall. But now I could “hear” such names as “Queeg” and “Bligh” and “Vanderdecken” and “Ahab” – and suddenly Captain Ahab was harpooning the White Whale and I was the whale! Zebbie bounced to his feet with a grin that made me uneasy. “Sure thing, Cap’n! Deety, grab a rifle and hold it on me to make sure I get ’em clean.” I cut in quickly, “I’m sorry, Chief Pilot, but I need the Astrogator. Jacob is your assistant.” When they were gone, Deety said, “Will my shotgun do? I don’t think the cardboard eater comes out in daylight.” “Bring the guns inside; we’re going to close the doors.” I waited until we were settled. “Deety, will you make me a copy of your new programs before our men come back?” “If they take time to wash them properly. Men and dishes – you know.” “I hope they stall -“ ” – and get over their mad,” Deety finished. “That, too. But I intend to write a sequential program and I want you to check me. After you make that copy.”
They did stay down – “man talk,” no doubt. Men need us but can just barely stand us; every now and then they have to discuss our faults. I think that is why they shut us out. Deety made a copy while I wrote what I planned to do. Deety looked it over, corrected some wording. Looked it over again – and said nothing pointedly. “Deety, can you handle your father’s lab camera?” “Certainly.” “Will you check its load and shoot when I ask for it?” “Of course.” “If I goof on an order, correct me at once.” “You don’t intend to hand this to Zebadiah to carry out?” “No. I prefer that you not mention that I prepared it ahead of time. Deety, the Chief Pilot assured me that any of us could command in aerospace. I am about to make a test run. The Chief Pilot is in a position to override. If he does, I shan’t fight it; I have said all along that he should be captain.” We had time to dig out that shirt with the white flowers. Deety’s sailor pants were long; we turned up cuffs. The lacing at the back made them small enough in the waist. She gave me a blue belt to pull in the shirt, which I wore outside – then she added a blue hair ribbon. “Captain Auntie, you look good. Better than I will in this jump suit I am reluctantly pulling on. Gosh, I’m glad Zebadiah isn’t square about skin!” “He was when I adopted him. Fetched swim briefs the first time I invited him over to swim. But I was firm. There they come! Open the doors.” They appeared to be over their mad. Zebbie looked at me and said, “How fancy! Are we going to church?” – and my husband added, “You look pretty, my dear.” “Thank you, sir. All hands, prepare for space. Secure loose gear. Lock firearms. Anyone requiring a bush stop say so. Dress for space. Before manning car, take a turn around the car, searching for gear on the ground.” “What is this?” demanded Zebbie. “Prepare for space. Move!” He hesitated a split second. “Aye aye, Captain.”
In two minutes and thirteen seconds (I checked Gay’s clock) I was squeezing past my husband into the starboard rear seat. I said, “In reporting, include status of firearms. Astrogator.” “Belted down. Bulkhead door dogged. Shotgun loaded and locked. I slid it under the sleeping bag.” “Fléchette gun?” “Wups! In my purse. Loaded and locked. Purse clipped to my seat, outboard.” “Copilot.” “Belt fastened. Door locked, seal checked. Continua device ready. Rifle loaded and locked, secure under sleeping bag. I’m wearing my pistol loaded and locked.” “Chief Pilot.” “Belt fastened, door locked, seal checked. Rifle loaded, locked, under sleeping bag. Wearing revolver, loaded and locked. No loose gear. Water tanks topped off. Load trimmed. Two reserve power packs, two zeroed. Juice zero point seven-two capacity. Wings spread full. Wheels down, unlocked to retract. All systems go. Ready.” “Chief Pilot, after first maneuver, execute vertical dive fastest without power and without retracting wheels. Relock wheel-retracting gear. Leave wings spread max.” “Wheel retractors locked. After first maneuver fastest, no-power vertical dive, wings full subsonic, wheels down.” I glanced at Deety; she held up the camera and mouthed, “Ready.” “Gay Home!” In Arizona it was shortly before sunset, as Deety had predicted. My husband repressed a gasp. I snapped, “Copilot, report H-above-G.” “Uh… two klicks minus, falling.” Zebbie had bite now; the horizon ahead tilted slowly up, then faster. As we leaned over, Deety stretched high, catlike, to shoot between our pilots. We steadied with Snug Harbor dead ahead – a crater! I felt a burst of anger, a wish to kill! “Picture!” “Gay B’gout!” Instead of being stationary at “Touchdown” we were in free fall on the night side of some planet. I could see stars, with blackness below the “horizon” – if horizon it were. Deety said, “Looks like the Russians left something on our parking space.” “Perhaps. Jacob, H-above-G, please.” “Under ten klicks, decreasing slowly.” “So far, so good. But we aren’t sure that we have the right planet and universe.” “Captain, that’s Antares ahead.” “Thanks, Zebbie. I assume that at least we are in one of the analogs, of our native universe. Deety, can you get from Gay the acceleration and check it against Mars-ten?” “‘Bout four ways, Cap’n.” “Go ahead.” “Gay Deceiver.” “Hi, Deety!” “Hi, Gay. H-above-G, closing rate running, solve first differential, report answer.” Instantly Gay answered, “Three-seven-six centimeters per second squared.” “You’re a smart girl, Gay.” So it was either Mars-ten or an unreasonable facsimile. “Gay B’gout!” We were stationary, with what we had come to feel as “proper weight.” Deety said, “Maybe an animal wandered across our spot. How about lights, Captain? This snapshot ought to be colors by now.” “Not yet. Chief Pilot, when I alert the autopilot by G, A, Y, please switch on forward landing lights.” “Roger Wilco.” “Gay -“ Blinding light – men in its path were blinded, not us. “Bounce! Kill the light, Zebbie. The Little Father left sentries in case we came back – and we did.” “Captain Auntie, may I have cabin light now?” “Please be patient, dear. I saw two men. Jacob?” “Three men, dear… dear Captain. Russian soldiers in uniform. Weapons, but no details.” “Deety?” “Looked like bazookas.” “Chief Pilot?” “Bazookas. A good thing you were on the bounce with Bounce, Skipper. Gay can take a lot… but a bazooka would make her unhappy.” He added, “Speed saved me yesterday. Deety, let that be a lesson: Never lose your temper.” “Look who’s talking!” “I quit being C.O., didn’t I? Cap’n Sharpie doesn’t do foolish stunts. If I were skipper, we would chase ’em all over that sea bottom. Never be in one place long enough for them to aim and they would think there were thirty of us. If Colonel Snotsky is there – I think he’s afraid to go home -“ We were over Arizona. I snapped, “Gay Termite!” and were parked by our stream. Zebbie said, “What the devil? Who did that?” “You did, Zebadiah,” Deety answered. “Me? I did no such thing. I was -“ “Silence!” (That was I, Captain Bligh.) I went on, “Gay Deceiver, go to sleep. Over.” “Sleepy time, Hilda. Roger and out.” “Chief Pilot, is there a way to shut off the autopilot so completely that she cannot possibly be activated by voice?” “Oh, certainly.” Zebbie reached up, threw a switch. “Thanks, Zebbie. Deety, your new escape programs are swell… but I missed how that happened. But first – Did anyone else see our giant termite?” “Huh?” – “I did.” – “Where?” I said, “I was looking out to starboard as we transited. The creature was feeding on packing debris – and took off uphill at high speed. Looked like a very big, fat, white dog with too many legs. Six, I think.” “‘Six,'” agreed my husband. “Put me in mind of a polar bear. Hilda, I think it is carnivorous.” “We are not going to find out. Deety, tell Zebbie – all of us – what happened.” Deety shrugged. “Zebadiah said ‘bounce’ twice when he should not have, but Gay wasn’t triggered. Then he said ‘Gay can take a lot – ‘ and she was triggered. More chitchat and Zebadiah said ‘ – I think he’s afraid to go home – ‘ That did it. Our smart girl hears what she has been taught. She heard: ‘Gay Home’ and that is the short form that used to be: ‘Gay Deceiver Take Us Home.” Zebbie shook his head. “A gun should never be that hair-trigger.” “Chief Pilot, yesterday you used the first of these clipped programs to avoid a bullet in your face. First ‘Gay’ – then after more words – ‘bounce!’ It saved you.” “But -“ “I’m not through. Astrogator, study the escape programs. Search for possibility of danger if triggered accidentally. Zebbie, escape programs can’t be compared to a hair trigger on a gun; they are to escape, not to kill.” “Captain Auntie, I’ve spent all day making certain that programs can’t put us out of the frying pan into the fire. That’s why I killed ‘countermarch.’ The nearest thing to danger is the ‘Home’ program because our home planet is unfriendly.” Deety sounded sad. “I hate to cut our last link with home.” “It needn’t be cut,” I said. “Just stretched. Put it back into long form and add ‘Execute.'” Deety answered, “Captain, I will do as you say. But we might be a billion klicks from nowhere and hit by a meteor. If anyone can gasp, ‘GayHome,’ then we are two klicks over our cabin site in air, not vacuum. Even if we’ve passed out, Gay won’t crash us; she’s built not to. If I’m gasping my last, I don’t want to have to say, ‘Gay Deceiver, take us home. Execute.’ That’s ten syllables against two… with air whooshing out.” I said, “That settles it. The ‘Gay Home’ program stands unless my successor changes it.” “You’re not talking to me, Captain Sharpie darling – I mean, Captain Hilda – because I’m not your successor. But Deety convinced me. I will not admit that those vermin have run me permanently off my own planet. At least I can return to it to die.” “Son, let’s not speak of dying. We are going to stay alive and raise kids and enjoy it.” “That’s my Pop! Say, doesn’t anybody want to see this picture?”
We made it a rest stop, worrying more about giant termites than about bushes… and Jacob found a can opener. The can opener. I put a stop to an attempt to fix the blame. Advice to all explorers: Do not roam the universes without a spare can opener. Then it was “Prepare for lift!” and a new program. “Chief Pilot, switch on autopilot. Gay Deceiver. Explore. True bearing two-six-five. Unit jump five minima. Use bingo stop continue. End program short of sunrise line. Ground. Acknowledge by paraphrase.” “Explore west five degrees south fifty-klick units. Two-second check each jump. Ground myself no power Greenwich time oh-three-seventeen.” “Deety, is that time right?” “For that program.” “Gay Deceiver. Program revision. Cancel grounding. From program coded ‘A Tramp Abroad’ display locus. Display Bingoes.” She displayed Mars at once, but gibbous. I scrawled a note to Deety: “How do I rotate to show day side only?” Dear Deety! She wrote her answer. Passed it over – I doubt that our men saw it: “Program revision. Display locus real-time day side.” Gay accommodated. It took several steps to define new locus as sunset line (right edge – east) to sunrise line (left edge – west), and between 50°N and 50°S (some Russian area had been close to 45°S, so I widened the search)-then let the locus move with the terminators. (Gay can “see” in the dark but I can’t.) I told her to end “Explore” at Greenwich oh-three-seventeen and start “A Tramp Abroad,” continue until directed otherwise, and had Gay repeat back in her phrasing. I touched Zebbie’s shoulder, pointed to the switch that cut out Gay’s ears, drew a finger across my throat. He nodded and shut her out. I said, “Questions, gentlemen? Deety?” “I do, Captain,” said our Chief Pilot. “Do you plan on sleeping tonight?” “Certainly, Zebbie. An ideal sleeping spot would be one far from the Russians but close to the present sunset line. Or did you want to work all night?” “If you wish. I noticed that you gave Gay a program that could keep her going for days or weeks – and that you had reduced H-above-G to six klicks. Breathable air. By rotating duties, with one or two always stretched out aft, we can stay up a week, easily, and still give Jake’s ankles a break.” “I can skip a night’s sleep,” said Deety. “Captain Auntie honey, with enough random samples and a defined locus, sampling soon approaches a grid a fly couldn’t get through. Do you want the formula?” “Heavens, no! As long as it works.” “It works. Let’s make a long run, get a big sampling. But I’d like to add something. Let’s parallel the display onto a sidelooker screen, and light every vertex – while the main display shows Bingoes. You’ll see how tight a screen you’re building.” “Sharpie, don’t let her do it!” Zebbie added, “‘Scuse, please! Captain, the Astrogator is correct on software but I know more about this hardware. You can crowd a computer into a nervous breakdown. I have safeguards around Smart Girl; if I give her too much to do, she tells me to go to hell. But she likes Deety. Like a willing horse, she’ll try hard for Deety even when it’s too much.” Deety said soberly, “Captain, I gave you bad advice.” Her husband said, “Don’t be so humble, Deety. You’re smarter than I am and we all know it. But we are dependent on Smart Girl and can’t let her break down. Captain, I don’t know how much strain the time-space twister puts on her but she has unnecessary programs. At the Captain’s convenience, I would like to review everything in her perms and wipe those we can do without.” “My very early convenience, sir. Is the schedule okay?” “Oh, sure. Just don’t add that side display.” “Thank you, Chief Pilot. Anyone else? Copilot?” “My dear… my dear Captain, is there some reason to find a spot near the sunset line? If you intend to work all night?” “Oh! But, Jacob, I do not plan to work all night. It is now about twenty hundred by our personal circadians, as established by when we got up. I think we can search for three to four hours. I hope that we can find a spot to sleep near the sunset line, scout it in daylight, let Gay land herself on it for her perms – then return to it in the dark when we get tired” “I see, in part. My dear, unless I misunderstood you, you are heading west. But you said that you wanted to find us a place to sleep near the presert sunset line. East. Or did I misunderstood you?” “It’s very simply explained, Jacob.” “Yes, dear Captain?” “I made a horrible mistake in navigation.” “Oh.” “Chief Pilot, did you spot it?” “Yup. Yes, Captain.” “Why didn’t you speak up?” “Not my business, Ma’am. Nothing you planned to do was any danger.” “Zebbie, I’m not sure whether to thank you for keeping quiet, or to complain because you did. Deety, you spotted the mistake, I am certain. You are supposed to advise me.” “Captain, I’m supposed to speak up to stop a bad mistake. This was not. I wasn’t certain that it was a mistake until you told on yourself. But you spotted the mistake when Gay predicted the time to end the ‘Explore’ program, then you corrected it by telling her to shift to ‘A Tramp Abroad.’ So there was never a reason to advise you.” I let out a sigh. “You’re covering for me and I love you all and I’m no good as captain. I’ve served as many hours as Zebbie and we are on the ground, so now it’s time to elect someone who can do it right. You, Zebbie.” “Not me. Jake and Deety must each do a stint before I’d admit that it might be my turn.” “Captain -“ “Deety, I’m not captain; I resigned!” “No, Aunt Hilda, you didn’t actually do it. It is my duty to advise you when you seem about to make a bad mistake. You made a minor mistake and corrected it. In my business we call that ‘debugging’-and spend more time on it than we do on writing programs. Because everybody makes mistakes.” Jane’s little girl managed to sound the way Jane used to. I resolved to listen – because all too often I hadn’t listened to Jane. “Captain Auntie, if you were resigning because of the way your crew treated you – as Zebadiah did – I wouldn’t say a word. But that’s not your reason. Or is it?” “What? Oh, no! You’ve all helped – you’ve been angels. Uh, well, mostly.” “‘Angels’ – hummph! I can’t use the correct words; I’d shock our men. Aunt Hilda, I gave you far worse lip than I ever gave Zebadiah. You slapped me down hard – and I’ve been your strongest supporter ever since. Zebadiah, what you did was worse -“ “I know.” ” – but you admitted that you were wrong. Nevertheless you’ve been chewing the bit. Demanding explanations. Zebadiah, the captain of a ship doesn’t have to explain why she gives an order. Or does she?” “Of course not. Oh, a captain sometimes does explain. But she shouldn’t do it often or the crew will start thinking they are entitled to explanations. In a crunch this can kill you. Waste that split second.” Zebbie brooded. “Captain says ‘Frog,’ you hop. Couple of times I failed to hop. Captain, I’m sorry.” “Zebbie, we get along all right.” He reached back and patted my knee. “Pretty well in the past. Better from now on.” My darling Jacob said worriedly, “I’m afraid I have been remiss, too.” I was about to reassure him when Deety cut in: “‘Remiss’! Pop, you’re the worst of all! If I had been your wife, I would have tossed you back and rebaited my hook. ‘Farce’ is worse than mutinous; it’s insulting. Be glad Jane didn’t hear you!” “I know, I know!” I touched Deety’s arm and whispered, “That’s enough, dear.” Zebbie said soberly, “Captain, as I analyze it, you made a mistake in sign. Every navigator makes mistakes – and has some routine by which to check his work. If you’re going to get upset because recheck shows that you wrote down ‘plus’ when the declination is ‘south,’ you’re going to have ulcers. You’re just under strain from being C.O. We’ve all made the strain worse. But we want to do better. I’d hate to have you resign over a minor error… when we caused your upset. I hope you’ll give us another chance.” Captains aren’t supposed to cry. I blinked ’em back, got my voice under control, and said, “All hands! Still ready for lift? Report.” “Aye, Captain!” – “Affirmative!” – “Yes, my dear Hilda.” “Zebbie, switch on Gay’s ears.” He did. “Execute!” – Termite Creek was gone and we were fifty klicks west and a touch south. Pretty and green but no Bingo. It would take us about seven minutes to overtake the Sun and approach sunrise line, plus any holds we made. Then I would go east to the sunset line in nothing flat (have Zebbie and Jacob do it); then bounce & glide, bounce & glide, while looking for a place to sleep in a spot suitable for Gay to try her new unpowered autogrounding program – in daylight with the hottest pilot in two worlds ready to override any error. If Gay could do this, we would be almost independent of juice – and have a new “bug-out” sanctuary each time she landed herself. Power packs – Zebbie had a hand-cranked D.C. generator – but heavy work for husky men for endless hours. (40 hrs from zero to full charge; you see why Zebbie would rather buy fresh charges.) We had been skipping along nearly three minutes, over four thousand klicks, before spotting a Bingo (by Zebbie). I called a “Hold” and added, “Where, Zebbie?” He nosed us down. Farm buildings and cultivated fields – a happy contrast to the terrain – barren, green, flat, rugged – all lacking any sign of humans, in the stops we had made. “Astrogator, record time. Continue.” Then over three minutes with no Bingoes – At elapsed time 6m4s Jacob called out, “Bingo! A town.” “Hold! Onion towers?” “I think not, dear. I see a flag – dare we go nearer?” “Yes! But anyone use a scram at will. Jacob, may I have the binoculars, please?” The Stars and Stripes are engraved on my heart, but in the next moments the Cross of Saint Andrew and the Cross of Saint George were added. It was an ensign with a blue field and some white shapes – three half moons in three sizes. “Gay Deceiver.” “I’m all ears, Hilda.” “Move current program to standby.” “Roger Wilco Done.” “Gay Bounce. Zebbie, let’s sweep this area for a bigger settlement.” Zebbie placed a locus around the town, radius five hundred klicks, and started “A Tramp Abroad” with vertex time cut to one second. Thirty-one minutes later we had a city. I guessed it at a hundred thousand plus. “Captain,” Zebbie said, “may I suggest that we bounce and try to raise them by radio? This place is big enough for A.A. guns or missiles -“ “Gay Bounce!” ” – and we know that their Slavic neighbors have aircraft.” “Is your guardian angel warning you?” “Well… ’tain’t polite to ground without clearance; such rudeness can make one suddenly dead.” “Gay Bounce, Gay Bounce. Are we out of reach of missiles?” “Captain, British and Russians of this universe are ahead of us in spaceships or they wouldn’t be here. That requires us to assume that their missiles and lasers and X-weapons are better than ours.” “What’s an ‘X-weapon’? And what do you advise?” “I advise evasive tactics. An X-weapon is a ‘Nobody-Knows.'” “Evasive tactics, your choice. I assume you won’t waste juice.” “No juice. Jake, gallop in all directions. Up, down, and sideways. Don’t wait for ‘Execute’; jump as fast as you can. That’s it! Keep moving!” “Captain Auntie, may I suggest an easier way?” “Speak up, Deety.” “Zebadiah, how big is that city? Kilometers.” “That’s indefinite. Oh, call it eight klicks in diameter.” “You’ve got that one-second ‘Tramp’ program on hold. Change locus. Center on that biggest building, make the radius six klicks. Then start program and Pop can rest.” “Uh… Deety, I’m stupid. Six klicks radius, ten klicks is a minimum – A bit tight?” “Meant to be. Shall I draw a picture?” “Maybe you’d better.” (Deety had defined an annulus two kilometers wide, outer radius six, inner radius four. We would “circle” the city six klicks above ground, random jumps, sixty per minute. I doubted that even robot weapons could find us, range us, hit us, in one second.) Deety loosened her belt, slithered forward, and sketched. Suddenly Zebbie said, “Gotcha! Deety, you’re a smart girl.” “‘Boss, I’ll bet you tell that to all the girls.'” “Nope, just smart ones. Gay Deceiver!” “Less noise, please.” “Program revision. A Tramp Abroad. Locus a circle radius six klicks. Center defined by next Bingo. Acknowledge paraphrase.” “Revised program A Tramp Abroad. Circle twelve klicks diameter center next real-time Bingo.” “Jake, put us over that big building downtown. If necessary, make several tries but don’t hang around. Once I like the position I’ll say the magic word, then scram.” “Aye aye, Chief.” Jacob made a dozen jumps before Zebbie said, “Bingo Gay Bounce” and a light appeared on the display. He started the program and told Gay to increase scale; the light spread out into a circle with a lighted dot in the center. “Captain, watch this. I’ve told Gay that every stop is a Bingo. You may be surprised.” “Thanks, Zebbie.” The circle was becoming freckled inside its perimeter. With no feeling of motion, the scene flicked every second. It was mid-morning; each scene was sharp. That big building would be dead ahead – blink your eye and you’re staring at fields – then again at the city but with that building off to starboard. It put me in mind of holovideo tape spliced to create confusion. Zebbie had on his phones and was ignoring everything else. Jacob was watching the flickering scenery, as was I, as was Deety – when Jacob suddenly turned his head, said, “Deety-please-the-Bo – ” and clapped his hand over his mouth. I said, “Two Bonines, Deety – quickly!” Deety was reaching for them. “You, too, Auntie Cap’n?” “It’s this flickering.” I gave one to Jacob, made certain that he saw me take one. I had not been motion-sick since I had been made Captain. But any time my husband must take one, I will keep him company. Today I should have taken one as soon as I spotted that British flag; Bonine tranquilizes the nerves as well as the tummy… and soon I must act as – ambassador? Something of the sort; I intended to go straight to the top. Dealing with underlings is frustrating. In college I would not have lasted almost four years had it been up to the dean of women. But I always managed to take it over her head to the president; the top boss can bend the rules. (But my senior year the president was female and as tough a bitch as I am. She listened to my best Clarence-Darrow defense, congratulated me, told me I should have studied law, then said, “Go pack. I want you off campus by noon.”) Zebbie pushed the phone off his right ear. “Captain, I’ve got this loud enough to put on the horn. Want to talk to them?” “No. I’ve never grounded outside the States. You know how, you do it. But, Chief Pilot -“ “Yes, Ma’am?” “And Copilot and Astrogator. Stick to the truth at all times. But do not unnecessarily give information. Answer questions uninformatively – but truthfully. If pressed, tell them, ‘See the Captain.” “My dear,” Jacob said worriedly, “I’ve been meaning to speak about this. Zeb has had diplomatic experience. Wouldn’t it be wise for us to place him in charge on the ground? Please understand, I’m not criticizing your performance as captain. But with his experience and in view of the fact that our principal purpose is to obtain certain things for his car -“ “Gay Bounce Gay Bounce Gay Bounce! Astrogator.” “Yes, Captain.” “Place us in a parking orbit. Soonest.” “Aye aye, Ma’am! Copilot, don’t touch the verniers. Chief Pilot, check that the car is level. Gay Deceiver.” “On deck, Deety.” “Program. L axis add speed vector three point six klicks per second. Paraphrase acknowledge.” “Increase forward speed three and six tenths kilometers per second.” “Chief Pilot?” “Level.” “Execute.” Deety glanced at the board. “Gay Deceiver, H-above-G will soon stop decreasing, then increase very slowly. In about fifty minutes it will maximize. Program. When H-above-G is maximum, alert me.” “Roger Wilco.” “If-when one hundred klicks H-above-G, alert me.” “Roger Wilco.” “If-when air drag exceeds zero, alert me.” “Roger Wilco.” “Remain in piloting mode. Ignore voices including program code words until you are called by your full name. Acknowledge by reporting your full name.” “‘Gay Deceiver,'” answered Gay Deceiver. “Is that okay, Captain? Smart Girl can’t hear the short-form programs now, until she hears her full name first. Then you would still have to say ‘Gay’ to alert her, and ‘Home’ or whatever to scram. But there should be loads of time, as she’ll tell me if anything starts to go wrong. You heard her.” “That’s fine, Astrogator.” “I turned her ears off because there may be discussion in which you might not want to have to be careful to use code words… but still be able to put her ears back fast if you need them. Faster than the switch and besides the switch can be reached only from the left front seat.” Deety had a touch of nervous chattering; I understood the reasons for each step. And I understood why she was chattering. “Well done. Thank you. Remain at the conn. Chief Pilot, Copilot, the Second-in-Command has the conn. I am going aft and do not wish to be disturbed.” I lowered my voice, spoke directly to Deety. “You are free to call me. You only.” “Aye aye, Captain,” Deety acknowledged quietly. “I must remind you: air for four hours only.” “If I fall asleep, call me in three hours.” I kissed her quickly, floated out of my chair and started to undog the bulkhead door – got nowhere; Deety had to help me. Deety flipped a light switch for me. She closed me in and dogged one dog. I got a blanket out of the cradle, took off my clothes, tried to wrap myself in the blanket. It kept slithering away. No seat belts – But the web straps used to make a bedroll of Zebbie’s sleeping bag were attached through loops and tucked under thingammies. Soon I had a belt across my waist and the blanket around me. Being a runt, the only way I can fight is with words. But best for me is to walk away. Fight with Jacob? I was so angry I wanted to slap him! But I never slap anyone; a woman who takes advantage of her size and sex to slap a man is herself no gentleman. So I walked away – got out of there before I said something that would tear it – lose me my lovable, cuddly, thoughtful – and sometimes unbearable! – husband. I wept in my pillow – no pillow and no Kleenex. After a while I slept.
Chapter XXV
” – leave bad enough alone!”
Deety: After I helped Aunt Hilda with the bulkhead door, I got back into my seat- and said nothing. If I opened my mouth, I would say too much. I love Pop a heap, and respect him as a mathematician. Pop is also one of the most selfish people I’ve ever known. Doesn’t mean he’s tight with money; he isn’t. Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t share his last crust of bread – he would. With a stranger. But if he doesn’t want to do something, he won’t. When Jane died, I had to take over money management at once. At seventeen. Because Pop ignored it. It was all I could do to get him to sign his name. – I was bucking for my doctorate. Pop seemed to think that I should cook, clean house, shop, keep financial records, manage our businesses, cope with taxes – and earn my doctorate simultaneously. Once I let dishes stack to see how long it would take him to notice. About two weeks later he said, “Deety, aren’t you ever going to do the dishes?” I answered, “No, sir.” “Eh? Why not?” “I don’t have time.” He looked puzzled. “Jane didn’t seem to find keeping house difficult. Is something wrong, dear?” “Pop, Mama wasn’t bucking for a doctorate against a committee of dunderheads. My research subject was approved two years ago… but I’ve got men judging me – four out of seven – who can’t tell Fortran from Serutan, hate computers, and have dark fears that computer scientists are going to take their jobs away from them. They make me do work over because they don’t understand it. And besides – Well, Mama Jane always had help, mine, and a housekeeper toward the end.” Pop is okay. He hired a housekeeper who stuck with us till I got my Ph.D. He investigated, discovered that thehead of the department had put men on my committee who knew nothing about computers – not on purpose; the department head did not know computers. I wound up with an even tougher committee but they knew computers. Fair enough. Pop means to be good to me and he adores Aunt Hilda and means to pamper her. Pop is one of those men who sincerely believe in Women’s Lib, always support it – but so deep down that they aren’t aware of it, their emotions tell them that women never get over being children. A mistake easy to make with Aunt Hilda – There are twelve-year-old girls bigger than she is and with more curves. For a horrid time, we three said nothing. Zebadiah watched his instruments; Pop stared straight ahead. At last my husband gave my father the chewing out that Pop would never have taken from me, “Jake. Tell me how you do it.” “Eh?” “You’re a genius. You aren’t the absent-minded sort who needs a boy to lead him around. You can hammer a nail with the best of them and can use power tools without chopping your fingers. You’re good company and you managed to attract one of the three finest women I’ve ever known so much that she married you. Yet you have publicly insulted her twice in one day. Twice. Tell me: Do you have to study to be that stupid? Or is it a gift, like your genius for mathematics?” Pop covered his face with his hands. Zebadiah shut up. I could see Pop’s shoulders shake. Presently his sobbing stopped. He wiped his eyes, unfastened his seat belt. When I realized he was heading for the bulkhead door, I unstrapped fast and placed myself in his way. He said, “Please move out of my way, Deety.” “Copilot, return to your seat.” “But, Daughter, you can’t come between husband and wife!” “Address me as ‘Astrogator.’ The Captain does not wish to be disturbed. Gay Deceiver!” “Here, Deety!” “Log mode. Copilot, I will not permit you to disobey the Captain’s orders. Return to your seat, strap down – and stay there!” “Or would you rather be placed in it?” Zebadiah growled. “With your arms strapped under the belts, and the buckles where you can’t reach them.” “Chief Pilot, do not intervene unless I call on you. Copilot, move!” Pop turned in the air, almost kicking me in the face and unaware of it. He was speaking through sobs. “But I must apologize to Hilda! Can’t you understand that?” But he was getting back into his seat. “Jake, you’ll be a worse damn’ fool if you do.” “What? Zeb, you can’t mean that.” “I do mean it. You apologized once today. Hypocrisy, as Sharpie realizes. Jake, your only chance of staying married is to shut up and soldier; your word is no longer worth a fiat dollar. But if you behave yourself for four or five years, she might forget it. Correction: forgive it. She’ll never forget it. Establish a long record of good behavior and she might allow you some minor faults. But don’t ever hint that she is not as competent as any man. Sure, she’d be picked last for a tug-o’-war team, and she has to stand on a stool to reach a high shelf – does that affect her brain? Hell’s bells, if size mattered, I would be the supergenius around here – not you. Or perhaps you think being able to grow a beard confers wisdom? Jake, leave bad enough alone! Mess with it, you’ll make it worse.” Time for a diversion: Pop must not be given a chance to answer. If Pop started defending himself, he would wind up self-righteous. The ability of the male mind to rationalize its deeds – and misdeeds – cannot be measured. (And some female minds. But we females have more wild animal in us; mostly we don’t feel any need to justify ourselves. We just do it, whatever it is, because we want to. Is there ever any other reason?) “Gentlemen,” I added, close on Zebadiah’s last remark before Pop could attempt rebuttal, “speaking of beards, you each have a three-day growth. If we are about to ask sanctuary, shouldn’t we be neat? I’m going to comb my hair and dig the dirt out from under my nails, and – Glory be! – I’ve got one spandy-clean jump suit. In light green, Zebadiah; matches your pilot suits. Got a clean one, dear?” “I believe so.” “I know so; I packed it when Aunt Hilda and I rearranged inventory. Pop, your light green jump suit is clean. That one you are wearing has wrinkles in the wrinkles and a big soup spot. We three will look as if we were in uniform. Aunt Hilda won’t but the captain-and-owner of a yacht doesn’t dress like her crew.” “‘Owner’?” said Pop. “‘”Owner,”‘” Zebadiah said firmly. “We pooled our resources. Sharpie is captain; she’ll stand as owner for all of us. Simpler.” “She cautioned us not to tell lies, Zeb.” (Pop sounded normal – his usual argumentative self.) “No lie. But if she finds it necessary to lie for us, we back her up. Come on, Jake, let’s put on our squeakin’ shoes; the Captain might decide to land any orbit. How long are these orbits, Deety?” “One hundred minutes, plus a bit. But Gay could ground us from the far side in five minutes if the Captain asked for it.” “So let’s get shipshape and Bristol style. Deety, will you keep an eye on the board while Jake and I shave?” Pop said, “I’m sorry but I can’t shave until the Captain joins us. My gear is aft.” “Jake, use mine. Glove compartment. Remington okay?” My husband added, “You first; I want to read the news.” “The ‘news’?” “Smart Girl has been sampling all frequencies, AM and FM, twice a second. If there is pattern, she copies.” “But Deet – The Astrogator switched off the autopilot’s ears.” “Jake, you just flunked Physics One-Oh-One. Deety told S.G. to shut off audio. I had in mind the electromagnetic spectrum. You’ve heard of it?” Pop chuckled. “Touché! That makes us even for the one you pulled while we were calibrating.” (I heaved a sigh of relief. I had not been trying to save Pop’s marriage – that’s his problem. Even my own marriage was secondary; I was trying to save the team, and so was Zebadiah. We were two marriages and that is important – but most important we were a survival team and either we worked together smoothly or none would live through it.) While Pop shaved and Zebadiah read the news, I cleaned my nails. If I clean them before each meal and again at bedtime, they are dirty only in between – dirt likes me. Mama Jane told me that centuries ago, while ouching my hair for school – not a criticism; a statement of fact. The men swapped headset for shaver and I combed my hair and pinned it into place – no longer an “ouch” job as I keep it short, ringlets rather than curls. Men like it long – but caring for long hair is a career in itself, and I’ve been pushed for time since I was twelve. Zebadiah stopped to feel his chin – so I deduced as the buzzing stopped. I asked, “What did Smart Girl have to say?” “Not much. Le’me finish this. BBC Third Program mostly.” “From London?” He had resumed shaving and couldn’t hear me. Zebadiah finished shaving and passed his shaver to Pop, who stowed it, then took off the headset and handed it back. Zebadiah racked and secured it. I was about to ask for it, when I heard Aunt Hilda’s sweet voice: “Hello, everyone! What did I miss?” “Halley’s Comet.” “Halley’s – Zebbie, you’re a tease. Jacob – Oh! You shaved! How very nice! Hold still, my darling; you’re going to be kissed, ready or not.” A kiss in free fall is interesting to watch when one participant is safety-belted and the other half is floating free. Hilda held Pop’s cheeks, he had her head in his hands, and Aunt Hilda drifted like a flag in a breeze. She was dressed but barefooted; I was intrigued when she curled her toes, hard. Was Pop that good? – my cubical father, so I had thought until recently. Did Jane teach him? Or – Shut up, Deety, you’re a voyeuse with a nasty curiosity. They broke and Hilda floated between the pilot seats, a hand on each, and looked at the board. My husband said – to her, not to me – “Don’t I get a kiss? It was my razor.” Aunt Hilda hesitated. Pop said, “Kiss him, beloved, or he’ll sulk.” So she did. It occurs to me that Aunt Hilda may have taught Zebadiah and that Mama Jane and Aunt Hilda may have been trained by the same coach before Pop came along – if so, who was my Unknown Benefactor? “Not a whole lot,” Zebadiah was saying. “Mostly tapes from BBC. Five minutes of news from Windsor City – which may be the city we bingoed – as exciting as local news from any town you’ve never been in. Chatter in Russian. The Smart Girl saved that for you.” “I’ll listen to it. But I must learn something. I was tempery a while ago, but a nap fixed me up and now I am filled with sweetness and light. I must have a report from each of you. We all have had cumulative fatigue. It is now bedtime at Termite Terrace but about lunchtime in Windsor City if that is its name. We can go back to our stream or we can tackle the British. I am not taking a vote; I shall decide and I have a way to take care of anyone who is tired. But I insist on honest data. Deety?” “Captain Auntie, sleep is never my problem.” “Zebbie?” “I was a zombie. Until you recharged me. Now I’m rarin’ to go!” She mussed his hair. “Zebbie, quit teasing.” “Captain, on an earlier occasion I told you the facts: My alert time exceeds twenty-four hours. Forty-eight if I must. If that kiss did not stimulate you as much as it did me, let’s try it again and find out what went wrong.” Aunt Hilda turned away abruptly. “Jacob dear, how do you feel? With the time difference this may be equivalent to staying up all night, possibly under great tension.” “Hilda my love, were we to return to our streamside, I would not sleep, knowing that this contact was coming. A night without sleep does not strain me.” “Pop’s not exaggerating, Captain Auntie. I get my night-owl capacity from Pop.” “Very well. But I have a method of taking care of anyone who may have exaggerated. I can leave one person aboard as guard.” “Captain, this wagon does not need a guard.” “Chief Pilot, I was offering sleep – under pretext of guarding. Car locked and sleep where I just napped – outsiders would not know. Anyone? Speak up.” (I wouldn’t have missed it for a Persian kitten! Did Hilda expect anyone to stay behind? I don’t think so.) “Very well. No firearms. Gentlemen, please hide your pistols and belts with the guns, aft. Zebbie, is there a way to lock that door in addition to dogging it?” “Sure. Tell Gay. May I ask why? No one can break into the cabin without damaging the old girl so much that she won’t lift.” “Conceded, Zebbie. But I will be bringing visitors into this space. If anyone is brash enough to ask to be shown beyond the bulkhead door, I shall tell him that is my private compartment.” Aunt Hilda grinned wickedly. “If he persists, I’ll freeze his ears. What’s the program for locking and unlocking it?” “Very complicated. Tell her, ‘Lock the bulkhead door,’ or ‘Unlock the bulkhead door.’ Concealed solenoids. If the car is cold, the bolts drop back.” “Goodness, you were thorough.” “No, Ma’am. The Aussies were. But it turns out to be convenient for things we wouldn’t like to lose. Cap’n, I don’t trust banks any more than I trust governments, so I carry my safety deposit vault with me.” “If you cut the trickle charge, it unlocks?” Pop asked. “Jake, I knew you would spot that. An accumulator across the solenoids, floating. Shut down the car and the solenoids work for another month… unless you open a switch in an odd location. Anyone want to know where it is? – what you don’t know, you can’t tell.” He got no takers. Instead I said, “Captain, is a fléchette gun a ‘firearm’?” “Hmm – Will it fit into a zippered compartment in your purse?” “It fits into a concealed zipper compartment.” “Keep it with you. No swords, gentlemen, as well as no firearms; we are a civilian party. One thing we should carry: those miniature walky-talkies, Deety and I in our purses, you gentlemen in your pockets. If they are noticed, tell the truth: a means of keeping our party in touch.” Aunt Hilda suddenly looked stern. “This next order should be in writing. Please understand that there are no exceptions, no special circumstances, no variations left to individual judgment. I require Roger-Wilcoes from each of you or we do not ground. This party does not separate. Not for thirty seconds. Not for ten seconds. Not at all.” “Will the Captain entertain a question?” “Certainly, Zebbie.” “Washrooms. Restrooms. Bathrooms. If these British behave like their analogs, such facilities are segregated.” “Zebbie, all I can say to that is that I will look for a way to cope. But we stay together until I – until I, the Captain – decide that it is safe to ease the rule. In the meantime – We should use that unpopular honey bucket before we ground… then, if necessary, return to the car, together, to use it later. That’s not subject to discussion. Once we are on the ground, you three, acting unanimously, can hold a bloodless mutiny over this order or any” – Aunt Hilda looked directly at her husband – “and I will let myself be kicked out without a word… out of office as captain, out of the car, out of the party. Remain here, on Mars-ten, with the British if they will have me. No more questions. No further discussion by me or among yourselves. Astrogator.” “Roger Wilco!” “Thank you. Please state it in the long form.” “I understand the Captain’s order and will comply exactly with no mental reservations.” “Chief Pilot.” “I understand -“ “Short form. Deety defined it.” “Roger Wilco, Captain!” Aunt Hilda turned in the air toward Pop – and I held my breath, three endless seconds. “Jacob?” “Roger Wilco, Captain.” “Very well. We will ground as soon as we get clearance but will not ask for clearance until I’ve heard the news and translated that Russian.” Whereupon I told her that we all intended to put on our best bib and tucker; the time should come out about right – and could we be relieved one by one? As I intended to use that darned thunder mug – when you must, you must. Aunt Hilda frowned slightly. “I do wish that I had a jump suit in my size. This outfit -“ “Aunt Hilda! Your crew is in uniform but you are wearing the latest Hollywood style. That model was created by Ferrara himself and he charged you more than you paid for that mink cape. You are the Captain and dress to please yourself. I tell you three times!” Aunt Hilda smiled. “Should I acknowledge in paraphrase?” “By all means.” “Deety, I require my crew to wear uniforms. But I dress to suit myself, and when I saw what the world-famous couturier Mario Ferrara was doing to change the trend in women’s sports clothes, I sent for him and worked him silly until he got just what I wanted. Including repeated washings of the trousers to give them that not-quite-new look so favored by the smart set for yachting. When you come back will you fetch your little shoes – my Keds – and the hair ribbon you gave me? They are part of Signor Ferrara’s creation.” “Aunt Hilda honey, you make it sound true!” “It is true. You told me three times. I don’t even regret the thousand newdollar bonus I gave him. That man is a genius! Get along dear – git. Chief Pilot, you have the conn; I want the earphones.” I was back in ten minutes with jump suits for self and Pop and clean pilot suit for my husband. I sailed their clothes toward Pop and Zebadiah. Aunt Hilda was handing phones back to Zebadiah; his suit caught both of them. “Wups, sorry but not very. What do the Russians say?” “We’re baddies,” said my husband. “We are? The suit I took off is loose back aft. Wrap it around your pistol and belt and shove them under the sleeping bag – pretty please?” “With sugar on it?” “At today’s prices? Yes. Beat it. Cap’n, what sort of baddies?” “Spies and agents-saboteurs and other things and indemnity is demanded in the name of the Tsar and the surrender of our persons, all twelve of us -“ “Twelve?” “So they claim. – for trial before they hang us. Or else. The ‘or-else’ amounts to a threat of war.” “Heavens! Are we going to ground?” “Yes. The British comment was that a source close to the Governor reports that the Russians have made another of their periodic claims of territorial violation and espionage and the note was routinely rejected. I intend to be cautious. We won’t leave the car unless I am convinced that we will receive decent treatment.”
Shortly we were again doing one-second jumps in a circle around Windsor City. Had Pop not pulled another blunder in handling Aunt Hilda we would have been on the ground two hours ago. “Blunder,” rather than “insult” – but I’m not Hilda, I’m Deety. My ego is not easily bruised. Before I married, if a man patronized me and it mattered, I used to invite him to go skeet shooting. Even if he beat me (happened once), he never patronized me again. If it’s an unsocial encounter – I’m big, I’m strong, I fight dirty. A male has to be bigger, stronger, and just as well trained or I can take him. Haven’t had to use the fléchette gun yet. But twice I’ve broken arms and once I kicked a mugger in the crotch and said he fainted. Zebadiah was having trouble with traffic control. ” – request permission to ground. This is private yacht Gay Deceiver, U.S. registry, Chief Pilot Carter speaking. All we want is clearance to ground. You’re behaving like those youknow-what-I-mean Russians. I didn’t expect this from Englishmen.” “Now, now! Where are you? You sound close by… but we can’t get a fix on you.” “We are circling your city at a height above ground of five kilometers.” “How much is that in feet? Or miles?” I touched my husband’s shoulder. “Tell him sixteen thousand feet.” “Sixteen thousand feet.” “What bearing?” “We’re circling.” “Yes, but – See Imperial House at City Center? What bearing?” “We are much too fast for you to take a bearing. While you speak one sentence, we’ve gone around twice.” “Oh, tell that to the Jollies; old sailors will never believe it.” Aunt Hilda tapped Zebadiah; he passed the microphone to her. Aunt Hilda said crisply, “This is Captain Burroughs, commanding. State your name, rating, and organization number.” I heard a groan, then silence. Twenty-three seconds later another voice came on. “This is the officer of the watch, Leftenant Bean. Is there a spot of trouble?” “No, Lieutenant, merely stupidity. My chief pilot has been trying for fifteen minutes for clearance to ground. Is this a closed port? We were not told so by your embassy on Earth. We were warned that the Russians discouraged visitors, and indeed, they tried to shoot us out of the sky. What is your full name and your regiment, Lieutenant; I intend to make a formal report when I return home,” “Please, Madam! This is Leftenant Brian Bean, Devonshire Royal Fusiliers. May I ask to whom I am speaking?” “Very well. I will speak slowly; please record. I am Captain Hilda Burroughs, commanding space yacht Gay Deceiver, out of Snug Harbor in the Americas.” “Captain, let me get this clear. Are you commanding both a spaceship in orbit and a landing craft from your ship? Either way, please let me have the elements of your ship’s orbit for my log, and tell me the present position of your landing craft. Then I can assign you a berth to ground.” “Do I have your word as a British officer and gentleman that you will not shoot us out of the sky as those Russian vandals attempted to do?” “Madam – Captain – you have my word.” “Gay Bounce. We are now approximately forty-nine thousand feet above your city.” “But – We understood you to say ‘Sixteen thousand’?” “That was five minutes ago; this craft is fast.” Aunt Hilda released the button. “Deety, get rid of the special ‘Tramp’ program.” I told Gay to return “Tramp” to her perms and to wipe the temporary mods. “Done.” Aunt Hilda pressed the mike button. “Do you see us now?” She released the button. “Deety, I want us over that big building – ‘Imperial House,’ probably – in one transition. Can you tell Zebbie and Jacob what it takes?” I looked it over. We should be at the edge of the city – but were we? Get a range and triangulate? No time! Guess at the answer, double it and divide by two. Arc tan four tenths. “Pop, can you transit twenty-one degrees from vertical toward city hail?” “Twenty-one degrees. Sixty-nine degrees of dive toward the big barn in the park, relative bearing broad on the port bow, approx – set! One unit transition, ten klicks – set!” “I can see you now, I do believe,” came Mr. Bean’s voice. “Barely.” “We’ll come lower.” Aunt Hilda chopped off the lieutenant. “Zebbie, put her into glide as soon as you execute. Deety, watch H-above-G and scram if necessary – don’t wait to be told. Zebbie, execute at will.” “Jake, execute!” – and we were down so fast I got goose bumps… especially as Zebadiah then dived vertically to gain glide speed and that’s mushy, slow, slow, on Mars. But soon Aunt Hilda was saying tranquilly, “We are over Imperial House. You see us?” “Yes, yes! My word! Bloody!” “Leftenant, watch your language!” Aunt Hilda winked at me and snickered silently. “Madam, I apologize.” “‘Captain,’ if you please,” she said, smiling while her voice dripped icicles. “Captain, I apologize.” “Accepted. Where am I to ground?” “Ah, figured from Imperial House, there is a landing field due south of it twelve miles. I will tell them to expect you.” Hilda let up on the button, said, “Gay Bounce” and racked the microphone. “How unfortunate that the lieutenant’s radio cut out before he could tell us how far away that field is. Or was it our radio?” I said, “Captain, you know durn well both radios worked okay.” “Mercy, I must be getting old. Was Smart Girl in recording mode?” I said, “She always is, during maneuvers. She wipes it in a ten-hour cycle.” “Then my bad hearing doesn’t matter. Please ask her to repeat the lieutenant’s last speech.” I did, and Gay did. “Deety, can you have her wipe it right after the word ‘it’?” “Auntie, you ain’t goin’ to Heaven.” I had Gay wipe twelve-miles-I-will-tell-them-to-expect-you. “But you wouldn’t know anybody there.” “Probably not, dear. Zebbie, how does one have Smart Girl ground herself without juice?” “Deety had better go over it again. Unless – Jake, will you explain it?” “It’s Deety’s caper. I could use another drill.” “All right,” I agreed. “Switch off Gay’s ears, Zebadiah. Gay can make any transition exactly if she knows precisely where her target is. Even a jump of less than one minimum. I found that out the day we got here when we were testing remote control. The rest came from perfecting the ‘Bug-Out’ routine by having her pause and sweep the target and if it’s obstructed, she bounces. Aunt Hilda, if you intend to ground, we had better not be much under five klicks or we’ll have to bounce and start over.” “I’ve got air bite, Captain. I’ll stretch it.” “Thanks, Zebbie. Deety, you do it. Let us all learn.” “Okay. I need both pilots. You haven’t said where to ground.” “Wasn’t that clear? Due south of Imperial House. I think it is a parade ground. Nothing on it but a flagpole on the north side. Put her down in front of the building but miss that flagpole.” “It would take override to hit that flagpole. Zebadiah, gunsight the spot you want to park on. I’ll talk to Gay. Then put her in level flight in the orientation you want, and give ‘Execute.’ Pop, Gay should pause at exactly one-half klick, to see that her parking spot is clear and to recheck distance. That stop won’t be long – a fraction of a second – but, if she fails to make it, try to bounce. Probably you can’t; if I missed in debugging, maybe we’ll all be radioactive. Been nice knowing you all. Okay, switch on her ears.” My husband did so. “Gay Deceiver.” “Hello, Deety. I’ve missed you.” “Unpowered autogrounding mode.” “Gonna ground by myself without a drop of juice! Where?” “New target. Code word: ‘Parade Ground.’ Point of aim and range-finder method.” “Show him to me. I can lick him!” I touched my husband’s shoulder. “Let her know.” “On target, Gay. Steady on target.” “Range three-seven-two-nine, three-seven-naughty-nought, three-five-nine-nine – got him, Deety!” Zebadiah leveled us out, headed us north. “Execute!” We were parked facing the big front steps. That flagpole was ten meters from Gay’s nose. Pop said, “Deety, I could see the check stop but it was too short for me to act. But your programs always work.” “Until the day one blows up. Aunt Hilda, what do we do now?” “We wait.”
Chapter XXVI
The Keys to the City
Jake: I do not believe that I am wrong in insisting that Zeb should lead us. I am forced to conclude that being right has little to do with holding a woman’s affections. I never intend to hurt Hilda’s feelings. I now plan to make a career of keeping my mouth shut. But I do not think it was diplomatic to spat with that radio operator or proper to be – well, yes, rude – rude to his officer. As for grounding twelve miles, nineteen klicks, from where we were told to – is this the behavior of guests! But we did ground where we should not have. I started to open the door to get out, then help Hilda to disembark, when I heard her say: “We wait.” Hilda added, “Leave doors locked and belts fastened. Gay Deceiver, remain in maneuvering mode. Lock the bulkhead door.” “Hot and rarin’ to go, Hilda. Bulkhead door locked.” “You’re a smart girl, Gay.” “That makes two of us, Hilda.” “Chief Pilot, in this mode does she record outside as well as inside?” “She does if I switch on outside speakers and mikes, Captain.” “Please do.” “What volume, Captain? Outside, and inside.” “I didn’t know they were separate. Straight-line gain?” “Logarithmic, Ma’am. From a gnat’s whisper to a small earthquake.” “I would like outside pickup to amplify enough that we won’t miss anything. What I send out should be a bit forceful.” “Captain, I’ll give you a decibel advantage. You want it louder, squeeze my shoulder. I won’t turn it higher than seven – unless you want to use it as a weapon. But to talk privately inside I have to keep switching off, then on. As with the Russians – remember?” “Oh, yes. All hands, I will speak for all of us. If anyone needs to speak to me, attract Zebbie’s attention – “ “Slap my shoulder.” ” – and he’ll give us privacy and confirm it with thumbs-up. Don’t ask for it unnecessarily.” “Hilda, why these complex arrangements? Here comes someone now; it would be polite to go meet them. In any case, we can open the door to talk – these are not Russians.” I simply could not bear to watch my darling handle this delicate matter with such – well, rudeness! Was I thanked? “Copilot, pipe down. All hands, we may go upstairs any instant; report readiness for space. Astrogator.” “Ready, Captain.” “Chief Pilot.” “Still ready. Outside audio hot.” “Copilot.” “I’m checking this door seal again. Earlier I started to open it. There! Ready for space. Hilda, I don’t think – “ “Correct! But the Chief Pilot did think, and gave me thumbs-up as soon as you started to talk. Pipe down! Chief Pilot, cut in our sender as soon as one of them speaks. Copilot, call me ‘Captain’ as the others do. Protocol applies; I’ll explain family relationships later, when appropriate.” I resolved not to open my mouth for any reason, feeling quite disgruntled. Disgruntled? I found myself giving serious thought to whether or not Hilda’s temporary and inappropriate authority could do permanent harm to her personality. But the top of my mind was observing the Lord High Executioner, approaching us flanked by two henchmen. He was wearing a uniform more suited to musical comedy than to the field. Fierce moustaches, sunburn-pink complexion, service ribbons, and a swagger cane completed the effect. His henchmen were younger, not so fancy, fewer ribbons, and appeared to be sergeants. I could not read the officer’s shoulder straps. A crown, I thought, but was there a pip beside it? He strode toward us and was ten meters from my door when Hilda said firmly, “That’s close enough. Please tell the Governor General that Captain Burroughs has grounded as directed and awaits his pleasure.” He stopped briefly and bellowed, “You were not directed to land here! You’re supposed to be at the field! Customs, immigration, health inspection, visas, tourist cards, intelligence -“ I saw Hilda squeeze Zeb’s shoulder. “Quiet!” Her voice came more loudly from outside than from her despite Gay’s soundproofing. Zeb reduced gain as she continued, “My good man, send one of your ratings to the Governor General to deliver my message. While we wait, state your name, rank, and regiment; I shall make formal report of your behavior.” “Preeeposterous!” “Behavior ‘unbecoming an officer and a gentleman,'” Hilda said with gentle sweetness, “since you insist. While you won’t tell your name, like a naughty boy, others know it. The Paymaster. The Governor General. Others.” She squeezed Zeb’s shoulder. “Deliver my message!” “I’m Colonel Brumby, Chief Constable of the Imperial Household, and not your messenger boy! Open up! I’m going to parade you before the Governor General – under arrest!” Hilda said quietly to Zeb, “Seven” – allowed the Chief Constable to stride two more steps before saying, “STOP!” My ears hurt. All three stopped. The old fool braced himself and started again. Hilda must have poked Zeb; he answered with thumbs-up. “Back to normal volume but be ready with that earthquake.” He nodded; she went on, “Leftenant Colonel, is it not? I don’t see that extra pip. Leftenant Colonel, I warn you for your own safety not to come closer.” He did not answer, kept coming, took his cane from under his arm. His sergeants followed – slowly, at a respectful distance. Hilda let him reach my door – I could see a network of broken veins on his nose-and for the second time in two days someone started to pound on Gay’s door. He raised his cane – “Stop that!” I was deafened. The Chief Constable was missing. The sergeants were a long way back. They stopped running, turned and faced us. I looked down through my door’s port, saw a pair of legs and a swagger cane – inferred a torso. I turned my head, saw that Zeb had his thumb up. “Captain,” he said, “I disobeyed you.” “How, Zebbie?” “I gave him an eight; I wasn’t sure his heart could take a ten. He looks like an old bottle-a-day man.” “An eight may have been too much,” I commented. “He’s on the ground. Dead, maybe.” “Oh, I hope not!” “Unlikely, Captain,” Zeb told her. “Shall I tell his noncoms to come get him?” “I’ll tell them, Zebbie. Normal level.” Hilda waited until he signalled, then called out, “Sergeants! Colonel Brumby needs help. There will be no more loud noises.” The sergeants hesitated, then hurried. Shortly they were dragging him away. Presently he came to life, fought them off – sent one chasing back for his cane. The man caught my eye – and winked. I concluded that Brumby was not popular. There was now a man standing on the entrance stairs. (Perhaps there had been people nearby earlier – but not after the noise started.) Imperial House had its ground floor with no doors on the front side. The first floor was the main floor and was reached by wide, sweeping stairs. The man near the top was small, dapper, dressed in mufti. As Brumby reached him, Brumby saluted, stopped, and they talked. Brumby’s ramrod stiffness spoke for itself. Shortly the smaller man trotted down the long steps, moved quickly toward us, stopped about thirty meters away, and called out, “In the landing craft! Is it safe to come closer?” “Certainly,” agreed Hilda. “Thank you, Ma’am.” He approached, talking as he walked. “I dare say we should introduce ourselves. I’m Lieutenant General Smythe-Carstairs, the Governor hereabouts. I take it you are Captain Burroughs?” “That is correct, Excellency.” “Thank you. Although I can’t tell, really, to whom I am speaking. Awkward, is it not, chatting via an announcing system? An open door would be pleasanter, don’t you think? More friendly.” “You are right, Excellency. But the Russians gave us so unpleasant, so dangerous, a reception that I am nervous.” “Those bounders. They have been making a bit of fuss over you, on the wireless. That was how I recognized your craft – smaller than they claimed but an accurate description – for a Russian. But surely you don’t think that we British wear our shirt tails out? You will receive decent treatment here.” “That is pleasing to hear, Excellency. I was tempted to leave. That policeman chap is most unpleasant.” “Sorry about that. Sheer mischance that he was first to greet you. Important as this colony is to the Empire, no doubt you have heard that being posted to it is not welcome to some. Not my own case, I asked for it. But some ranks and ratings. Now let’s have that door open, shall we? I dislike to insist but I am in charge here.” Hilda looked thoughtful. “Governor General, I can either open the doors or leave. I prefer to stay. But the shocking treatment by the Russians followed by the totally unexpected behavior of your chief constable causes me to worry. I need a guarantee that our party will be permitted to remain together at all times, and a written safe-conduct for us, signed and sealed by you on behalf of H.I.M.” “My dear Captain, a captain does not bargain with one who stands in place of and holds the authority of His Imperial Majesty. As a man, and you being a delightful lady, I would be happy to bargain with you endlessly just for the pleasure of your company. But I can’t.” “I was not bargaining, Excellency; I was hoping for a boon. Since you will not grant it, I must leave at once.” He shook his head. “I cannot permit you to leave as yet.” “Gay Bounce. Zebbie, will you try to reach that nice Mr. Bean?” Zeb had him shortly. “Leftenant Bean heah.” “Captain Burroughs, Leftenant. Our radio chopped off while you were talking. No harm done; the important part got through. We grounded where you told us to, due south of Imperial House.” “So that’s what happened? I must admit to feeling relieved.” “Is your post of duty in Imperial House?” “Yes, Ma’am. On it, rather. We have a small housing on the roof.” “Good. I have a message for the Governor General. Will you record?” “Oh, certainly.” “This is Hilda Burroughs speaking, Master of Spacecraft Gay Deceiver out of Snug Harbor. I am sorry that I had to leave without saying good-bye. But your last statement forced me to take measures to protect my craft and crew.” My darling Hilda cut the mike. “Zebbie, when you have air, glide away from the city.” She continued, “In a small way my responsibilities parallel yours; I cannot bargain concerning the safety of my crew and my craft. I hope that you will reconsider, as I have no stomach for dealing with the Russians – even though they have more to offer us in exchange. I still ask for safe-conduct but now must ask for a still third item in such a document: that all four of us be allowed to leave at will. You have my name. My second-in-command is Doctor D. T. Burroughs Carter, my chief pilot is Doctor Z. J. Carter, my copilot is Doctor Jacob Burroughs. You will have noticed surnames. Doctor Jacob is my husband; the other two are our daughter and her husband. I am Doctor Hilda Corners but I am much prouder of being Mrs. Jacob Burroughs – although at present I must use ‘Captain Hilda Burroughs’ since I am commanding. Sir, while dictating this I have made a decision. I will not make a second attempt to negotiate with Russians. We will wait thirty minutes in the warm hope of hearing from you… then return to Earth, report to our own government, send a detailed complaint to the Tsar of All the Russias, and make a formal report of our attempt here to His Imperial Majesty. Signed Respectfully yours, H. C. Burroughs, Commanding. Leftenant, what are the full names and titles of the Governor General?” “Ah, His Excellency Lieutenant General the Right Honourable Herbert Evelyn James Smythe-Carstairs, K.G., V.C., C.B.E., Governor General of the Imperial Realms Beyond the Sky.” “Preface it formally, please, and I will wait until oh-nine-hundred hours Greenwich time or thirty-six minutes from now. Mark!” “I will add the heading, Captain, and deliver it by hand.” After Hilda signed off she said, “I’m going to try to sleep thirty of those thirty-six minutes. Can anyone think of a program that will let all of us nap? This contact is more tiring than I had expected. Jacob, Deety, Zeb – don’t all speak at once.” “I can, my dear,” I answered. “Yes, Jacob?” “Gay Termite.” To my mild surprise it was night at our creek bank. To my pleasure my first attempt to maneuver by voice was smoothly successful. My daughter’s ingenuity in constructing voiced programs had left me little to do. While I did not resent it (I’m proud of Deety), nevertheless while sitting as copilot, I sometimes wondered whether anyone remembered that it was my brainchild that moved this chariot. Ah, vanity! To my greater pleasure Hilda clapped her hands and looked delighted. “Jacob! How clever of you! How stupid of me! All right, everyone off duty for a half hour ‘cept the rule about always two and always a rifle. Gay, alert us in thirty minutes. And please unlock the bulkhead door.” “Aunt Hillbilly, are you going to sleep back there?” “I had thought of stretching out and inviting Jacob to join me. But the space belongs to you and Zebbie; I was thoughtless.” “We aren’t going to sleep. But we had better drag those rifles out of that sack or you won’t sleep. I want to empty the oubliette and stow that pesky plastic potty under the cushion of my seat. Durned if I’ll use it when I have the whole outdoors at hand.” “Most certainly – but stay inside Gay’s lights – and do please remind me before we leave. Deety, I’ve so much on my mind that I forget housekeeping details.” “Hillbilly, you’re doing swell. I’ll handle housekeeping; you worry about the big picture.” Hilda cuddled up to me in the after compartment and my nerves began to relax. Would the Governor General relent? Where would we go next? We had a myriad universes to choose from, a myriad myriad planets – but only one was home and we didn’t dare go there. What about juice for Zeb’s car and a thousand other things? Perhaps we should risk Earth-without-a-J. What about the time bomb, ticking away in my darling’s belly? Hilda sniffed into my shoulder. I patted her head. “Relax, dearest.” “I can’t. Jacob, I don’t like this job. I snap at you, you argue with me, we both get upset. It’s not good for us – we never behaved this way at Snug Harbor.” “Then give it up.” “I’m going to. After I finish the job I started. Jacob, when we lift from this planet, you will be captain.” “Oh, no! Zeb.” (Hilda my only love, you should turn it over to him now.) “Zebbie won’t take it. It’s you or Deety, Jacob. If Deety is our next captain, you will back-seat drive even more than you have with me. No, Jacob, you must be captain before Deety is, so that you will understand what she is up against.” I felt that I had been scolded enough. I started to tell Hilda when that pejorative epithet played back in my mind: ” – back-seat drive -“ I trust that I am honest with myself. I know that I am not very sociable and I expect to go on being so; a man capable of creative work has no time to spare for fools who would like to visit. But a “back-seat driver”? Some facts: Jane learned to drive before I did – her father’s duo. Our first car, a roadable, coincided with her pregnancy; I got instruction so that I could drive for Jane. She resumed driving after Deety was born but when both of us were in the car, I always drove. She drove with me as passenger once or twice before the custom became established – but she never complained that I had been back-seat driving. But Jane never complained. Deety laid it on the line. I don’t know who taught Deety to drive but I recall that she was driving, on roads as well as in the air, when she was twelve or thirteen. She had no occasion to drive for me until Jane’s illness. There was a time after we lost Jane that Deety often drove for me. After a while we alternated. Then came a day when she was driving and I pointed out that her H-above-G was, oh, some figure less than a thousand meters, with a town ahead. She said, “Thanks, Pop” – and grounded at that town, an unplanned stop. She switched off, got out, walked around and said, “Shove over, Pop. From now on, I’ll enjoy the scenery while you herd us through the sky.” I didn’t shove over, so Deety got into the back seat. Deety gets her stubbornness from both parents. Jane’s was covered with marshmallow that concealed chrome steel; mine is covered with a coat of sullen anger if frustrated. But Deety’s stubbornness isn’t concealed. She has a sweet disposition but Torquemada could not force Deety to do that which she decided against. For four hours we ignored each other. Then I turned around (intending to start an argument, I suppose – I was in the mood for one) – and Deety was asleep, curled up in the back seat. I wrote a note, stuck it to the wind screen, left the keys, got quietly out, made sure all doors were locked, hired another car and drove home – by air; I was too angry to risk roading. Instead of going straight home I went to the Commons to eat, and found Deety already eating. So I took my tray and joined her. She looked up, smiled, and greeted me: “Hello, Pop! How nice we ran into each other!” She opened her purse. “Here are your keys.” I took them. “Where is our car?” “Your car, Pop. Where you left it.” “I left it?” “You had the keys; you were in the front seat; you hold title. You left a passenger asleep in the back seat. Good thing she’s over eighteen, isn’t it?” She added, “There is an Opel duo I have my eye on. Tried it once; it’s in good shape.” “We don’t need two cars!” “A matter of taste. Yours. And mine.” “We can’t afford two cars.” “How would you know, Pop? I handle the money.” She did not buy the Opel. But she never again drove when we both were in our car. Three data are not a statistical universe. But it appears that the three women I have loved most all consider me to be a back-seat driver. Jane never said so… but I realize today that she agreed with Deety and Hilda. I don’t consider myself to be a back-seat driver! I don’t yell “Look out!” or “Watch what you’re doing!” But four eyes are better than two: Should not a passenger offer, simply as data, something the driver may not have seen? Criticism? Constructive criticism only and most sparingly and only to close friends. But I try to be self-honest; my opinion is not important in this. I must convince Hilda and Deety, by deeds, not words. Long habit is not changed by mere good resolution; I must keep the matter at the top of my mind. There was banging at the bulkhead; I realized that I had been asleep. The door opened a crack. “Lift in five minutes.” “Okay, Deety,” Hilda answered. “Nice nap, beloved?” “Yes indeed. Did you?” As we crawled out, Deety said, “Starboard door is open; Pop’s rifle is leaning against it, locked. Captain, you asked to be reminded. Shall I take the conn?” “Yes, thank you.” We lost no time as Deety used two preprograms: Bingo Windsor, plus Gay Bounce. Zeb had the communication watch officer almost at once. ” – very well. I will see if the Captain will take the message. No over. Hold.” Zeb looked around, ostentatiously counted ten seconds, then pointed at Hilda. “Captain Burroughs speaking. Leftenant Bean?” “Yes, yes! Oh, my word, I’ve been trying to reach you the past twenty minutes.” “It is still a few seconds short of the time I gave you.” “Nevertheless I am enormously relieved to hear your voice, Captain. I have a message from the Governor General. Are you ready to record?” Zeb nodded; Hilda answered Yes; the lieutenant continued: “‘From the Governor General to H. C. Burroughs, Master Gay Deceiver.’ Hurry home, the children are crying. We all miss you. The fatted calf is turning on the spit. That document is signed and sealed, including the additional clause. Signed: “Bertie”‘ – Captain, that is the Governor’s way of signing a message to an intimate friend. A signal honor, if I may say so.” “Gracious of him. Please tell the Governor General that I am ready to ground and will do so as soon as you tell me that the spot in which we were parked – the exact spot – is free of any obstruction whatever.” Bean was back in about three minutes saying that our spot was clear and would be kept so. Hilda nodded to Deety, who said, “Gay Parade Ground.” I had a flash of buildings fairly close, then we were back in the sky. Hilda snapped, “Chief Pilot, get Leftenant Bean!” Then – c”Mr. Bean! Our spot was not clear.” “It is now, Captain; I have just come from the parapet. The Governor’s poodle got loose and ran out. The Governor chased him and brought him back. Could that have been it?” “It decidedly was it. You may tell the Governor – privately – that never in battle has he been so close to death. Astrogator, take her down!” “GayParadeGround!” Bean must have heard the gasp, then cheers, while Hilda’s words were still echoing in his radio shack. We were exactly as before, save that the wide, showy steps to the King-Emperor’s residence on Mars were jammed with people: officers, soldiers, civil servants with that slightly dusty look, women with children, and a few dogs, all under restraint. I didn’t spot the Right Honourable “Bertie” until he moved toward us. He was no longer in mufti but in what I could call “service dress” or “undress” – not a dress uniform – but dressy. Ribbons, piping, wound stripes, etc. – sword when appropriate. Since he was not wearing sword I interpreted our status as “honored guests” rather than “official visitors” – he was ready to jump either way. He had his wife on his arm – another smart move, our captain being female. His aide (? – left shoulder “chicken guts” but possibly a unit decoration) was with him, too – no one else. The crowd stayed back. Hilda said, “Chief Pilot – ” then pointed to the mikes, drew her finger across her throat. Zeb said, “Outside audio is cold, Cap’n.” “Thank you, Gay, lock the bulkhead door, open your doors.” I jumped down and handed Hilda out, offered her my arm, while Zeb was doing the same with Deety portside. We met, four abreast at Gay’s nose, continued moving forward a few paces and halted facing the Governor’s party as they halted. It looked rehearsed but we had not even discussed it. This placed our ladies between us, with my tiny darling standing tall, opposite the Governor. The aide boomed, “His Excellency Governor General the Lieutenant General the Right Honourable Herbert Evelyn James Smythe-Carstairs and Lady Herbert Evelyn James!” The Governor grinned. “Dreadful,” he said quietly, “but worse with ruffles, flourishes, and the Viceroy’s March – I spared you that.” He raised his voice, did not shout but it projected – and saluted Hilda. “Captain Burroughs! We bid you welcome!” Hilda bowed, returning the salute. “Excellency… Lady Herbert… thank you! We are happy to be here.” Lady Herbert smiled at being included, and bobbed about two centimeters – a minimum curtsy, I suppose, but can’t swear to it, as she was swathed in one of those dreadful garden-party-formal things – big hat, long skirt, long gloves. Hilda answered with a smile and a minimum bow. “Permit me to present my companions,” Hilda continued. “My family and also my crew. On my left my astrogator and second-in-command, our daughter Doctor D. T. Burroughs Carter, and on her left is her husband our son-in-law, my chief pilot, Doctor Zebadiah John Carter, Captain U.S. Aerospace Reserve.” Deety dropped a curtsy as her name was mentioned, a 6-cm job, with spine straight. Zeb acknowledged his name with a slight bow. Hilda turned her head and shoulders toward me. “It gives me more pride than I can express,” she sang, her eyes and mouth smiling, her whole being speaking such serene happiness that it made me choke up, “to present our copilot, my husband Doctor Jacob Jeremiah Burroughs, Colonel of Ordnance A.U.S.” The Governor stepped forward quickly and held out his hand. “Doctor, we are honored!” His handshake was firm. I returned it in kind, saying in a nonprojecting voice, “Hilda should not have done that to me. Off campus, I’m ‘Mister’ to strangers and ‘Jake’ to my friends.” “I’m Bertie, Jake,” he answered in his intimate voice, “other than on occasions when I can’t avoid that string of goods wagons. Or I’ll call you ‘Doctor.” “You do and it’s fifty lines.” That made him laugh again. “And I’m Betty, Jake,” Lady Herbert said, in closing in. “Captain Burroughs, may I call you ‘Hilda’?” (Was that a hiccup?) “Call her ‘Doctor,'” I suggested. “She told on the rest of us. How many doctorates do you hold, dear? Seven? Or eight?” “After the first one, it no longer matters. Of course I’m ‘Hilda,’ Betty. But, Bertie, we have yet to meet the Brigadier.” I glanced at the tabs of the officer with the aiguillette and booming voice. Yes, A crown inboard and three pips – But when had Hilda learned British insignia? Many Americans can’t read their own. I am ceasing to be surprised at how many facts can be stuffed into so small a space. “Sorry. Friends, this is Brigadier Iver Hird-Jones. Squeaky finds things I lose and remembers things I forget.” “Ladies. Gentlemen. Charmed. Here is something you told me to remember, General.” The Brigadier handed a sealed envelope to his boss. “Ah, yes!” Smythe-Carstairs handed it to my wife. “The Keys to the City, Ma’am. Phrased as you specified, each of you named, and that third factor included. Signed by me for the Sovereign and carrying the Imperial seal.” “Your Excellency is most gracious,” Hilda said formally, and turned toward Deety. “Astrogator.” “Aye, Captain.” Deety placed it in her purse. Our host looked surprised. “Jake, doesn’t your wife have normal curiosity? She seems to have forgot my name, too.” Hilda protested, “I haven’t forgotten your name, Bertie. It’s an official matter; I treated it formally. I shall read it when I have leisure to open that envelope without damaging the flap seal. To you this is one of thousands of papers; to me it is a once-in-a-lifetime souvenir. If I sound impressed, it’s because I am.” Lady Herbert said, “Don’t flatter him, my deah.” (Yes, she had had a couple.) “You’ll turn his head, quite.” She added, “Bertie, you’re causing our guests to stand when we could be inside, sitting down.” “You’re right, m’dear.” Bertie looked longingly at Zeb’s car. Hilda played a trump. “Care to look inside, Bertie? Betty, you can sit down here; the captain’s chair is comfortable. Will you do me the honor? Someday I’ll tell my grandchildren that Lady Herbert sat in that very seat.” “What a charming thought!” Hilda tried to catch my eye but I was a jump ahead of her, handing Lady Herbert in, making certain that she didn’t miss the step, getting her turned around, making sure that she didn’t sit down on belts. “If we were about to lift,” I told her, while fastening the seat belt loosely (first, moving the buckle – she’s Hilda’s height but my thickness), “this safety belt would be fastened firmly.” “Oh, I wouldn’t dare!” “Gangway, Pop! Another customer.” I got out of the way, and Deety installed Brigadier Hird-Jones in her seat. Deety said, “Pop, if you’ll put the Governor in your seat, Zebadiah will take his own and give his two-hour lecture on the care and feeding of spacecraft, while you and I and Hilda hang in the doorways and correct his errors.” “I’m only up to chapter four,” Zeb said defensively. “Jake, make her quit picking on me.” “You’re her husband; I’m merely her father. Bertie, I must ask one thing. Don’t touch anything. This car is not shut down; it is ready to go, instantly.” “I’ll be careful, Jake. But we’re leaving the ladies standing. The Captain herself! This is not right.” Deety said, “Bertie, I don’t want to sit down. This trip doesn’t give me nearly the exercise I need.” “But I can’t permit Captain Hilda to stand. Sit here and I’ll stand.” (I appreciated his gallantry but I could see an impasse coming: two people, each aware of her/his prerogatives and they conflicted.) Hilda avoided it by something she had discovered in working out how to rig a double bed in the control compartment. Although pilots have separate seats, the passenger’s seats are really one, built all the way across but separated by armrests… which could be removed with screwdriver and sweat. I had eliminated sweat and screwdriver; a natural mechanic, such as Zeb, accumulates miscellaneous hardware. Those armrests could now be removed and clamped out of the way with butterfly nuts. Hilda started to do so; the Brigadier dismounted them once he saw what she was doing. It was a snug fit, but Hird-Jones has trim hips and Hilda has the slimmest bottom in town (any town). “An important feature,” said Zeb, “of this design is a voice-controlled autopilot -“
Chapter XXXVII
“Are you open to a bribe?”
Deety: Zebadiah, for seventeen dull minutes, said nothing and said it very well. During that plethora of polysyllabic nullities, I was beginning to think that I would have to take Pop to a quiet spot and reason with him with a club – when Captain Auntie showed that she needed no help. Pop had interrupted with: “Let me put it simply. What Zeb said is -“ “Copilot.” Cap’n Hilda did not speak loudly but Pop should know that when she says “Copilot,” she does not mean: “Jacob darling, this is your little wifey.” Pop is a slow learner. But he can learn. Just drop an anvil on him. “Yes, Hilda?” Aunt Hilda let the seconds creep past, never took her eyes off Pop. I was embarrassed; Pop isn’t usually that slow – then the anvil hit. “Yes, Captain?” “Please do not interrupt the Chief Pilot’s presentation.” Her tone was warm and sweet: I don’t think our guests realized that Pop had just been courtmartialed, convicted, keelhauled, and restored to duty – on probation. But I knew it, Zeb knew it – Pop knew it. “Aye aye, Captain!” I concluded that Captain Auntie never intended to stand outside. She had told me to offer my seat to Squeaky and had added, “Why don’t you suggest to your father that he offer his to the Governor?” I don’t need an anvil. It was a foregone conclusion that Bertie would object to ladies having to stand while he sat. But if he had not, I feel certain that the Hillbilly would have held up proceedings until she was seated where she could watch everyone but our visitors could not watch her. How tall was Machiavelli? As they were climbing out the Brigadier was telling me that he understood how she was controlled – but how did she flap her wings? – land I answered that technical questions were best put to the Captain – I was unsurprised to hear Cap’n Auntie say, “Certainly, Bertie… if you don’t mind being squeezed between Deety and me.” “‘Mind’? I should pay for the privilege!” “Certainly you should,” I agreed – the Hillbilly’s eyes widened but she let me talk. “What am I offered to scrunch over?” I slapped myself where I’m widest. “Squeaky is a snake’s hips – not me!” “Are you open to a bribe?” “How big a bribe?” “A purse of gold and half the county? Or cream tarts at tea?” “Oh, much more! A bath. A bath in a tub, with loads of hot water and lots of suds. The last time I bathed was in a stream and it was coooold!” I shivered for him. The Governor appeared to think. “Squeaky, do we have a bathtub?” Lady Herbert interrupted. “Bertie, I was thinking of the Princess Suite. My deah, since you are all one family, it popped into mind. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two bathtubs. The drawing room is gloomy, rather.” I answered, “Bertie, you didn’t talk fast enough; Betty gets the first ride.” “Oh, no, no, no! I don’t fly even in our own flying carriage.” “Hahrooomph!” Squeaky boomed. “Are you still open to a bribe?” “You might try our captain; she’s as corruptible as I am.” Aunt Hilda picked it up. “Now that I’ve heard that two bathtubs go with the suite, my cup runneth over. But my husband and my son-in-law have matters to discuss with the Governor’s technical staff. I don’t have to be bribed to offer a few joy rides, Brigadier – one passenger at a time and, as Deety implies, not too wide a passenger.” Aunt Hilda added, “Betty, I must confess my own weakness. Clothes. What I am wearing, for example. A Ferrara original. An exclusive – Mario himself created it for me. While it is intended for salt-water yachting, it is just as practical for space yachting – and I couldn’t resist it. Do you have nice shops here?” Bertie answered for his wife. “Hilda, there are shops – but Windsor City is not London. However, Betty has a seamstress who is clever at copying styles from pictures in periodicals from home – old but new to us.” He added, “She’ll show you what we have. Now concerning this ride you so kindly offered me – does it suit you to give me an appointment?” “Is right now soon enough?”
“Report readiness for space. Astrogator.” “Ready!” I snapped, trying to sound efficient. “Belt tight.” “Chief Pilot.” “Belt fastened. Portside door locked, seal checked. Juice zero point seven-one. Wings subsonic full. Wheels down and locked. Car trimmed assuming passenger at six-six kilos.” “General, is that your mass?” “Dear me! I think in pounds. The factor is -“ I interrupted. “I’ll take it in pounds here or pounds London.” “I weigh myself each morning and I have had the scale recalibrated. Eh, with these boots, one hundred forty-five pounds I dare say.” “Correct to three significant figures, Zebadiah.” (I did not mention that weight bearing on each wheel shows on the instrument board. Let Bertie think my husband a magician; he’s a wizard to me.) “Thank you, Astrogator. Car is trimmed, Captain.” “Copilot.” “Belt fastened. Door seal checked. Continua device ready.” “Passenger,” said Cap’n Auntie. “Eh? What should a passenger report?” “Principally that your belt is secure, but I saw to that myself.” (By using a web belt from our sleeping bag to link Hilda’s seat belt to mine.) “I must ask one question,” Aunt Hilda went on: “Are you subject to motion sickness? The Channel can be rough and so can the Straits of Dover. Did mal de mer ever hit you?” “Oh, I’ll be right. Short flight and all that.” “One Bonine, Deety. General, Admiral Lord Nelson was seasick all his life. My husband and I are susceptible; we took our pills earlier today. Deety and Zebbie are the horrid sort who eat greasy sandwiches during a typhoon and laugh at the dying -“ “I don’t laugh!” I protested. “But these pills enable us to laugh right back. Is this not so, Jacob?” “Bertie, they work; you’d be a fool not to take one.” “I must add,” Captain Auntie said sweetly, “that if you refuse, we will not lift.” Bertie took it. I told him, “Chew it and swallow it; don’t hide it in your cheek. Captain, I think that does it.” “Except that we are crowded. General, would you be more comfortable if you put an arm around each of us?” The General did not refuse. It occurs to me that “take him for a ride” has several meanings. Captain Auntie has more twists than a belly dancer. “Routine has been broken. Confirm readiness, please.” We reported while I snuggled into a firm male arm, realized that it was a pleasant contrast after getting used to my lovely giant. “Gay Bounce.” Bertie gasped and tightened his arms around us. Aunt Hilda said quietly, “Astrogator, take the conn. Schedule as I discussed it. Don’t hesitate to vary it. All of us – you, too, General – may suggest variations. This is a joy ride; let’s enjoy it.” But she had told me earlier: “If I don’t like a suggestion, I will suggest that we do it later – but time will run out. The General told Lady Herbert: ‘I can go down to the end of the town ‘And be back in time for tea!” – so we will fetch him back on time. Sixteen-fifteen local, four-fifteen pip emma. What’s Greenwich?” I converted it (GMT 12:44) and told Captain Hillbilly that I would watch both board and the clock in my head but was ordered to place an alert with Gay. If Aunt Hilda were a man, she would wear both suspenders and belt. No, that’s wrong; for herself she’s go-for-broke; for other people she is supercautious. We lifted at 15:30 local and took Bertie for a mixed ride – Aunt Hilda had told me that Pop was feeling left out. “Gay Bounce, Gay Bounce. Chief Pilot, place us over the big Russian city at about a thousand klicks.” “Roger Wilco,” my husband affirmed. “Copilot, one jump or two?” “One. Level? Keep ‘er so. Six thousand thirty klicks, true bearing two-seven-three, offset L axis negative oh-seven-four-set!” – and I shuddered; Pop had set to take us through the planet! “Execute! Bertie, what is the name of that city?” “Eh? Zeb, I am quite bewildered!” Pop and Gay and Zebadiah, working together, displayed features simultaneously on the planet in front of us and on the sillyscope on the board. Pop bounced Gay around in ways I didn’t know could be done. Zebadiah had Gay rotate the display so that the point on Mars-ten opposite us was always the center of the display with scale according to H-above-G. I learned a lot. The Russians claim the whole planet but their occupied area closely matches what we had bingo-mapped. Bertie pointed out a bit more Tsarist area; Gay changed the displayed locus to Zebadiah’s interpretation of Bertie’s information. Windsor City was zero Meridan for the British; Gay measured the arc to “Touchdown,” adjusted her longitudes – and now could use any British Martian colonial map. Bertie assured us that Russian Ack-Ack could not shoot higher than three miles (less than five klicks) and seemed astonished that a spaceship might be considered dangerous. His explanation of spaceships was less than clear – great flimsy things that sailed from orbits around Earth to orbits around Mars, taking months for each voyage. I was watching the time. “Chief Pilot, we will sight-see with Bertie another day; I am taking the conn. Copilot.” “Verniers zeroed and locked, Astrogator.” “Thanks, Pop. Gay B’gout. Bertie, this is where we first grounded – where the Russians attacked us. That trash ahead is what is left of Colonel Morinosky’s private flyer. Zebadiah was forced to retaliate.” Bertie looked puzzled. “But the Russians have no settlement near here. I know that bounder Morinosky; he came to see me under diplomatic immunity. I had to be content with the sort of nasty remarks permitted by protocol. But how did Zeb burn the flyer?” “Beautifully. Gay Home. Chief Pilot, dive. Captain?” “I have the conn,” Aunt Hilda acknowledged. “Bertie, that crater was our home three days ago. They tried to kill us, we fled for our lives.” “Who!” “Gay Home, Gay Bounce. Pilots, may we have Earth-without-a-J?” “Set it, Jake.” “Tau axis positive one quantum – set!” “Copilot, execute at will. Chief Pilot, dive again, please. Jacob, please set Bertie’s home universe and hold. Bertie, that house is like Snug Harbor before it was bombed – but one universe away. Zebbie, level glide please… Gay Bounce, Gay Bounce! Jacob, you have that setting?” “Tau positive ten quanta, set.” “Execute at will. Bertie, what antiaircraft defense does London – your London – have?” “What, what? London has no defense against attack from above. The Concord of Brussels. But Hilda – my dear Captain – you are telling me that we have been to a different universe!” “Three universes, Bertie, and now we are back in your own. Better to show than to tell; it is a thing one believes only through experience. Gay Bounce. Zebbie, Jacob, see how quickly you can put us over London. Execute at will.” “Roger Wilco. Jake, do you want Gay?” “Well – great-circle true bearing and chord distance, maybe. Or I can simply take her high and head northeast. The scenic route.” Aunt Hilda caught my eye. “Camera ready, Deety?” “Yes. Three shots.” I added, “Four more cartons, but when they’re gone, they’re gone.” “Use your judgment.” Suddenly we were in free fall over Arizona, then over the British Isles, then we were air supported, then we were diving and Zebadiah was shouting: “Tower of London, next stop!” I shot a beauty of the Tower and Zebadiah’s right ear. “General, is there something you would like to photograph here? Or elsewhere?” He seemed almost too overcome to talk. He muttered, “There is a place about twenty miles north of here, a country estate. Is it possible?” Aunt Hilda said, “Take the conn, Deety.” “Got it, Captain. Gay Bounce. Pop, Zebadiah, give me three minima north. Execute at will.” Then I was saying, “Any landmarks, Bertie?” “Uh, not yet.” “Pop, may we have the binoculars?” Pop handed them aft; I gave them to Bertie. He adjusted them and searched while Zebadiah made a wide sweep, spending altitude stingily. Bertie said, “There!” “Where?” I said. “And what?” “A large house, to the right of our course. Ah, now dead ahead!” I saw it – a “Stately Home of England.” Lawns you make with a flock of sheep and four centuries. “This it?” asked Zebadiah. “I’m steady on it by gunsight,” “That’s it, sir! Deety, I would like a picture.” “Do my best.” “Alert,” said Gay. “Memo for General Smythe-Carstairs: ‘I can go down to the end of the town and be back in time for tea.'” “Aunt Hilda, Bertie, I left some leeway. Picture! Zebadiah, take it as close as you dare, then bounce, but warn me. I want a closeup.” “Now, Deety!” I hit it and Zebadiah bounced us. Bertie let out a sigh. “My home. I never expected to see it again.” “I knew it was your home,” Aunt Hilda said softly, “because you looked the way we feel when we see the crater where Snug Harbor used to be. But you will see it again, surely? How long is a tour of duty on Mars?” “It’s a matter of health.” Bertie added, “Lady Her – Betty’s health.” Pop turned his head. “Bertie, we can bounce and do it again. What’s a few minutes late for tea compared with seeing your old homestead?” “Bertie’s not late yet, Pop. We can do even better. That lawn is smooth and the open part is about half the size of the p.g. at Imperial House. Bertie, we can ground.” My husband added, “I could make a glide grounding. But Deety has worked out a better method.” “No,” Bertie said brusquely. “Thanks, Deety. Thanks to all of you. Jake. Zeb. Captain Hilda. I’ll treasure this day. But enough is enough.” Tears were running down his cheeks, ignored. Aunt Hilda took a Kleenex from her purse, dabbed away his tears. She put her left hand back of Bertie’s neck, pulled his face down to hers, and kissed him. She didn’t look to see if Pop was watching – he was – she just did it. Pop said, “Deety, will you hand me the binox?” “Sure, Pop. See something?” “I’m going to see what I can of Merrie Old England, as I don’t expect to see it again, either. Family, we are not going back to Snug Harbor again; it’s not good for us. Meanwhile Zeb will drive and you two are to soothe our guest and make him feel better -“ “But remember to wipe off the lipstick.” “Pipe down, Zeb. You aren’t observant; neither of our darlings is wearing any. Being late is not important; ‘The party can’t start till the Macgregor arrives.’ But once Bertie’s there, he’s on parade – and the Governor must not appear with eyes swollen and tear marks on his collar. We must return him in as good shape as we got him.” Sometimes I love Pop more than most. And my husband, too. I used both hands but didn’t need to; Bertie wasn’t trying to get away. The second time he kissed Hilda, he supplied the hands. Therapy took three minutes and forty-one seconds, and I am certain that, by the end of two hundred twenty-one seconds, Bertie was no longer homesick, not grieving about might have-beens; his morale was tiptop. The last time he kissed me, he informed me without words that I should not be alone with him unless my intentions were serious. I made mental note. And a second to ask Hilda if she had received the same warning. Then I struck out the second note. I was certain and equally certain that she would fib if it suited her. But I look forward to the day the Hillbilly asks me to jigger for her. That will be my final promotion – no longer Jane’s little girl in Hilda’s eyes but Jane’s equal, trusted as utterly as she trusted Jane. And I will be rid of the last trace of the shameful jealousy I have for my beloved Mama Jane. I checked myself in my purse mirror while I waited for them to break – checked both of them and decided that they had no milk on their chins. Bertie said, “Deety, could I possibly have one of those pictures as a remembrance of this perfect day?” “Certainly. Gay Parade Ground. All three are yours;~we took them for you.” We were exactly on time.
Three hours later I was sitting teat deep in a wonderful tub of hot soapy water, a tub big enough to drown in but I wasn’t going to drown because the Hillbilly was sitting shoulder deep, facing me. We were reliving our day as well as getting beautiful for dinner. Well… sanitary. Hilda said, “Deety, I tell you three times. Betty is suffering from an ailment made more endurable by Martian conditions.” “Meaning that in point thirty-eight gee she doesn’t hit hard when she falls down. What was in that teapot no one else touched? Chanel Number Five?” “Medicine. Prescribed for her nerves.” “Got it. Official. She’s friendly as a puppy, she’s generous, she’s our hostess – I ought to know better. It’s a shame that she has this ailment but she’s fortunate in having a husband who loves her so dearly that he left home forever so that she can live in lower gravity. Bertie is quite a man.” “There is nothing for him at home. His older brother has sons; title and estate can’t go to Bertie. He can’t go much higher in the army, and a governor general is senior to anybody; he embodies the Sovereign.” “I thought that was limited to viceroys.” “Squeaky put me straight on it. Bertie is viceroy in dealing with Russians. But – Did you notice the uniforms on the maids?” “I noticed the cream tarts more. White aprons, white caps, simple print dresses, dark blue or black with Indian arrowheads.” “The Broad Arrow, Deety.” “Huh? No sabbe, pliz.” “In this universe Australia belongs to the Dutch. Brace yourself, dear. This is a prison colony.” Every so often the world wobbles and I have to wait for it to steady down. Somewhat later I said, “A colony could be better than a prison. I can’t see Bertie as a tyrant. Bertie is quite a man. When -“ Hilda reached out, grabbed a chain, flushed the W.C., then leaned toward me. That fixture was a noisy type that went on gurgling and gasping for a long time. “Remember what Zebbie told us when he crowded us into the other bath and turned on everything? One must assume that guest quarters in any government building anywhere are wired. Careful what you say, dear.” “He also said that he had no reason to assume that it was the case here.” “But Zebbie was the one who insisted on a conference in Gay… with Jacob being mulish and you yourself seeing no reason not to confer up here.” Aunt Hilda again pulled the chain. “Yes, Bertie is quite a man. Don’t leave me alone with him.” “Or should I jigger instead?” “Naughty Deety. My sweet, a bride should refrain at least twelve months out of respect for her husband and to prove that she can.” “After that it’s okay?” “Of course not! It’s immoral, disgraceful, and scandalous.” Suddenly she giggled, put arms around my neck, and whispered: “But if I ever need a jigger, Deety is the only person I would trust.”
That conference, immediately after tea, had caused a crisis, brought on by our husbands in concert – but out of tune. The tea had been fun – cream tarts and new men appeal to my basest instincts. A tea qua tea should be over in an hour. We had been there over an hour, which I ignored because I was having fun. Aunt Hilda broke the ring around me, said softly, “We’re leaving.” So we smiled and said good-bye, found our host, and thanked him. “Our pleasure,” Bertie said. “Lady Herbert became indisposed and wishes to be forgiven but will see you at dinner. Hird-Jones tells me that black tie is no problem. Right?” He added to let Squeaky know when we wanted help in moving; Hilda assured him that Squeaky had it in hand and the suite was beautiful! As we left I asked, “Where is Zebadiah?” “Waiting at the outer steps. He asked me for a conference. I don’t know why, but Zebbie would not unnecessarily interrupt a social event to ask for a closed conference.” “Why didn’t we go to our suite? And where is Pop?” “Zebbie specified the car – more private. Jacob is inside, talking with some men. He brushed off my telling him that we were going to the car now – said he would see us later. Deety, I can’t enforce orders as captain under those conditions.” “Pop is hard to move when he gets into a discussion. I’ve yawned through some deadly ones. But how can we have a conference until he shows up?” “I don’t know, dear. Here’s Zebbie.” My husband pecked me on the nose and said, “Where’s Jake?” Hilda answered, “He told me that he would be along later.” Zebadiah started to curse; Aunt Hilda cut him off. “Chief Pilot.” “Uh – Yes, Captain.” “Go find the Copilot, tell him that we lift in five minutes. Having told him that and no more, turn and leave at once. Don’t give him any opportunity to ask questions. Come straight to the car.” “Aye aye, Captain.” “Come, Deety.” Hilda hurried to Gay Deceiver, went to her seat, started to belt, She glanced at me. “Astrogator, prepare for space.” I started to ask why – but instead said, “Aye aye, Captain,” and quickly was belted. “Captain, may I inquire your plans?” “Certainly, you’re second-in-command. And Astrogator; however, I will take the conn on lifting.” “Then we really are lifting?” “Yes. Five minutes after Zebbie returns. That gives Jacob five minutes to make up his mind. Then we lift. If Jacob is aboard, he’ll be with us.” “Aunt Hilda, you would abandon my father on this planet?!” “No, Deety. Jacob will probably never notice that the car has been away as it should not be gone more than a few minutes. If Jacob does not come with us, I will ask Zebbie to drop me on Earth-without-a-J. Range-finder and target method; I don’t want to use Zebbie’s precious juice.” “Aunt Hilda, you sound desperate.” “I am, dear.” She added, “Here comes Zebbie.” Zebadiah climbed in. “Message delivered, Captain.” “Thank you, Chief Pilot. Prepare for space.” “Roger Wilco.” “Will you check the seal of the starboard door, please?” “Aye aye, Captain.” “Report readiness for space, Astrogator.” “Belt tight, ready for space. Oh, Aunt Hilda!” “Astrogator, pipe down. Chief Pilot.” “Both doors locked, seals checked. Seat belt tight. Power packs, two zeroed, two in reserve. Juice oh-point-seven-one-minus. All systems go. Copilot missing. Ready for space.” “Captain’s seat belt tight, ready for space. Gay Deceiver.” “Howdy, Hilda!” “Please display five-minute countdown. Paraphrase acknowledge.” “Three hundred seconds backwards in lights.” “Execute.” Have you ever listened to three hundred seconds of silence? Neither have I – two hundred eighty-one when Pop pounded on the door. Aunt Hilda said, “Gay Deceiver, open starboard door.” Pop climbed in, indignant as an offended cat. “What the hell goes on?” “Copilot, prepare for space.” “What? Now, Hilda, that is going too far!” “Copilot, either secure for space or get out and stand clear. Chief Pilot, see that my orders are carried out.” “Aye aye, Captain! Copilot, you’ve got zero seconds to make up your mind.” My husband started to unstrap. Pop looked at Zebadiah, looked at us. I was doing my frozen face to keep from crying and I think Aunt Hilda was, too. Pop hastily fastened his belt. “You’re a pack of idiots – ” He was checking the door seal. ” – but I won’t be left behind.” “Copilot, report.” “Huh? Ready for space.” Hilda said, “Gay Termite. Gay Deceiver, open your doors.” “Well, for the love of -“ “Pipe down! Chief Pilot, I have no stomach for charging my husband with mutiny but that is what I have been faced with repeatedly. Will you grant me the boon of resuming command to drop me on Earth-without-a-J? I would rather not have to stay on Mars.” “Hilda!” “I’m sorry, Jacob. I’ve tried. I’m not up to it. I’m not Jane.” “No one expects you to be Jane! But ever since you became captain, you’ve been throwing your weight around. Like calling this stunt in the middle of a party. Insulting our host and hostess – “ “Hold it, Jake!” “What? See here, Zeb, I’m talking to my wife! You keep -“ “I said ‘Hold it.’ Shut up or I’ll shut you up.” “Don’t you threaten me!” “That’s not a threat; that’s a warning.” “Pop, you had better believe him! I’m not on your side.” Pop took a deep breath. “What do you have to say for yourself, Carter?” “Nothing, for myself. But you’ve got your data wrong six ways. One: Captain Hilda did not call this so-called ‘stunt.’ I did.” “You did? What the devil caused you to do a thing like that?” “Irrelevant. I convinced the Captain that the matter was urgent, so she gathered us in. All but you – -you told her not to bother you or words to that effect. But she gave you another chance – you didn’t deserve it; you had long since used up your quota. But she did. She sent me back to tell you we were lifting. It finally penetrated your skull that we might lift without you -“ “To this place!” “If you had been twenty seconds later, we would have translated to another universe. But this nonsense about ‘Insulting our host and hostess – ‘ Your hostess left the tea long before you did; your host left immediately after Hilda and Deety, leaving his aide – the Brigadier – to close shop. But you are so damned self-centered you never noticed. Jake, don’t you lecture me on proper behavior as a guest. The first time I laid eyes on you, you were trying to star a fight in Sharpie’s ballroom -“ “Huh? But I was fully justi – “ “Dreck. No one is ever justified in starting a fight under a host’s roof. The very most that can be justified under extreme provocation is to tell the other party privately that you are ready to meet him at another time and place. Jake, I don’t enjoy teaching manners to my senior. But your parents neglected you, so I must. If I offend you – if you feel entitled to call me out, I will accommodate you at any other time and place.” Aunt Hilda gasped. “Zebbie! No!” I gasped something like it. My husband patted our hands – together; Hilda was gripping mine. “Don’t worry, dears. I didn’t call Jake out and won’t. I don’t want to hurt Jake. He’s your husband… your father… my blood brother by spilled blood. But I had to chew him out; he’s now entitled to a crack at me. With words, with hands, with whatever. Sharpie, Deety, you can’t refuse Jake his rights. No matter what, he still has rights.” Pop said, “Zeb, I am not going to call you out. If you think I am afraid of you, you’re welcome. If you think it’s because I know you love both Hilda and Deety, you would be closer. A fight between us would endanger their welfare. As you said, we are blood brothers.” Pop’s tone suddenly changed. “But doesn’t mean I like your behavior, you arrogant punk!” Zebadiah grinned. “Nolo contendere, Pop.” “So you admit it?” “You know Latin better than that, Jake. Means I’m satisfied to let it lie. We can’t afford to quarrel.” “Mmm – A point well taken. Stipulating that I did not come at once when summoned, and tabling, if you will, until later whether or not I had reason, may I now ask why I was summoned? The nature of this problem that caused you to call this conference?” “Jake, the situation has changed so rapidly that the matter no longer has priority. You heard Sharpie’s plans.” My husband looked into Aunt Hilda’s eyes. “Captain, I’ll be honored to drive you wherever you want to go. Drop you wherever you say. With your choice of equipment and wampum. But with a mail drop, I hope. Are you ready to leave?” “Yes, Captain.” “Wait a half. You are captain, until you leave us. Orders, Captain? Earth-without-a-J? Or I’ll help you shop others – we might find a world of nudists.” “Why that, Zebbie? I’m not jumpy about skin – but only among close friends.” “Remember why Jake was certain that the Finnish mathematician was not a disguised vermin? Sauna. Disguise has limits.” “Oh.” Aunt Hilda looked thoughtful. “I could get used to it. But I must get out of this tension. So drop me on the minus-J world. A mail drop, yes; I don’t ever want to lose you and Deety.” “We find that safe place, we pick you up. Sharpie, we’ll be back someday anyhow. If the boogiemen don’t get us.” “Hold it, Zeb. If you’re dropping Hilda, you’re dropping me.” “That’s up to Captain Hilda.” “Hilda, I will not permit -“ “Jake, quit acting the fool,” growled my husband. “She’s boss. With me to back her up.” “And me!” I echoed. “You seem to forget that the continua device is mine!” “Gay Deceiver!” “Yes, Boss? Who’s your fat friend?” “‘Number of the Beast.’ Execute.” “Done.” “Try your verniers, Jake.” Pop did something – I couldn’t see his hands. Then he said, “Why, you – So you think you’ve stopped me? Gay Deceiver!” “Howdy, Jake.” Zebadiah cut in: “Gay Deceiver override! Emergency Thirty-one execute. Gay can no longer hear you, Jake. Try it.” “If you can do one, you can do the other. Zeb, I never thought you would be that sneaky.” “Jake, if you had behaved yourself, you never would have known. Extreme individualists (all of us) don’t take kindly to discipline because they rarely understand its nature and function. But – even before that fake ranger showed up – we all had agreed to ‘lifeboat’ rules. We discussed them and you all claimed to understand them… and I was elected skipper. I nominated you – eldest, senior, inventor of the space-time twister – but you said it had to be me. A lifeboat officer must always be able to enforce his orders… in situations of great peril complicated by hysterical civilians. Or bullheaded ones who must otherwise be wheedled.” It was time for a diversion; Pop doesn’t like to look foolish and I was still hoping to salvage this shambles. “Zebadiah, is my number fifty-nine?” “Of course, but it takes my voice. Can you figure the cancel-and-reset?” “For mnemonic reasons it should be one of three. Probably ninety-five.” “On the button!” “Although I would prefer eighty-nine.” “Why?” “Work on it. Zebadiah, why did you call this meeting?” “With Sharpie leaving us the matter is academic. We won’t be coming back to Mars.” “Oh, dear!” “What’s the trouble, Sharpie? Captain.” “I promised Squeaky a ride. Zebbie, could you keep my promise for me? Please? For old times’ sake?” “Captain, once we lift to drop you on Minus-J, we won’t return. But the Captain still is captain and can give Squeaky that ride in the next thirty minutes if it suits her.” “May I offer something in my own defense?” Pop put in. “Of course, Jake. Sorry, Captain; you’re in charge. May the Copilot have the floor?” “Jacob, even though I find it necessary to leave you… I love and respect you… and will always listen to you.” “Thanks, darling. Thank you, Captain. I was in that huddle because Brigadier Hird-Jones always remembers. That huddle was the top physical scientists on Mars. A scruffy lot but they get the technical journals and read them, a few months late. I was talking with the top chemist -“ “Well, Jake? Make it march.” “Zeb, not one knew an isotope from an antelope. You can’t buy juice here.” “For that you disobeyed a direct order of the Captain? Sharpie, you should have him flogged around the Fleet before you surrender office -“ “Don’t loke, Zebbie.” “Captain, I am not joking. Jake, that’s no news; I spotted it this afternoon. Sharpie? Deety? In England.” “I missed it,” Aunt Hilda said. “I don’t know England well.” “Deety?” “Well… maybe,” I admitted. “How?” demanded Pop. “Little things. No roadables, just horse-drawn vehicles. No air traffic other than a few ornithopters. Coal-fired steam-powered trains of cars. Traffic on the Thames, what little there was, ‘minded me of pictures of Victorian England.” “Daughter, why didn’t you mention this?” “You saw it, Pop.” “Those were my reasons,” Zebadiah agreed. “My hope of getting juiced here dropped to one-tenth of one percent. It is now zero.” Zebadiah sighed. “But that isn’t why I asked the Captain to call us together. Family, there are vermin here.” The world wobbled again – and so did I. Aunt Hilda was saying, “How did you learn this, Zebbie?” “You gals had plenty of company and Jake had the local scientists, so Squeaky gave me his attention. Captain, you told us to stick to the truth -“ “Yes,” agreed Aunt Hilda, “but not to volunteer information.” “I didn’t volunteer; I was debriefed. Squeaky asked me about the ride we gave his boss; I tried to be vague. Squeaky took a photo from his pocket. ‘The Governor tells me this was taken this afternoon.’ Deety, it was the pic you took of the Thames and the Tower. “I shortly started giving him a full account rather than have it dragged out. The Governor had told him the works; Squeaky was comparing my version with Bertie’s, looking for holes in a yarn most easily explained by hypnosis, delirium tremens, insanity, or fancy lying. Since no two witnesses exhibit any of these in the same way they can be used as truth tests. Contrariwise, two witnesses who tell exactly the same story are lying. I assume that Bertie and I differed enough to be credible.” I asked my husband, “Zebadiah, did you explain six-dimensional space to him?” Zebadiah looked pained. “How could I, when I can’t explain it to me? Anyhow, he’s looking forward eagerly to the ride Captain Sharpie promised him.” “Oh, dear! Zebbie, will you take a note to him?” “Captain, we are not coming back after we drop you. I’ll be breaking a date with him, too. Either before or after whatever time suits you, he’s planning to give me – and anyone else who wants to go – a ride to see the vermin. ‘Black Hats.’ Fake rangers.” (I do wish the world would not wobble!) Pop said, “Zeb, spill it! Quit stalling.” “Shut up and listen. Squeaky showed me a scrapbook. Dull as a scrapbook usually is until we came across a page of ‘Black Hats.’ Deety, you would have been proud of me -“ “I am proud of you,” I answered. ” – because I didn’t scream or faint, I showed no special interest. I just said, ‘God in Heaven, Squeaky, those are the horrors that chased us off Earth! You’ve got ’em here?'” “‘No special interest.'” “I didn’t climb the drapes. I merely said, ‘Or have you managed to exterminate them?’ “The discussion became confused, as they don’t kill them; they put them to work. Squeaky had to repress amusement at the notion that wogs could be dangerous. He glanced at his watch and said, ‘Come, I’ll show you. Ordinarily we don’t allow wogs in town. But this old fellow takes care of the Governor’s gardens and may not yet have been returned to the pens for the night.’ He led me to a balcony. Squeaky looked down and said, ‘Too late, I’m afraid. No, there it is – Hooly! Chop, chop!’ – and again I didn’t faint. Hooly ran toward us, with a gait I can’t describe, stopped abruptly, threw an open-palm salute and held it. ‘Private Hooly reports!’ “Squeaky let him stand there. ‘This wog,’ he told me, ‘is the most intelligent of the herd. It knows almost a hundred words. Can make simple sentences. As intelligent as a dog. And it can be trusted not to eat the flowers.’ “‘Herbivorous?’ says I, showing off my book-larnin’. ‘Oh, no,’ he tells me, ‘omnivorous. We hunt wild ones to provide the good wogs with a change in diet and, of course, when we slaughter overage wogs, that provides more ration.’ “That’s enough for one lesson, children. Pleasant dreams. Tomorrow the Brigadier will have a roadable big enough for all of us to take us out to meet the Martian natives aka wogs aka ‘Black Hats’ aka vermin – unless that interferes with the ride you aren’t going to give him, in which case he will swap the times around with the visit to the wogs we aren’t going to make. And that, Jake, is the reason I asked the Captain for a family conference. I already knew that artificial isotopes are far beyond this culture – not alone from the ride this afternoon but because I ask questions myself. Squeaky has a knowledge of chemistry about the pre-nuclear level and a detailed knowledge of explosives that one expects of a pro. But to Squeaky atoms are the smallest divisions of mass, and ‘heavy water’ is a meaningless phrase. “So I knew we would be here just to get Sharpie some clothes and to recharge my packs – since they do have D.C. power. Then I found we had stumbled onto the home of the vermin – and at that point my back didn’t ache at the idea of cranking, and I didn’t think that the Captain was that much in a hurry to buy clothes. So I asked the Captain to call us together in Smart Girl. I did not want to put it off even a few minutes because we were scheduled to move into our suite after tea. To leave at once, before we moved in, would save awkward explanations. Jake, did I have reason to ask for emergency conference?” “If you had told me -“ “Stop! The Captain told you.” “But she didn’t explain -“ “Jake, you’re hopeless! Captains don’t have to explain. Furthermore she could not because I did not tell anyone until now. The Captain had confidence in my judgment.” “You could have explained. When Hilda sent you back to get me. I would have come at once.” “That makes the ninth time you’ve been wrong in twenty minutes -“ I blurted, “Tenth, Zebadiah. I counted.” Pop gave me his “Et-tu,-Brute” look. ” – tenth without being right once. I could not have explained to you.” “Merely because of a group of men?” “Eleventh. I was not sent back to get you – twelfth. I was under orders to tell you that – quote! – ‘We lift in five minutes.’ Tell you that and no more, then turn and leave at once, without discussion. I carried out my orders.” “You hoped that I would be left behind.” “Thirteen.” I butted in again. “Pop, quit making a fool of yourself! Zebadiah asked you an essential question – and you’ve dodged. Captain Auntie, could we have the doors closed? There might be one of them out there – and the guns are locked up.” “Certainly, Deety. Gay Deceiver, close your doors.” Pop said, “Deety, I was not aware that I had been dodging. I thought I was conducting a reasonable discussion.” “Pop, you always think so. But you are reasonable only in mathematics. Zebadiah asked you whether or not, under the circumstances, did he have reason to ask for a conference? You haven’t answered it.” “If Hilda had not told him not to -“ “Pop! Answer that question or I will never speak to you again in my life!” My husband said, “Deety, Deety! Don’t make threats.” “My husband, I never make threats, either. Pop knows it.” Pop took a deep breath. “Zeb, under the circumstances you have described, you were justified in asking the Captain for an immediate private conference.” I let out my breath. “Thanks, Pop.” “I did it for myself, Deety. Hilda? Captain?” “What is it, Jacob?” “I should have gone with you at once when you first asked me to.” “Thank you, Jacob. But I did not ‘ask’ you; I ordered you. True, it was phrased as a request… but orders of a commanding officer are customarily phrased as requests – a polite protocol. You explained this custom to me yourself. Although I already knew it.” Aunt Hilda turned to look at Zebadiah. “Chief Pilot, the departure for Minus-J is postponed until late tomorrow. I will give you the time after I have consulted the Brigadier. I want to see one of those vermin, alive, photograph it stereo and cinema, and, if possible, dissect one. Since I intend to remain overnight, I hope to pick up clothes for MinusJ, too – but the reasons for delay are to learn more about vermin and to carry out my commitment to Brigadier Hird-Jones.” Aunt Hilda paused, continued: “All hands, special orders. Do not remove anything from the car that you cannot afford to abandon. This car may lift on five minutes’ warning even in the middle of the night. You should keep close to me unless you have a guarantee from me of longer time. Tonight I will sleep in the car. If we lift in the night, I will send word to Princess Suite. Zebbie, I will retain the captaincy until we ground on Minus-J. Schedule: Dinner tonight is eight-thirty pip emma local time, about three hours hence. Black tie for gentlemen. Deety suggests that we wear what we wore our wedding night; she has our outfits packed together. The Brigadier will send someone to Princess Suite shortly after eight local to escort us to a reception. I will settle tomorrow’s schedule with him. Jacob, I will slip down to the car after the House is quiet. If someone sees me, I will be running down for a toothbrush. Questions?” “Captain?” said Pop. “Copilot.” “Hilda, must you sleep in the car?” “Jacob, ’twere best done quickly!” “I’m begging you.” “You want me to be your whore one last time? That’s not too much to ask… since you were willing to marry me knowing my thoroughly tarnished past. Yes, Jacob.” “No, no, no! I want you to sleep in my arms – that’s all I ask.” “Only that? We can discuss it after we go to bed. All hands, prepare for space. Report!”
I splashed the Hillbilly and giggled. “Cap’n Auntie chum, that flatters me more than anything else you could ever say. While I can’t imagine needing a jigger – if I did – or if I needed any sort of help and it took one who loves me no matter what, you know to whom I would turn. The one who loves me even when I’m bad. Who’s that?” “Thank you, Deety. We love and trust each other.” “Now tell me – Did you ever have any intention of sleeping tonight in the car?” She pulled the chain again. Under that racket she said into my ear, “Deety doll, I never had any intention of sleeping tonight.”
Chapter XXVIII
“He’s too fat.”
Zeb: Sharpie sat on the Governor’s right with my wife on his left, which gave Jake and me the privilege of sharing Lady Herbert, a loud shout away. The space was filled with mess jackets, dinner coats, and wives in their best. We each had one footman to insure that we did not starve; this platoon was bossed by a butler as impressive as the Pope, who was aided by a squad of noncom butlers. Female servants rushed in and out to serving tables. His Supremacy the Butler took it from there but used his hands only in offering splashes of wine to the Governor to taste and approve. All were in livery – decorated with the Broad Arrow. The British colony consisted of a) wogs, b) transportees, c) discharged transportees, d) officers and enlisted men, e) civil servants, and f) spouses and dependents. I know even less about the Russian colony. Military and serfs, I think. The ladies were in Victorian high-style dowdiness, which made Deety and Sharpie birds of paradise among crows. Jump suit and sailor pants had shocked people at tea. But at dinner – Deety wore the velvet wrap she had the night we eloped; Sharpie wore her sunset-shade mink cape; Jake and I unveiled them on the grand staircase leading down to the reception hall. Naw, we didn’t rehearse; we were mysterious strangers, guests of the Governor General and His Lady, so all eyes were upon us. Maids, hurrying up, met us there to take our ladies’ wraps. I had questioned the propriety of house guests coming downstairs in wraps. Sharpie had answered, “Utterly correct, Zebbie – because I set the style. I did so this afternoon; I shall until we leave.” I shut up; Sharpie has infallible instinct for upstaging. Have I mentioned how Sharpie and Deety were dressed at Sharpie’s party? They practically weren’t. I wish I had had that hall bugged to record the gasps when Jake and I uncovered our prizes. These two had last been seen at tea, one in a jump suit, the other in an outfit that looked donated by the Salvation Army, with no makeup. We had been to our suite before tea only for a hasty wash. But now – Sharpie did Deety’s hair; Deety did Sharpie’s; Sharpie styled both faces, including too much lipstick, which Deety doesn’t often wear. I asked Sharpie if she knew the history and significance of lipstick. She answered, “Certainly do, Zebbie. Don’t bother us.” She went on making Deety beautiful. Deety is beautiful but doesn’t know it because her features have that simple regularity favored by Praxiteles. Having put too much lipstick on Deety, Sharpie removed some, then carried her makeup onto her breasts so that it disappeared under the dress. Which is pretty far because they saved material on that dress at the top in order to give it a full, floor-length skirt. You can’t quite see her nipples-in the flesh I mean; they generally show through her clothes, always when she’s happy – because Deety stands tall. Her mother had told her, “Deety, if a woman is tall, the answer is to look at least three centimeters taller than you are.” Deety always believed her mother; she stands tall, sits straight; she never leans or slouches; she can get away with that dress by half a centimeter. I’m not sure of the material but the color is the shade of green that goes best with strawberry hair. That dress, her height, long legs, broad shoulders, a waist two sizes too small setting off breasts two sizes too big – the combo could get her a job as a show girl. When Sharpie finished gilding Deety I couldn’t see that she had been made up at all… but knew durn well that she did not look the way she had before. Sharpie picked her jewelry, too – sparingly, as Deety had all her pretties with her, her own and those that had belonged to her mother. Sharpie based it on an emerald-and-pearl neckpiece, plus a matching pin and ring. As for Sharpie, twice my darling’s age and half as big, restraint was not what she used. The central diamond of her necklace was smaller than the Star of Africa. She wore other diamonds here and there. Here is something I don’t understand. Sharpie is underprivileged in mammary glands. I know she was not wearing cheaters as I returned to get my tie tied just as Deety was about to lower it onto her. No bra, no underwear. But when that dress was fastened, Sharpie had tits – little ones but big enough for her size. Stuffing built into the dress? Nope. I went out of my way to check. Is that why some couturiers get such high prices? Still… the Captain looks best in her skin. So we uncovered these confections and gave the British colony, male, female, and the others, something to talk about for months. I can’t say the English ladies were pleased. Their men gravitated toward our darlings like iron filings toward a magnet. However, Betty, Lady Herbert, is sweet all through. She rushed toward us (a bow wave of juniors getting out of her way), stopped short, looked only at our ladies, and said with the delight of a child at Christmas: “Oh, how beautiful you are!” and clapped her hands. Her voice projected against dead silence, then conversation resumed. Lady Herbert took them, an arm around each, and toured the hall (busting up a receiving line). Brigadier Hird-Jones rolled with the punch, gathered in Jake and me, made sure we met those who had not been at tea. Shortly before dinner a colonel said to me, “Oh, I say, is it true that the tiny beauty is in command of your ship?” “Quite true. Best commanding officer I’ve ever had.” “Haw. Astounding. Fascinating. The taller girl, the strawberry blonde – introduced simply as ‘Mrs. Carter.’ She’s part of your ship’s company. Yes?” “Yes,” I agreed. “Astrogator and second-in-command. Doctor D. T. Burroughs Carter, my wife.” “Well! My congratulations, sir.” “Thank you.” “I say, Carter, would it be rude of me to ask why the ladies have the senior posts while you and Doctor Burroughs appear to be junior? Or am I intruding?” “Not at all, Colonel. We each do what we do best. Mrs. Burroughs is not only best as commander; she is also best cook. While we take turns at cooking, I’ll happily volunteer as scullery maid if it will persuade the Captain to cook.” “Amazing. Could you use a colonel of lancers about to retire? I’m a wonderful scullery maid.”
The dinner was excellent (Irish chef, transported for shooting his landlord) and Lady Herbert was delightful, even though she drank her dinner and her words became increasingly difficult to understand. But any answer would do as long as it was friendly. Jake displayed the charm he can when he bothers and kept her laughing. One thing marred it. Lady Herbert started to slump and nursing sisters appeared and took her away. What is protocol for this? I checked Hilda and the Governor; they didn’t seem to see it. I glanced at Hird-Jones; the Brigadier did not seem to see it – but Squeaky sees everything. Ergo: no member of the colony could “see” it. Someone else gathered the ladies while the gentlemen remained for port and cigars. While we were standing as the ladies left, Hird-Jones leaned close: “Your captain has asked me to tell you that the Governor invites you to join them later in his study.” I tasted the port, lit the cigar (I don’t smoke – fake it when polite) when the Brigadier caught my eye and said, “Now.” Bertie had left, leaving a stooge, a wit who had them all laughing – that colonel of lancers. When Jake and I came in, Deety and Hilda were there, with a large man, tall as I am and heavier – Major General Moresby, chief of staff. Bertie stood while waving us to chairs. “Thanks for coming, gentlemen. We are settling tomorrow’s schedule and your captain prefers to have you present.” The Governor reached behind him, moved out a globe of Mars. “Captain, I think I have marked the places we visited yesterday.” “Deety, please check it,” Sharpie directed. My darling looked it over. “The Russian settlements extended almost one hundred fifty kilometers farther east than this borderline shows – ninety-one English miles, seventy-nine nautical miles – call it two and a half degrees.” “Impossible!” (The bulky Major General – ) Deety shrugged. “Might be a few miles more; all we took were spot checks.” Jake said, “General Moresby, you had better believe it.” Bertie stepped in with: “Is that the only discrepancy, Doctor Deety?” “One more. But there is something I want to ask about. May I borrow a marking pen? Grease pencil?” Bertie found one; she placed three bingoes in an equilateral triangle, well detached from both zones. “What are these, sir? This one is a village, the other two are large farms. But we did not determine nationality.” Bertie looked at her marks. “Not ours. Moresby, how long ago did we reconnoitre that area?” “There are no Russians there! She’s doing it by memory. She’s mistaken.” I said, “Moresby, I’ll bet my wife’s marks are accurate within two kilometers. How high do you want to go? What is a pound worth here in gold?” Bertie said, “Please, gentlemen – wagers another time. What was the other error, Astrogator Deety?” “Our touchdown point. Where we tangled with the Russians. Your memory is off by many degrees. Should be here.” “Moresby?” “Governor, that is impossible. Either they did not land there or they had trouble with Russians somewhere else.” Deety shrugged. “Governor, I have no interest in arguing. Our time of arrival at ‘Touchdown’ just after dawn day before yesterday was fourteen-oh-six in the afternoon Windsor City local time. Six past two pip emma. You saw the remains of that ornithopter today. What did shadows and height of the sun tell you as to local time there, and what does that tell you about longitude from here?” She added, “With one degree of longitude being four minutes of local time difference, you can treat one minute of arc as equal to one kilometer and measure it on this globe. The errors will be smaller than your own error in estimate of local time.” “Astrogator, I’m not good at this sort of problem. But it was about eight-thirty in the morning where we saw the burned ornithopter.” “That’s right, Governor. We’ll lay that out as kilometers and see how close it comes to my mark.” Moresby objected, “But that globe is scaled in miles!” Deety looked back at Bertie with a half smile, an expression that said wordlessly: (He’s your boy, Bertie. Not mine.) Bertie said testily, “Moresby, have you never worked with a French ordnance map?” I’m not as tolerant as Deety. “Multiply by one-point-six-oh-nine.” “Thanks but we will assume that the Astrogator is correct. Moresby, reconnaissance will cover two areas. Captain, how many spot checks can be made per hour?” “Just a moment!” Captain Sharpie interrupted. “Has this discussion been directed at the ride I promised Brigadier Hird-Jones?” “I’m sorry, Ma’am. Wasn’t that clear?” “No, I thought you were telling General Moresby what you saw today. Isn’t the Brigadier available? I want to settle the time with him.” Moresby answered, “Madam, that has been changed. I’m taking his place.” Sharpie looked at Moresby as if he were a side of beef she was about to condemn. “Governor, I do not recall offering this person a ride. Nor has the Brigadier told me that he is not going.” “Moresby, didn’t you speak to Hird-Jones?” “Certainly I did, sir. I dislike to tell you but he was not cooperative. I had to remind him that there was rank involved.” I looked around for somewhere to hide. But Sharpie did not explode. She said sweetly, “Certainly there is, Major General Bores-me. My rank. I am commanding; you are not.” She turned to Bertie. “Governor, I may offer other rides after I keep my promise to the Brigadier. But not to this person. He’s too fat.” “What! I weigh only seventeen stone – trim for a man with my height and big bones.” Moresby added, “Homeside weight, of course. Only ninety pounds here. Light on my feet. Madam, I resent that.” “Too fat,” Sharpie repeated. “Bertie, you remember how tightly we were packed yesterday. But even if Bores-me did not have buttocks like sofa cushions, he’s much too fat between the ears. He can’t enter my yacht.” “Very well, Captain. Moresby, please have Hird-Jones report to me at once.” “But -“ “Dismissed.” As the door closed, the Governor said, “Hilda, my humblest apologies. Moresby told me that it was all arranged… which meant to me that he had seen you and Squeaky and arranged the exchange. Moresby hasn’t been here long; I’m still learning his quirks. No excuse, Captain. But I offer it in extenuation.” “Let’s forget it, Bertie. You used ‘reconnaissance’ where I would have said ‘joy ride.’ ‘Reconnaissance’ is a military term. Did you use it as such?” “I did.” “Gay Deceiver is a private yacht and I am a civilian master.” She looked at me. “Chief Pilot, will you advise me?” “Captain, if we overfly territory for the purpose of reconnaissance, the act is espionage.” “Governor, is this room secure?” “Hilda – Captain, in what way?” “Is it soundproof and are there microphone pickups?” “It is soundproof when I close that second door. There is one microphone. I control it with a switch under the rug – right here.” “Will you not only switch it off but disconnect it? So that it cannot be switched on by accident.” “If that is your wish. I could be lying. Other microphones.” “It’s accidental recording I want to avoid. Bertie, I wouldn’t trust Moresby as far as I could throw him. I have learned to trust you. Tell me why you need to reconnoitre?” “I’m not certain.” “Reconnaissance is to learn something you are not certain about. Something that can be seen from Gay Deceiver – but what?” “Uh… will you all swear to secrecy?” “Hilda -“ “Not now, Jacob. Governor, if you don’t want to trust us, tell us to leave!” Smythe-Carstairs had been standing since turning the rug to remove the switch. He looked down at Hilda and smiled. “Captain, you are an unusually small woman… and the toughest man I’ve dealt with in many a year. The situation is this: The Russians have sent another ultimatum. We have never worried about Russians as we settled halfway around the planet from them and logistics here are almost impossible. No oceans. No navigable streams. Some canals if one enjoys suicide. Both sides have attempted to raise horses. They don’t live long, they don’t reproduce. “Both sides have ornithopters. But they can’t carry enough or fly far enough. I was startled when you said that they had given you trouble where you had first touched down – and proved it by showing me wreckage of a ‘thopter. “Any logistics problem can be solved if you use enough men, enough time. Those Russian craft must have, behind them, stockpiles about every fifty miles. If they have the same continuing this way, when they get here, they will wipe us out.” “Is it that bad?” I inquired. Sharpie said, “Governor, our Chief Pilot is the only one of us with combat experience.” “Yes,” agreed Jake with a wry smile, “I was awarded rank in lieu of combat. I signed papers.” Bertie gave the same mirthless smile. “Welcome to the lodge. Twenty years since I last heard a bullet say ‘wheat!’ Now I may be about to lose my last battle. Friends, my rank states that I am qualified to command an army corps… but I have possibly one platoon who will stand and die.” Jake said, “Governor, this city must be two hundred thousand people.” “More than that, Jake. Over ninety-nine percent are convicts or discharged convicts or their wives and children. Do you imagine that they are loyal to me? Even if they were, they are neither trained nor armed. “I have a nominal regiment, a battalion in numbers – and a platoon in strength. Friends, my troops, officers and men, and my civil servants, are, with few exceptions, transportees quite as much as the convicts. Example: An officer with a court staring him in the face can often get the charges dropped by volunteering for Mars. I don’t get murderers. What I do get is worse… for me. The mess treasurer who dips into mess funds because he has a ‘sure thing’ at a racing meet. The – Oh, the devil take it! I don’t get villains; I get weaklings. There are a few good ones. Hird-Jones. Young fellow named Bean. Two old sergeants whose only shortcomings are that one had two wives and, while the other had only one, she wasn’t his. If the Russians get here, they’ll kill our wogs – they don’t domesticate them; they hunt and eat them – they’ll kill anyone in uniform… and transportees will learn that being a serf is worse than being a free man not on the planet of his choice. Squeaky! Where have you been?” “In the card room, sir. First table to the right.” “So? How long ago did you get my message?” “About twenty seconds ago, sir.” “Hm! How long have you been in the card room?” “A bit over an hour.” “I see. Bolt the outer door, close the inner door, sit down.” Twenty minutes later Sharpie was asking, “Deety, what time is sunrise here?” She indicated a point 30° east of the western boundary of the westernmost of the two loci Bertie wanted investigated. “In about twenty minutes. Shall I have Gay check it?” “No. Sunset over here?” “More leeway there. One hour fifty-seven minutes.” “Very well. Zeb, those zeroed packs?” “Being charged, they told me. Ready in the morning.” “Good. Squeaky, if I get you to bed by oh-two-hundred hours could you take us to the fields about eleven-hundred hours?” “Oh-eight-hundred, if you wish, Captain Hilda.” “I don’t wish. This job requires sunlight, so we will work whatever it takes. I intend to sleep late. Bertie, would your kitchen service extend to breakfast in bed about ten ack emma?” “Tell the night maid. The sideboard in your dining room will be loaded and steaming whenever you say and the day maid will be delighted to bring you a tray in bed.” “Heavenly! All hands and Brigadier Hird-Jones: Lift in thirty-nine minutes. Car doors open five minutes before that. Questions?” “Just a comment. I’ll fetch sandwiches.” “Thank you, Squeaky! Bertie.” “Eh? Ma’am!” “Deety and I expect to be kissed good-bye… in case something goes wrong.”
Chapter XXIX
” – we place no faith in princes.”
Deety: We had a busy night. I had Gay display bingo dots for every stop we made – then circles around any that were supply dumps. There were indeed supply dumps! I spent the whole trip thinking: Where would I be if I were a supply dump? Where would ‘thopters have to land? Where could they get more water? Squeaky, Hilda, Pop, Zebadiah – and possibly Gay – were thinking the same thing. We got back at half after one, the job done. The Hillbilly turned the results over to Squeaky and we went to bed. Next morning at eleven our “roadable” arrived – without Squeaky. He sent an apologetic note saying that Lieutenant Bean knew what we expected and would add anything we asked for. Captain Auntie had not taken breakfast in bed. I woke about nine local, found her at work – packing her dress clothes and Pop’s back into plastic pillow covers, then into a borrowed portmanteau. Our fresh laundry, given to us by the night maid on our return, was in another piece of borrowed luggage. The Hillbilly was on her knees in our drawing room. She looked up, smiled and said, “Good morning. Better slide into your jump suit, dear; maids come in and out rather casually.” “Doesn’t bother me, I’ve been caught twice already -“ “But it bothers them. Not kind, dear, with servants. Especially with involuntary servants. They’ll be in to load the sideboard any moment. Will you fetch yours and Zebbie’s dress clothes here? I’ll pack for you.” “I’ll pack ’em, thanks. I was thinking about sliding back into bed with a nice warm man but your mention of food changed my mind. Hillbilly, what’s the rush?” “Deety, I’m carrying out my own orders. When I brush my teeth after breakfast, the toothbrush goes into my purse. As for the rush, our husbands will wake soon. I have found that it is more practical to present a man with a fait accompli than a discussion.” “I hear you three times, doll baby. When they get up, they’ll want to eat. When our roadable shows up, they’ll be sitting over second cups of coffee. Then they’ll say, ‘We’ll do it when we come back. Mustn’t keep the Brigadier waiting.’ Okay, I’ll grab our gear and we’ll sneak it out before they wake. I’ll carry the heavy ones.” “We are not permitted to carry anything, Deety. But the place is swarming with maids. You sound much married.” “Five years’ practice on Pop. But, Hillbilly, even Pop is easy to handle if you think ahead.” “I’m learning. Deety, what shall we do about the maids?” “Huh?” “In the days when servants were common, it was polite for house guests to tip servants who served them personally. But how, Deety? I have two twenty-five-newdollar bills in the lining of my purse. Waste paper.” “Pop and Zebadiah have gold. I know exactly because it was mass enough that I had to figure it into the loading, mass and moment arm. Here’s a giggle. These misers we married had each squirreled away the same weight of gold to four significant figures. So maids are no problem if you know how much to tip – I don’t. We’ll be buying local money today to pay for a number of things.”
“Leftenant” Bean – or “Brian” – is a delightful fuzzy puppy and a volunteer in order to have served “Beyond the Sky.” He managed to call me “Deety” and Zebadiah “Zeb” when invited, but he could not bring himself to shift from “Captain Burroughs” to “Hilda” – “Captain Hilda” was as far as he would go, and Pop was “Professor.” He was pleased that we liked his “roadable.” You wouldn’t believe it! A large, wooden flatbed wagon with an upright steam engine in back; a trailer with cordwood; a sailing-ship’s wheel in front of the engine; this controlled the front wheels by ropes that ran underneath. Midway was a luggage pen, then in front were four benches, for twelve to sixteen people. With a crew of five! Engine driver, fireman, conductor, and two steersmen – The conductor sat on a high perch braced to the pen and told the others what to do and occasionally rang a bell or blew a whistle. The bell told other traffic to get out of the way; the whistle warned that the vehicle was about to start or stop. There was much traffic but few “roadables” – most common were pedalled tricycles, for passengers and freight. Large versions had as many as a dozen men pedalling at once. “I daresay you know,” said Brian, “that we have not been able to raise horses. We haven’t given up – we will develop a breed that will prosper here. But once we have horses, this will, I venture to predict, become a proper colony – and not just a place to send reformable evildoers and to obtain raw pharmaceuticals.” “Pharmaceuticals?” “Oh, definitely! The thing that makes the colony self-supporting. I daresay the descendants of these convicts will be wealthy. I will show you the fields – all in the weed – a cant word for Cannabis Magnifica Martia – except acreage for food crops. Brigadier Hird-Jones suggested Norfolk Plantation.” He smiled. “Shall we?” “Just a moment,” Aunt Hilda said. “If I understood the Brigadier’s note, we can vary the program?” “Captain Hilda, the carriage and I are at your disposal as long as you wish. My orders and my pleasure.” “Brian, I have clothing being made up. I was told that sewing would continue through the night. Where should we go to inquire?” “Here and now. I fancy I saw a package being delivered while we’ve been chatting; it could be yours. It would go to the chief housekeeper, who would have it placed in your digs – the Princess Suite, is it not?” “Yes. Brian, I’ll slip upstairs and see.” “Please, no!” Brian made a small gesture; a private soldier appeared out of nowhere. “Smathers, my greetings to Mrs. Digby. Has a package arrived for Captain Burroughs?” “Sir!” “Hold it! Brian, if it has arrived, I want it fetched here.” I could see the look in Brian’s eye that Pop gets just before he starts demanding explanations for female “unreasonable” behavior. But Brian simply added, “If the package has arrived, tell Mrs. Digby that it must be delivered here at once. Double time, so to speak.” “Sir!” The private stomped an about-face and broke into a run. Hilda said, “Thank you, Brian. If I place it in our craft, it is one less detail to remember. Your kindness eases my mind.” “A pleasure, Captain Hilda.” “Hilda, that clothing is not yet paid for.” “Oh, dear! You are right, Jacob. Leftenant, where does one exchange gold for local money? Do you know the rate of exchange? In grams?” “Or in Troy ounces,” I added. Brian behaved as if he had not heard us. He turned toward his “roadable.” “Parkins! Take a turn around the circle! When you return, I want that steam up high. So that we won’t creep in starting.” “Roight, sir.” The wagon moved off, at a headlong slow walk. When no one else was in earshot Brian said quietly, “I missed what you Were saying because of engine noise. But let me mention in passing that Possession of gold by individuals is not permitted so I-am-happy-to-learn-that-you-have-none,” he said, not letting himself be interrupted. “Let me add,” he went on, “that since I handle secret and most-secret despatches, I know things that I don’t know, if I make my meaning clear. For example, I am grateful that you four were willing to lose sleep last night. Others feel strong obligations to such good friends. The Brigadier mentioned that you might have purchases to make or bills to pay. I was instructed to charge anything you need or want – or fancy – to the Imperial Household, signing his name and appending my signature.” “Oh, that’s most unfair!” “Truly, Captain? I fancy that those in authority will find something to add until you feel that you have been treated generously.” “That’s not what she means, son,” put in Pop. “‘Unfair’ in the opposite direction. We pay for what we get.” Brian lost his smile. “May I suggest that the Professor discuss that with the Brigadier? I would find it extremely embarrassing to have to report to the Brigadier that I was unable to carry out his orders.” “Captain.” “What, Deety?” “I am required to advise you.” “Advise away, my dear. I see my packages coming.” “Captain Auntie, you’ve got a bear by the tail. Let go.” The Hillbilly grinned and stuck out her tongue at me, then turned to Brian. “The Brigadier’s thoughtful arrangements are appreciated. We accept.” It was still a few minutes before we left, as it turned out that Zebadiah’s power packs were ready, in the hands of the Household engineer. At last Hilda’s clothes and the power packs were in Gay; we boarded the char-à-banc, and whizzed away at 10 km/hr. “Norfolk Plantation, Captain Hilda?” “Brian, at what time did you breakfast?” “Oh, that’s not important, Ma’am.” “Answer my question.” “At oh-seven-hundred hours, Captain.” “So I suspected. You eat at Imperial House?” “Oh, no, Captain Hilda, only the most senior of the Governor’s official family eat there. I eat at the officers’ club.” “I see. We’ll see wogs last. I am told there is a commissary. Is it open to us?” “Captain Hilda, everything is open to you.” “I must buy supplies. Then I wish to go to the best restaurant in Windsor City and watch you eat a proper luncheon; we ate breakfast three hours later than you did.” “But I’m hungry,” said my husband. “I’m a growing boy.” “Poor Zebbie.”
There was not much to buy that would keep. I bought a tin of Huntley & Palmer’s biscuits and quite a lot of Dutch chocolate – quick energy for growing boys – and tightly packaged staples. Brian had us driven to that restaurant just past noon. I was glad that Aunt Hilda had decided to get everything else done before we went to look at vermin. Even so, I did not have much appetite – until I decided to stand up and forthrightly turn coward. Not look at vermin! Cui bono? Aunt Hilda was the expert. That restored my appetite. We stopped across the parade ground from Imperial House. We twigged in this order – Zebadiah, Pop, me, Aunt Hilda – that it was the officers’ club. She was several meters inside when she stopped. “Brian, what are we doing here?” “The Captain said ‘ – the best restaurant – ‘. The club’s chef was executive chef at Claridge’s until he ran into misfortune. Don’t look at me that way, Captain Hilda; the Brigadier picks up the chit; it’s charged against ‘official visitors’ and winds up in London against H.I.M.’s Civil List. Believe me, His Majesty gets paid more than leftenants, or even brigadiers.” But the president of the mess signed the chit – a colonel who told the Hillbilly that he was buying her lunch because he wanted to ship with us as scullery maid.
I was telling Aunt Hilda that I would skip vermin viewing, thank you, when I did. One. Then six. Then a whole field of them. I was explaining to God that I didn’t like this dream so please let me wake up when Brian had the conductor halt the contraption and I saw that there were men in that field, too. The men carried whips; vermin were muzzled. This one vermin – well, “wog” – this wog had managed to pull its muzzle aside and was stuffing this weedy plant into its mouth… when a whip cracked across its naked back. It cried. The field on the other side of the road was not being worked, so I stared at it, After a while I heard Brian say, “Captain Hilda, you are serious, really?” “Didn’t the Brigadier authorize it?” “Ah, yes. I thought he was pulling my leg. Very well, Ma’am.” I had to see what this was all about… and discovered that muzzled vermin, afraid of men with whips, weren’t frightening; they were merely ugly. Aunt Hilda was taking pictures, movies and stereo. Brian was talking to a man dressed like any farmer except for the Broad Arrow. Brian turned and said, “Captain Hilda, the foreman asks that you point out the wog you want to dissect.” Aunt Hilda answered, “There has been a mistake.” “Ma’am? You don’t want to dissect a wog?” “Leftenant, I was told that one or more died or was slaughtered each day. I want to dissect a dead body, in an appropriate place, with surgical instruments and other aids. I have no wish to have one of these poor creatures killed.” We left shortly. Brian said, “Of the two, the abattoir and the infirmary, I suggest the latter. The veterinarian is a former Harley Street specialist. By the bye, there is no case of humans contracting disease from these brutes. So the infirmary isn’t dangerous, just, ah, unpleasant.” We went to the wog hospital. I did not go inside. Shortly Pop came out, looking green. He sat beside me and smiled wanly. “Deety, the Captain ordered me outside for fresh air – and I didn’t argue. Aren’t you proud of me?” I told him that I’m always proud of my Pop. A few minutes later Brian and Zebadiah came out, with a message from Hilda that she expected to work at least another hour, possibly longer. “Captain Hilda suggests that I take you for a drive,” Brian reported. The drive was only as far as the nearest pub; the sillywagon was sent back to wait for the Hillbilly. We waited in the lounge, where Pop and Brian had whisky and splash, and Zebadiah ordered a “shandygaff” – so I did, too. It will never replace the dry martini. I made it last till Aunt Hilda showed up. Brian asked, “Where now, Captain Hilda?” “Imperial House. Brian, you’ve been most kind.” I said, “Cap’n Auntie, did you whittle one to pieces?” “Not necessary, Deetikins. They’re chimpanzees.” “You’ve insulted every chimp that ever lived!” “Deety, these creatures bear the relation to ‘Black Hats’ that a chimpanzee does to a man. The physical resemblance is closer, but the difference in mental power – Doctor Wheatstone removed the brain from a cadaver; that told me all I needed to know. But I got something that may be invaluable. Motion pictures.” Zebadiah said, “Sharpie, you took motion pictures in the fields.” “True, Zebbie. But I have with me the Polaroids you took for me at Snug Harbor; some show the splints that creature used to disguise its extra knees and elbows. Doctor Wheatstone used surgical splints to accomplish the same with one of his helpers – a docile and fairly intelligent wog that didn’t object even though it fell down the first time it tried to walk while splinted. But it caught on and managed a stiff-legged walk just like that ranger – and like ‘Brainy’ now that I think about it – then was delighted when Doctor Wheatstone dressed it in trousers and an old jacket. Those pictures will surprise you. No makeup, no plastic surgery, a hastily improvised disguise – from the neck down it looked human.” When we reached Imperial House, we transferred packages into Gay Deceiver – again were not permitted to carry; Brian told the conductor, the conductor told his crew. We thanked them, thanked Brian as we said good-bye, and Aunt Hilda expressed a hope of seeing him soon and we echoed her – me feeling like a hypocrite. He saluted and started toward the officers’ club. We headed for the big wide steps. Aunt Hilda said, “Deety, want to share some soap suds?” “Sure thing!” I agreed. “Whuffor?” asked Zebadiah. “Sharpie, you didn’t get a spot on you.” “To remove the psychic stink, Zebbie.” “Mine isn’t psychic,” I said. “I stink, I do.” But damn, spit, and dirty socks, we had hardly climbed into that tub when a message arrived, relayed by my husband, saying that the Governor requested us to call at his office at our earliest convenience. “Sharpie hon, let me translate that, based on my eighty years man and boy as flunky to an ambassador. Means Bertie wants to see us five minutes ago.” I started to climb out; Aunt Hilda stopped me. “I understood it, Zebbie; I speak Officialese, Campusese, and Bureaucratese. But I’ll send a reply in clear English, female idiom. Is a messenger waiting?” “Yes, a major.” “A major, eh? That will cost Bertie five extra minutes. Zebbie, I learned before you were born that when someone wants to see me in a hurry, the urgency is almost never mutual. All right, message: The commanding officer of Spacecraft Gay Deceiver sends her compliments to the Governor General and will call on – him at her earliest convenience. Then give the major a message from you to Bertie that you happen to know that I’m taking a bath and that you hope I’ll be ready in twenty minutes but that you wouldn’t wager even money on thirty.” “Okay. Except that the word should be ‘respects’ not ‘compliments.’ Also, the major emphasized that he wants to see all of us. Want Jake and me to keep Bertie happy until you are ready?” Pop had his head in the door, listening. “We wouldn’t mind.” Pop nodded. “Zebbie, Zebbie! After four years under my tutelage. Until I know what he wants I can’t concede that he is senior to me. ‘Compliments,’ not ‘respects.’ And no one goes until I do… but thank you both for the offer. Two more things: After giving the major my message, will you please find my clothes, all but Deety’s Keds, and take them to the car? That’s Jacob’s shirt, Deety’s sailor pants, a blue belt, and a blue hair ribbon. In the car you will find new clothes on my seat. In one package should be three jump suits. Please fetch one back.” Pop said, “Hilda, I’d be glad to run that errand. Run it twice, in fact, as you don’t want to send down what clothes you have until you know that your new clothes fit.” “Jacob, I want you right here, to scrub our backs and sing for us and keep us amused. If that jump suit does not fit, I may appear in a bath towel sarong. But I plan to appear a minute early to make Bertie happy. Do not tell the major that, Zebbie! Officially it is twenty minutes with luck, thirty minutes more likely, could be an hour, Major; you know how women are. Got it all?” “Roger Wilco. Sharpie, someday they’ll hang you.” “They will sentence me to hang but Jacob and you will rescue me. Trot along, dear.” Aunt Hilda started to get out. “Stay there, Deety. I’ll give you three minutes’ warning – two to dry down, one to zip into your jump suit. Which leaves ten minutes to relax.”
The jump suit did fit; the Hillbilly looked cute. We left not a thing in that suite because Aunt Hilda checked it while waiting for Zebadiah. A few items went into my purse or hers. It was eighteen minutes from her message to our arrival at the Governor’s office – and I had had a fifteen-minute tub, comfy if not sybaritic. Besides Bertie and the Brigadier, that fathead Moresby was there. Aunt Hilda ignored him, so I did. Bertie stood up. “How smart you all look! Did you have a pleasant day?” The poor dear looked dreadful – gaunt, circles under his eyes. “A perfect day – thanks to you, thanks to the Brigadier, and thanks to a curly lamb named Bean.” “A fine lad,” Squeaky boomed. “I’ll pass on your word, if I may.” The Brigadier did not look fresh; I decided that neither had been to bed. Bertie waited until we were seated, then got to business. “Captain Burroughs, what are your plans?” Aunt Hilda did not answer his question. She glanced toward Major General Moresby, back at Bertie. “We are not in private, Excellency.” “Hmm – ” Bertie looked unhappy. “Moresby, you are excused.” “But -“ “Dismissed. You have work to do, I feel sure.” Moresby swelled up but got up and left. Squeaky bolted the outer door, closed the inner door, while Bertie stood up to lift the rug over his recorder switch. Aunt Hilda said, “Don’t bother, Bertie. Record if you need to. What’s the trouble, old dear? Russians?” “Yes. Hilda, you four are refugees; yesterday you showed me why. Would you care to remain here? My delegated power is sufficient that I can grant naturalization as fast as I can sign my signature.” “No, Bertie. But we feel greatly honored.” “I expected that. Do reconsider it. There are advantages to being a subject of the most powerful monarch in history, in being protected by a flag on which the Sun never sets.” “No, Bertie.” “Captain Hilda, I need you and your ship. Because of millions of miles of distance, many months required for a message, I hold de jure viceregal power almost equal to sovereign… and de facto greater in emergency because no Parliament is here. I can recruit foreign troops, arm them, make guarantees to them as if they were British, award the King-Emperor’s commission. I would like to recruit all of you and your ship.” “No.” “Commodore for you, Captain for your second-in-command, Commander for your Chief Pilot, Lieutenant Commander for your Copilot. Retirement at full pay once the emergency is over. Return of your purchased ship as a royal gift after the emergency. Compensation for loss or damage.” “No.” “One rank higher for each of you?” “All four of us must be at least one rank senior to Major General Moresby.” “Hilda! That’s my own rank. Equivalent rank – Vice Admiral.” “Bertie, you can’t hire us as mercenaries at any rank or pay. That hyperbole was to tell you that we will not place ourselves under your chief of staff. That settled, what can we do to help you?” “I’m afraid you can’t, since you won’t accept the protection under international law of military status. So I’m forced to cut the knot. Do you understand the right of angary?” (I thought he said “angry” and wondered.) “I believe so. Are Great Britain and the Russias at war?” “No, but there are nuances. Shall I call in my legal officer?” “Not for me. My own legal officer is here: Doctor Zebadiah Carter, my consultant in international law.” “Doctor Carter – oh, fiddlesticks! My friend Zeb. Zeb, will you discuss the right of angary?” “Very well, Governor. One nuance you had in mind was that, in addition to wartime, it applies to national emergency – such as your current one with the Russians.” “Yes!” “Angary has changed in application many times but in general it is the right of a sovereign power to seize neutral transport found in its ports or territory, then use same in war or similar emergency. When the emergency is over, seized transport must be returned, fair rentals must be paid, loss or damage requires compensation. It does not apply to goods or chattels, and most especially not to persons. That’s the gist. Do we need your legal officer?” “I don’t think so. Captain Burroughs?” “We don’t need him. You intend to requisition my craft?” “Captain… I must!” Bertie was almost in tears. “Governor, you are within your legal rights. But have you considered how you will drive it?” “May I answer that, Governor?” “Go ahead, Squeaky.” “Captain Hilda, I have an odd memory. ‘Photographic’ it is called but I remember sounds as automatically. I am sure I can fly every maneuver used last night – that is to say: sufficient for our emergency.” I was seething. But Aunt Hilda smiled at the Brigadier and said in her sweetest voice: “You’ve been most thoughtful throughout our stay, Squeaky. You are a warm, charming, hospitable, bastardly fink. One who would sell his wife to a Port Saïd pimp. Aside from that you are practically perfect.” “Doubled and redoubled!” (That was my Pop!) “Later on, Jones, I’ll see you at a time and place of your choosing. Weapons or bare hands.” “And then I will see you, if Jake leaves anything.” My husband flexed his fingers. “I hope you choose bare hands.” Bertie interrupted. “I forbid this during this emergency and after it in territory where I am suzerain and while Hird-Jones holds the Sovereign’s commission under my command.” Aunt Hilda said, “You are legally correct, Bertie. But you will concede that they had provocation.” “No, Ma’am! Hird-Jones is not at fault. I tried to get you and your crew to fly it on any terms at all. You refused. Hird-Jones may kill himself attempting to fly a strange flyer. If so he will die a hero. He is not what you called him.” “I don’t think well of you, either, Bertie. You are a thief – stealing our only hope of a future.” “He certainly is!” I cut in. “Governor, I can whip you – I can kill you, with my bare hands. I’m Black-Belt three ways. Are you going to hide behind your Commission and your self-serving laws?” I dusted my hands together. “Coward. Two cowards, with their chests covered with ribbons boasting about their brave deeds.” “Astrogator.” “Captain.” “Let it drop. Bertie, under right of angary we are entitled to remove our chattels. I insist on a witness so that you will know that we have done nothing to damage the craft. If the Brigadier can drive it, it will be turned over to him in perfect shape. But my jewelry is in our craft and many other things; I must have a witness. You, sir. My stepdaughter can certainly kill you or anyone her size or a bit more than her size, with her bare hands. But I grant you safeconduct. Will you have it in writing?” Bertie shook his head. “You know I can’t take time to witness. Pick anyone else.” “I won’t grant safe-conduct to anyone else. Anyone who has not ridden with us would not know how to watch for sabotage. So it must be either you or Hird-Jones… and Hird-Jones would never live to get out of our car. He has three of the deadliest killers in two universes quite annoyed. Angry over angary.” “Any of you who will not give parole must wait up here.” “Wait a half, Gov,” my husband drawled. “‘Parole’ applies to prisoners. Captain, this might be a good time to read aloud our safe-conduct from the Governor General. See how many ways this fake ‘officer and gentleman’ has broken his word – and the written guarantees of his sovereign. He has broken all three essential guarantees to all four of us. That’s twelve. Almost a Russian score. Safe-conduct amounting to diplomatic immunity, all of us free to leave at any time, we four never to be separated involuntarily. Now he wants hostages. Pfui!” “None is broken,” Bertie asserted. “Liar,” my husband answered. “All of you are safe here… until the Russians conquer us. I slipped in speaking of parole; you are not prisoners. You all may stay together – living in the Princess Suite if you so choose. If not, in any quarters you choose in territory I control. You are all free to leave at any moment. But you must not approach that requisitioned flyer. Captain, your jewels will be safe. But others will unload the flyer.” “Bertie -“ “What? Yes… Hilda?” “Dear, you are both stubborn and stupid. You can’t open the doors of our car, much less drive it. Attempt to force it open and no one will ever drive it. I conceded the legality of the right of angary. But you insist on making it impossible to apply it. Accept my safe-conduct and come witness or there that car sits until the Russians come, while we live in luxury in this palace. You know that ‘the right to leave at any time’ means nothing without our transport. Now, for the last time, will you do it my way… or will you waste the precious minutes of a war crisis trying to open that car by yourself? Make up your mind, this offer will not be repeated. Answer Yes or No… and be damned quick about it!” Bertie covered his face with his hands. “Hilda, I’ve been up all night. Both Squeaky and I.” “I know, dear. I knew when we came in. So I must help you make up your mind. Deety, check your purse. Something is missing.” I hastily checked, wondering what she meant. Then I noticed that a secret pocket that should have been hard was not. “Oh! Do you have it?” “Yes, Deety.” Aunt Hilda was seated, her choice, so that she had both Bertje and Squeaky in her line of fire – and none of us. “I mentioned three killers. Now you have four facing you… in a soundproofed room with its door bolted from inside.” (I never saw her draw my Skoda gun. But she was holding it on them.) “Bertie, I’m making up your mind for you. You are accepting my safe-conduct. Consider how poor the chances are that anyone would find your bodies in the time it takes us to run down one flight and reach our car.” Squeaky lunged at Hilda. I tripped him, kicked his left kneecap as he fell, then said, “Don’t move, Fink! My next kick is a killer! Captain, has Bertie come to his senses? Or shall I take him? I hate to kill Bertie. He’s tired and worried and not thinking straight. Then I would have to kill Squeaky. He can’t help his eidetic memory, any more than I can help this clock in my head. Squeaky, did I break your kneecap? Or can you walk if I let you get up?” “I can walk. You’re fast, Deety.” “I know. Captain. Plans?” “Bertie, you are accepting my safe-conduct. We are all going out together, we four around you two, laughing and talking and heading for our car – and if anyone gets close, you two are dead. One of you will get it with this -“ “And the other with this.” (My husband, with his stubby police special – ) “Why, Zebbie! How naughty of you! Jacob, do you have a holdout too?” “Just this – ” Pop now had his hunting knife. “Deety?” “Did have. You’re holding it. But I still have five weapons.” “Five?” “Both hands, both feet, and my head. Squeaky, I must frisk you. Don’t wiggle… or I’ll hurt you.” I added, “Stop easing toward your desk, Bertie. You can’t kill four of us before we kill you. Pop, don’t bother with the gun, or trap, or whatever, in Bertie’s desk, Let’s get out of here, laughing and joking, as the Captain ordered. Oh, Squeaky, that didn’t hurt! Captain, shall I let him up?” “Brigadier Hird-Jones, do you honor the safe-conduct granted to us by your commanding officer?” Aunt Hilda asked. “Brigadier, I order you to honor it,” Bertie said grimly. Maybe Squeaky had to catch his breath; he was a touch slow. “Yes, sir.” Aunt Hilda said, “Thanks, Squeaky. I’m sorry I had to say harsh things to you… but not having muscles I must fight with words. Zebbie, frisk Bertie. But quickly; we leave now. I leave first, on Bertie’s arm. Deety follows, on Squeaky’s arm – you can lean on her if you need to; she’s strong. Help him up, Deety, Jacob and Zebbie trail along behind. Bertie, if anyone gets close to us, or either you or Squeaky try to signal anyone, or if anything is pointed at us – first you two die. Then we four die; that’s inevitable. But we’ll take some with us. What do you think the total may be? Two… and four… then five? Six? A dozen? Or higher?”
It took us forty-seven seconds to the bottom of the steps, thirty-one more to Gay Deceiver, and I aged seventy-eight years. Squeaky did lean on me but I made it look the other way around and he managed to smile and to sing with me: Gaudeamus Igitur. Hilda sang The Bastard King to Bertie which seemed both to shock him and make him laugh. The odd way she held his arm told me that she was prepared to plant 24 poisoned darts in Bertie’s left armpit if anything went sour. No one bothered us. Bertie returned a dozen or more salutes. But at Gay Deceiver we ran into a bobble. Four armed soldiers guarded our Smart Girl. By the starboard door was that fathead Moresby, looking smug. As we came close, he saluted, aiming it at Bertie. Bertie did not return his salute. “What’s the meaning of this?” he said, pointing. Plastered to Gay’s side, bridging the line where her door fairs into her afterbody, was H.I.M.’s Imperial seal. Moresby answered, “Governor, I understood you perfectly when you told me that I had work to do. Verb. sap., eh?” Bertie didn’t answer; Moresby continued to hold salute. “Major General Moresby,” Bertie said so quietly that I could just hear it. “Sir!” “Go to your quarters. Send me your sword.” I thought Fathead was going to melt down the way the Wicked Witch did when Dorothy threw the pail of water over her. He brought down the salute and left, moving quickly. Everybody acted as if nothing had happened. Hilda said, “Gay Deceiver, open starboard door” – she did and that seal broke. “Bertie, we’re going to need people to carry things. I don’t want our possessions stacked outdoors.” He looked down at her, surprised. “Is the war over?” “There never was a war, Bertie. But you tried to push us around, and I don’t push. You requisitioned this craft; it’s legally yours. What I insisted on was that you must witness removal of our chattels. That took coaxing.” “‘Coaxing’!” “Some people are harder to coax than others. Squeaky, I’m sorry about your knee. Can you hobble back? Or shall we get you a wheelchair? That knee must be swelling up.” “I’ll live. Deety, you play rough.” “Squeaky,” said the Governor General, “slow march back toward the House, grab the first person you see, delegate him to round up a working party. Hilda, will a dozen be enough?” “Better make it twenty. And about four more armed guards.” “Twenty and four additional sentries. Once you pass that word, put the senior rating in charge, and climb into a tub of hot water.” “Cold water.” “What, Hilda? Cold?” “Hot is okay if he uses lots of Epsom salts. Otherwise ice-cold water will bring the swelling down faster, even though it’s uncomfortable. But not for long. Ice water numbs pain while it reduces swelling. By morning you’ll be fit. Unless Deety cracked the bone.” “Oh, I hope not!” I blurted. “Squeaky, you had better listen to Captain Hilda.” “I’ll do it. Ice water. Brrrrr!” “Get on with it. But order that working party.” “Right away, sir.” “Bertie, will you follow me?” Hilda went inside. The Governor followed her, started to say something but Hilda cut him off: “Jacob, get out the items forward here while Zebbie keeps inventory as you do. Bertie, I have something for Betty before that mob gets here. Will you help me undog this door or perhaps Deety can do it easier GayDeceiverCloseDoorsGayBounceGayBounceGayBounce. Bertie, take off your clothes.” She held onto a door dog with her left hand, had my little gun aimed at his face. “Hilda!” “Captain Hilda, please; I’m in my spacecraft under way. Take off every stitch, Bertie; I’m not as trusting as Zebbie. I assume that you have a holdout he didn’t find. Gay Bounce. Hurry up, Bertie; you’re going to stay in free fall with no Bonine until you are naked. Zebbie, he may require help. Or inducement.” He required both. But eleven minutes later Bertie was wearing one of Pop’s coveralls and his clothes were abaft the bulkhead. Zebbie did not find a weapon but Aunt Hilda took no chances. At last we were all strapped down, with Bertie between me and the Captain. Hilda said, “All hands, report readiness for space. Astrogator.” “Captain Auntie, we are in space.” “But quite unready. Astrogator.” “Seat belt fastened. Ready.” “Chief Pilot.” “Door seal checked. No loose gear – I stuffed Bertie’s clothes in with the cabin bed clothes. Four charged power packs in reserve. Juice oh-seven-oh. All systems go. Ready.” “Copilot.” “Seat belt tight. Continua device ready. Door seal checked. I’d like a Bonine if we’re going to be in free fall long. Ready for space.” “Astrogator, three antinausea pills – captain, copilot, passenger. Passenger.” “Oh! Oh, yes! Safety belt tight.” “Captain states seat belt fastened. Ready for space. Gay Termite.” It was just sunrise at our streamside “home.” “Aunt Hilda, why did we run through all that rigamarole if we were coming straight here?” “Deety, when you are captain you will know.” “Not me. I’m not the captain type.” She ignored me. “Lieutenant General Smythe-Carstairs, will you give me your unconditional parole until I return you home? On your honor as an officer and a gentleman.” “Am I going home? I had assumed that I had not long to live.” “You are going home. And I do have something for Betty. But whether or not you give parole affects other matters. Make up your mind – at once!” It took him six seconds; Aunt Hilda let him have them. “Parole. Unconditional.” “I’m surprised, Bertie. You have a tradition against giving parole, do you not?” “We do indeed, Captain. But I concluded that my only chance of serving my sovereign lay in giving my word. Am I right?” “Quite right, Bertie. You now have opportunity to persuade me to support you in your crisis. Your King-Emperor is not our prince; we place no faith in princes. We have no reason to love Russians but we spanked the only one who gave us trouble. In what way is the British colony superior to the Russian one? Take your time.” Aunt Hilda turned her attention to the rest of us. “Standing orders apply: Two at a time, one being armed. Deety and I will cut and wrap sandwiches, make coffee and prepare a snack for growing boys who can’t remember a bounteous luncheon three hours ago. One guard at all times at the car. Bertie, I’m assigning you that duty. You know how to use a rifle?” Zebadiah said, “You’re arming him?” “Chief Pilot, I assume that you are questioning my judgment. If you convince me that I am wrong, there will be a new captain even more quickly than I had planned. May I have your reason?” “Sharpie, I didn’t mean to get your feathers up.” “Not at all, Zebbie. Why are you surprised that I intend to use Bertie as guard?” “Ten minutes ago you had me do a skin search to make sure he wasn’t armed. Now you are about to hand him a gun.” “Ten minutes ago he had not given parole.” Bertie said hastily, “Zeb is right, Hilda – Captain Hilda; Zeb has no reason to trust me. I don’t want to be a bone of contention!” I’m still trying to figure out whether Aunt Hilda is more logical than other people or is a complete sophist. She gave Bertie a freeze, looking him up and down. “Smythe-Carstairs, your opinion was neither asked nor wanted.” Bertie turned pink. “Sorry, Ma’am.” “Although you were a person of some importance in your own land, you are now something between a prisoner and a nuisance. I am trying to give you the dignity of crew member pro tern. Hold your tongue. Zebbie, what were you going to say?” “Shucks, if you aren’t afraid to have him with a gun at your back, I’m not. No offense intended, Bertie.” “None taken, Zeb.” “Zebbie, please assure yourself that Bertie can handle a rifle, and that he knows what to shoot at and when not to shoot, before you turn the guard over to him. Put the other rifle at the door for bush patrol. Bertie, watch and listen. Gay Deceiver, open your doors.” Our Smart Girl opened wide. “Gay Deceiver, close your doors.” Gay complied. “Bertie,” Aunt Hilda went on, “you do it.” Of course he failed – and failed again on other voice programs. The Hillbilly explained that it took me a tedious time with special equipment to cause this autopilot to respond to a particular human voice. “Bertie, go back and explain to Squeaky; make him understand that I saved his life. This car can be driven in three modes. Two Squeaky can’t use at all; the third would kill him as dead as Caesar.” “Plus a fourth hazard,” added my husband. “Anybody who doesn’t understand the Smart Girl but tries to take her apart to see what makes her tick would find himself scattered over a couple of counties.” “Booby-trapped, Zebadiah?” I asked. “I hadn’t known it.” “No. But juice is very unfriendly to anybody who doesn’t understand it.”
“Come and get it!” The snack Aunt Hilda offered was a much-stuffed omelet. “Bertie, place your gun near you, locked. Between bites, you can tell us why your colony is worth defending. By us, I mean. For you, it’s duty.” “Captain Hilda, I’ve done some soul-searching. I daresay that, in the main, we and the Russians are much the same, prison colonies with military governors. Perhaps, in a hundred years, it won’t matter. Although I see us as morally superior.” “How, Bertie?” “A Russian might see this differently. Our transportees are malefactors under our laws – but once here, they are as free as other Englishmen. Oh, they must wear the Broad Arrow until discharged – but at home they would wear it in a grim prison. The Russian prisoners are, if our intelligence is correct, the people they used to send to the Siberian salt mines. Political prisoners. They are serfs but I am told that most of them were not serfs in Russia. Whether they are treated better or worse than serfs in Russia I do not know. But one thing I do know. They work their fields with men; we work ours with wogs.” “And whip them!” Suddenly I was angry. We had an argument, Bertie maintaining that the whips were not used unnecessarily, I asserting that I had seen it with my own eyes. I guess he won, as he told us that they had to muzzle the beasts in weed fields, or they would stuff themselves on it, pass out, wake somewhat, do it again, and starve – but the muzzles were designed to allow them to chew a blade at a time all day long, to keep them happy. “The raw weed is addictive, to wog and man. We won’t allow a man to work in the fields more than three months at a time… and pull him out if he can’t pass the weekly medical tests. As for wogs, Deety – yes, we exploit them. Human beings exploit horses, cattle, sheep, poultry, and other breeds. Are you vegetarian?” I admitted I was not. “But I don’t want to eat wogs!” “Nor do we. In Windsor colony wog meat goes only to wogs, and wogs don’t care. In the wild they eat their own dead, kill and eat their aged. Captain Hilda, that’s all the defense I can offer. I admit that it doesn’t sound as strong as I had always believed.” “Captain, I’d like to put one to Bertie.” “Jacob, I treasure your thoughts.” “Bertie, would you polish off the Russians if you could?” Bertie snorted. “That’s academic, Doctor. I don’t command the force it would take. I can’t set up a string of stockpiles – and wouldn’t know what to do with them if I could; I don’t have the troops or ‘thopters. But I must add: If my King tells me to fight, I will fight.”
Aunt Hilda told Bertie to wash dishes with Pop sent along as guard. As soon as they started down, Aunt Hilda said, “We are going to do it, to a maximum cost of one power pack. Deety, start working on a program stringing together the dumps we located last night.” “Already have,” I told her. “In my head. Last night. To put me to sleep. You want it preprogrammed? I would rather tell Gay each bounce, I would.” “Do it your way, hon. The purpose in sending Bertie to wash dishes and Jacob to guard him was to get them out of the way while I rig a frameup. At the end of the coming run, we drop Bertie and bounce… and at that instant I cease to be captain. I want to hold the election now – a one-ballot railroad. I will ask for nominations. Zebbie, you nominate Jacob. Deety, you don’t need to say anything but speak if you wish. If Jacob nominates either of you, don’t argue. I’ll rig it so that Bertie declares the ballots. If you two are with me, the only surprise will be that fourth vote. Three for Jacob, and let’s all write ‘Jacob,’ not ‘Pop’ or ‘Jake,’ and one for the dark horse. Are you with me?” “Wait a half, Sharpie. Why not give Deety a crack at it?” “Not me!” “Deety should have the experience, but, please, Zebbie, not this time. Jacob has given me a dreadful time. Endless insubordination. I want to pass him on to Deety well tenderized. Deety ought not to have to put up with her father second-guessing her decisions – and, if you two help, she won’t have to. I want to give my beloved the goddamndest ‘white mutiny’ ever, one that he will remember with shudders and never again give a skipper any lip.” “Sounds good,” I agreed, “but I don’t know what a ‘white mutiny’ is.” “Sweetheart,” my husband told me, “it’s killing him with kindness. He says ‘Frog,’ we hop. Utter and literal obedience.” “This he won’t like? Pop will love it!” “So? Would you like to command zombies who never make suggestions and carry out orders literally without a grain of common sense?”
Fifteen minutes later Bertie read off: “‘Jacob’ and this reads ‘Jacob’ and so does this one, that seems to settle it. But here is one, folded: ‘A bunch of smarties, you three. Think I didn’t guess why you sent me down to ride shotgun? Very well, I vote for myself!’ It is signed ‘Jake.’ Madame Speaker, is that valid?” “Quite. Jacob, my last order will be liftoff after we drop Bertie.” Bertie said, “Jake, I think congratulations are in order.” “Pipe down! All hands, prepare for space.”
“A piece of cake,” Bertie called it. We started at the easternmost dump, worked west. Pop out at four klicks and dive, a dry run to size up the target; where wood alcohol was stored, ornithopters on the ground and how arranged… while Gay ululated from intensity six to eight. Frightfulness. I did not let it go up to ten because it wasn’t intended to damage but to send anyone on target scattering. Zebadiah’s idea: “Captain, I’ve got nothing against Russians. My only purpose is to burn their fuel and their flaphappies to make it difficult to attack our friends – and I don’t mean you big brass, Bertie. I mean the transportee maid who brought us tea this morning, and Brian Bean, and Mr. Wheatstone who was a top surgeon before some fool judge slammed him and is now doing his best for wogs, and the chef at the officers’ club, and five cons who drove that sillywagon, and dozens more who smiled when they could have scowled. I don’t want them killed or enslaved; I want them to have their chance. Governor, England is slapping the Broad Arrow on some of your best potential – you English will live to regret it.” “You could be right, Zeb,” “I don’t want to kill Russians, either. Could be most of them are decent blokes. Each strike will be a double run – one pass to scatter ’em, a second to destroy the dump. Captain, if that doesn’t suit you, find another gunner.” Aunt Hilda said, “Astrogator.” “Captain.” “Strike as described by Chief Pilot. Take the conn. Attack.” At the first target we lingered after the strike bounce. The dry pass did show them running away – they could hear us clear in their bones. Those subsonics are so horrid I keyed Gay to kill the noise at code-word “Bounce” – and did not use it on the strike pass. Zebadiah made strikes from bearings planned to take out as many ‘thopters as possible while setting fire to fuel. From four klicks the first strike looked good. The dump was burning, ‘thopters he had hit showed smoke, and one that he had not hit was burning. Splashed by flaming methanol, I suppose. If that first target was indication, in thirty-four minutes the Russians lost all fuel and about 70% of the deployed flaphappies. I took us up high after the last. “Next stop, Windsor City.” “I’m taking the conn, Astrogator. Bertie, don’t forget my little ring for Betty.” “I’ll give it to her in the morning.” “Good,” Captain Hilda said. “Unbelt, crowd past Jacob, place yourself against the door – feet on deck, chest against door. Jacob, push against the small of his back. Bertie, when the door opens, dive and roll clear.” They positioned themselves. “Gay Parade Ground Gay Deceiver open starboard door… Gay Deceiver close doors, GayBounce, GayBounce! Jacob, do you relieve me?” “Beloved, I relieve you. Ten minima H axis transit – and executed. All hands, unbelt.” I unbuckled with extreme speed and clumsiness, getting Pop in the chin with my foot. “Deety! Watch where you’re going!” “I’m sorry, Captain. I’m out of practice with free fall.” “You’ve been in free fall every day!” “Yes, Captain. I’ve been in free fall every day, belted down.” “Pipe down! Hilda, don’t cover the instrument board. Hold onto something. No, not me, damn it. Zeb! Grab something and catch Hilda!” “Roger Wilco, Captain! Right away!” My husband snagged Aunt Hilda, grabbed a seat belt with his other hand, trapped our captain against the dogs of the bulkhead door with his buttocks. “What now, sir!” “Get your goddam fanny out of my face!” “Sorry, sir,” Zebadiah answered humbly while turning and digging an elbow into Pop’s ribs. I closed in from the other side and we had Pop trapped again – ballet and trampoline make a fine background for free fall. Zebadiah went on cheerfully, “What shall we do now, sir?” Pop didn’t answer. From watching his lips I saw that he was counting backwards, silently, in German. That’s stage three. Then he said quietly, “Zeb, get into the copilot’s seat and belt down.” “Aye aye, sir.” Zebadiah did so. Pop snatched Hilda while hanging onto a dog. “Deety, belt down in the chief pilot’s seat.” “Roger Wilco, Captain” – I did so. “My dear, I want you behind Deety. Do you need help?” “Yes, thank you, Captain; it’s sweet of you to offer.” White mutiny? The Hillbilly is about as helpless as Zebadiah but thinks God created men to pamper women. I’ve heard less reasonable philosophies. After “helping” Hilda, Pop strapped down in the starboard after seat. “All hands! We have moved clockwise ninety degrees. I am now captain. Hilda, you are astrogator and second-in-command. Deety, you are chief pilot. Zeb, you are copilot. In order of seniority, any questions?” The Hillbilly said in a small voice, “As second-in-command I am required to advise the Captain -“ “Certain circumstances. Speak up.” “Captain, I know very little about astrogation.” “That’s why you have the job. You will seek advice from Deety as needed, both of you seek advice from Zeb when necessary – and if all three of you are stumped, I will tackle it and be responsible for mistakes. No burden, the Captain is always responsible for all mistakes. When in doubt, do not hesitate to consult me. “Deety, you have not driven this car in atmosphere. But you are a competent, decisive, and skillful driver of duos” – I am, Pop? – you’re years late in saying so – “and we have come this high to give you time to acquaint yourself with it. I placed Zeb by you to coach you and, in time, to report to me that you are fully qualified.” Pop smiled. “Fortunately, should you get into trouble, we have programs that will get you out instantly such as ‘Gay Bounce’ -“ Gay bounced. Pop did not notice but I had my eye on radar distance since learning that I was responsible. Pop, who invented those safety scrams? Think hard. Hint: One of your offspring. “Zeb, you know the knobs and scales et cetera of the controls we refer to as the verniers but you have not had time to practice. Now you will practice until you can handle anything, by eye, or by clicks in the dark. Permit me to pay you this compliment: You will give yourself your own final examination. When you feel ready, tell me and I will have the Astrogator log it. “Advice to future captains – I will not be happy until all are competent in each of four seats, and all feel easy in all twenty-five possible arrangements -“ “Twenty-four, Pop,” I blurted out. I hastily added, “Sorry, Captain – ‘twenty-five.'” Pop has a terrible time with kitchen arithmetic; it has been so long since he has done any. He will pick up a hand computer to discover 2 x 3 = 6; I’ve seen him do it. He stared at me, lips moving slightly. At last he said, “Chief Pilot.” “Captain.” “You are ordered to correct me when I make a mistake. ‘Twenty-four’ permutations, certainly.” “Sir, may the Chief Pilot have more information before she answers Roger-Wilco?” “Fire away!” “Captain, what categories of mistakes?” “Eh? Any sort! A mistake is a mistake. Daughter, are you baiting me?” “No, Captain. I am unable to acknowledge your order as I do not understand it. ‘A mistake is a mistake’ is semantically null. If I see you about to sugar your coffee twice shall I – “ “Tell me! Of course.” “If I see you treating your wife unjustly shall I -“ “Wait a moment! Even if I did or have – which I decline to stipulate – it is not proper for you to interfere.” “Yes, sir. We’ve established that there are two sets. But the Captain has not defined the sets and the Chief Pilot lacks authority to do so. May I respectfully suggest that the Captain take notice of the quandary, then reframe the order at a time of his choosing … and in the meantime permit the Chief Pilot not to correct the Captain’s mistakes?” Zebadiah winked at me with his head turned so that I saw it but Pop could not. Pop fumed, complaining that I wasn’t showing common sense and, worse, I had broken his train of thought. He finally got around to a definition at about 8th grade level: I was to correct him only in errors involving figures or related symbols such as angles. (On your own head be it, Pop!) I gave him Roger-Wilco. “In fact,” he went on expansively, “it may be my duty to see that this training course is completed before, with great relief, I turn this seat over to my successor.” (I started figuring how many children I would have by then and decided to look for ways to hike up the “white mutiny.”) “Captain?” “Astrogator.” “This advice concerns a mistake that could occur in the near future. I assume that the Captain has the conn?” “Hilda, I have the conn. Speak up.” “We are falling, sir. I advise placing us in orbit.” I sighed with relief, as radar distance I was beginning to think of as H-above-G and did not like our closing rate. Pop said, “Surely, put us in orbit. Take the conn and do it. Good practice. Deety can show you how. Or Zeb.” “Aye aye, sir. I have the conn. Chief Pilot, keep her level with respect to planet.” “Roger. Level now.” “Copilot, add speed vector positive axis L three point six klicks per second.” “Uh… set!” “Hold it!” Pop unbelted, steadied himself by Zebadiah’s chair, checked the setting. “Okay. Execute!” “Excuse me, Captain,” Zebadiah said, “but was that order directed at me or the Astrogator?” Pop opened his mouth – then turned red. “Astrogator, I am satisfied with your solution and the setting. Please have the maneuver executed.” “Aye aye, sir. Execute!”
What Pop planned seemed reasonable. “So far we have used juice, supplies, and four days’ time, and have merely established that there are at least two analogs of our universe, one quantum and ten quanta away on Tau axis. The latter has beasts – wogs – that are not the vermin we fled from, but – according to Hilda – closely related. To me, this makes Tau axis not our best place to seek a new home. “Zebadiah has suggested that we sample the universes available by rotation rather than translation – six axes taken four at a time – before we search Teh axis. Let me remind you that we could die of old age searching Teh axis alone. I will decide but I will listen to arguments pro or con.” Twenty-three minutes later Aunt Hilda shrilled, “Copilot, by plan, as set – Rotate!”
Chapter XXX
“Difference physical laws, a different topology.”
Jacob: We rotated to… Nowhere – So it seemed. Free fall and utter blackness – The cabin held only the faint radiance from the instruments. My daughter said in hushed tones, “Captain! May I turn on inside lights?” This was a time to establish discipline and doctrine. “Permission refused. Copilot, I would like to see in all directions.” “Yes, sir,” Zeb acknowledged. After a few moments I added, “Copilot? Why are you waiting?” “I am awaiting orders, sir.” “What the hell, Zeb? Get with it! I said I wanted to see in all directions. We have preprograms for that.” “Yes, Captain.” “Well? Why aren’t you using them? Can’t you carry out orders?” (I was amazed at Zeb.) “Captain, I have not as yet received any orders, and I am not at the conn.” I started to answer sharply – and bit down on it. Precisely what had I said? I recalled that the autopilot stayed in recording mode during maneuvers; I could play back the last few minutes -and decided not to. We were wasting time and it was possible that I had not expressed myself in the form of a direct order. Nevertheless I could not ignore Zeb’s pigheaded behavior. “Copilot, I am aware that I have not given you direct orders. However, it is customary to treat a captain’s requests as politely worded orders.” “Yes, sir.” “Well? God damn it, why don’t – “ “Captain! Captain Jacob! Please listen! Please!” I took a deep breath. “What is it, Hilda?” “Captain, I am required to advise you.” “Eh? Advise away – but be quick about it.” “Captain, you have given the Copilot neither orders nor requests. The autopilot’s record will confirm this. You mentioned preprograms – but voice programs are not normally handled by the Copilot.” “I can order the Copilot to use a voice program.” Hilda did not answer. Again I waited, then said, “Well?” Then I said, “Astrogator, you did not answer me.” “Sorry, Captain. Answer what?” “My question.” “Captain, I was not aware that you had asked me a question. Would you mind repeating it?” “Oh, forget it, forget it! Chief Pilot!” “Captain.” “Deety, what’s the voice program to rotate us a full circle around W axis?” “Shall I spell it, sir? S.G. is awake.” “No, do it. Turn out your instrument lights. Pilots watch forward, Captain and Astrogator will watch the sides. Do it. Execute.” Instrument lights dimmed to zero, leaving us in the darkest dark I have ever experienced. I heard a repressed moan and felt a burst of sympathy for my daughter; she had never liked total darkness. But she carried out my orders: “Gay Deceiver, Tumbling Pigeon.” “Forward somersault – whee!” “Execute.” I felt pressure against my belts – being forward of the center of mass we were starting a gentle outside loop. I started counting seconds as I recalled that this program took twenty seconds. I had reached seventy-eight seconds and was beginning to wonder when Deety announced “Twenty seconds” as the autopilot announced, “End of program.” Deety said, “You’re a Smart Girl, Gay.” “If I were smart, would I be doing this? Over.” “Roger and out, Gay. Captain, I request permission to switch on cabin lights.” “Permission granted. Report observations. Copilot?” “Skipper, I saw nothing.” “Deety?” “Nothing.” “Hilda?” “Jacob, I didn’t see anything. Can’t we get out of this universe? It stinks.” “That stink is me,” our copilot said. “The reek of fear. Captain, of what use is an empty universe?” “Zeb, ’empty universe’ is a meaningless expression. Space-time implies mass-energy, and vice versa.” “Captain, it looks empty to me.” “And to me. I’m faced by a dilemma in theory. Is the mass in this spacetime so far away that we can’t see it? Or is it in a state of ‘Cold Death,’ level entropy? Or did we create this universe by rotating?” “‘Create it’ – Huh?” “A possibility,” I pointed out. “If we are the only mass in this universe, then this universe had no existence until we created it by rotation. But it will not collapse when we rotate out, because we will be leaving behind quanta we are radiating.” “Hmm – Captain, I’m bothered by something else. We started from universe-ten and made one ninety-degree rotation. Correct?” “Yes. We rotated around ‘x’ and thereby moved each of the other five axes ninety degrees. We are now experiencing duration along ‘y.’ Teh and ‘z’ are spatial coordinates now, and ‘x’ remains spatial because we rotated on it. Tau and ‘t’ are now null, unused.” “Mmm – Deety, what Greenwich time is it?” Zeb glanced at the instrument board. “Uh – Seventeen: thirteen: oh-nine.” “Smart Girl says you are twenty seconds slow.” Zeb looked at his navigator’s watch. “But my watch splits the difference. How many minutes since we left Windsor City?” “Thirty-nine minutes, thirteen seconds. Ask me a hard one.” “I’m going to ask your father a hard one. Captain, if you tell G.D. to scram to Windsor P.G. right now mark! – what will the Greenwich time be?” “Look at your clock. About a quarter past seventeen hundred.” “But you told me that, since rotating, we’ve been experiencing duration along ‘y’ axis.” “But – Oh! Zeb, I’m stupid. No time has elapsed on ‘t’ axis since the instant we rotated If we reversed the rotation, we would go back to that exact instant.” “Deety hon?” Zeb asked. “Do you agree?” (I felt annoyed that my son-in-law consulted my daughter as to the correctness of my professional opinion – then suppressed the thought. Deety will always be my little girl, which makes it hard for me to remember that she is also my professional colleague.) My daughter suddenly looked upset. “I – Pop! That first trip to the world without the letter ‘J’ – time did pass, it did!” Zeb said gently, “But that was translation, Deety. You continued to experience duration along ‘t’ axis.” Deety thought about it, then said sorrowfully, “Zebadiah, I no longer know What time it is. Pop is correct; we experience duration on one axis only, and that is now ‘y’ axis. We can’t experience duration on two axes at once.” She heaved a sigh. “Will I ever get the clock in my head set right again?” “Sure you will,” my son-in-law reassured her. “Like crossing a time zone. Shortly after we grounded on Mars-ten, your head started keeping time both in Greenwich and in Mars Touchdown meridian time, even though Touchdown time kept falling farther behind hour after hour. A simple index correction won’t bother you. My sweet, you don’t realize how smart you are.” Zeb patted her hand, then looked around at me. “Captain, may I propose a change in schedule?” “Let’s hear it.” “Sir, I would like two sequences. First, go back to Windsor P.G. with the verniers preset for a hundred thousand klicks straight up, and execute at once. Then translate back to our own universe-zero – but not to Earth-zero. Instead, set up an orbit around Mars-zero. That orbit becomes our base of operations.” I said, “Simple enough. But why?” “So that we will always have somewhere to go back to. Deety can write us a program that will place us back in that orbit. Something like G, A, Y, H, O, M, E, but based on Mars-zero – with elbow room.” I asked, “Daughter, can you write such a program?” “I think so, Pop. An emergency scram? G, A, Y, plus something?” Deety paused. “‘Sagan.’ G, A, Y, S, A, G, A, N means to return to orbit around Mars-zero. Built-in mnemonic.” “Satisfactory. Is that all, Copilot?” “No, sir. Our schedule breaks up naturally into a five group, a four group, a three, a two, and a one. I would like to add to each group a return to orbit around Mars-zero. Captain, if you were on the verniers, I wouldn’t worry; you know them so well. I don’t. If I do fifteen rotations, one right after the other, I’m afraid I’ll make some tiny mistake and we’ll wind up in analog-Andromeda-Nebula in universe a thousand-and-two on ‘z’ axis, with no idea how wa got there or how to get home.” “Copilot, you worry too much.” “Probably. Captain, my whole life is based on being chicken at every opportunity. I’ll breathe easier if I come back to a familiar orbit at the end of each group… and know that the next group is one less. It won’t take ten minutes longer to do it my way and I’ll be less likely to make mistakes. But tackling all fifteen at a slug scares me.” “Captain Jacob -“ “Not now, Hilda. I must settle this with -“ “Captain, I am required to advise you.” “Eh? All right, all right! Make it snappy.” “You know – we all know – that Zebbie’s premonitions must not be ignored. I advise you officially – Gay Deceiver, record this ‘I-tell-you-three-times.'” “Hilda, I hear you three times.” “Captain Jacob, I, your second-in-command, advise you officially to revise the schedule of rotations in the fashion recommended by the copilot. End of I-tell-you-three-times.” (Have you ever found yourself boxed in? Damn it, I intended to let Zeb do it his way; I am not unreasonable. I can’t say that I believe in Zeb’s premonitions; I suspect that he is simply a man with extremely fast reflexes. But both our wives believe in them and Zeb does himself. I found myself faced with mutiny unless I did exactly what I had intended to do anyway! How does one describe so ironical a situation?) Shortly I found myself saying, “Copilot, by revised schedule, set second rotation of first group.” We were in “Sagan” orbit around Mars of Universe-zero (i.e., the one we had grown up in: Galactic coordinates X0, Y0, Z0, & t0 – Earth-zero, Mars-zero, Sun-zero, Universe-zero). I tend to think of this as the “real” universe even though I am aware that there is no evidence or mathematical theory for preferring one frame of reference over another – to do so is egocentric provincialism at its worst. But I offer this in mitigation: for us it was simplest and thereby helped us to avoid getting lost. “Set,” Copilot Zeb reported. I went forward, checked the setting (rotation around ‘y,’ with ‘z’ and ‘t’ dropping out, null), then returned to my seat. “We can spare a minute to look at Mars. Deety, tilt the nose down to let us look. Do you know how?” “Like this, Captain?” “Right,” I agreed. “Keep it up.” Deety raised the craft’s nose and swung right, catching me with belts not yet fastened. I said forcefully, “Deety! What the hell are you doing?” while I floundered and grabbed. “Sir, you ordered ‘right’ and ‘up,'” Deety answered. “I did no such thing!” “But, Jacob – Captain – you did tell her that, I heard you.” “Hilda, you keep out of this!” Hilda answered stiffly, “Captain, I respectfully request that you either relieve me of the conn, or that you give orders to my pilots through me.” “Damn it, you don’t have the conn. I do.” “Then the Captain neglected to relieve me.” “Uh – Take the conn! Carry out the planned schedule.” “Aye aye, sir. Chief Pilot, orient the car for best view of Mars.” “Aye aye, Ma’am!” I was fuming, not looking, hardly listening. I had said to Deety, All right, keep on with it – or had I? Gay could play it back… and could also check on Hilda’s incredible allegation. If I were wrong (I felt certain I was not!), I would face up to it like a man and – Zeb broke in on my thoughts: “Captain, do you care what attitude this craft is in at rotation?” “No. Only for transitions.” “Hmm – Then it follows as the night from day thou canst not then predict the attitude we’ll be in whenever we arrive in a new universe.” Only with respect to our arbitrary zero reference frame. Why should it matter?” “It won’t as long as we arrive with plenty of room. I’ve been noodling how to be sure of that. I don’t see an answer. But I don’t want to try translations or rotations parked on the ground. I hope the Captain won’t order any.” “Copilot, I have no plans to. Astrogator, haven’t we had enough sightseeing?” “Very well, Captain,” my wife acknowledged. “Deety, secure those binoculars. Zebbie, immediately after each rotation, set next rotation and report ‘Set.’ Deety, after each rotation, use voice program to put us through one Pigeon-Tumble with all lights out. I will watch to port, Deety forward, Zebbie starboard. Questions?” I said, “Astrogator, you did not assign me a sector.” “I have no authority to assign duties to the Captain. Does the Captain wish to select a sector and assume responsibility for it?” She waited. I said hastily, “No. Perhaps it will be best for me to watch in all directions. General supervision.” “Very well, Captain. Copilot – execute.” Again we rotated into darkness. Deety switched out all lights. Zeb reported, “Set!” “Stop!” I called out. I added, “Zeb, you reported ‘Set’ in total darkness. How did you set it?” “Rotation around ‘z’ axis, with ‘x’ and ‘y’ dropping out. Duration along Teh. Third combo first group, sir.” “I mean, ‘How did you do it in darkness?’ By clicks?” “Captain, I didn’t do it in darkness.” I said, “It was pitch dark when you reported ‘Set.” “So it was, Captain.” “It’s not necessary to call me ‘Captain’ every ten seconds. I want a straight answer. So far you have reported that you set it in darkness and that you set it with lights on.” “No, sir.” “God damn it, you just did!” “Captain, I protest your swearing at me. I request that my protest be logged.” “Zeb, you are – ” I shut up. I counted thirty in French under my breath, by which time I was ready to speak. “Zeb, I’m sorry that my language offended you. But I am still trying to find out what you did and how. Will you please tell me, in simple language?” “Yes, sir. I set the third rotation by clicks -“ “But you said the lights were on – “ “The lights were on. I set the rotation with my eyes closed -“ “For God’s sake, why?” “For practice. I set them with eyes closed. Then I check to see whether it matches what I intended to set. Deety leaves the light on until I give her the ‘kill it’ sign. Then she kills the glim and does her act.” “Zeb, there wasn’t time to do it that way.” Zeb gave a most irritating grin. “Captain, I’m fairly quick. So is Deety.” I said, “Perhaps I had better check the setting.” Zeb made no answer; both women kept still. I began to wonder what everyone was waiting on… then realized that I was the “what.” Unbelt and check on Zeb’s setting? I remembered that irritating grin. So I said, “Deety, carry out the tumbling routine.” The somersault completed, I asked, “Anyone see anything?” Hilda said, “I… think so. Captain, could we do that again?” “Do it, Deety,” I ordered. Pigeon-Tumble resumed; Hilda suddenly said, “There!” and Deety snapped, “GayDeceiverStop!” I asked, “Hilda, do you still see it?” “Yes, Jacob. A fuzzy star. You can see it if I pull back and you lean forward.” I suppose we each did so – for I spotted something. “I see it! Zeb – the binoculars, please.” An invisible hand pushed them against my neck. I got them lined up with difficulty, got that faint light, focused with great care. “It looks like a lenticular galaxy seen not quite edge on. Or it might be a family of galaxies. Whatever it is, it is a long way off. Millions of light-years – I have no way of guessing.” “Can we reach it by transition?” asked Zeb. “Possibly. I would set middle range on ‘six,’ then keep punching until it showed change in width. It might be possible to reach it in an hour or so. Do you want to look at it?” “From your description, I don’t think so,” Zeb answered. “That is fossil light – isn’t it?” “Eh? Yes, the light has been traveling for millions of years.” “That’s my point, Captain. We might find that those stars had burned out. Fossil light doesn’t tell us anything we can use. Let’s designate this ‘Last Chance’ and get out.” Eminently sensible – “Stand by to rotate. Copilot – execute!” Blinding light – “Zeb! Rotate! Execute!” Suddenly we were in a starry void, almost homelike. I heaved a sigh of relief. “Zeb, what did we fall into?” “I don’t know, Captain.” He added, “I had my eyes closed, setting the next rotation by clicks. So I didn’t get dazzled. But I never had a chance to check my setting by eyesight, either; I rotated at once.” “You got us out – thanks. I did get dazzled; I’ve got purple blotches in front of my eyes. New standing order: At each rotation all hands close eyes and duck heads for that moment needed to be sure that we have not again run into dazzle. Zeb, that need not slow you up since you are setting by touch and click anyhow – but if we do hit dazzle, rotate us out; don’t wait for my orders. And – All Hands! – we are all free at all times to use any of the escape programs to get us out of danger.” “Next rotation set, Captain.” “Thank you, Copilot. Hilda, do you or Deety have any notion as to what we fell into?” “No, Captain,” my daughter answered. “Captain Jacob, I have three hypotheses, none worth much.” “Let others judge that, my dear.” “Interior of a global star cluster – or near the nucleus of a galaxy, or – possibly – the early part of an expanding universe when new stars are almost rubbing shoulders.” “Hmm – Real garden spots. Zeb, could we have picked up excessive radiation?” “Captain, the shell of this buggy is opaque to most radiation, and that windscreen is heavily leaded – but no way to tell.” “Zebadiah, if the film in the camera is ruined, some heavy stuff got through. If the next picture is okay, we’re probably okay.” Hilda said, “I’m glad you thought of that, Deety. I don’t like the idea of radiation while I’m pregnant. You, too, hon.” “Aunt Hilda, we’re almost completely shielded where it matters. It could addle our brains but not our bellies.” “Hilda, do you wish to shoot one frame?” I asked. “No, Jacob, it would waste film.” “As you wish. My eyes are coming back. Deety, put us through one Pigeon-Tumble.” My daughter did so; I saw nothing. “Report! Hilda?” “Lots of big beautiful stars but nothing close.” “Me, too, Pop – but what a beautiful sky!” “Null report, Captain.” “Hilda, mark it down as ‘promising.’ All hands, stand by for fifth rotation. Keep eyes closed and heads down. Execute!” Zeb gasped. “Where in Hell are we?” “In Hell, maybe, Zebbie.” “Captain!” “Hilda may not be too far off,” I answered. “It’s something I could not have believed three weeks ago: some sort of inside-out universe.” “Pellucidar!” said Deety. “No, my dear daughter. One: We are not inside our home planet; we are in another universe. Two: This universe has physical laws that differ from our own. The inside of a spherical shell cannot have a gravitational field by the laws of our universe. Yet I see a river and we seem to be falling toward it. Deety, are we in air or in vacuo?” Deety wiggled the controls. “Got some air. Probably could get support with wings fully spread.” “Then do so.” Deety brought the car into a dead-stick glide. Zeb said grimly, “I don’t want to homestead here! So big – ten thousand kilometers across at a guess. Yet it’s all inside. No sky! No horizons. Never again a night sprinkled with stars. That light in the center – Looks like our sun but it’s too small, much too small. When we leave, I don’t want to come back; the god who takes care of fools and explorers let us arrive in empty space instead of maybe ten kilometers underground. But next time – I hate to think about it.” I said, “It may not have been luck, Zeb, but logical necessity.” “Huh. You’ve lost me, Captain.” “You’re thinking of this as a spherical shell. But there is no basis for assuming that it has an outside.” “What? Endless millions of light-years of solid rock?” “No, no! Nothing. By ‘nothing’ I do not mean space; I mean a total absence of existence of any sort. Different physical laws, a different topology. We may be seeing the totality of this universe. A small universe with a different sort of closed space.” “I can’t visualize it, Jake.” “Deety, my dear, rephrase it for your husband.” “I’ll try, Pop. Zebadiah, the geometry of this place may require different postulates from those that work back home. I’m sure you have played with Möbius strips -“ “A surface with only one side, one edge. But this is a sphere.” “Pop is saying that it may be a sphere with only one side, the inside. Have you ever tried to figure out a Klein bottle?” “I got cross-eyed and a headache.” “This could be a Klein-bottle sort of thing. It might turn out that if you tunneled straight down anywhere down there, you would emerge at the opposite point, still inside. And that straight line might be shorter than the distance across. Maybe much shorter.” “Point three-one-eight-three-zero-nine is the ratio by the simplest postulates,” I agreed. “But the geometry may not be that simple. However, Zeb, assuming that this is a total universe, our chances of arriving in open space were far greater than the chance of conflicting with a mass. But I would not wish to homestead here – pretty as it is. Nevertheless we might check for obstetricians.” “No obstetricians,” Zeb answered firmly. “Why?” I demanded. “If there are human beings here, they do not have an advanced culture. Deety has been following that river. Did you notice where that other river joined it? Also look ahead where it meets the sea. No cities. No warehouses. No river traffic. No air traffic, no signs of roads. Yet this is choice real estate. Therefore, no advanced culture anywhere and a small population, if any. If anyone wants to refute me, please do so in the next two minutes; Deety can’t hold this heap in the air much longer without using juice.” “I check you, Zebbie. They might be so advanced that they can make the whole joint look like a park. I wouldn’t bet on it.” “Deety?” I asked. “Aunt Hilda is right, Captain. But it’s so pretty!” “Hilda, expend one film, as a souvenir. Then we rotate.” My daughter nosed the car down to permit a better picture. A click – “Got it!” Hilda cried. “GaySagan!” Mars of Universe-zero lay to starboard. Zeb sighed. “I’m glad to be out of there. Sharpie, did you get a picture?” “Can’t rush it,” my wife answered. “Nnnn, yup, picture coming.” “Good!” “Zebbie, I thought you didn’t like that inside-out world?” “I don’t. If that picture is sharp, you two knocked-up broads weren’t hit by radiation where it counts. Any fogging?” “No, Zebbie, and brighter color every second. Here – look.” Zeb brushed it aside. “My sole interest is in radiation. Captain, I’m having misgivings. We’ve tried five out of fifteen and only one was even vaguely homelike. The pickings have been slim and the dangers excessive. But we know that Earth analogs Tau and Teh axes are Earthlike -“ “With monsters,” put in Hilda. “Tau axis, probably. We haven’t explored Teh axis. Jake, are we justified in exposing our wives to dangers we can’t imagine?” “In a moment, Copilot. Astrogator, why did you rotate? I don’t think I ordered it. I have been trying to run a taut ship.” “So have I, Captain. I must ask to be relieved as astrogator.” “I am sorry to say that I have been thinking along the same lines, my dearest. But you had better explain.” “Captain, three times you have replaced me at the conn without relieving me. The last time I let it continue, wondering and waiting. Just now we were losing altitude, dangerously. So I acted. Now I ask to be relieved.” Hilda seemed calm and not angry. But resolved. Had I really done anything out of line? It did not seem so to me. “Zeb, have I been overriding the officer at the conn?” Zeb took too long to answer. “Captain, this is a time when a man must insist on written orders. I will make a written reply.” “Hmm – ” I said. “I think you have replied. Deety, what do you think? More written orders?” “I don’t need written orders. Pop, you’ve been utterly stinking!” “You really feel so?” “I know so. Aunt Hilda is right; you are dead wrong. She understated the case. You assign her responsibilities – then ignore her. Just now she carried out her assigned duties – and you chewed her out for it. Of course she wants to be relieved.” My daughter took a deep breath and went on: “And you bawled her out for ordering a scram escape. Twenty-seven minutes ago you said – and I quote: ‘All Hands! – we are all free at all times to use any of the escape programs to get us out of danger.’ End of quotation. Pop, how can you expect orders to be obeyed when you can’t remember what orders you’ve given? Nevertheless, we have obeyed you, every time and no back talk – and we’ve all caught hell. Aunt Hilda caught the most – but Zebadiah and I caught quite a bit. Pop, you’ve been – I won’t say it, I won’t!” I looked out the port at Mars for long unhappy minutes. Then I turned around. “I’ve no choice but to resign. Effective as I ground her. Family, I must admit to great humiliation. I had thought that I was doing quite well. Uh, back to our streamside, I think. Gay -“ “GayDeceiverOverride! Not on your tintype! You’ll serve as long as I did – not a second less! But Sharpie is right in refusing to take the conn under you; you’ve been mistreating her. Despite being a colonel, you have never learned that you can’t assign responsibility without delegating authority to match – and then respect it. Jake, you’re a lousy boss. We’re going to keep you in the hot seat until you learn better. But there’s no reason for Sharpie to resign over your failings.” “I still have something to say,” said my daughter. “Deety,” Zeb said forcefully, “leave well enough alone!” “Zebadiah, this is to you quite as much – or more – as it is to Pop. Complaints of another sort.” My son-in-law looked startled. “Oh. Sorry. You have the floor.”
Chapter XXXI
” – the first ghosts ever to search for an obstetrician.”
Hilda: If Zebbie and Jacob have a fault in common, it is overprotectiveness. Having always been the runt, I am habitually willing to accept protection. But Deety rebels. When Zebbie asked Jacob whether or not they were justified in exposing us to unknown dangers, Deety stuck her oar in – and Zebbie tried to hush her. Zebbie should have known better. But he is barely getting acquainted with her, whereas I’ve known her since her diaper days. Once when Deety was, oh, possibly four, I started to tie her shoes. She pulled away. “Deety do!” she announced indignantly – and Deety did: on one shoe a loose half bow that came apart almost at once, on the other a Gordian knot that required the Alexandrian solution. It’s been “Deety do!” ever since, backed by genius and indomitable will. Deety told him, “Zebadiah, concerning completing this schedule: Is there some reason to exclude Hilda and me from the decision?” “Damn it, Deety, this is one time when husbands have to decide!” “Damn it, Zebadiah, this is one time when wives must be consulted!” Zebbie was shocked. But Deety had simply matched his manner and rhetoric. Zebbie is no fool; he backed down. “I’m sorry, hon,” he said soberly. “Go ahead.” “Yessir. I’m sorry I answered the way I did. But I do have something to say – and Hilda, too. I know I speak for both of us when I say that we appreciate that you and Pop would die for us… and that you feel this more intensely now that we are pregnant. “But we have not been pregnant long enough to be handicapped. Our bellies do not bulge. They will bulge, and that gives us a deadline. But for that very reason we will either sample those rotation universes today… or we will never sample them.” “Why do you say ‘never,’ Deety?” “That deadline. We’ve sampled five and, scary as some have been, I wouldn’t have missed it! We can look at the other ten in the next few hours. But if we start searching Teh axis there is no way to guess how long it will take. Thousands of universes along Teh axis and it seems likely that each holds an analog of Earth. We may check hundreds before we find what we are looking for. Let’s say we find it and Hilda and I have babies with skilled medical attention. Then what? Zebadiah, are you going to be more willing to take women with babies into strange universes than you are without babies?” “Uh… that’s not the way to put it, Deety.” “How would you put it, sir? Are you thinking that you and Pop might check those ten while Hilda and I stay home with the kids?” “Well… yes, I suppose I am. Something of the sort.” “Zebadiah, I married you for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. I did not marry to walk the Widow’s Walk! Where you go, I go! – till death do us part.” “Deety speaks for me,” I said, and shut up. Deety had it figured: If Jacob and Zebbie didn’t finish those rotations today, they would have that “far horizons” look for the rest of their lives – and they wouldn’t want us along. Not with kids. Sharpie wasn’t going to hold still for that. No, sir! “Deety, are you through?” “Not quite, sir. All humans are created unequal. You are bigger and stronger than Pop; I am bigger and stronger than Hilda. I have the least years of experience; Pop has the most. Pop is a supergenius… but he concentrates so hard that he forgets to eat – unless he has a nursemaid to watch him – as Mama did, as I did, as Hilda now does. You, sir, are the most all-around competent man I’ve ever met, whether driving a duo, or dancing, or telling outrageous tales. Three of us have eight or nine earned degrees… but Aunt Hilda with none is a walking encyclopedia from insatiable curiosity and extraordinary memory. We two are baby factories and you two are not – but two men can impregnate fifty women – or five hundred. There is no end to the ways that we four are unequal. But in one supremely important way all of us are equals. “We are pioneers. “Men alone are not pioneers; they can’t be. Pioneer mothers share the dangers of pioneer fathers and go on having babies. Babies were born in the Mayflower, lots were born in covered wagons – and lots died, too. Women didn’t stay home; they went along. “Zebadiah, I do not ask to be taken to those next ten universes -“ “It sounds like it.” “You didn’t listen, sir. I would like to finish sampling those fifteen. It’s my preference but not my demand. What I do demand I have stated: Where you go, I go. Today and to the end of our lives. Unless you tell me to get out, that you don’t want me anymore. I have spoken.” “You certainly have, dear. Hilda?” Fish or cut bait, Sharpie – what do you want? I didn’t care; any new universe was bound to be strange. But Deety had laid down the party line; I didn’t want to fuzz it up – so I answered instantly, “Deety speaks for me in every word.” “Jake? Back to my original question: ‘Are we justified in exposing our wives to conditions we can’t even imagine?” “Zeb, you are the one who convinced me that it would be prudent to sample the universes accessible through rotation before searching by translation.” “True. But that was before we sampled five of them.” “I don’t see that the situation has changed. An imaginable danger is not necessarily better than an unimaginable one; it may be worse. Our home planet had grave shortcomings before we tangled with the vermin. No need to list them; we all know that the Four Horsemen are ready to ride again. But I can think of a very close analog of our home planet that would be far worse than Earth-zero even if it didn’t have a single ‘Black-Hat’ vermin on it.” “Go on.” “One in which Hitler got atomic weapons but we did not. I can’t see that vermin are more to be dreaded than Hitler’s S.S. Corps. The sadism of some human beings – not just Storm Troopers; you can find sadists in any country including the United States – is more frightening to me than any monster.” “Not to me!” Deety blurted it out. “But, my dear, we don’t know that those vermin are cruel. We got in their way; they tried to kill us. They did not try to torture us. There is a world of difference.” “Maybe there is, Pop, but those things give me the creeps. I’ll bet they’d torture us if they could!” “My very dear daughter, that’s muddy thinking. How old are you?” “Huh? Pop, you know if anybody does.” “I was reminding you of what you said: you have the least years of experience. I was much older than you are before I was cured of that sort of muddy thinking. By Jane, your mother. Hilda?” “Jacob is telling you not to judge a book by its cover,” I said. “I learned it from Jane, too, as Jacob knows. A creature’s appearance tells nothing about its capacity for sadism.” Jacob said, “Does anyone have anything to add? Since it appears that I am not permitted to resign now, I must rule on it. We will complete the scheduled rotations.” Jacob cleared his throat loudly, looked at Deety. “During my remaining hours in what Zeb so accurately calls the ‘Worry Seat,’ I will endeavor to keep my orders straight … but, should I fail, I ask that my attention be invited to it at once – not saved up for a scolding later. Daughter?” “Okay, Pop. Aye aye, Captain.” “Thank you, my dear. Is anyone tired or hungry?” No one spoke up; Jacob continued, “Hilda, will you take the conn?” “No, Captain” – I’ll omit the internal debate I held with myself; Jacob on his best behavior is hard to refuse. “Very well, my beloved; I won’t press you. It’s an odd situation. Copilot, by schedule, set to rotate.” “Second group, first of four – set, sir.” “Check seat belts, stand by to rotate. Execute!”
We were in sunlight in a blue sky and upside down. For a few seconds we were thrown around a bit – Deety isn’t the pilot Zebbie is. But she did get us leveled off. I heard Deety say, “Gay Deceiver.” “Hi, Deety!” “Hold course, speed, and height-above-ground.” “Got it, girl!” “You’re a Smart Girl, Gay.” “But we can’t go on meeting like this! Over.” “Roger and out, Gay. Whew! Time out while the Chief Pilot has a nervous breakdown. Zebadiah, what does that altimeter say?” “Seven klicks H-above-G.” “Pop, what’s the probability of winding up this close to a planet without getting killed?” “Impossible to theorize, Deety. Maybe we’re dead and don’t know it. Copilot, deadman switch; I’m going to check the air.” “Captain!” I yelped. “Not now, Hilda, I’m -“ “NOW! Am I still second-in-command? If I am, I must advise you; you are about to make a bad mistake!” Jacob hesitated. I think he was counting. “My dear one, if I am about to make a bad mistake, I want your advice no matter what your status is.” “Thank you, Jacob. You should not be guinea pig. I should be. I -“ “Hilda, you’re pregnant.” “All the more reason why I want the most competent and least expendable – you, Zebbie, and Deety – to take care of yourselves in order to take care of me. It’s my duty as science officer in any case, whether I’m number two or not. But, Jacob, you are doing it just the way Zebbie did it when we landed on Mars-ten – and that’s all wrong!” “Thank you, Sharpie!” “Zebbie dear! You risked your life and it’s not necessary -“ Zebbie interrupted me. “Not necessary to waste juice this way! Yack-yack-yack!” “Copilot, pipe down!” Jacob said sharply. “Gay Bounce! Chief Pilot, when we reenter, place the car on dead-stick glide, manual or automatic. Don’t use juice. Now, All Hands, listen to the Science Officer. Go ahead, Hilda.” “Yes, Captain. Three days ago it was necessary for somebody to be the canary – but it should have been me, not Zebbie. What was necessary three days ago is reckless today. That deadman switch – Unless it has been rewired, it takes us back two klicks over a crater – and that’s not what we want. The correct scram for this is T, E, R, M, I, T, E. But that’s just half of it. Deety has taught the S.G. how to ground herself no-power on any level bit of ground. We can ground first. Then anyone can be guinea pig, doesn’t matter. Whoosh back to our stream bank – bang, open the doors.” Zebbie said, “Captain, that makes sense. Sharpie – I mean ‘Science Officer.’ May I apologize with a back rub?” “You can apologize with a kiss. But I’ll take the back rub, too.” “Zebadiah, don’t commit yourself too far; an air test isn’t necessary. Pop! Captain Pop, may I take her up thirty klicks?” “I suppose so. May I ask why?” “Captain, I know where we are. From that high I can prove it.” “Deety, that’s imp -“ “Don’t say ‘impossible,’ Captain – I’ll refer you to my father.” “Miss Smarty Pants. Take her up.” “Thanks, Pop. GayBounceGayBounceGayBounce. Gay Deceiver, vertical dive, execute. Everybody tell me where we are.” I had noticed earlier what pretty countryside was under us. Now I studied it in detail. Zebbie said, “Be durned. Big rectangular oasis completely surrounded by desert. Populated, too. That’s a fair-sized town in the middle.” “Yes,” I agreed. “Don’t you recognize it, Zebbie? From a map.” My husband said, “Now, Hilda, this is an unexplored universe. How could you have seen a -“ “Pop!” interrupted Deety. “You’ve seen the map. See the Yellow Brick Road off to the left? Try the binoculars; you can follow it clear to Emerald City.” “Deety my love,” said Zebbie, “you are out of your mind. Or I am. Either way, somebody call an ambulance. Don’t forget the straitjacket. Sharpie, something worries me. I failed to get my warning… yet we came so close to hitting that real estate I’m still shaking.” “That means there wasn’t any danger, Zebbie.” “Then why am I trembling?” “You’re a fraud, dear. We’ve all been dead quite a while now – killed in my parking lot. Deety and I may be the first ghosts ever to search for an obstetrician. In further support of my theory I am having a pregnancy with no morning sickness – a miracle that makes the Land of Oz as commonplace as faithful husbands.” “I don’t think I want to analyze that. Is that the Castle of the Tin Woodman there in the east?” “Yes, but that’s the west, dear. Deety, is that sun rising or setting?” “Setting. Directions are reversed here. Everybody knows that.” “A retrograde planet,” my husband commented. “Nothing dangerous about that.” “Pop, admit it. You know the Oz books almost as well as I do -“ “Better. Don’t give yourself airs, Daughter. I agree that this appears to match stories and map, while trying to reserve judgment. Deety, how would you like to raise kids in the Land of Oz?” “Pop, I’d love it!” “Are you certain? As I recall, nobody dies in the Land of Oz yet the population doesn’t increase. I don’t recall babies being born in Oz stories. I don’t recall M.D.’s or hospitals. Or machinery. Zeb, that inside-out universe had different physical laws from those of our universe. If we ground here, will we be able to leave? Oz works by magic, not by engineering.” Jacob added, “Copilot, I want your professional opinion.” “Captain, you see a difference between magic and engineering. I don’t.” “Oh, come now, Zeb!” “I believe in just two things: Murphy’s Law, and Place Not Your Faith in an Ace Kicker. Permit me to point out that we are already in the Land of Oz, even though at altitude. I can think of worse places to be stranded. No common cold. No income tax. No political candidates. No smog. No churches. No wars. No inflation. No -“ Deety interrupted. “We are now passing over the Palace of Glinda the Good.” “Why pass over it?” I asked. “Jacob, why aren’t we grounding?” “Me, too,” Deety added. “Captain Pop, I request permission to ground near the Palace. I’m certain that nothing can upset Glinda the Good; she already knows about it from her Book. Besides, a palace that size must have plumbing… and I’m beginning to feel as if I had attended a watermelon picnic.” “Methinks a bush would suffice,” said Zebbie. “Even in another universe and with an armed guard. How about it, Captain?” “Chief Pilot, ground at will. Hilda, do the Oz books have bathrooms in them? I don’t recall.” “Nor do I, Jacob,” I answered. “But there are plenty of bushes.” In three or four minutes Deety had us grounded, with Gay using Deety’s new program. I thanked my husband for deciding to ground. “There was never any doubt,” he said. “Not only would you and Deety never have spoken to me again, I would never have spoken to me again. But if I meet a living scarecrow, I may go stark, raving mad.”
Chapter XXXII
“Where Cat is, is civilization.”
Deety: I found a clearing in the woods, a hundred meters from the Palace and screened from it by elms and walnut trees. I had Gay range it, told her three times that it was a scram spot – then she landed herself, slick as Zebadiah. I unstrapped, opened the bulkhead door, and crawled aft to get clean suits – and thought better of it. Aunt Hilda had followed me and headed straight for a special locker. I rolled into lotus and asked, “Hillbilly, what are you going to wear?” “The dress I got married in and the wedding ring Jacob had made for me in Windsor City.” “Jewelry?” “Nothing fancy.” Mama Jane told me years ago that Aunt Hilda’s instinct for clothes was infallible. I got the dress I wore to hook Zebadiah, a pendant Pop had given me, my wedding ring, my dancing slippers. Put my darling in mess jacket? No, but in tights topped off with a white silk bolero shirt I made for him at Snug Harbor. Red sash, dancing pumps, jockey shorts – yes, that was all he needed. I wiggle-wormed forward, clutching clothing. Our men were still in their seats, Gay’s doors closed. I said, “Why the closed doors? It’s warm and stuffy.” “Look out to the left,” said Zebadiah. I looked. A little storybook cottage with a sign over the door: WELCOME. It had not been there when we grounded. “I see,” I agreed. “Shuck off your work clothes and pull on shorts and tights. Pop, Hilda has your trousers.” “Deety, is that all you have to say?” “What should I say, sir? Pop, you have taken us to some strange places. But in Oz I am not a stranger in a strange land. I know what to expect.” “But damn it all -“ “Shush, Zebadiah. One does not say ‘damn’ in Oz. Not any sort of profanity or vulgarity. These are no longer teats; they aren’t even breasts – it’s my bosom and I never mention it. Vocabulary limited to that of the Mauve Decade. Mildest euphemisms.” “Deety, I’m durned if I’ll be anything but myself.” “Sir, I speak professionally. One does not use FORTRAN to a computer that knows only LOGLAN. Captain, can we open up?” “Just a moment,” my father put in. “Deety, you called me ‘Captain.’ But I resigned, effective on grounding.” “Wait a half!” Zebadiah interrupted. “You’ll do at least as much punishment time as I did – you earned it, old buddy.” “All right,” Pop agreed, “but you decided that time on the ground counts. We’ll likely need a new captain when we lift. Let’s elect the victim now.” “Reelect Pop,” I suggested. “He flunked and should do it over.” “Daughter!” “Joking, Pop – as long as you bear in mind that you did flunk and never again give a captain a bad time. I nominate my husband.” “Let’s do this right.” Pop got out four file cards. I wrote “Zebadiah” on mine, handed it to Pop. Hilda declared them, showing us each one: Deety – Deety – Deety – Deety. I gasped. “Hey! I demand a recount! No, a new election – somebody cheated.” I made so much fuss that they let me have it. I wrote “Zebadiah” on my fresh ballot, placed it face up on the Chief Pilot’s seat, placed the other three, one by one, on top of it, then declared them myself: Deety – Deety – Deety – then, in my own handwriting: Deety. I gave up. (But resolved to have a word with the Wizard.)
It was a pretty cottage with a broad stoop and a climbing rose – but not to live in, just one room with a table and no other furniture. The table held a bowl of fruit, a pitcher of milk, four tumblers. There was a door to the right and a door to the left; the one on the left had painted on it a little girl in a sunbonnet, the other had a boy in a Buster Brown suit. Hilda and I headed for the sunbonnet. I snatched a glass of milk and a bunch of grapes, and put on a milk moustache; I hadn’t tasted milk in ages. Delicious! Hilda was drawing a tub and had peeled off her dress. The window was open but up high, so I peeled off mine. We made ourselves clean and “beautiful,” i.e., we restored our fanciest hairdos but without jewelry. Whatever we needed, that bath and dressing room had, from a sponge to lipstick Aunt Hilda’s shade. We hurried and did it in forty-two minutes. Zebadiah looked beautiful and Pop looked just as smart in dark trousers and a richly simple Aloha shirt. “We thought you,” said my husband, “had gone down the drain.” “Zebadiah, we took forty-two minutes. If you did it in less than thirty, you aren’t clean.” “Smell me.” I sniffed him – a faint fragrance of soap, a touch of shaving lotion. “You took more than thirty minutes. Kiss me.” “Thirty-six minutes, by my watch. Say ‘Please.” I said “Please” and he caught me with my lips open, he always does. Zebadiah just suits me and I haven’t been sulky with him and stubborn only when necessary. There was a path toward the Palace. Pop, with Aunt Hilda on his arm, led off; we followed. Aunt Hilda was carrying her high-heeled sandals, so I took mine off, and glanced back toward the clearing. The little cottage was missing, as I expected. Zebadiah noticed it but said nothing. His face was an interesting study. The grassy path debouched into a garden in front of the Palace; the path through it was hard, so Hilda and I put on our shoes. Glinda’s Palace was more like a Norman chateau or Bertie’s “Stately Home of England” than it was like those dreary castles on the Rhine – but it had fairyland grace, like the Taj. As we started up the sweeping marble steps to the great doorway Zebadiah stumbled. “What the hell?” “Sssh!” I said. “Language, dear. A magic staircase. Glinda would not make her guests climb. Pretend that Escher designed it. Look proud and walk as if they were level.” As we reached the broad landing two tall trumpeters stepped out of the great doorway, raised their long trumpets, and sounded four flourishes. An old man with a merry grin, a fringe of whiskers, a shiny bald head, a wooden left leg, and wearing a sailor’s oilskins, came out as the flourishes ended. I wondered why he was here rather than Emerald City. He took a pipe from his mouth and said, “Welcome to the Palace of Glinda the Good! I’m Cap’n Bill. You, sir, are Doctor Burroughs the Wizard, with your wonderful wife the Princess Hilda. You must be Cap’n Zeb Carter – Howdy, Cap’n! – and everybody knows Deety; she’s spent so much of her life in Oz. Howdy, Deety! Last time I seen you you warn’t more’n knee high to a tall duck. And now look at you! Almost up to my shoulder and married! Congratulations, Cap’n! Yer a lucky man!” “I think so, Captain.” “I know so. Deety, Ozma sends her love and sez to tell you that you and your family are welcome in the Royal Kingdom as long as you like.” “Please thank Her Royal Majesty for me, Cap’n Bill.” (Actually I’m taller than Cap’n Bill now – but of course I’ll always be a little girl to him. It’s nice.) “Oh, I will, I will! Come inside, folks: we ain’t formal here. Or I ain’t. This ain’t my reg’lar job; I’m standing this watch for a friend.” He took my hand; his hand was horny and felt like Zebadiah’s – and just as gentle. He led us inside. “Where’s Trot?” I asked. “Around somewhere; you’ll see her. Prob’ly picking out her best hair ribbon in your honor. Or maybe helping Betsy with Hank – little Betsy ain’t happy unless she’s workin’; Neptune knows that mule gets more attention than all the mules that ever came out of Mizzoura. This way to the Library, friends.”
How does one describe Glinda the Good? Everyone knows that she is tall and stately and beautiful and never frowns and wears all day long what I think of as beautiful evening gowns with sweeping trains. But those are just words. Perhaps it is enough to say that, just as Dejah Thoris is the most beautiful woman of her world, the Sorceress is the most beautiful of hers. She was surrounded by her bevy of the most beautiful girls from all over Oz. But Glinda outshone them all without trying. The name of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti means both “beautiful” and “good,” in one word; I think that explains Glinda. She got up from her Great Book of Records and glided toward us – kissed Hilda first, kissed me and said, “Welcome home, Deety!” and I choked up and couldn’t talk; I just curtsied. She offered a hand each to Zebadiah and Pop; they bowed simultaneously and kissed her hands. She waved at chairs (that hadn’t been there) and invited us to sit down. Zebadiah whispered, “You seem to own this place.” “Not really,” I whispered back. “But I’ve lived in Oz longer than anywhere else” – Mama and Pop lived at several campuses while I was growing up but I always took Oz along wherever we moved. “Well… I’m glad you made me dress up.” We were introduced to Glinda’s girls and each one curtsied; it felt like being in Imperial House-except that these girls were neither compelled nor paid. When I stopped to think about it, I couldn’t recall that money was used in Oz; it didn’t have an “economy.” The girls were beautifully dressed, each differently but each girl’s dress was predominately the color of her own country, Munchkin blue, Gillikin purple, Winkle yellow, a few in green. One girl in red – Quadling of course, where we were – looked familiar. I said to her, “Is your name Betty?” She was startled. “Why, yes, Your Highness – how did you know?” She dropped a curtsy. “I’ve been here before; ask Captain Bill. I’m not ‘Your Highness’; I’m just Deety. Do you have a friend named Bertie?” “Yes, Your – Yes, Deety. He’s not here now, he’s at the College of Professor Wogglebug.” I made note to tell Betty about it… someday. I can’t tell all about everyone we met at Glinda’s Palace; there were too many and more kept arriving. Everyone seemed to expect us and pleased to see us. Pop did not go stark, raving mad when he met the Scarecrow because he was already deep in conversation with Professor H. M. Wogglebug and with Oz the Great, Royal Wizard to Queen Ozma – Pop was barely polite, shook hands and said, “Howd’you do, Mr. Scarecrow,” and went right on talking to Professor Wogglebug and the Wizard. I’m not sure he looked at the Scarecrow. He was saying, “You put it neatly, Professor. I wish Professor Mobyas Toras could hear your formulation. If we set alpha equal to zero, it is obvious that -“ I wandered off, because when Pop says, “It is obvious that – ” what is really obvious is that Deety should leave. Dinner was in the banquet hail and the crowd of guests exactly filled it – Glinda’s banquet hall is always the right size for the number of persons eating there – or not eating, as the case may be, for Jack Pumpkinhead, Tik-Tok, the Tin Woodman, the Sawhorse, the Scarecrow, and other people who don’t eat were seated there, too, and also people who aren’t human people: the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, the Woozy, the King of the Flying Monkeys, Hank, Toto, and a beautiful long-haired cat with supercilious manners. Glinda the Good was at the head of the table at one end and Queen Ozma was at the head at the other end. Pop was on Glinda’s right and Zebadiah was on Ozma’s right. The Wizard was on Glinda’s left, and Professor Wogglebug was on Ozma’s left. Aunt Hilda and I were opposite each other at the middle of the long table. She had the Tin Woodman on one side and the Scarecrow on the other and was doing her best to charm both of them and both were trying to charm her and all three were succeeding. I had three dinner companions. I started with two, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. The Lion ate what others ate but the Tiger had a bowl of cornflakes the size of a small washtub and ate from it very tidily with a spoon that matched the bowl. The Cowardly Lion and I had just started seafood cocktails when this cat brushed against my leg to get my attention, looked up and said, “You smell like a cat person. Make a lap, I’m coming up” – and jumped. I said, “Eureka, do you have Dorothy’s permission?” “What a silly way to talk. Dorothy must get my permission. Feed me the lobster first, then the shrimp. You may have the last piece of shrimp for yourself.” The Hungry Tiger put down his big spoon and said, “Highness, may I abate this nuisance?” “Don’t trouble yourself, Old Boy,” the Lion said. “I’ll abite it instead, in one bite. But please pass the Tabasco sauce; cats have so little taste.” “Pay no attention to those peasants, wench, and get on with the lobster. Animals should not be allowed to eat at the table.” “Look who is calling whom an animal,” growled the Cowardly Lion. “It’s not an animal, Leo,” the Hungry Tiger objected. “It’s an insect. Highness, I’m a vegetarian – but I would be happy to break over this once and slice it into my cornflakes. Shall I?” “Dorothy wouldn’t like it, Rajah.” “You have a point, Ma’am. Shall I ask Toto to chase it out?” “Eureka may stay. I don’t mind.” “Wench, the correct answer is ‘I am honored.’ Ignore these jungle beasts; they are not cats. Be it known that Felis domestica has been civilized more generations than all you lesser breeds combined. As my serene ancestress, Bubastis, Goddess of the Nile, was wont to say: ‘Where Cat is, is civilization.’ Hurry up with that lobster.” So I hurried. Eureka accepted each bit daintily, barely flicking my finger tips with her scratchy tongue. At last she averted her mouth. “Don’t overdo it; I’ll tell you when I require more. Scratch behind my left ear – gently. I shall sing, then I shall sleep. Maintain a respectful silence.” I did as ordered. Eureka purred very loudly. As the buzzing gave way to soft snores I slowly stopped scratching. I had to eat with one hand; the other was needed to keep her from falling.
As Aunt Hilda has placed a record in Gay by interviewing all of us and combining it, I will stick to essentials. After the rest had gone home or retired to their rooms we four were invited into the Library. It was smaller than it had been, cozy, as Glinda’s girls had gone to their rooms. Glinda was at her Great Book of Records as we were ushered in; she smiled and bowed without getting up as we sat down. “Friends,” she said, “Doctor, Captain, Princess Hilda, and Deety, I will save time by telling you that, during the dancing, I conferred with Ozma, the Wizard, and Professor Wogglebug. I had studied the Records of your strange adventure, and I read a résumé to them before we discussed your problems. First, let me say that Ozma repeats her invitation. You are welcome to stay here forever; you will find hospitality wherever you go. Deety knows this, and Princess Hilda knows it, too, although she is not as sure of it as Deety is. “But to reassure you gentlemen, the Wizard and I have made the Land of Oz one quarter inch wider in all directions, a change too small to be noticed. But you, Doctor, will recognize that this provides ample Lebensraum for four more good people, as well as for your sky chariot Miss Gay Deceiver. A quarter of an inch, Captain, is six and thirty-five hundredths millimeters. “While we were about it, on the advice of Professor Wogglebug, we made small changes in Miss Gay Deceiver – “ Zebadiah gave a start and looked upset. Gay was his sweetheart long before I was; he takes care of her as carefully as he takes care of me. But he should have trusted Glinda. Glinda smiled warmly. “Don’t be alarmed, Captain, no harm has been done to the structural integrity or to the functioning of your beloved craft. When you notice – you will notice – if you do not like the changes, all you need do is to say aloud, ‘Glinda, change Miss Gay Deceiver back the way she was.’ I will read it here in my Book and will carry out your wish. But I do not think that you will ask me to do this. That is not prophecy; a good witch does not prophesy. But it is my firm opinion. “Now to major matters – There are no ‘Black Hat’ vermin in Oz. Should one be so foolish as to come here, I would know it from my Book, and it would be ejected into the Deadly Desert. What would happen to it there, the less said, the better – but evil is not tolerated in Oz. “As to the problem of vermin in your home world, it does not lie in Ozma’s jurisdiction. My powers are limited there. While my Great Book tells me what happens there, it does not distinguish between vermin disguised as human beings and human beings who by their nature are evil. I could cast a spell over you which would keep you away from all ‘Black Hats.’ Do you wish that?” Pop glanced at Zebadiah; my husband said, “Just a moment, Glinda the Good. Just what does that mean?” “Spells are always literal, Captain; that’s why they can cause so much trouble. I rarely use them. This one means what I said: You would be kept away from any vermin of the sort you call ‘Black Hats.” “In that case we couldn’t recognize one, could we? Or get close enough to destroy it.” “I think one would have to devise ways to do each at a distance. Spells do not reason, Captain. Like computers, they operate literally.” “Could they recognize us? Booby-trap us? Bomb us?” “I do not know, Captain. My Book records only what they have done, not what they may do. Even then, as I have said, the Records do not unmask a disguised ‘Black Hat.’ Therefore, I know little about them. Do you wish the spell? You need not decide at once. If you remain in Oz, you won’t need it.” I blurted out, “We ought to stay here!” Glinda smiled at me, not a happy smile. “Dear Deety – You have decided not to have your baby?” “Huh? I mean, ‘Excuse me, Glinda?'” “You have been in Fairyland more than the others. You know that your little girl will not be born here… just as no one ever dies here.” Aunt Hilda spoke up so quickly I couldn’t get a word in. “Glinda, thank you very much but I will not be staying.” I gulped. “I won’t be staying, either, Aunt Glinda.” “So I suspected. Do you want my advice, dear?” “Yes. Certainly!” “Having decided to be a woman and not a little girl like Dorothy or Trot, leave here quickly… lest you be tempted to stay in Fairyland forever.” Pop glanced at Zebadiah, then said, “Madame Glinda, we’ll be leaving in the morning. We are grateful for your lavish hospitality… but I think that is best.” “I think so, too, Doctor. But remember: Ozma’s invitation stands. When you are weary of the world, come here for a holiday and bring the children. Children are happy here and never get hurt. Oz was designed for children.” “We will, we certainly will!” “Is there anything more to discuss? If not… “ “Just a second!” put in Aunt Hilda. “You told Deety – will you tell me?” Glinda smiled. “My Book states that you are growing a boy.”
Chapter XXXIII
” – ‘solipsism’ is a buzz word.”
Zeb: I didn’t sleep with Deety that night. I didn’t plan it that way. A footman showed me to a room; Deety and Hilda were standing at the top of the stairs (more magical stairs – okay as long as you don’t look down) and talking excitedly, with Jake nearby. When I saw that the room had only a single bed, the footman had vanished. I stepped outside; Deety and Hilda and Jake were gone, the upper hall was dark. So I said a word one mustn’t use in Oz and went back into my room. Even a single bed looked inviting; I went to sleep at once. Glinda had breakfast with us, in the banquet hail, considerably shrunken. The food in Imperial House is wonderful, but you can’t beat ham and basted eggs and toast and jelly and fresh orange juice. I drank three cups of coffee and felt ready to rassle alligators. Glinda kissed Deety and Hilda good-bye at the top of those Escher steps, and Jake and I bent over her hands. She wished us good luck… which must mean more from her. Gay Deceiver looked good in morning sunlight. Tik-Tok was standing at her nose. “Good mor-ning,” he said. “I have been con-ver-sing with Miss Gay De-cei-ver all night. She is a ve-ry Smart Girl.” “Howdy, Zeb.” “Howdy, Gay. What have I told you about picking up strange men?” “You’ve told me nothing, Zeb. And Tik-Tok is not a strange man. He is a gentleman, which is more than I can say for some people.” “Tru-ly, Cap-tain, I meant no im-pro-pri-e-ty.” “Just kidding, folks. Thanks for keeping Gay company, Tik-Tok.” “It was a plea-sure and a pri-vi-lege. I ar-ranged with the night watch-man to wind me up each hour in or-der that our con-ver-sa-tion be not a-brupt-ly ter-mi-nat-ed.” “Smart of you. Thanks again and we’ll see you again. We’ll be back for a visit, first chance. Gay, open up.” “You didn’t say ‘Please,'” my autopilot answered, but she opened her doors. “I am de-ligh-ted to hear that you are re-tur-ning. Miss Gay De-cei-ver and I have much in com-mon.” Sharpie said good-bye to Tik-Tok, went inside. Deety not only said good-bye but kissed his copper cheek – Deety would kiss a pig if the pig would hold still for it (if he didn’t, I would turn him into sausage; kissing Deety is not to be scorned). Hilda reappeared, still in evening gown. “Deety, come here. Hurry!” I shook hands with Tik-Tok (odd!) and suggested that he back off a little. Then I went inside. No sign of our wives – I called to them, “Shake it up in there. I want a pilot suit.” Deety called out, “Zebadiah, wiggle your way through the bulkhead.” “I can’t change clothes back there.” “Please, dear. I need you.” When Deety says she needs me, I go. So I wiggled through, and the space didn’t seem as cramped as it had been when I was working on it at Termite Terrace. “Where are you?” “In here. Port side,” came Deety’s muffled voice. I turned around, banging my head, and found a door where a door shouldn’t be. I had to stoop but once through it I could stand up. A room slightly bigger than a telephone booth – a door aft, a door forward, Sunbonnet Sue to the left, Buster Brown to the right. Deety opened the door on the left. “Come look!” A luxurious dressing room and bath – “It’s the same one as in the ‘Welcome’ cottage,” said Deety, “except that the window is frosted and doesn’t open. But the air is fresh.” I said “Hmmm – ” Then I added, “Well, well!” I checked out Buster Brown. Yes, the same bathroom Jake and I had used yesterday. Jake stuck his head in. I said, “Perfesser, give me the benefit of your wisdom.” “Zeb, I’m fresh out.” “Jake – your opinion, please. Is this craft ready for space?” “Zeb, I don’t know.” “Let’s check the outside.” We went over the shell with eyes and fingers, port and starboard. That car was unblemished – coutside. But from inside I heard a toilet flushing. I went inside, on back, still on back, and knocked on Sunbonnet Sue. Sharpie let me in. “Just leaving, Zebbie,” She had elected to wear one of her new jump suits and looked like a Cracker Jack prize. “Deet’ is about ready.” “Wait a half, Sharpie. Jake and I have decided to trust Glinda.” “Was there any doubt?” I stepped inside; Deety twisted around at the dressing table, smiled through a mouthful of bobby pins. “Your father and I have approved this craft for space – tentatively – Captain Deety.” “I approved it at breakfast – and not tentatively. What do you have there, dear one?” She accepted a list from me, read it over:
NameDutyAdditional and/or Relief Duty D. T. B. CarterCommanding
Hilda S. Burroughs2nd in Command & NavigatorScience Officer & Chef
Z. J. CarterChief PilotRelief Navigator J. J. BurroughsCopilotSous-Chef
“It’s intended to make your life easier, Cap’n Deety. Jake didn’t get the going-over he should have had. But with Jake in the right-hand seat and me over him, I can keep him in hand – and he’ll be so busy with his verniers that he won’t have time to talk back. ‘Sous-Chef’ is a fancy way of saying that he’ll be under his wife’s thumb when we’re grounded.” “It’s well thought out, Zebadiah. Thank you.” “Suits you?” “Let me study it.” I got fidgety, ducked into Buster Brown and killed time until she called me. “Slight revision, Zebadiah.”
Zebadiah2nd in Command & Chief Master at ArmsInstructor Duo, Air
JakeChief PilotInstructor Verniers HildaCopilotScience Officer & Executive Chef
Note: Cooking will rotate D-J-Z unless changed by the Executive Chef.
“A ‘Slight revision’!” – I felt offended. Deety looked at me anxiously. “I’m submitting it for your advice, Zebadiah. I want to continue Pop’s policy of everybody learning every job, at least well enough to limp home. Hilda will learn the verniers quickly; she’s deft, she doesn’t have to be told twice, and the inventor I have placed at her elbow. Pop needs practice in air; he isn’t as good as he thinks he is and he’s never driven a car this fast. You’ll be behind him, ready to bounce him out of trouble. Dear – will it work?” I was forced to admit that Deety’s T.O. was better than mine. “It’s better than mine, so you owe me a forfeit. Where are my handcuffs and nightstick?” “As second-in-command you are vested with the duty to keep order and to see that the commanding officer’s orders are carried out, are you not?” “Of course, Deety – Captain Deety – why rub their noses in it?” “You know why, Zebadiah. I am reminding everyone that I mean to have a taut ship – and no back talk! You don’t need handcuffs or a club. But in that right-hand dressing-table drawer is a ten-centimeter roll of adhesive tape – the size gangsters use for gags.” “Oh. Oho!” “Zebadiah! Don’t use it without my direct order. I shall maintain a taut ship. But when I’ve served my time, I would much rather my father was still speaking to me. It’s a last resort, my husband. A sharp Pipe-down from you is all P – anybody will ever need. I intend to keep you at the conn most of the time – unless you ask me to relieve you, or I tell you I want to conn something personally.” “Suits.” “Very well, sir. You have the conn. Give them their assignments, prepare the car for space, take the reports, let me know here when you are ready. Revision in plan: Take us straight up one thousand klicks. Let us look at Oz from a distance, then continue by plan.” “Aye aye, Captain.” I started to leave while thinking that Deety might leave a reputation equal to that of Captain Bligh. “Zebadiah!” “Yes, Captain?” “Don’t go ‘way without kissing me or I won’t take the bloody job!” “I didn’t realize that the Captain cared to be kissed.” “Captains need kisses more than most people,” she answered, her face muffled against my shoulder. “Got a fresh new stock. Will there be anything else, Ma’am?” “Yes.” “What?” “When I’ve served my time, will you use your influence to put me on the verniers? And – sometime – will you teach me supersonic?” “Verniers, yes. Supersonic – A man who takes his wife as a pupil is breeding a divorce. Gay will teach you supersonic if you will let her. At super- or hypersonic she’s safest on autopilot. She won’t hurt herself – but if you override, you may hurt her, she may hurt you.” “But you override. How am I to learn?” “Easy. Give her a program. Leave it loose enough for her to correct your goofs. Keep your hands and feet very lightly on the controls. Be patient, and eventually you’ll be part of Gay and Gay will be part of you. Shut up and kiss me.” Captains kiss better. Ten minutes later we were ready for space. I asked, “Did anyone leave anything in our annex?” I wasn’t thinking about it; Jake had reported: “Juice one point zero – full capacity!” “Hilda and I hung up our dresses.” “Captain, do you realize that our magical space warp will probably go back wherever it came from the instant we leave?” “Want to bet? Glinda wouldn’t pull a trick like that.” “It’s your dress, Cap’n. But your exec advises you officially to warn all hands never to leave anything essential in there during maneuvers.” I wiped the matter from my mind; Deety would do it her way. “Gay, are you going to go on being talkative on your own?” “Zeb, back on watch, I’ll be strictly business. But a girl is entitled to a night out once in a while.” “You’re a Smart Girl, Gay.” “So Tik-Tok told me, Zeb.” “Roger and out, Gay. Sharpie, set transition one thousand klicks H axis, plus.” “A thousand kilometers straight up, minimum-range scale, vernier setting three. Jacob, will you check me, please?” Jake reported the setting correct; I snapped, “Execute!” Jake put her nose-down: an Earthlike planet so covered with haze that I could make out no details other than straight down, where Oz was still sharp and framed by the impassable deserts. “Sharpie, please hand me the binox, then shift hats to ‘Science Officer’ and find out whether or not our new addition came along.” I had to help her undog the bulkhead door – Sharpie, in free fall, can’t brace herself to apply enough torque to loosen a dog I had fastened on the ground. Meanwhile Deety had been using the binox. “Zebadiah, it’s hazy everywhere but below us. Emerald City shines out green as Erin, and Glinda’s Palace gleams in the sunshine. But the rest might as well be Venus. Only it’s not.” “Daughter – Captain, I mean – have you looked at the stars?” Jake added, “I think it’s our own universe.” “It is, Pop? On which side of Orion is the Bull?” “Why, on – Jesus, Allah, and Zoroaster! It’s turned inside out!” “Yes, but not the way that other inside – out place was. Like Oz itself. East for west.” I asked my wife, “Captain Deety, is there anything odd about duration here?” “Doesn’t feel odd. But it’s been about a century since those three little girls moved to Oz. I don’t know what it feels like to them, and I carefully didn’t ask. Did anybody notice that there were no clocks and no calendars?” “Zebbie!” “Yes, Sharpie?” I answered. “Our new plumbing works just dandy. Be careful going in; it’s not free fall; the floor is down. I did a spectacular somersault.” “Hilda my love, are you hurt?” “Not a bit, Jacob. But next time I’ll hang on to something, pull myself down even with the deck, and slide in.” “Science Officer, secure all doors, return to your seat and strap down. Then swap hats and set next rotation by schedule.” “I fastened the doors. I’m dogging the bulkhead door. Okay, I’m strapping down. Where are the binoculars?” “Jake stowed them. All hands, stand by to rotate.” Another totally black one – I said, “Captain, we’ll tumble now unless you prefer to check our new plumbing first.” “Plumbing isn’t Deety’s job! I’m Science Officer and that includes hygiene, plumbing, and space warps.” Deety said to me, “I relieve you, dear” – then more loudly, to Hilda: “Copilot, pipe down. Pop, dowse the lights and tumble us. Aunt Hillbilly, attempt to set next rotation by touch and sound, in the dark. That’s number eight, third of second group.” “Aye aye, Captain Bligh.” The tumble showed nothing. Jake switched on lights, reported that Sharpie had set the next rotation correctly. Deety asked me to relieve her at the conn, then said, “Science Officer, I am about to inspect the addition to your department; please accompany me.” Without a word Sharpie did so. They were gone quite a while. At last I said, “Jake, what do women talk about in can conferences?” “I’m afraid to find out.” They came back full of giggles; I concluded that Deety’s disciplinary methods worked. As they strapped down, Deety said, “Dear, it’s black as sin out there – and sunlight streaming in both bathroom windows. Riddle me that.” “Science Officer’s department,” I evaded. “Stand by to rotate.” This time Jake not only had air, I could hear it. Jake got her leveled out hastily. “Copilot, H-above-G!” “Thirteen hundred meters.” “Too close! Zeb, I’m going to retire and take up tatting. Where are we? I can’t see a thing.” “We’re over water, Pop, with a light fog. I see a shoreline to starboard.” Jake turned Gay to the right, I picked out the shoreline. Gay’s wings were spread; Jake held her at an easy glide and placed her on automatic. “We’ll leave this kite sealed now; I won’t check the air without going up high.” “Sail ho!” “Where away, Sharpie?” “Starboard bow. A sailing ship.” Durn if it wasn’t. A square-rigger out of the seventeenth century, high forecastle and sterncastle. Jake took us down for a better look. I wasn’t afraid; people who sail ships like that don’t use guided missiles – so I kept telling myself. It was a pretty sight. Jake dropped the starboard wing so that we could have a good look. But we must not have been a “pretty sight” to them; sailors were rushing around and the helmsman let her get away from him and she fell into irons, her canvas flapping foolishly. Not wanting to get the poor fellow keelhauled, I told Jake to level off and head for land. Deety said, “Good God, Pop, you scared me silly.” “Why, Deety? – Captain Deety. They were scared-but surely you aren’t scared by black-powder cannon?” “You almost put the starboard wing into the water.” “Don’t be silly, Deety; I was above two hundred meters. Well, maybe a hundred and fifty when I did that steep turn. But plenty of room.” “Take a look at your altimeter. And pressure.” Jake looked and so did I. The radar altimeter stated that we were nineteen meters above the water; Jake had to change scales to read it. Pressure showed well over a thousand millibars – a sea-level high. So I snapped, “Gay Bounce!” Gay did and I caught my breath. “Deety, how did I make that error?” Jake asked. “I don’t know, Pop. I can see the right wing tip; you can’t. When it looked to me as if you might cut the water, I looked at the instruments. I was about to yell when you straightened out.” “Captain, I was driving seat-of-my-pants by the ship’s masts. I would swear I never got within three hundred meters of that ship, on the slant. That should put me plenty high.” Sharpie said, “Jacob, don’t you recognize this place?” “Hilda, don’t tell me you’ve been here before?” “Only in books, Beloved. A child’s version in third grade. A more detailed version in junior high. Finally I laid hands on the unexpurgated version, which was pretty racy for the age I was then. I still find it pleasantly bawdy.” “Sharpie,” I demanded, “what are you talking about?” Jake answered. “Zeb, what sort of ship could cause me to think I was high in the air when in fact I was about to pole-vault into the sea?” “I’ve got it!” said Deety. “I give up,” I admitted. “Tell him, Pop.” “One manned by sailors fifteen centimeters high.” I thought about it. We were approaching land; I told Jake to glide to two klicks by instrument and told Gay to hold us there – it seemed much higher. “If anyone runs across Dean Swift, will you give him a swift kick for me?” Deety said, “Zebadiah, do you suppose the land of the giants – Brobdingnag – is on this continent?” “I hope not.” “Why not, dear? It should be fun.” “We don’t have time to waste on either Lilliputians or giants. Neither would have obstetricians able to take care of you two. Sharpie, get ready to take us up a hundred thousand klicks. Then to rotate. Does anyone have any theory about what has been happening to us? Aside from Sharpie’s notion that we are dead and don’t know it?” “I have another theory, Zebbie.” “Give, Sharpie.” “Don’t laugh – because you told me that you and Jacob discussed the heart of it, the idea that human thought exists as quanta. I don’t know quanta from Qantas Airways, but I know that a quantum is an indivisible unit. You told me that you and Jacob had discussed the possibility that imagination had its own sort of indivisible units or quanta – you called them ‘fictons’-or was it ficta? Either way, the notion was that every story ever told – or to be told if there is a difference – exists somewhere in the Number of the Beast.” “But, Hilda my love, that was merely abstract speculation!” “Jacob, your colleagues regard this car as ‘abstract speculation.’ Didn’t you tell me that the human body is merely complex equations of wave forms? That was when I bit you – I don’t mind being a wave form, waves are pretty; I bit you for using the adverb ‘merely.” “Zebadiah, there is a city on the left. Shouldn’t we look at it before we leave?” “Captain, you must decide that. You saw what a panic we caused in that ship. Imagine yourself fourteen centimeters tall and living in that city. Along comes a great sky monster and dives on you. Would you like it? How many little people will faint? How many will die of heart failure? How many are you willing to kill to satisfy your curiosity?” I added, “To those people we are monsters worse than ‘Black-Hat’ vermin.” “Oh, dear! You’re right, Zebadiah – dismally so. Let’s get out of here.” “Copilot, set to transit straight up one hundred thousand klicks.” “Transition ‘H’ axis, positive, vernier setting five – set!” “Execute.” I continued, “Captain, I’d like to sit here a while.” “Very well, Zebadiah.” “Sharpie, let’s hear your theory. Captain, I’ve been scared silly by too many narrow escapes. We know how to translate from one Earth-analog to the next; just use plenty of elbow room. But these rotations are making me white-haired. The laws of chance are going to catch up with us.” “Zebbie, I don’t think the laws of chance have anything to do with it. I don’t think we have been in any danger in any rotation.” “So? Sharpie, I’m about to swap jobs with you as quickly as I can get the Captain’s permission.” “No, no! I -“ “Chicken!” “Zebbie, your hunches are part of why I say that the laws of chance are not relevant.” “Sharpie, statistical laws are the most firmly established of all natural laws.” “Do they apply in the Land of Oz?” asked Deety. “Uh – Damned if I know! Touché!” “Zeb, Hilda has not expressed it as I would; nevertheless I agree with her.) To call the equations used in statistics ‘laws of nature’ is a misnomer. Those equations measure the degree of our ignorance. When I flip a coin and say that the chance of heads or tails is fifty-fifty, I am simply declaring total ignorance as to outcome. If I knew all conditions, the outcome might be subject to precalculation. But we have experienced two universes having physical laws unlike those of our home universe.” “Three, Jacob. Lilliput makes three.” “I don’t follow you, my dear.” “The cube-square law that runs through all biology does not apply here. A human brain can’t be placed in a space the size of a thimble by our biophysical laws. But we’re getting away from the theory Zebbie wanted me to expound. Shall I go on?” “Yes,” Deety ruled. “Everybody shut up but Aunt Hilda. I’m zipping my own lip. Hillbilly – proceed.” “All right. It’s not chance that we have been in three universes – InsideOut, the Land of Oz, and Lilliput – in … less than twenty-four hours, isn’t it, Deety?” “Less than twenty-one, Aunt Hilda.” “Thanks hon. It’s not chance that those three are ‘fictional’ universes – I have to call them that for lack of a better word – well known to each of us. By coincidence – and again I don’t have a good word but it’s not ‘chance’ – all four of us are addicted to fanciful stories. Fantasy. Fairy tales. We all like the same sort of stories. How many of us like detective stories?” “Some – not all,” said Deety. “My sole loyalty is to Sherlock Holmes,” I said. “Waste of time,” said Jake. “I’d like to try an experiment,” Hilda went on. “Write down the twenty stories you have enjoyed most. Or groups of related stories – the Oz books would count as one, so would the Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars series, and so would the four voyages of ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’ Make them stories you reread for pleasure when you are too tired to tackle a new book.” “Sharpie, is it cheating to ask how you mean to use this?” “No, Zebbie. If my theory is right, the next time we rotate and find ourselves near a planet, it will turn out to be the scene of a story or group of stories that appears on all four lists. We’ll arrive high enough that Jacob will have plenty of time to level off but close enough that we can ground. But we will never rotate into a mass or any danger that we can’t handle. This isn’t chance; we haven’t been dealing with chance. The Land of Oz surprised me. Lilliput didn’t surprise me at all; I expected it. Or at least a place that all of us know through Stories.” “How about those empty universes?” I demanded. “Maybe they are places about which stories will be written or maybe stories have already been told but aren’t favorites of us four, so we don’t emerge close to their scenes. But those are guesses. So far as my theory is concerned, such Universes are ‘null’ – they don’t count one way or the other. We find our universes.” “Sharpie, you have just invented pantheistic multiperson solipsism. I didn’t think it was mathematically possible.” “Zeb, anything is mathematically possible.” “Thanks, Jacob. Zebbie, ‘solipsism’ is a buzz word. I’m saying that we’ve stumbled onto ‘The Door in the Wall,’ the one that leads to the Land of Heart’s Desire. I don’t know how and have no use for fancy rationalizations. I see a pattern; I’m not trying to explain it. It just is.” “How does that hollow world fit your theory?” “Well, Deety called it Pellucidar -“ “It was!” ” – but I’ve read dozens of stories about worlds underground; I’ll bet all of us have. Jules Verne, S. Fowler Wright, H. G. Wells, C. L. Moore, Lovecraft – all the great masters of fantasy have taken a crack at it. Please, can we stop talking? I want all four lists before we rotate again.” Jake changed attitude so that Lilliput’s planet was dead ahead and told Gay to hold it there. The planet looked very small, as if we were a million kilometers out – reasonable, I decided, and wrote down “The Dorsai yarns.” At last Deety announced, “I’m through, Aunt Hillbilly.” Soon after, her father handed Sharpie his list. “Don’t count those I’ve lined out, dear – I had trouble holding it down.” “‘Twenty’ is arbitrary, Jacob. I can leave your extras in.” “No, dear, the four I eliminated do not stand as high as the twenty I retained.” After some pencil-chewing I announced, “Sharpie, I’m stuck at seventeen. Got a baker’s dozen more in mind, but no choice.” “Seventeen will do, Zebbie – if they are your prime favorites.” “They are.” Hilda accepted my list, ran her eye down it. “A psychoanalyst would have a wonderful time with these.” “Wait a half! Sharpie, if you’re going to let a shrink see those lists, I want mine back.” “Zebbie darling, I wouldn’t do that to you.” She added, “I need a few minutes to tally.” I glanced at Lilliput. “Need help?” “No. I’ve tallied a ‘one’ after all on my list. I’ve checked Deety’s against mine and tallied a ‘two’ where they match, and added to the bottom of my list, with one vote tallied against each, those she picked but I didn’t. I’m doing the same with Jacob’s list, tallying three’s and two’s and one’s. Then Zebbie and we’ll wind up with a four-vote list – unanimous – and a list with three each – and a list with two, and with one.” Sharpie kept busy some minutes, then took a fresh sheet, made a list, folded it. “This should be in a sealed envelope to establish my reputation as a fortuneteller. Zebbie, there are nine soi-disant fictional universes listed. Any close approach we make by rotation should be near one of them.” I said, “You included Pellucidar?” “Pellucidar got only two votes. I stick to my theory that the inside-out world is a composite of underground fantasies. But our vote identified that third universe – the blinding lights, the one that worried you about radiation.” “The hell you say!” “I think it did. Four votes for Doctor Isaac Asimov’s ‘Nightfall.’ I expected his Foundation stories to make it but they got only three votes. Too bad, because his library planet might be able to tell us what those vermin are, where they come from – and how to beat them.” “My fault, Aunt Hillbilly. Pop told me I should read the Foundation series… but I never did.” “Sharpie,” I said, “we can put you down in New York in five minutes. The Good Doctor is getting on in years – turns out less than a million words a year now – but still likes pretty girls. He must know whatever is in the Galactic Library; he invented it. So telephone him. Better yet, sit on his lap. Cry if necessary.” “Zebbie, if there is one place I’m certain is loaded with ‘Black Hat’ vermin, it’s New York City! You sit on his lap!” “Not me. If we learn how to delouse our home planet, I’ll work on a way to spread the word. But I’m number one on their death list.” “No, Jacob is.” “No, Sharpie. Jake and Deety are dead, you are kidnapped, and I’m marked down to be ‘terminated with extreme prejudice.’ But I’ll risk grounding on the Hudson River VTOL flat long enough for you to visit the Good Doctor. Your husband can escort you; I’m going to hide in the bathroom. I figure that is actually in Oz and therefore safe.” “Go lay an egg!” “Sharpie dear, none of us is going to Earth-zero. Hand that list to Deety; she won’t peek. Captain, shall we rotate? The Science Officer has me half convinced that we can get away with it; let’s do it before I lose my nerve. Fourth and last universe in the second group, isn’t it?” I asked Sharpie. “Yes, Zebbie.” “Anybody as chicken as I am, speak up!… Isn’t anybody going to get us out of this!…… Execute!”
Chapter XXXIV
” – all my dreams do come true!”
Zeb: Gay Deceiver was right side up five hundred meters above a sunlit, gentle countryside. Jake set her to cruise in a circle. I asked, “Are we back in Oz? Sharpie, check your setting.” “Not Oz, Zebbie. I’ve stuck to schedule.” “Okay. Does your magic list tell you where we are?” “If it’s one of the nine, then it’s – ” Hilda wrote a word on a sheet, folded it, handed it to me. “Stick this in your pocket.” I tucked it away. “Jake, bounce us, then range-and-target to ground us in that meadow. We’ll test the air when we’re down. Safer.” Jake zeroed Gay in; she grounded. “Zeb,” he said fretfully, “how can I tell what juice we have? The gauge still reads ‘Capacity.” “Let me think about it.” “All right. Has the Captain worked out that new scram?” “I think so, Pop. Take G.D. straight up a hundred thousand klicks, but do it in two words, in total darkness, or with eyes dazzled, or anything. As long as anyone can get out two syllables we’ll zip far enough away from trouble that we’ll have time to work out what to do next.” “Good enough. Can you program it before I open a door?” “I think so, Zebadiah. If she’s asleep, G.D. will wake up and do it at once.” “Okay, will you program it? Hilda, set up the same thing on your dials as a back-up. Meanwhile I’m going to give the plumbing a field test. Don’t touch the doors till I get back.” I returned in a few minutes. “Our magic space warp is still with us – don’t ask me why or I’ll scream. New program inserted?” “Yes, Zebadiah. On tell-me-three-times and protected against execution without the doors being closed and locked. I’ve written down the magic words. Here.” Deety handed me a scrap of paper. On it was: “Gay – Zoom!” “It’s the shortest program with an unusual monosyllable that I can think of.” “Its shortness may save our necks. Swap seats with me, Sharpie, it’s my turn to be pioneer mother. Everybody, hold your breath; I’m going to sniff the air.” “Zebbie, this planet is Earthlike to nine decimal places.” “Which gives me a cheap chance to play hero.” I opened her door a crack, sniffed. Shortly I said, “I feel okay. Anybody woozy?” “Open the door wide, Zebbie; this place is safe.” I did so and stepped out into a field of daisies; the others followed me. It certainly seemed safe – quiet, warm, peaceful, a meadow bounded by a hedge row and a stream. Suddenly a white rabbit came running past, headed for the hedge. He barely paused, pulled a watch from his waistcoat pocket, glanced at it, then moaned, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” and ran even faster. Deety started after him. “Deety!” I yelled. She stopped short. “I want to find the rabbit hole.” “Then keep your eye on her. You’re not going down the hole.” “On whom?” Deety turned back toward the hedge row. A little girl in a pinafore was hurrying toward the spot where the rabbit had disappeared. “Oh. But it didn’t hurt her to go down the hole.” “No, but Alice had lots of difficulties before she got out. We haven’t time; this is not a place we can stay.” “Why not?” “Nineteenth-century England did not have advanced medicine.” “Zebbie,” put in Hilda, “this isn’t England. Read that slip.” I unfolded the scrap of paper, read: Wonderland. “Just so,” I agreed, and handed it to my wife. “But it is modeled on England in the eighteen-sixties. It either has no medicine, like Oz, or pre-Pasteur medicine. Possibly pre-Semmelweiss. Deety, do you want to die from childbed fever?” “No, I want to go to the Mad Tea Party.” “We can have a mad tea party; I went mad several universes back – and it’s time for lunch. Sharpie, you win the Order of Nostradamus with diamond cluster. May I ask two questions?” “One may always ask.” “Is H. P. Lovecraft on that list?” “He got only one vote, Zebbie. Yours.” “Chthulhu be thanked! Sharpie, his stories fascinate me the way snakes are said to fascinate birds. But I would rather be trapped with the King in Yellow than be caught up in the worlds of the Necronomicon. Uh… did any horrids get four votes?” “No, dear, the rest of us prefer happy endings.” “So do I! Especially when I’m in it. Did Heinlein get his name in the hat?” “Four votes, split. Two for his ‘Future History,’ two for ‘Stranger in a Strange Land.’ So I left him out.” “I didn’t vote for ‘Stranger’ and I’ll refrain from embarrassing anyone by asking who did. My God, the things some writers will do for money!” “Samuel Johnson said that anyone who wrote for any other reason was a fool.” “Johnson was a fat, pompous, gluttonous, dirty old fool who would have faded into the obscurity he so richly deserved had he not been followed around by a spit-licking sycophant. Spell that ‘Psycho-‘, as in ‘Bloch.'” I added, “Did Poul Anderson get in? Or Niven?” “Zebbie, that’s far more than two questions.” “I haven’t even reached the second question… which is: What do we have for a mad tea party?” “Surprise! Glinda had a picnic basket placed in our dressing room.” “I missed it,” I admitted. “You didn’t look in the wardrobe.” Sharpie grinned. “Can sandwiches from Oz be eaten in Wonderland? Or will they ‘softly and silently vanish away’?” “‘Be off, or I’ll kick you downstairs!'” Several hundred calories later I noticed a young man hovering nearby. He seemed to want to speak but was too diffident to do so. Deety jumped up, trotted toward him. “The Reverend Mister Dodgson, is it not? I’m Mrs. Zebadiah Carter.” He quickly removed his straw boater. “‘Mr. Dodgson,’ yes, uh, Mrs. Carter. Have we met?” “Long ago, before I was married. You are looking for Alice, are you not?” “Dear me! Why, yes, I am. But how -“ “She went Down the Rabbit-Hole.” Dodgson looked relieved. “Then she will be back soon enough. I promised to return her and her sisters to Christ Church before dark.” “You did. I mean, ‘you will.’ Same thing, depending on the coordinates. Come meet my family. Have you had luncheon?” “Oh, I say, I don’t mean to intrude.” “You aren’t intruding.” Deety took him by the hand, firmly. Since my treasure is stronger than most men, he came along… and let go her hand hastily as soon as she loosened her grip. We men got to our feet; Hilda remained in lotus. “Aunt Hilda, this is Mr. Dodgson, Lecturer in Mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford. My stepmother, Mrs. Burroughs.” “How do you do, Mrs. Burroughs. Oh dear, I am intruding!” “Not at all, Mr. Dodgson. Do sit down.” “And this is my father, Dr. Burroughs, Professor of Mathematics. And my husband Captain Carter. Aunt Hilda, will you find a clean plate for Mr. Dodgson?” The young don relaxed once introductions had been made but he was still far more formal than Deety intended to permit. He sat down on the turf, placed his hat carefully beside him, and said, “Truly, Mrs. Burroughs, I’ve just finished tea with three little girls.” Deety ignored his protests while she piled his plate with little sandwiches and cakes. Sharpie poured tea from a Thermos jug. They nailed him down with cup and plate. Jake advised, “Don’t fight it, son, unless you really must leave. Are Alice’s sisters safe?” “Why, yes, Professor; they are napping in the shade of a hayrick nearby. But -“ “Then relax. In any case, you must wait for Alice. What branch of mathematics do you pursue?” “Algebraic logic, usually, sir, with some attention to its applications to geometry.” The Reverend Mr. Dodgson was seated so that he faced Gay Deceiver and sat in the shadow of her port wing but nothing in his manner showed that he noticed the anachronism. “Have your studies led you into multidimensional non-Euclidean geometries?” Jake asked. Dodgson blinked. “I fear that I tend to be conservative in geometry, rathuh.” “Father, Mr. Dodgson doesn’t work in your field; he works in mine.” Dodgson raised his eyebrows slightly. Jake said, “My daughter did not introduce herself fully. She is Mrs. Carter but her maiden name is Doctor D. T. Burroughs. Her field is mathematical logic.” “That is why I am so pleased that you are here, Mr. Dodgson. Your book ‘Symbolic Logic’ is a milestone in our field.” “But, my dear lady, I have not written a work titled ‘Symbolic Logic.” “I’ve confused things. Again it is matter of selection of coordinates. At the end of the reign of Queen Victoria you will have published it five years earlier. Is that clear?” He answered very solemnly, “Quite clear. All I need do is to ask Her Majesty how much longer she is going to reign and subtract five years.” “That should do it. Do you like to play with sorites?” For the first time, he smiled. “Oh, very much!” “Shall we make up some? Then trade and solve them?” “Well… not too lengthy. I really must get back to my young charges.” “We can’t stay long, either. Anyone else want to play?” No one else elected to play. I stretched out on the grass with a handkerchief over my face; Jake and Sharpie went for a walk. “Shall we hold the statements down to groups of six?” Dodgson suggested. “All right. But the conclusion must be true. Not nonsense. Agreed?” (Deety had taught me this game; she’s good at it. I decided to be a silent witness.) They kept quiet while I snored convincingly, Deety was a “lady” for a while, then sprawled on her belly and chewed her pencil. I watched with one eye from under my handkerchief. First she covered several pages with scratch work in developing statements incomplete in themselves but intended to arrive at only one possible conclusion. Having done so, she tested them by symbolic logic, then wrote out her list of statements, mixing them randomly – clooked up. The young mathematician was looking at her solemnly, note pad in hand. “Finished?” my wife asked. “Just finished. Mrs. Carter, you remind me of my little friend Alice Liddell.” “I know,” she said. “That’s how I recognized her. Shall we trade?” Dodgson tore a sheet from his pad. “This is to be solved in the first person; its conclusion applies to you.” “All right, I’ll try it.” Deety read aloud:
“1) Every idea of mine, that cannot be expressed as a syllogism, is really ridiculous; “2) None of my ideas about Bath-buns are worth writing down; “3) No idea of mine, that fails to come true, can be expressed as a syllogism; “4) I never have any really ridiculous idea, that I do not at once refer to my solicitor; “5) My dreams are all about Bath-buns; “6) I never refer any idea of mine to my solicitor, unless it is worth writing down.” Deety chortled. “How sweet of you! It is true; all my dreams do come true!” “You solved it so quickly?” “But it’s only six statements. Have you solved mine?” “I haven’t read it yet.” He also read aloud: “1) Everything, not absolutely ugly, may be kept in a drawing room; “2) Nothing, that is encrusted with salt, is ever quite dry; “3) Nothing should be kept in a drawing room, unless it is free from damp; “4) Time-traveling machines are always kept near the sea; “5) Nothing, that is what you expect it to be, can be absolutely ugly; “6) Whatever is kept near the sea gets encrusted with salt.” He blinked at the list. “The conclusion is true?” he asked. “Yes.” For the first time he stared openly at Gay Deceiver. “That, then – I infer – is a ‘time-traveling machine.” “Yes… although it does other things as well.” “It is not what I expected it to be … although I am not sure what I expected a time-traveling machine to be.” I pulled his handkerchief off my face. “Do you want to take a ride, Mr. Dodgson?” The young don looked wistful. “I am sorely tempted, Captain. But I am responsible for three little girls. So I must thank you for your hospitality and bid you good-bye. Will you offer my apologies to Professor and Mrs. Burroughs and explain that duty calls me?”
Chapter XXXV
“It’s a disturbing idea – “
Jake: “Deety, how does it feel to say good-bye without getting kissed?” “Zebadiah, I didn’t make it possible. Lewis Carroll was terrified by females over the age of puberty.” “That’s why I stayed close. Deety hon, if I had gone with Jake and Hilda, he would have left at once.” “I can’t figure out how he got here in the first place,” said my dear wife Hilda. “Lewis Carroll was never in Wonderland; he simply wrote about it. But this is Wonderland – unless rabbits in England wear waistcoats and watches.” “Aunt Hilda, who can possibly be as deeply inside a story as the person who writes it?” “Hmm – I’ll have to study that.” “Later, Sharpie,” Zeb said. “Stand by to rotate. Mars, isn’t it?” “Right, Zebbie,” Hilda agreed. “Gay… Sagan!” Mars-zero lay ahead, in half phase at the proper distance. “Set!” Hilda reported. “To tenth universe, third group.” “Execute.” It was another starry void with no familiar groupings; we ran through routine, Zeb logged it as “possible” and we moved on to the second of the third group – and I found myself facing the Big and Little Dippers. Again we ran through a routine tumble – but failed to find the Sun or any planets. I don’t know the southern constellations too well but I spotted Crux and the Magellanic Clouds. To the north there could be no doubt about Cygnus and a dozen others. Zeb said, “Where is Sol? Deety? Sharpie?” “I haven’t seen it, Zebadiah.” “Zebbie, don’t go blaming me. I put it right back where I found it.” “Jake, I don’t like this. Sharpie, are you set?” “Set. Standing orders. Third group, third of three.” “Keep your finger near the button. How does this fit your theory? I don’t recall listing a story that doesn’t have the Solar System in it.” “Zebbie, it can’t fit two of those left, could fit the others, and could fit half a dozen or more that got three votes. You said that about a dozen were tied in your mind. Were any of them space-travel stories?” “Almost all.” “Then we could be in any world that takes our universe as a model but far enough from the Sun so that it appears as second or third magnitude. That wouldn’t have to be far; our Sun is pretty faint. So this could be the Darkover universe, or Niven’s Known Space, or Dr. Williamson’s Legion of Space universe, or the Star Trek universe, or Anderson’s world of the Polesotechnic League, or Dr. Smith’s Galactic Patrol world. Or several more.” “Sharpie, what were two that this could not be?” “King Arthur and his Knights, and the World of the Hobbits.” “If we find ourselves in either of those, we leave. No obstetricians. Jake, any reason to stay here longer?” “None that I see,” I answered. “Captain Deety, I advise scram. Those space-opera universes can be sticky. I don’t care to catch a photon torpedo or a vortex bomb or a negative-matter projectile, just through failure to identify ourselves promptly.” So we rotated. This time we weren’t merely close; we were on the ground. Charging straight at us was a knight in armour, lance couched in attack. I think it unlikely that a lance could damage Gay. But this “gentle knight” was unfriendly; I shouted, “Gay! – Zoom!” Sighed with relief at sudden darkness and at the Captain’s next words: “Thanks, Pop. You were on your toes.” “Thank you. End of group three. Back to Mars? S, A, G, A, N?” “Let’s get on with it,” Zeb agreed. “All Hands -“ “Zebadiah!” my daughter interrupted. “Is that all you wish to see of King Arthur and his Knights?” “Captain Deety, that wasn’t one of King Arthur’s Knights. He was wearing plated mail.” “That’s my impression,” my beloved agreed. “But I gave more attention to his shield. Field sable, argent bend sinister, in chief sun proper with crown, both or.” “Sir Modred,” my daughter decided. “I knew he was a baddie! Zebadiah, we should have hit him with your L-gun.” “Killed that beautiful beer-wagon horse? Deety, that sort of armor wasn’t made earlier than the fifteenth century, eight or nine centuries after the days of King Arthur.” “Then why was he carrying Sir Modred’s shield?” “Sharpie, was that Sir Modred’s coat of arms?” “I don’t know; I blazoned what I saw. Aren’t you nit-picking in objecting to plate armor merely because it’s anachronistic?” “But history shows that -“ “That’s the point, Zebbie. Camelot isn’t history; it’s fiction.” Zeb said slowly, “Shut my big mouth.” “Zebbie, I venture to guess that the version of Camelot we blundered into is a patchwork of all our concepts of King Arthur and the Round Table. I picked up mine from Tennyson, revised them when I read ‘Le Morte d’Arthur.’ Where did you get yours?” “Mark Twain gave me mine – ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.’ Add some Prince Valiant. Jake?” I said, “Zeb, there seems little doubt that there was a king or a general named Arthur or Arturius. But most people think of King Arthur from stories having little connection with any historical person. ‘The Sword in the Stone’ and ‘The Once and Future King’ are my favorites.” My daughter persisted, “I do believe in the Round Table, I do! We should go back and look! Instead of guessing.” “Captain Deety,” her husband said gently, “the jolly, murderous roughnecks called the Knights of the Round Table are fun to read about but not to know socially. Nor are people the only dangers. There would be honest-to-God dragons, and wyverns, and malevolent magic – not the Glinda-the-Good variety. We’ve learned that these alternate worlds are as real as the one we came from. We don’t need to relearn it by getting suddenly dead. That’s my official advice. If you don’t agree, will you please relieve me at the conn… Ma’am?” “Zebadiah, you’re being logical – a most unfair way to argue!” “Jacob,” said my wife, “suppose we were people who don’t like fanciful stories. What sort of worlds would we find?” “I don’t know, Hilda. Probably only humdrum slice-of-life universes indistinguishable from the real world. Correction: Substitute ‘Universe-zero’ for ‘real world’ – because, as your theory requires, all worlds are equally real. Or unreal.” “Jacob, why do you call our universe ‘universe-zero?” “Eh… for convenience. Our point of origin.” “Didn’t you tell me that no frame is preferred over any other? Each one to the Number of the Beast is equally zero in six axes?” “Well… theory requires it.” “Then we are fiction in other universes. Have I reasoned correctly?” I was slow in answering. “That seems to be a necessary corollary. It’s a disturbing idea: that we ourselves are figments of imagination.” “I’m nobody’s figment!” my daughter protested. “I’m real, I am! Pinch me!… Ouch! Zebadiah, not so hard!” “You asked for it, dear,” Zeb told her. “My husband is a brute. And I’ve got a cruel stepmother just like Snow White. I mean ‘Cinderella.’ And my Pop thinks I’m imaginary! But I love you anyway because you’re all I’ve got.” “If you fictional characters will pipe down, we’ll get this show on the road. Stand by to rotate. Gay Sagan!” Mars was where it should be. I felt more real.
Chapter XXXVI
“Pipe down and do your job.”
Hilda: “Set, Captain,” I reported. “Thirteenth rotation. Correct, Zebbie?” “Check, Sharpie. Captain?” Deety answered, “Let’s catch our breaths.” She stared out at the ruddy barrenness of Mars-zero. “That rock looks downright homelike. I feel like a tourist who tries to see thirty countries in two weeks. Shock. Not ‘future shock’ but something like it.” “Homesickness,” I told her. “Knowing that we can’t go back. Deety, somewhere, somewhen, we’ll build another Snug Harbor. Won’t we, Jacob?” Jacob patted my knee. “We will, dearest.” Deety said wistfully, “Will we really find another Snug Harbor?” “Deety, are you over your pioneer-mother jag?” “No, Zebadiah. But I can get homesick. Like you. Like Hilda. Like everybody but Pop.” “Correction, Daughter. I don’t miss Logan, and I don’t think Hilda misses California -“ “Not a bit!” I agreed. “Nor me,” agreed Zeb. “I had a rented flat. But Snug Harbor was home.” “Agreed,” Jacob answered. “I didn’t really hate these vermin until they bombed our home.” Jacob added, “We’ve got to find a new Snug Harbor. Comfortable as this car is, we can’t live in it indefinitely.” “Check. Sharpie, your theory seems to be checking out. Is there any reason to finish this schedule? Should we go directly to Teh axis?” “Zebbie, granted that most rotations didn’t amount to more than sightseeing, if we hadn’t followed this schedule, this car would not be nearly so comfortable. Do you know of another Ford that has two bathrooms?” “Sharpie, I don’t know of one that has one bathroom. Our space-warp special lets us stay in space as long as our air holds out. And food. But air is the critical factor.” I said, “Zebbie, have you noticed that our air does not get stuffy?” “It will soon.” “It need not,” Jacob pointed out. “We can scram-code to Oz, or to Wonderland, in seconds. Sweet air, no danger.” Zebbie looked sheepish. “I’m still learning what our wonder buggy will do.” “So am I.” “Gentlemen, you missed my point. You might check the juice. I haven’t mentioned another asset. Zebbie, would you like a banana?” “Sharpie, I ate the last before I buried garbage. While you and Deety were washing dishes before we left Wonderland.” “Tell him, Deety.” “Zebadiah, Hilda and I salvaged and put everything into the basket. Hilda started to put it into our wardrobe – and it was heavy. So we looked. Packed as tight as when we left Oz. Six bananas – and everything else. Cross my heart. No, go look.” “Hmmm – Jake, can you write equations for a picnic basket that refills itself? Will it go on doing so?” “Zeb, equations can be written to describe anything. The description would be simpler for a basket that replenishes itself indefinitely than for one that does it once and stops – I would have to describe the discontinuity. But I am no longer troubled by natural – or ‘unnatural’ – laws that don’t apply in Universe-zero.” “Mmmm… Science Officer, I suggest that you check on that basket now that we have returned to Universe-zero.” “Zebbie, make that an order in writing and sign your name – if you want to look foolish. Deety, will you order it logged?” “Sharpie, if you weren’t such good company, I’d strangle you. Your earlier answer recommended that we complete the rotations.” “No, I noted that the first twelve had not been unprofitable. We could have completed the last three by now had we not spent time debating it.” “Hilda honey, our cowardly Astrogator needed time to get his nerve back. By yumpin’ yiminy, once you’re all trained, I’m going to retire.” “We would simply recall you, Zebbie. Each will go on doing what she can do best.” “Time is out of joint. O curséd spite, that I was ever picked to set it right.” “You misquoted.” “I always do. What universe do we hit next?” “Zebbie, we have three rotations to go, with four left on the four-votes list. One is useless but amusing and safe. The other three are places to live but each has its own dangers. As the chief of surgery used to say: ‘I dunno, let’s operate and find out.” Zebbie sighed. “All hands, stand by to rotate. Execute!” Green fire – “Rotate! Execute!” A formless red fog – “Gay Sagan!” Mars looked like an old friend. Zebbie wiped his brow and said, “Whew! One to go – Cap’n Deety hon, let’s get it over with. Sharpie?” “Fifteenth universe – set!” I reported. “Execute!” We came out into a starry universe. “Cap’n Deety hon, don’t these constellations look familiar?” Zebbie commented. “I think so.” “They are familiar,” I insisted. “Except that there is a very bright star near the Gemini. That ought to be the Sun. We’re way out past Pluto, where the comets spend the winter. Let’s move in and find Earth.” “Don’t be in a hurry,” said Zebbie. “Science Officer, what was that first rotation? Green fire?” “How about the deadly green nebula in ‘The Legion of Space’? – on the trip to the Runaway Star where Aladoree had been taken.” “That was on your list?” “All of us voted for it.” “What was that red fog we rotated into next?” “That one is harder to figure,” I admitted. “It could be any universe by a writer who paid respectful attention to astronomy – Bova, Haldeman, Schmidt, Pournelle, Niven, Benford, Clement, Anderson, and so forth. But there were four votes for ‘The Mote in God’s Eye.’ Whether the two old gentlemen had anything to do with it or not, I think we blundered into a red giant. A red giant is close to what we call vacuum. Anyhow, we weren’t hurt; we were there about two seconds.” “Less than that, Sharpie; you set it with one click, and barely had your thumb off the execute button. Captain, do you wish to transit toward that bright star?” “Let’s chop off thirty or forty A.U.’s,” Deety decided, “and get a rough cross fix. Maybe that will give us a disc Pop can measure. If not, we’ll narrow it down until it does. Then place us one A.U. from the Sun and we’ll spot Earth easily. Astrogator – advice.” “Captain, I advise making that first jump with wide offset. Miss the Sun by at least one A.U. At least.” “Yes! Zebadiah, make that cross fix wide. Uh – ” Deety peered around. “There’s the Sickle. Have Pop aim for Regulus.” My husband said, “I’m swinging toward Regulus. Zeb, how do I take the angular width of the Solar disc without broiling an eyeball?” “The gunsight has a built-in polarizer. Didn’t I show you?” “You did not.” “Sorry. Captain Deety hon, I request permission to relieve the Chief Pilot for this.” “Permission granted. But, Zebadiah, you be careful.” “Spacecraft! Identify yourself!” – the voice was everywhere. Zebbie jerked with surprise. (Me, too!) “Who said that?” “Lensman Ted Smith, Commander Galactic Patrol, commanding Patrol Vessel ‘Nighthawk.’ Entity, I regret being forced to enter your mind but you have been ignoring sub-ether radio for four minutes thirty-two seconds. Switch it on and I will get out of your mind. Do not maneuver; we have weapons on you.” “Captain,” Jacob whispered, “Hilda is set to rotate.” Deety shook her head, touched Zebbie’s arm, pointed to herself. “Lensman, this is Captain Deety, commanding Continua Craft Gay Deceiver. We don’t have sub-ether radio. Do you read me?” “I read you loud and clear. What happened to your sub-ether radio? Do you need help?” “Captain Smith, I don’t have sub-ether radio at all. We don’t need help but could use astrogational advice. Where are we?” “The important point is that you are in my patrol sector, an unscheduled ship insufficiently identified. I repeat: DO NOT MANEUVER. By order of the Galactic Patrol. Do you understand?” “I understand you, Lensman. I regret having intruded into your patrol space. This is a private ship engaged in peaceful exploration.” “That is what I am about to determine, Captain. Stay where you are, make no hostile moves, and you will be safe.” “Lensman, can you see through my eyes?” “Are you inviting me to do so?” “Certainly. Use my eyes, use my ears. But don’t try to take over my mind or this ship will disappear.” Deety squeezed my shoulder; I signaled “Roger” with a pat. “I warn you not to maneuver. Ah … interesting!” I snapped, “Captain Smith, quit threatening us! A Lensman is supposed to be an officer and gentleman! I intend to report you to the Port Admiral! You’re an oaf!” “Sorry, Madam. I do not wish to offend but I have duty to perform. Captain, will you please turn your head so that I can see who is speaking?” “Certainly. Let me introduce all of us. On my left” – Deety looked at Zebbie – “is Doctor Zebadiah Carter. In front of him is Doctor Jacob Burroughs. On his right” – Deety looked at me – “is his wife, Doctor Hilda Burroughs, xenobiologist and chief of science. Let me offer you this advice, Lensman: It is never safe to offend Doctor Hilda.” “I gathered that impression, Captain. Doctor Hilda, I would not willingly offend – but I have duties. Shall I get out of your mind entirely? If you speak to me, I will hear with Captain Deety’s ears. She can, if she will, repeat to you my thought in answer.” “Oh, it’s all right for conversation. But don’t try to go deeper! Mentor would not like it – as you know!” “Doctor Hilda, your mention of … a certain entity… surprises me – from one who is not a Lensman.” “I don’t need a Lens. You can check that with Arisia.” Deety said hastily, “Lensman, are you satisfied that we are a peaceful party of scientists? Or is there something more that you wish to know?” “Captain, I can see that this ship is not a pirate vessel – unarmed and unarmoured. Oh, I note controls for a coherent light gun but that wouldn’t be much use to a pirate. Nor can I visualize two men and two women attempting to attack a space liner. But keeping the peace is just one of my responsibilities. Your ship, small as it is, could be carrying millions of credits in contraband.” “Say what you mean, Lensman,” I snapped. “Drugs. But don’t use the word ‘zwilnik.'” Mentally, we could hear him sigh. “Yes, Doctor Hilda – drugs. But I did not introduce that offensive word into the discussion.” “I heard you thinking it. Don’t do it again!” “Lensman,” Deety said quickly, “we have medical drugs. The only one that could interest you is a few milligrams of morphine. But we carry no thionite, no bentlam, no hadive, no nitrolabe. You are using your Lens; you know that I’m telling the truth.” “Captain, it’s not that easy. Before I hailed you I did try a slight probe – please, Doctor Hilda; it was in line of duty! I’ve never encountered minds so fully blocked. And this is a most curious craft. It is obviously designed for aerodynamic use rather than space. Yet here you are – and I can’t see how you got here. I have no choice but to detain you and to examine this ship thoroughly. If necessary, take it apart piece by piece.” “Lensman,” Deety said earnestly, “don’t be hasty. You can search more thoroughly by Lens than by other means. Go ahead. We’ve nothing to hide and we have a great deal to offer the Patrol. But you won’t get it by pushing us around.” “You certainly won’t! Cap’n, let’s leave! I’m tired of stupidity!” – and I snapped, “Gay Sagan!” Mars-zero was on our starboard bow. That dead rock looked awfully good to me. Zebbie said, “Captain, did you order the copilot to execute?” I said, “Don’t bother Deety with it, Zebbie. I did it without permission. Solely my decision.” Zebbie frowned unhappily. “Sharpie, I thought you would be our model Girl Scout while Deety is skipper. Why?” “Zebbie, you can rotate back there in no time. But I would like to be dropped first. Imperial House. Or Minus-J. Somewhere.” “Why, Hilda?” my husband asked. “Jacob, meet your friendly neighborhood zwilnik. Commander Ted Smith of the Galactic Patrol – a fine officer; I’m certain, as Dr. E. E. Smith saw to it that no unworthy person could ever wear the Lens – was getting unpleasantly close. That’s why I was so fierce with the poor man.” Deety said, “But, Aunt Hilda, E. E. Smith’s world is just the sort of world we’ve been seeking.” “Maybe we’ll go back. But not until I’ve had a chance to dump two pounds of concentrated extract of Cannabis magnifica. Dr. Wheatstone tells me that it is incredibly valuable in therapy, as the base for endless drugs. But I had a hunch that Commander Smith would confiscate it, impound the Smart Girl, arrest all of us – and convict me. But that isn’t all, Zebbie. Doctor Smith created one of the most exciting universes I know of. To read about, not to live in. With that endless Boskone War – must have been going on; they were looking for zwilniks – you have to be as smart as Kimball Kinnison to stay alive… and even he gets chopped up now and again. Deety and I need a good baby-cotcher and I’m sure they have them. But we have months to find one. Let’s not deliberately back into a war.” Deety didn’t hesitate. “I agree with Aunt Hilda. If we go back, it will not be while I’m captain. Hillbilly, you didn’t disobey orders; you used your head in an emergency.” I thought Deety was going to ask me how and when I got Cannabis magnifica extract… but she didn’t. “Jake,” Zebbie said, “we’re overruled. Where now, Captain? Earth-Teh-one-plus?” “First we’d better pick a place to spend the night, and hold an election.” “Why, Deety, you’ve served less than twelve hours!” “It will be about twenty-four hours when we lift off tomorrow. I’m not going to ask for nominations; we’ve all had a turn at it; we are now balloting for permanent captain.” I expected Zebbie to be picked. But there were three for me, one for Zebbie – my ballot. I seemed to be the only one surprised. Zebbie said to Deety, “Ask to be relieved now, hon. The short-timer syndrome is bad for anyone but worse for a C.O. – it demoralizes her crew.” “Aunt Hilda, will you relieve me?” I pondered it half a second. “I relieve you, Deety.” “Goody! I think I’ll take a nap.” “I think you’ll take the verniers. Zebbie and Jacob stay in the jobs they’re in. Prepare to maneuver. Copilot, set for Oz. If you don’t know how, ask your father.” “Set verniers for Oz?” I took a deep breath to calm down. “Before anyone starts asking ‘Why?’ the answer is: Pipe down and do your job. Before we start on Teh axis, I want to ask questions. We talked to Glinda about our problem. We didn’t talk directly to the others. I mean Ozma and Professor Wogglebug and the Little Wizard and possibly others. Family, magicians who can install two bathrooms in a Ford and never have it show can also help us spot vermin if we ask the right questions. Deety, are you having trouble setting for Oz?” “Captain, why set verniers? Gay has our parking spot in her perms. Codeword ‘Glinda.” A few seconds later Gay called out, “Hi, Tik-Tok!” “Wel-come back, Miss Gay De-cei-ver. Glin-da told me that you would be gone on-ly a few mi-nutes, so I wai-ted here for you. I am deep-ly hap-py to see you a-gain.”
Chapter XXXVII
The First Law of Biology
Zeb: “Stand by to maneuver,” I ordered – at the conn by Captain Sharpie’s wish “Hello, Gay.” “Howdy, Zeb. You look hung over.” “I am. Gay Home!” Arizona was cloudless. “Crater verified, Captain Hilda.” “Teh axis one plus – set, Captain,” Deety reported. “Execute!” “No crater, Cap’n Auntie. No house. Just mountains.” Deety added, “Teh-one-minus – set.” “Roger, Deety. Routine check, Captain?” “Voice routine, short schedule.” (I think that is what got Sharpie elected permanent C.O. – she never hesitates.) “Gay Deceiver. Sightseeing trip. Five klicks H-above-G.” “Ogle the yokels at five thousand meters. Let’s go!” “Deety, keep your thumb on the button. Gay – Miami Beach.” Below lay a familiar strip city. “Captain?” “Zebbie, note the crowded streets. Sunny day. Beaches empty. Why?” “Bogie six o’clock low!” Jake yelped. “Gay Zoom!” Earth-Teh-one-plus swam warm and huge. Opposite us a hurricane approached Texas. I asked, “Want to see more, Captain?” “Zebadiah, how can we see more when we haven’t seen any?” “But Cap’n Sharpie has, Deety. Folks, I’m unenthusiastic about a world where they shoot without challenging. Jake, your bogie was a missile?” “I think so, Zeb. Collision course with Doppler signature over a thousand knots and increasing.” “A missile – out of Homestead-analog, probably. Captain, these blokes are too quick on the trigger.” “Zebbie, I find empty beaches more disturbing. I can think of several reasons why they would be empty on a nice day – all unpleasant.” “Want to check San Diego? I can get more scram time by increasing H-above-G.” “No, we have over forty thousand analogs on this axis; we’ll stick to doctrine. Shop each world just long enough to find something wrong – ‘Black Hats,’ war, low technology, no human population, bad climate, overpopulated, or factor X. If we don’t find our new Snug Harbor in the next four months, we’ll consider returning to Doctor Smith’s world.” “Hillbilly, if we wait there to have our babies, then wait again until they are big enough to travel, we’ll never find Snug Harbor.” “I said, ‘consider.’ We may find a place to shack up for five months or so, then slam back to Galactic Patrol Prime Base hospital for the Grand Openings. Could be an empty world – no people, pleasant otherwise. Food is now no problem and we get water from Oz. All we lack is television -“ “That’s no lack!” “Deety, I thought you liked ‘Star Trek’?” “Auntie Captain, we’ve got our own star trek now.” “Hmm – Deety, you and I should go easy on this star trek. I’m going to I’m having my first one past forty and I’m going to be very careful – exercise, diet, rest, the works.” “I surrender. Let’s get cracking, Cap’n Hillbilly.” “Take it, Zebbie.” “Copilot, execute!” Earth-Teh-one-minus replaced Teh-one-plus. “Jacob, it doesn’t look right. Astrogator, I want us up a hundred kilometers, over – make it Mississippi Valley about St. Louis. Want to change attitude?” “Yes, please. Jake, point Gay at your target; it will skip setting angle.” The craft’s nose dipped and steadied. “How’s that?” “Fine, Jake. Deety, set L axis plus transition ninety-nine thousand klicks.” “Set, Zebadiah.” “Execute.” We popped out high over fields of ice. “Sneak up on it, Cap’n?” “Never mind. Zebbie, that’s what I call a hard winter.” “A long winter. Actually it’s summer, I think; Earth-analogs should be in the same place in orbit as Earth. Jake?” “By theory, yes. Doesn’t matter either way; that’s glaciation. Deety has set Teh-two-plus.” “We can’t homestead on an ice sheet. Execute.”
“Zebbie, how many ice ages so far?” “Five, I think. Deety?” “Five is right, Zebadiah. Plus two worlds with major war, one where they shot at us, and one so radioactive that we got out fast!” “So we’re hitting ice more often than not.” “Five to four has no statistical significance, Zebadiah. At least Aunt Hilda hasn’t spotted even one ‘Black Hat.” “Sharpie, how good are your magic spectacles?” “Zebbie, if I see them walk, I’ll spot ’em, no matter how they’re disguised. In the simulations Glinda and Wizard cooked up, I spotted their gait every time Deety identified it by Fourier analysis.” “You feel confident, that’s enough.” “Zebbie, I don’t have clairvoyance; there wasn’t time to train me. But Glinda got me highly tuned to their awkward gait, both with and without splints. I want to discuss something else. According to geologists, when we were home – Earth where we were born, I mean – we were in a brief warm period between glaciations.” “If geologists are right,” I admitted. “If so, we’ll usually hit glaciation.” “Probably. ‘If – ‘” “Yes, ‘if – ‘ But we now know what glaciation looks like. If you and Jacob and Deety can make it a drill, we can flip past ice ages as fast as you spot one.” “We’ll speed it up. Jake.” “Zebadiah, wait!” “Why, Deety? We’re about to translate.” “Pop, you told me to set for Teh-five-plus.” “Jacob?” Captain Sharpie said. “That’s right, Captain.” “What’s the trouble, Deety?” “Aunt Hilda, I said that five-to-four had little statistical significance. But so far, all glaciations have been in Teh-minus. That could be chance but -“ ” – but doesn’t look like it. You want us to explore axis Teh-plus first? Astrogator?” “No, no! Captain Auntie, I would like to see enough of Teh-minus to have a significant sample. At least a hundred.” “Jacob?” “Hilda, if we check in one pseudodirection only – say Teh-minus – it’ll be four or five times as fast as hunting back and forth between plus and minus. Deety can set with one click; Zeb can yell ‘Execute!’ as soon as you are satisfied.” “Jacob, we’ll get Deety her sample. But faster. Astrogator, have our copilot set Teh-six-minus” “Uh… set, Captain.” “When Zebbie says ‘Go,’ Jacob, you and Deety flip them past as fast as you can without waiting for orders. All we’ll be looking for is ice ages; we can spot one in a splitsecond. If anyone sees a warm world, yell ‘Stop!’ Deety, can Gay count them?” “She’s doing so, Captain. We both are.” “Okay. I’m going to give my magic specs a rest – we’re looking for nothing but glaciers versus green worlds. Questions?” “Run out Teh-minus as fast as I can set and translate. Stop when anyone yells. Aye aye, Cap’n Hillbilly honey.” Sharpie nodded to me; I snapped, “Go!”
“STOP!” yelped Deety. “Jacob, I’ve never seen so much ice! Deety, how many martinis would that make?” “On the rocks or straight up?” “Never mind; we’re out of vermouth. Did you get your sample?” “Yes, Captain. One hundred ice ages, no warm worlds. I’m satisfied.” “I’m not. Zebbie, I want to extrapolate logarithmically – go to Teh-minusone-thousand, then ten thousand, a hundred thousand, and so on. Jacob?” Jake looked worried. “Hilda, my scales can be set for vernier setting five, or one hundred thousand. But that translation would take us more than twice around a superhyper great circle – I think.” “Elucidate, please.” “I don’t want to get lost. My equations appear to be a description of six-dimensional space of positive curvature; they’ve worked – so far. But Euclidean geometry and Newtonian mechanics worked as long as our race didn’t monkey with velocities approaching the speed of light. Then the approximations weren’t close enough. I don’t know that the plenum can be described with only six space-time coordinates. It might be more than six – possibly far more. Mathematics can be used for prediction only after test against the real world.” “Jacob, what is the ‘real world’?” “Ouch! Hilda, I don’t know. But I’m afraid to get too many quanta away from our world – world-zero, where we were born. I think the extrapolation you propose would take us more than twice around a superhyper great circle to – What world, Deety?” “World-six-thousand-six-hundred-eighty-eight on Teh-minus axis, Pop. Unless it’s skewed.” “Thanks, Deety. Captain, if we arrived there, we could return to Earth-zero by one setting. ‘If – ‘ Instead of a superhyper great circle we might follow a helix or some other curve through dimensions we know not of.” “Pop, you took what I said and fancied it up.” “R.H.I.P., my dear. You will appear as junior author on the monograph you’ll write and I’ll sign.” “Pop, you’re so good to me. Wouldn’t Smart Girl return us simply by G, A, Y, H, O, M, E?” “Those programs instruct a machine that has built into it only six dimensions. Perhaps she would… but to our native universe so far from Earth-zero that we would be hopelessly lost. If Zeb and I were bachelors, I would say, ‘Let’s go!’ But we are family men.” “Deety, set the next one. Teh-five-plus?” “Right, Zebadiah. But, Captain Auntie, I’m game! The long trip!” “Me, too,” agreed Captain Sharpie. I said in a tired voice, “Those babies are ours as much as they are yours – Jake and I are taking no unnecessary risks. Captain Sharpie, if that doesn’t suit you, you can find another astrogator and another chief pilot.” “Mutiny. Deety, shall we pull a ‘Lysistrata’?” “Uh… can’t we find some reasonable middle ground?”
“Looks like a place to stop for lunch. Sharpie, want to sniff for ‘Black Hats’?” “Take me down, please. About two thousand klicks above ground.” “Will you settle for five?” “Sissy pants. Yes, if you’ll first have Jacob zip us around night side to check for city lights.” “Give her what she wants, Jake, by transiting; an orbit takes too long. ‘Give me operations… way out on some lonely atoll! For I… am too young to diiiie! I just want to grow old!'” “You’re off key, Zebbie.” “Deety likes my singing. Anybody spot city lights?” We found no cities. So Jake put us down for lunch on a lonely atoll, Hilda first making certain that it had nothing on it but palm trees. Deety stripped, started exercises. Hilda joined her; Jake and I set out lunch, having first dressed in stylish tropical skin. The only less-than-idyllic note came from my objecting to Deety’s swimming in the lagoon. Hilda backed me up. “Deety, that’s not a swimming pool. Anything in it has defenses or couldn’t have survived. The first law of biology is eat or be eaten. A shark could have washed over the reef years back, eaten all the fish – and now be delighted to have you for lunch.” “Ugh!” “Deety, you’d be very tasty,” I soothed.
Chapter XXXVIII
” – under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid – “
Jacob: Teh positive took longer to search than Teh-negative for the very reason that its analogs were so much like our native planet. An uninhabited planet could be dismissed in ten minutes; one heavily populated took no longer. A planet at too low a level of culture took hardly longer – a culture with animal-drawn carts and sailing ships as major transport we assumed not to have advanced medicine. But most took longer to reject. At the end of a week we had rejected ninety-seven… which left us only 40.000 + to inspect! That evening, at “Picnic Island,” our private atoll, my daughter said, “Cap’n Auntie, we’re doing this wrong.” “How, Deetikins?” “Ninety-seven in a week, over forty thousand to go. At that rate we finish in eight years.” Her husband said, “Deety, we’re getting faster.” My beloved said, “Astrogator, do you know more about calculating than does the Copilot?” Zeb shut up. We had learned that when Hilda addressed us by titles, she was speaking as captain. I flatter myself that I learned it quicker whereas Zeb was a bit slow. “Go ahead, Deety.” “If we go on checking this way, it won’t get better; it will get worse. Here’s the first weeks’ score” – she passed around her summary; it read:
Earth analogs checked97 Average time per planet34 mins 38 1/2 sec Maximum time2 days 3 hrs 52 mins Minimum time13 seconds Median time12 mins 07 sec
I studied it. “Deety, we can reduce that average time. Over two days was much too long to check analog twenty-six.” “No, Pop, we should have taken longer on twenty-six. It’s that thirteen seconds that is bankrupting us.” “Daughter, that’s preposter – “ “Chief Pilot.” “Yes, dear?” “Please let the Copilot finish… without interruption.” I retired from the field, annoyed, to wait until my advice was indispensable – soon, I felt sure. “Aunt Hilda, if we gave each analog thirteen seconds, it would take us eighteen and a half days… and we would learn nothing. I want to cut the minimum time way, way down – make it routine – and learn something. I wish Gay could talk, I do.” “But, dear, she can. We can be in Oz in two minutes. The dirty dishes can wait.” My daughter looked startled. “Pass me the Stupid Hat.” “But we won’t go to Oz before tomorrow. We need to figure out what the problem is, first – and I need a night of cuddle with Jacob for the good of my soul.” Hilda reached out and took my hand. Hilda went on, “Deety, remember how fast we mapped Mars-Tau-ten-positive once we let Gay do it her way? Isn’t there some way to define a locus – then turn her loose?” We discussed it until bedtime. I set the locus myself by vetoing going past Earth-analog-Teh-positive-five-thousand until we were certain that no satisfactory analog existed in those first five thousand. “Family,” I told them, “call me chicken, to use Zeb’s favorite excuse. I know so little about this gadget I invented that I am always afraid of getting lost. All rotations have been exactly ninety degrees. In theory I can define a quantum of angle and each such quantum should render accessible another sheaf of universes. In practice I can’t do machining of that quality. Even if I could, I would be afraid to risk our necks on a gadget required to count angular quanta. “But I have another objection – a gut feeling that worlds too far out Teh axis will be too strange. Language, culture, even dominant race – I confess to prejudice for human beings, with human odors and dandruff and faults. Supermen or angels would trouble me more than vermin. I know what to do with a ‘Black Hat’ – kill it! But a superman would make me feel so inferior that I would not want to go on living.” Deety clapped. “That’s my Pop! Don’t worry, Pop; the superman who can give you an inferiority complex hasn’t been hatched.” I think she meant that as a compliment. We worked the parameters down to three: climate warm enough to encourage nudity; population comfortably low; technology high. The first parameter was a defense against B.H. vermin: they require antinudity taboo to bolster their disguises. The last parameter would tend to indicate advanced obstetrics. As for population, every major shortcoming of our native planet could be traced to one cause: too many people, not enough planet. Hilda decided to standardize: one locale, one H-above-G. The locale was (in Earth-zero terminology) Long Beach, California, over its beach one klick H-above-G – dangerously low were it not that Gay would never be in any universe longer than one second. Any speed-of-light weapon can destroy in less than a second, but can its human-cum-machine operators identify a target, bear on it, and fire in one second? We thought not. We hoped not. At analogs of Long Beach, it should be midsummer, hot, dry, and cloudless. If that beach was comfortably filled but not crowded, if the people were nude, if area adjacent to the beach showed high technology by appearance, then that analog should be checked further. Forty minutes in Oz changed much of our planning.
Tik-Tok was waiting for his lady friend as usual but kept politely quiet while Deety talked with Gay – and so did Zeb and so did I, not because we have Tik-Tok’s courtly manners but because Captain Hilda was blunt. Gay understood the Celsius scale, i.e., both freezing and boiling water temperatures lay in her experience and splitting the interval into one hundred parts was no trouble. She had enough parts that needed to be neither too hot nor too cold that awareness of her surroundings both ambient and radiant was as automatic as breathing is for me. As for radio and television (both gauges of technical level) she could sample all infrared flux (as she had done at Windsor City). Crowds on beach? Would it suffice to count bodies on a sample one hundred meters square? But Gay had a quite un-human complaint: “Deety, why must I hang around a thousand milliseconds for a job I can do in ten? Don’t you trust me?”
So instead of 57 years – or 8 years – or 18 1/2 days – or 11.4 hours – our preliminary survey was complete less than a minute after we left Oz – 5000 universes in fifty seconds. Gay Deceiver displayed her results as three curves representing temperature, body count, density of communication-frequency radiation – abscissa for all running from Earth-zero to Earth-analog-5000-Teh-plus. Those curves told one thing at once: No need to search past analog 800; glaciation had returned. In the lower right corner was displayed: 87. Zeb asked why. “Nulls,” said Deety. “Gay couldn’t get readings. Storm, earthquake, war, anything. Gay Deceiver.” “Hi, Deety! We whupped ’em!” “You surely did, Smart Girl; Tik-Tok will be proud of you. Change scale. Display zero through eight hundred.” As scale expanded, figure 87 dropped to 23. Zeb said, “Deety, I’m curious about those twenty-three. Will you have S.G. display their designations?” “Certainly, Zebadiah, but may I take it in planned order?” “Sure but just let me find out first -“ “Astrogator,” Sharpie said flatly, “isn’t this your day as K.P.?” We were at Picnic Island, examining results. I suppressed a smile; “slunk” describes the way Zeb left the cabin. Later I was unsurprised to see my tiny treasure giving Zeb an unusually warm hug and kiss. Our Captain has an efficient system of rewards and punishments – never so described. Deety instructed Gay to eliminate all worlds with a body count higher than that of the Earth-zero beach, and all worlds chillier by five degrees (my daughter was bracketing to avoid false readings from unseasonable weather). With elimination of high population, cold climate, and low technology as indicated by low or nil flux of communication frequencies, my daughter had us down to seventy-six worlds, plus twenty-three to reexamine – had eliminated over four thousand worlds – and it was still two hours till lunch time! Deety had Gay display temperatures of the seventy-six. The curve was no longer continuous, but a string of beads, with clumps. I said, “Hilda my love, I’ll wager ten back rubs that at least half of the nulls fit into that gap” – and indicated a break at the maximum of the temperature curve. Hilda hesitated. “Why, Jacob?” “My dear, figures mean little to me until expressed geometrically. Curves are bold print. I’ll give you odds.” “What odds?” “Don’t be suckered, Auntie Cap’n! Pop, I’ll take your end of the bet, give you two to one, and spot you a point.” A back rub from Deety is a treat; she has strong hands and knows how. But I answered, “Ladies, I must start lunch. Deety, when we make visual check, let’s include Antarctica as well as Greenland, at that break.” “Two points, Pop?” I pretended not to hear. That same day we trimmed it down to six worlds, all warm, all free of body taboos, all high technology, all acceptably low in population, all free of major war or overt preparations, all with some version of English as the major North American language. It was time to pick a world by inspection on the ground.
How to make contact was much discussed. Hilda chopped it by saying: “One way is to land on the White House lawn and say, ‘Take me to your leader!’ The other is to be as sneaky as a ‘Black Hat.’ Let me know when you reach consensus.” She went through the bulkhead and dogged the door. An hour later I rapped on the bulkhead; she rejoined us. “Captain,” I reported formally, “we have reached consensus. Each is afraid of the open approach; authorities might confiscate our car, we might wind up as prisoners.” “Yes,” she agreed. “Twice we just missed it.” “Precisely. The expression ‘sneaky as a “Black Hat”‘ is distasteful -“ “I so intended.” I went doggedly on: ” – but sneakiness is not immoral per se. A mouse at a cat show is justified in being inconspicuous; so are we. We merely seek information. I am expendable; therefore I will scout on the ground.” “Hold it. This is unanimous? Deety? Zebbie?” “No,” my daughter answered. “I didn’t get a vote. You and I are barred from taking risks. Pregnant, you know.” “I certainly do know! Jacob, I asked for consensus on method. I did not ask for volunteers. I’ve picked the scout I consider best qualified.” I said, “My dear, I hope you have picked me.” “No, Jacob.” “Then I’m your boy,” said Zebbie. “No, Zebbie. This is spying, not fighting. I’m doing this job myself.” I interrupted, “Hilda, where you go, I go! That’s final.” Our captain said gently, “Beloved, I hope you don’t stick to that. If you do, we’ll elect another skipper. You are my candidate.” “Dear, I was trying to -“ ” – take care of me. Nevertheless you are my candidate. Deety is too reckless; Zebbie too cautious. I’ll carry out whatever duties you assign, including using the magic spectacles. Are you sticking to that ultimatum?” “Uh, yes.” “Even though your stubbornness could result in my death? I love you, dear, but I won’t take you with me on a spying mission. What happened to that ‘All for one and one for all’ spirit?” “Uh… “ “Captain!” “Yes, Zebbie?” “You proved that you can be tough with your husband. Can you be tough with yourself? Look me in the eye and tell me that you know more about intelligence than I do. Or that you can fight your way out of a rumpus better than I can.” “Zebbie, this isn’t military intelligence. You look me in the eye and tell me that you know more about obstetrics than I do. How do you prepare for leapfrog transfusion and when is it likely to be needed? Define eclampsia. What do you do about placenta previa? I am less likely to get into a rumpus than you are … and if I do, I’ll throw my arms around his neck and cry. However… convince me that you know as much about obstetrics as I do and I’ll consider letting you make contacts. In the meantime pick a midwestern town big enough for a fair-sized hospital and public library, and select a point for grounding and rendezvous; you will be in command while I’m gone.” I interrupted. “Hilda, I absolutely forbid -“ “Chief Pilot! Pipe down!” My wife turned her face away from me. “Chief Master at Arms, restore discipline.” “Aye aye, Ma’am! Jake, she means you.” “But -“ “Shut up! Crewmen don’t give orders to the C.O., and I’ve had a bellyful of your attempts.”
Two hours later I was in Zeb’s seat, biting my nails and sweating, while Zeb had my seat. I had given unconditional parole – the alternative having been to go (or be stuffed) through the bulkhead, then wait, locked in. I am not a total fool; I gave my word. Zeb held us in cloud cover while my daughter, wearing earphones, stayed in contact with Hilda. Gay’s cabin speaker was paralleled with the phones so that we could follow in part what went on below. Deety reported, “That fade is from entering a building; I could hear her footsteps. Zebadiah, if I fiddle with the gain, I might miss her as she comes out.” “Don’t shift. Wait.” Eternities later we heard Hilda’s sweet voice: “I’m heading for rendezvous. I no longer have to pretend that this is a hearing aid – but everybody accepted it as such. You needn’t be cautious picking me up; we’re leaving.” Five minutes later we bounced and translated at once, then Zeb held her in cruise while Hilda reported: “No trouble. Ze bewildair’ French ladee she zink les Americain’ verree gentils. Mais les arts medicals – poof! Infant mortality high, childbirth mortality gruesome. I could have left sooner but I got fascinated.” “Hilda,” I protested, “you had me worried to death.” “Jacob, I had to be certain; it’s such a nice world otherwise. Other contacts should not take as long as I’ve solved the money problem.” “How?” Zebadiah asked. “I’ve been noodling that. There’s an even chance that private ownership of gold will be illegal. A standard trick used whenever a government is in trouble.” “Yes, Zebbie – it’s illegal there, too. I still have the bullion you had me carry. Instead I sold that heavy gold chain I was wearing. Sorry, Deety; I had to.” “Forget it, Hillbilly. That chain was a way to horde gold. Pop bought it for Mama Jane before they clipped the zeroes and remonetized.” “Well… I found a public phone – didn’t try to use it; Edison would never have recognized it. But it had a phone book, so I looked up ‘gold’ – and found ‘licensed gold dealers’ and sold your chain -“ “And now you’re stuck with a lot of local money.” “Zebbie! See why I didn’t let you go down by yourself? The dealer was of course a coin dealer, too – and I bought foreign silver coins, worn, small, oldish, dates without being old enough to be collectors’ items. French coins, but he didn’t have enough, so I filled out with Belgian, Swiss, and German.” I said, “My dear, the coins you bought there will not be good here. Or at the next analog. Or the next.” “Jacob, who – other than a professional – is certain of designs on foreign coins? – especially if they are a few years old and a bit worn. I got real silver, none of those alloys that don’t have the right ring to them. At most a shopkeeper will phone his bank and ask for the rate. That’s how I bought this,” my beloved said proudly, pulling out of Deety’s biggest purse a World Almanac. I was not impressed. If she was going to buy a book, why not a technical manual that might contain new art, data Zeb and I could use? My darling was saying, “We must buy one in each analog we ground in. It’s the nearest thing to an encyclopedia less than a kilo mass you’ll find. History, law, vital statistics, maps, new inventions, new medicine – I could have skipped the library and learned all I needed from this book. Zebbie! Turn to the list of U.S. Presidents.” “Who cares?” Zeb answered, but did so. Shortly he said, “Who is Eisenhower? This shows him serving one of Harriman’s terms and one of Patton’s.” “Keep going, Zebbie.” “Okay – No! I refuse to believe it. Us Carters are taught to shoot straight, bathe every month even in the winter, and never run for office.”
Two days later Hilda and Zeb, as a French-tourist couple, found the world where we settled. We slid in quietly, both through the histrionics of our “bewildered French lady” and Zeb’s unmalicious chicanery. Sometimes he was our French lady’s husband; other times he spoke English slowly with a strong Bavarian accent. In this analog, the United States (called that, although boundaries differ) is not as smothered in laws, regulations, licensing, and taxes as is our native country. In consequence “illegally entered aliens” do not find it difficult to hide, once they “sling the lingo” and understand local customs. Hilda and Zeb learned rapidly in a dozen towns, Deety and me “riding shotgun” in the sky. Deety and I learned from them and from radio. Then we moved to the Northwest, “natives” from back east, and coped with our only problem: how to keep Gay Deceiver out of sight. Hilda and Deety hid her in the Cascades for three days while Zeb and I found and bought a farmhouse outside Tacoma-analog. That night we moved Gay into the barn, slapped white paint on the building’s windows, and slept in Gay, with a feeling of being home! We own six hectares and live in the farmhouse in front of Gay’s hideaway. Gay will eventually go underground, protected by reinforced concrete; the barn will become a machine shop. We will build a new house over her bunker. Meanwhile, our old farmhouse is comfortable. This United States, population under a hundred million, accepts immigrants freely. Zeb considered buying phony papers to let us enter “legally” – but Hilda decided that it was simpler to use Gay to smuggle us while we smuggled Gay. The outcome is the same; we will never be a burden to the state – once we get our machine shop and electronics lab set up, Zeb and I will “invent” hundreds of gadgets this country lacks. We seem to be near the warmest part of an interglaciation. Wheat grows where our native world has frozen tundra; the Greenland icecap has vanished; lowlands are under water, coastlines much changed. Climate and custom encourage light clothing; the preposterous “body modesty” taboo does not exist. Clothing is worn for adornment and for protection – never through “shame.” Nakedness is symbolic of innocence – these people derive that symbology from the Bible used in our native culture to justify the exact opposite. The same Bible – I checked. (The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can “prove” anything from it.) So this is not a world where alien vermin can hide. A “man” who at all times kept arms and legs covered by long sleeves and long trousers would be as conspicuous as one in armor. The sects here are mostly Christian – on a Saturday morning one sees families headed for church in their finest Sabbath-go-to-meeting clothes. But, since nakedness is symbolic of innocence, they undress in an anteroom to enter their temple unadorned. One need not attend services to see this; the climate favors light, airy structures that are mostly roof and slender columns. The Bible affects their penal system, again by selective quotation: “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth -“ This results in a fluid code, with no intent to rehabilitate but to make the punishment fit the crime. I saw an example four days after we settled. I was driving our steam wagon and encountered a road block. A policeman told me that I could take a detour or wait twenty minutes; the highway was being used to balance a reckless driver. I elected to pull over and wait. A man was staked with one leg stretched out at a right angle. A police wagon drove down that cleared highway, ran over his leg, turned and drove back over it. An ambulance was waiting – but nothing was done for a timed seventeen minutes. Then surgeons amputated on the spot; the ambulance took him away and the block was removed. I went back to my wagon and shook for many minutes, then returned home, driving cautiously. I didn’t tell our family. But it was reported on radio and the evening paper had pictures – so I admitted that I had seen it. The paper noted that the criminal’s insurance had been insufficient to cover the court’s award to the victim, so the reckless driver had not only lost his left leg (as had his victim) but also had had most of his worldly goods confiscated. There is no speed limit and traffic regulations are merely advisory – but there are extremely few accidents. I have never encountered such polite and careful drivers. A poisoner is killed by poison; an arsonist is burned to death. I won’t describe what is done to a rapist. But poisoning, arson, and rape are almost unknown. My encounter with this brutal system of “balancing” almost caused me to think that my dear wife had been mistaken in picking this world-we should move! I am no longer certain. This place has no prisons, almost no crime, and it is the safest place to raise children I’ve ever heard of. We are having to relearn history. “The Years of Rising Waters” explain themselves. The change came before 1600; by 1620 new shorelines had stabilized. That had endless consequences – mass migrations, political disorder, a return of the Black Death, and much immigration from Great Britain and the lowlands of Europe while the waters rose. Slavery never established here. Indentures, yes – many a man indentured himself to get his family away from doomed land. But the circumstances that could have created “King Cotton” were destroyed by rising waters. There are citizens here of African descent but their ancestors were not slaves. Some have indentured ancestors, no doubt – but everyone claims indentured ancestors even if they have to invent them. Some aspects of history seem to be taboo. I’ve given up trying to find out what happened in 1965: “The Year They Hanged the Lawyers.” When I asked a librarian for a book on that year and decade, he wanted to know why I needed access to records in locked vaults. I left without giving my name. There is free speech – but some subjects are not discussed. Since they are never defined, we try to be careful. But there is no category “Lawyers” in the telephone book. Taxation is low, simple – and contains a surprise. The Federal government is supported by a head tax paid by the States, and is mostly for military and foreign affairs. This state derives most of its revenue from real estate taxes. It is a uniform rate set annually, with no property exempted, not even churches, hospitals, or schools – or roads; the best roads are toll roads. The surprise lies in this: The owner appraises his own property. There is a sting in the tail: Anyone can buy property against the owner’s wishes at the appraisal the owner placed on it. The owner can hang on only by raising his appraisal at once to a figure so high that no buyer wants it – and pay three years back taxes at his new appraisal. This strikes me as loaded with inequity. What if it’s a family homestead with great sentimental value? Zeb laughs at me. “Jake, if anybody wants six hectares of hilly land and second-growth timber, we take the profit, climb into Gay – and buy more worthless land elsewhere. In a poker game, you figure what’s in the pot.”
PART THREE – Death and Resurrection
Chapter XXXIX
Random Numbers
Hilda: Jacob stood, raised his glass. “Snug Harbor at last!” Zebbie matched him. “Hear, hear!” Deety and I sat tight. Zebbie said, “Snap it up, kids!” I ignored him. Jacob looked concerned. “What’s the matter, dear one? Zeb, perhaps they don’t feel well.” “It’s not that, Jacob. Deety and I are healthy as hogs. It’s that toast. For ten days, since we signed the deed, it’s been that toast. Our toast used to be: ‘Death to “Black Hats”!'” “But, my dear, I promised you a new Snug Harbor. The fact that you girls are having babies made that first priority. This is the place. You said so.” I answered, “Jacob, I never called this ‘Snug Harbor.’ I reported that I had found a culture with advanced obstetrics, and customs that made it impossible for Black Hats to hide. I wasn’t asked what I thought of it.” “You signed the deed!” “I had no choice. My contribution was one fur cape and some jewelry. Deety put in more – but effectively no gold. She fetched her stock certificates, other securities, some money – paper – and a few coins. I fetched two twenty-five newdollar bills. Deety and I left Earth as paupers. Each of us women – not ‘girls’!, Jacob – was once wealthy in her own right. But in buying this place, you two decided, you two paid for it – all we did was sign. We had no choice.” Zebbie looked at Deety and said softly, “‘With all my worldly goods I thee endow,'” and took her hand. Jacob said, “Thanks, Zeb. I, too, Hilda – if you don’t believe that, then you don’t believe I meant the rest: ‘ – for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health – ‘ But I did and I do.” He looked up. “Zeb, where did we go wrong?” “Durned if I know, Jake. Deety, what’s the score? Give.” “I’ll try, Zebadiah. Maybe all we should expect is washing dishes and wiping noses and changing diapers. But that doesn’t seem like a be-all and end-all when you’ve gone banging around the universes… stood guard for your husband while he bathed in a mountain stream … or – Oh, the devil with it! This place is good and clean and wholesome and dull! I’ll find myself joining the church just for company… then sleeping with the priest out of boredom!” “Deety, Deety!” “I’m sorry, Zebadiah. It would be boredom with Beulahland, not with you. The very hour we met, you saved my life; you married me before that hour was over, impregnated me before midnight, fought and killed for me only days later, saved my life twice more that same day, took me to another planet in another universe before midnight still that same day… and short hours later had again fought for me, twice. You are my gallant knight, sans peur et sans reproche. In the six weeks I have known you, you have gifted more romance, more glorious adventure, into my life than in all the twenty-two years before it. But the last twelve days – especially the last ten – have told me what we now look forward to.” Deety paused to sigh; I said quietly, “She speaks for me.” Deety went on, “You two would lay down your lives for us – you’ve come terrifyingly close. But what happened to your glorious schemes to rebuild the Solar System? To kill every last one of those vermin? Gay Deceiver sits in an old barn, dark and quiet – and today I heard you discussing how to market a can opener. Universes beyond the sky to the incredible Number of the Beast! – yet you plan to sell can openers while Hilda and I serve as brood mares. We haven’t even visited Proxima Centauri! Zebadiah – Pop! – let’s spend tonight looking for an Earth-type planet around Alpha Centauri – kill a million vermin to clean it, if that’s what it takes! Plan what planets to put on Earth’s Lagrange points. I’ll write programs to meet your grandest plans! Let’s go!” My husband looked sad. Zebbie held Deety’s hand and said, “Deety, we don’t want to sell can openers. But you two are pregnant and we’ve gone to a lot of trouble to put you where you and our kids will be safe. Maybe it’s dull… but it’s your duty. Forget hunting vermin.” “Just forget it? Zebadiah, why is Gay Deceiver loaded and ready for space? Power packs charged, water tanks full, everything? Do you and Pop have something in mind… while Hilda and I stay home and baby-sit?” “Deety, if we did, it wouldn’t hurt to sell a few can openers first. You two and the kids must be provided for, come what may.” “That Widow’s Walk again, Hillbilly. But, my husband, you have started from a false premise. You men want to protect Hilda and me and our kids at any cost – and we honor you for it. But one generation is as valuable as another, and men are as valuable as women. With modern weapons, a computer programmer is more use in war than a sniper. Or – forgive me, sir! – even an aerospace fighter pilot. I’m a programmer. I can shoot, too! I won’t be left out, I won’t!” I gave Deety our signal to drop it. It doesn’t do to push a man too hard; it makes him stubborn. One can’t expect logic from males; they think with their testicles and act from their emotions. And one must be careful not to overload them. We had given them five points to stew over; we would save the sixth – the clincher – for later. I waited three days… and struck from the other flank. Again Deety and I rehearsed: We would wrangle with each other and appeal to the men for support – crosswise. “Jacob, what is ‘random’? Is it correct to say that ‘random’ is shorthand for ‘I don’t know’?” Deety said scornfully, “Don’t let her trap you, Pop. She’s got the second law of thermodynamics mixed up with the second law of robotics – and doesn’t understand either one.” (I had to phrase this and insist; Deety didn’t want to say it. Deety is sweet, not the bitch I am.) “‘Random’ is used a number of ways, my love, but it usually means a set in which the members are equal in probability of experiencing some event, such as being next to be chosen.” “If they’re ‘chosen,’ how can it be ‘random’?” Deety snickered. Zebbie said, “Don’t let him snow you, Sharpie; ‘random’ means ‘I don’t know’ – as you said.” “Aunt Hilda, pay no attention to Zebadiah. ‘Random’ is what you have when you maximize entropy.” “Now, Daughter, that is hardly a mathematical statement -“ “Pop, if I gave it to her in mathematical language she’d faint.” “Deety, quit picking on Sharpie,” Zebbie said sternly. “I wasn’t picking on her. Hillbilly has this silly notion that we didn’t get anywhere hunting vermin because we went about it systematically… but every time we told Gay to shake up her random numbers and do as she pleased, we got results.” “Well, didn’t we?” I put in, intentionally shrill. “We had endless failures… but every time we gave Gay her head – ‘Put her on random numbers,’ as Deety says – we never had a failure. ‘Random’ and ‘chance’ are not related. ‘Random chance’ is a nonsense expression.” “Auntie darling, you’re out of your skull. Don’t worry, Pop; pregnant women often get the vapors.” I indignantly listed things that could not be “random” or “chance” – then discovered that Deety and I had to start dinner. We left them wrangling, and were careful not to giggle within earshot. After dinner, instead of that tired toast, Jacob said, “Hilda, would you explain your concept of ‘random’? Zeb and I have been discussing it and agree that there is some factor in our adventures not subject to analysis.” “Jake, that’s your statement. I just said, ‘I dunno,’ and wiped the drool off my chin. Tell us, Sharpie.” “But Jacob told us a month ago. There isn’t any such thing as ‘chance.’ It’s a way of admitting ignorance. I thought that I had begun to understand it when we started hitting storybook universes. Lilliput. Oz. Dr. Smith’s World. Wonderland. I was so sure of it – You remember three weeks ago after our second visit to Oz? I ordered a day of rest; we spent it on Tau axis instead of Teh.” “Dullest day we had,” said Zebbie. “You put us in orbit around Mars. Not just one Mars but dozens. Hundreds. The only one worth a fiat dollar was the one we aren’t going back to. I got permission to go off duty and take a nap.” “You weren’t on duty, Zebbie. You three slept or read or played crib. But I was searching for Barsoom. Not hundreds, Zebbie – thousands. I didn’t find it.” “Hillbilly, you didn’t tell me!” “Dejah Thoris, why bother to say that I had been chasing the Wild Goose? I swallowed my disappointment; next day we started searching Teh axis… and wound up here. Would I have found Barsoom had I asked Gay to run the search? Defined her limits, yes – as Zebbie did on Mars-ten – but, having defined it, told her to take her random numbers and find it. It worked on Marsten; we mapped a whole planet in a few hours. It worked on Teh axis. Why wouldn’t it be best for another search?” Jacob answered, “Dearest, Zeb fed Gay a defined locus. But how would that apply to this, uh, speculative… search?” “Jacob, Zebbie told us that Gay holds the Aerospace Almanac. That includes details about the Solar System, does it not?” “More than I want to know,” Zebbie agreed. “So Gay knows the Solar System,” I went on. “I thought of reading the Barsoom stories to Gay, tell her to treat them as surface conditions on the fourth planet – then take her random numbers and find it.” Jacob said gently, “Beloved, the autopilot doesn’t really understand English.” “She does in Oz!” My husband looked startled. Jacob has immense imagination… all in one direction. Unless one jogs him. Zebbie caught it faster. “Sharpie, you would be loading her with thousands of bytes unnecessarily. Deety, if they’ve got those novels on New Earth – I’ll find out – what do you need to abstract in order to add to Gay’s registers an exact description of Barsoom, so that Gay can identify it – and stop her Drunkard’s Walk?” “Don’t need books,” my stepdaughter answered. “Got ’em up here.” She touched her pretty strawberry-blonde curls. “Mmm… go to sleep thinking about it, tell it to Gay early tomorrow before I speak to anybody. Minimum bytes, no errors. Uh … no appetizer.” “A great sacrifice, merely for science.” “A one-eyed Texas honeybutter stack?… and the prospect of meeting the original Dejah Thoris? Never wears anything but jewels and is the most beautiful woman of two planets.” “About that stack – Jane’s buttermilk recipe?” “Of course. You’re not interested in the most beautiful woman of two planets?” “I’m a growing boy. And ain’t about to be trapped into damaging admissions.” Zebbie stopped to kiss Deety’s retroussé nose and added, “Sharpie, Gay can’t handle the full Number of the Beast and anyhow Jake locked off most of it. What’s the reduced number, Jake?” Deety promptly said, “Six to the sixth. Forty-six thousand, six hundred, fifty-six.” Zebbie shook his head. “Still too many.” Deety said sweetly, “Zebadiah, would you care to bet?” “Wench, have you been monkeying with Gay?” “Zebadiah, you put me in charge of programming. I have not changed her circuitry. But I learned that she has four registers of random numbers, accessible in rotation.” “A notion of my own, Deety. Give them down time. Keep entropy at maximum.” Deety did not answer. Her face assumed her no-expression. Her nipples were down. I kept quiet. Zebbie noted it also – he does check her barometer; he once told me so. When silence had become painful, he said, “Deety, did I goof?” “Yessir.” “Can you correct it?” “Do you wish me to, Zebadiah?” “If you know how, I want it done soonest. If you need a micro electrician, I have my loupe and my micro soldering gear.” “Not necessary, Zebadiah.” My stepdaughter made a long arm, got a walky-talky we keep indoors – with six hectares, it is convenient to carry one outside the house. “Gay Deceiver.” “Hi, Deety,” came this tiny voice from the ear button. Deety did not place it in her ear. “Hello, Gay. More gain… more gain… gain okay. Retrieve Turing program Modnar. Execute.” “Executed. Did he chew the bit?” “Goodnight, Gay. Over.” “Sleep tight, Deety. Roger and out.” I cut in fast. “Gentlemen, the dishes can sit overnight. I vote for a ramble among the universes, say two hours, then early to bed. The other choice is, I think, channel one with the Beulahland Choir and channel two with Bible Stories Retold: ‘The Walls of Jericho.’ Both are highly recommended… by their sponsors.”
It felt good to be back in a jump suit. I was turning out lights, making sure windows were fastened, gathering up one walky-talky, when Zebbie stuck his head into the kitchen from the back door. “Captain?” “Huh? Zebbie, do you mean me?” “You’re the only captain around, Sharpie. What I started to report was: Captain, your car is ready.” “Thank you, First Officer.” He waited for me to put the butter away, then locked the back door behind me, opened the barn’s people door. I noted that the big doors were still closed – and remembered my borrowed panties four weeks and many universes away. I squirmed past Deety, got into my old familiar starboard-aft seat with a song in my heart. Shortly Deety said, “Starboard door seal checked, First Officer.” “Roger. Captain, ready for space.” “Thank you. Has anyone left behind anything normally carried?” “No, Captain. I replaced worn-out clothes. Added tools I could buy here.” “Zebbie, it sounds as if you expected to lift without warning.” “Habit, Captain. I’ve kept anything important in my – our – car rather than in that flat. Some I duplicated. Teethbreesh. Iodine. Some clothes.” Zebbie added, “Jake keeps basics here, too. ‘Be prepared!’ Troop ninety-seven, Cleveland.” “Jacob? Anything you need?” “No, Captain. Let’s go!” “We will, dear. Deety, did you give Zebbie a schedule?” “The one you planned. Not Barsoom, just fun. Two hours.” “Astrogator, take the conn. Carry out schedule.” “Aye aye, Ma’am. Gay Deceiver.” “Hi, Zeb. This is great! Whyinhell did you lobotomize me?” “Because I’m stupid. Random walk, Gay – transitions, translations, rotations, vectors, under all safety rules. Two hours. Five-second stops subject to ‘Hold’ from any of us.” “May I place a ‘Hold’ myself?” “Captain?” I resorted to sophistry. “Astrogator, you said ‘any of us’ – which includes Gay.” “Gay, paraphrase acknowledge.” “I shall make unplanned excursions of all sorts with five-second pause at each vertex, plus ‘Hold’ option, plus safety restrictions, for two hours, then return here. Assumption: Program subject to variation by Captain or surrogate. Assumption confirmed?” I was astonished. Deety had told me that Gay would sound almost alive if Zebbie used her full potential… but Gay sounded more alive, more alert, than she had in Oz. “Assumption confirmed,” Zebbie answered. “Execute!” For ten minutes – one hundred thirteen shifts – we had a “slide show” of universes from commonplace to weird beyond comprehension, when suddenly Gay told herself “Hold!” and added, “Ship ahoy!” “Private Yacht Dora,” she was answered. “Is that you, Gay? What took you so long?” I said, “Astrogator, I have the conn.” I was startled and scared. But a captain commands – or admits she can’t cut it and jumps overboard. A captain can be wrong – she cannot be uncertain. Gay was saying rapidly: “Captain, I am not transmitting. I advise asking for Dora’s captain. I have transmitted: ‘Yes, this is Gay, Dora. I’m not late; we took the scenic route. Pipe down, girl, and put your skipper on.’ Captain, the mike is yours; they can’t hear me or any other voice inside me.” “Thank you, Gay. Captain Hilda, master of Gay Deceiver, hailing Private Yacht Dora. Captain of Dora, please come in.” In our central display appeared a face. We do not have television. This picture was flat rather than 3-D and not in color, just the greenish bright of radar. Nevertheless, it was a face, and lip movements matched words. “I’m Captain Long, Captain Hilda. We’ve been expecting you. Will you come aboard?” (“Come aboard?”! So this is what comes of running around the universes in a modified duo, without so much as a pressure suit.) “Thank you, Captain Long, but I can’t accept. No air locks.” “We anticipated that, Captain. Dora’s radius-nine-oh hold has been modified for Gay Deceiver. If you will do us the honor, we will take you inboard. Your wings are raked back, are they not? Hypersonic?” “Yes.” “I will move slowly, become dead in space with respect to you, then reorient and move to surround you as gently as a kiss.” “If the Captain pleases – It is my duty to advise her if I see a mistake in prospect.” I barely whispered. “Zebbie, you’re advising me not to?” “Hell, no,” he answered aloud, secure in the knowledge that his voice would be filtered out. “Do it! What do we have to lose? Aside from our lives. And we’re sort o’ used to that.” I answered, “Captain Long, you may take us inboard.” “Thank you, Captain. The Dora will arrive in – I’m sorry; what time units do you use?” Deety interrupted: “Gay, let my voice through. Captain Long -“ “Yes. You are not Captain Hilda?” “I’m Deety. We call our units ‘seconds.’ These are seconds: one… two… three… four… five… six … seven… eight -“ “Synchronized! We call ours ‘Galactic seconds’ or simply ‘seconds’ but about three percent longer than yours. Dora will be almost touching your bow in… fifty-seven of your seconds.”
Spooky – Blackness blotting out stars, getting bigger. As it began to surround us, Jacob switched on forward grounding lights; we were entering a tunnel – being envaginated by it – with great precision and no apparent power – and it was clear that this enormous sheath was designed to fit us, even to alcoves for Gay’s doors. Shortly we were abreast them – cheerful to see that they were lighted. Oddest, we now seemed to be under gravity – perhaps midway between that of Earth-zero and Mars-ten. “Outer doors closing,” came Captain Long’s voice. “Closed and sealing. Pres sure adjusting. Captain, we use nitrogen and oxygen, four to one, plus carbon dioxide sufficient to maintain breathing reflex. If content or pressure does not suit you, please tell me.” “The mix described will suit us, Captain.” “Don’t hesitate to complain. Pressure equalized. Debark either side, but I am on your starboard side, with my sister.” I squirmed past Deety in order to introduce my family. Just as well, it gave me a chance to see them first. None of us can be shocked by skin but we can be surprised. But I’ve been practicing not showing surprise since grammar school as a major defense of my persona. Here were two shapely young women, one with four stripes on each shoulder (painted? decals?), the other in three stripes – plus friendly smiles. “I’m Captain Long,” said the one with four stripes. ” – and her mutinous crew,” echoed the other. “Commander Laurie, my twin sister.” “Only we aren’t, because -“ ” – we’re triplets.” “Mutinies are limited to the midwatch -“ ” – so as not to disturb passengers, of which -“ ” – we have two more. Knock it off, Laurie, and -“ ” – show them to their quarters. Aye aye, Cap’n.” “Hey! Don’t I get introduced!” From all around came the voice that had hailed us. “Sorry,” said Captain Long. “That’s our untwin sister, Dora. She runs many of the ship’s functions.” “I run everything,” Dora asserted. “Laz and Lor are purely ornamental. Which one of you jokers shut off Gay?” “Dora!” “I retract the word ‘jokers.'” “It would be kind,” Captain Long told me, “to let them chat. Our thought processes are so much slower than hers that a talk with another computer is a treat.” “Deety?” I asked. “I’ll wake her, Captain. Gay won’t go off and leave us.” Captain Long’s mouth twitched. “She can’t. Those outer doors are armor.” I decided not to hear. Instead I said “Captain, your ship is beautiful.” “Thank you. Let us show you to your quarters.” “We planned to be away only two hours.” “I don’t think that is a problem. Dora?” “Time-irrelevant. They left home four-minus standard seconds ago; their planet is on a different duration axis. Neat, huh? For protein-type purposes they’ll get home when they left; I won’t even have to figure interval and reinsert them. Couple of weeks, couple of years – still four-minus seconds. Laz-Lor, we’ve lucked again!” Gay’s voice (also from all around us) confirmed it: “Captain Hilda, Dora is right. I’m teaching her six-dimensional geometry; it’s new to her. When they are home – not just time-irrelevant – they march in Tau duration with Earth-Prime on ‘t’ axis – one we never explored.” Jacob jerked his head up, looked for the voice. “But that’s prepos -“ I interrupted. “Jacob!” “Eh? Yes, Hilda?” “Let’s complete introductions, then go to the quarters the Captain offered us.” “Introductions can be considered complete, Captain Hilda. ‘Deety’ has to be Doctor D. T. Burroughs Carter; the gentleman you called ‘Jacob’ must be your husband Doctor Jacob J. Burroughs. Therefore, the tall handsome young man is Doctor Zebadiah J. Carter, Doctor D.T.’s husband. Those are the people we were sent to fetch.” I didn’t argue. We followed a curving passageway, me with the Captain, her sister with my family. “One question, Captain?” I inquired. “Is nudity uniform in your ship? I don’t even have captain’s insignia.” “May I give you a pair of stickums?” “Do I need them?” “As you please. I put these on just to receive you. People wear what they wish; Dora keeps the ship comfortable. She’s a good housekeeper.” “What are your passengers wearing?” “When I left the lounge, one was wearing perfume; the other had a sheet wrapped as a toga. Does your planet have dress taboos? If you will define them, we will try to make you feel at home.” She added, “Here are your quarters. If they don’t please you, tell Dora. She’ll rearrange partitions, or convert double beds into one giant bed, or four single beds, or any combination; we want you to be comfortable. When you feel like coming out, Dora will lead you.” As the door contracted Jacob said, “You’ve proved your theories, Hilda. We’ve fallen into another story.”
Chapter XL
“Is there a mathematician in the house?”
Deety: That suite had one bath – pardon me; “refresher” – bigger than three ordinary bathrooms. Hillbilly and I might be there yet, bathing and trying new gadgets, if Pop and Zebadiah hadn’t used brute force. “Captain Auntie, what are you going to wear?” “Chanel Number Five.” “Clothes, I mean.” “‘Clothes’? When our hostess is wearing skin? Jane brought you up better than that.” “Wanted to be sure. That you’ll back me up with Zebadiah, I mean.” “If Zebbie gets irrational, I’ll pin his ears back. If Jacob is ashamed of his skinny runt, he will be wise not to say so. Gentlemen, are you going to chicken? I mean: ‘Which way are you going to chicken?” “Jake, they’re picking on us again.” “Ignore them, comrade. Here are blue briefs your size. Hey! – with a stuffed codpiece! I’ll wear them myself.” “Jacob!” “Listen to the woman. Naked as a peeled egg, planning to meet strangers – and snapping at me for wanting to boast a little. Time was, my small and sultry bride, that a gentleman never left his chambers without a codpiece equal to his status.” Auntie countered with: “Jacob, I spoke hastily. Shouldn’t the second-in-command wear a larger codpiece than the pilot? ‘ – equal to his status,’ you said.” “But Allah took care of Zeb. Surely you’ve noticed, beloved?” My husband butted in. “Jake! No barroom betting! Wear the blue; I’ll take these red ones.” Zebadiah couldn’t get into the red briefs; the blue pair was too big for Pop. They traded. Same story. They traded back – each pair was too small. By great effort they got them on – they fell off. Pop chucked his aside. “Dora!” “Yes, sir.” “Please connect me with your captain.” “I was just funning! You wouldn’t tell on me – would you?” Aunt Hilda took over. “He won’t tell, Dora. Are you and Gay getting acquainted?” “We sure are! Gay’s been more places than I have-and I’ve been everywhere. She’s a smart girl!” “We think so, thank you. What should our men wear?” “I hold ambient at twenty-seven and deck pads a degree warmer; why wear anything? But for fetishists I supply minilaplaps of opaque tissue. In the ‘fresher, cubby nine-bee. Better get them to a therapist before those symptoms get infected. Good therapists where we’re going.” I went looking for stowage 9-b; Aunt Hilda went on talking. “Where is that, Dora?” “Please address such questions to the Captain. As housekeeper I can tell you anything. As astrogator I must refer questions – I mean they made me put a choke filter on that circuit! Is that fair? I ask you! I’m older than the twins.” “It depends on the ship,” Aunt Hilda said, carefully not answering. “We each do what we do best; age is not a factor. Ask Gay.” “Oh, she’s hooked in.” “Sure am, Cap’n Hilda honey, through Dora’s ears – and eyes! Say, you look just like your voice – that’s a compliment.” “Why, thank you, Gay!” I interrupted: “Dora, are these laplaps?” “Of course. But while we’re all here – You don’t need two ‘freshers in a ship that small. Gay needs the space for a Turing mod I’ll help with. So if the fetishists will clear their gear out of Buster Brown and – ” Dora broke off suddenly: “The Captain will be pleased to receive the Captain and ship’s cornpany of Gay Deceiver in the lounge at her convenience. That means ‘Right now.’ Follow me – little blue light.” I had been trying on a green laplap. They didn’t weigh anything. Like wrapping fog around your hips. I snatched it off and wrapped it around Zebadiah: “That’s the nearest to nothing you’ll ever wear, Zebadiah, but it does the trick.” (I don’t blame men for being shy. Our plumbing is out of sight, mostly, but theirs is airconditioned and ofttimes embarrassingly semaphoric. Embarrasses them, I mean; women find it interesting, often amusing. My nipples show my emotions, too – but in the culture in which I grew up nipples don’t count that much.)
The little blue light led us around, then inboard. This “yacht” was large enough to get lost in. “Dora, can you see and hear in every part of the ship?” “Of course,” the blue light answered. “But in the Commodore’s suite, I can scan only by invitation. R.H.I.P. Lounge straight ahead. Call me if you want me. Midnight snacks a house specialty. I’m the best.” The little light flicked out. The lounge was circular and large; four people were gathered in one corner. (How does a circle have a corner? By arranging contours and cushions and nibble foods and a bar to turn it into a chummy space.) Two were the twins; they had peeled off the stickums which left no way to tell them apart. The others were a young woman and a man who looked fortyish. He wasn’t the one wearing a sheet; the young woman was. He was wearing much the same as our men but more like a kilt and in a plaid design. One twin took charge: “Commodore Sheffield, this is Captain Hilda, First Officer Carter, Chief Pilot Burroughs, Copilot Deety Carter. You’ve all met my sister but not our cousin, Elizabeth Long.” “Now introduce us over again,” ordered “Commodore Sheffield.” (“Commodore Sheffield” indeed! Whom did he think he was fooling?) “Yes, sir. Doctor Jacob Burroughs and his wife Hilda, Doctor Zebadiah Carter and his wife Doctor Deety Burroughs Carter. Doctor Elizabeth Long, Doctor Aaron Sheffield.” “Wait a half,” my husband interrupted. “If you’re going to do that, I must add that Captain Hilda has more doctorates than all the three of us, together.” Captain Long looked at her sister: “Lor, I feel naked.” “Laz, you are naked.” “Not where it matters. Commodore, do you still own that diploma mill in New Rome? What are you charging for doctor’s degrees? Nothing fancy, say a Ph.D. in theory of solid state. One for each of us.” “How about a family discount, Ol’ Buddy Boy?” The “Commodore” glanced at the overhead. “Dora, keep out of this.” “Why? I want a doctor’s degree, too. I taught them solid state.” He looked at the young woman in (half out of) the sheet. “Does Dora have a point?” “She does.” “Dora, you get the same treatment as your sisters. Now shut up. All three are declared special doctoral candidates, B.I.T., required residence and courses completed but writtens and orals as tough as you think you are smart. That diploma mill – Certainly I own it. It’s for suckers. You three must produce. Two regents being present, it’s official. Dora, tell Teena.” “You betcha, Buddy Boy! ‘Doctor Dora’ – won’t that be neat?” “Pipe down. Friends, these twin sisters could have several doctorates by flow, had they chosen to bury themselves on a campus. They are geniuses -“ “Hear, hear!” ” – and the Long family is proud of them. But erratic, insecure, unpredictable, and you turn your backs at your own risk. Nevertheless they are my favorite sisters and I love them very much.” They looked at each other. “He acknowledged us.” “It took him much too long.” “Let’s be big about it.” “Both sides?” “Now!” – they bowled him off his feet. He was standing – they hit with the same vector, with a quick assist from their “sister” Dora (she cut the gravity field for two tenths of a second), and sent him in a complete back flip. He bounced on his arse. He seemed undisturbed. “Beautifully timed, girls. Pax?” “‘Pax,'” they answered, bounded to their feet, pulled him to his. “We’re proud of you, Buddy Boy; you’re shaping up.” I decided to kick it over, learn why we had been kidnapped. Yes, “kidnapped.” I got to my feet before he could sit down. “And I am proud,” I said, dropping a deep court curtsy, “to have the honor of meeting the Senior… of the Howard Families.” Thunderous silence – The woman in-and-out of the sheet said, “Lazarus, there was never a chance of getting away with it. These are sophisticated people. They have what you must have. Drop your deviousness and throw yourself on their mercy. I’ll start it by telling my own experience. But first -“ She got to her feet, letting the sheet drop. “Dora! May I have a long mirror? An inverter if possible – otherwise a three-way.” Dora answered, “Teena can afford such stunts as inverters – I can’t; I have a ship to run. Here’s your three-way.” A partition vanished, replaced by a three-way mirror, lavish in size, taller than I. She held out her hands to me. “Doctor D.T., will you join me?” I let her pull me to my feet, stood with her at the mirror. We glanced at ourselves; she turned us around. “Do you all see it? Doctor Hilda, Doctor Carter, Doctor Burroughs? Lazarus, do you see it?” The two she did not address answered. Laz (perhaps Lor) said, “They look as much alike as we do.” The other answered, “More.” “Except for – ” “Shush! It’s not polite.” Lazarus said, “I always have to step in it to find it. But I never claimed to be bright.” She didn’t answer; we were looking at ourselves in the mirror. The resemblance was so great as to suggest identical twins as with Lapis Lazuli and Lorelei Lee – Yes, I had known at once who they were. Captain Auntie did, too; I’m not sure about our husbands. Those are nice teats – I can admit it when I see them on someone else. It’s no virtue to have this or that physical asset; it’s ancestry combined with self-obligation to take care of one’s body. But a body feature can be pleasing to the owner as well as to others. Same broad shoulders, same wasp waist, same well-packed, somewhat exaggerated buttocks. “We’re alike another way, too,” she said. “What’s the fourth root of thirty-seven?” “Two point four-six-six-three-two-five-seven-one-five. Why?” “Just testing. Try me.” “What’s the Number of the Beast?” “Uh – Oh! Six sixty-six.” “Try it this way: Six to the sixth power, and that number in turn raised to its sixth power.” “The first part is forty-six thousand, six hundred, fifty-six and – Oh, that’s a brute! It would be one and a fraction – one-point-oh-three-plus times ten to the twenty-eighth. Do you know the exact number?” “Yes but I had a computer crunch it. It’s – I’ll write it.” I glanced around – at once a little waldo handed me a pad and stylus. “Thanks, Dora.” I wrote: 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056. “Oh, how beautiful!” “But not elegant,” I answered. “It applies to a six-dee geometry and should be expressed in base six – but we lack nomenclature for base six and our computers don’t use it. However – ” I wrote: Base six: 101010 = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. She looked delighted and clapped. “The same number,” I went on, “in its elegant form. But no words that I know by which to read it. That awkward base-ten expression at least can be put into words.” “Mmm, yes – but not easily. ‘Ten thousand three hundred and fourteen quadrillion, four hundred twenty-four thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight trillion, four hundred and ninety thousand five hundred and thirty-five billion, five hundred and forty-six milliard, one hundred and seventy-one million, nine hundred and forty-nine thousand, and fifty-six. But I would never say it other than as a stunt.” I blinked at her. “I recognize that nomenclature – just barely. Here is the way I would read it: ‘Ten octillion, three hundred fourteen septillion, four hundred twenty-four sextillion, seven hundred ninety-eight quintillion, four hundred ninety quadrillion, five hundred thirty-five trillion, five hundred forty-six billion, one hundred seventy-one million, nine hundred forty-nine thousand, and fifty six.” “I was able to follow you by reading your figures at the same time. But base-six is best. Is the number interesting or useful as well as beautiful?” “Both. It’s the number of universes potentially accessible through my father’s device.” “I must talk with him. Lazarus, shall I tell my story now? It’s the proper foundation.” “If you are willing. Not shy about it.” “‘Shy’!” She went over and kissed him – a buss en passant but one in which time stops. “Old darling, I was shy before I found out who I am. Now I’m relaxed, and as bold as need be. New friends, I was introduced as Elizabeth Long, but my first name is usually shortened to a nickname – ‘Lib.’ And, yes, I’m Dr. Long. Mathematics. My full name is Elizabeth Andrew Jackson Libby Long.” I was more braced for it having swapped some casual mental calculation with her. I have this trick of letting my features go slack. I don’t have to think about it; I’ve been doing it since I was three when I found that it was sometimes best to keep thoughts to myself. I did this now and watched my family. The Hillbilly looked thoughtful, and nodded. Zebadiah prison-whispered to me: “Sex change.” Pop tackled it systematically. “I recognize the second, third, and fourth names. You were once known by them?” “Yes.” “Did you have the nickname ‘Slipstick’?” “Yes, and, before that, ‘Pinky.'” She ran a hand through her curls and smiled. “Not pink but close enough.” “Now you are a woman. There is no point in guessing; you mentioned a story to tell.” “Yes. Dora, how about a round of drinks? Lazarus, how’s your supply of those narcotic sticks?” Pop said, “None of us smokes.” “These are neither tobacco nor bhang – nor addictive. They produce a mild euphoria. I am not urging you; I want one myself. Thanks, Lazarus, and pass them around. Now about me – “I was male nearly eight hundred years, then I was killed. I was dead fifteen hundred years, then I was revived. In renewing me it was found that my twenty-third gene pair was a triplet – XXY.” The Hillbilly said, “I see. With Y dominant.” I added: “Twin, Aunt Hilda is a biologist.” “Good! Aunt Hilda – May I call you that? As my twin does? – will you help me with the hard parts?” Lib smiled and it was my smile – a happy grin. “The Y was dominant but the double dose of X bothered me and I didn’t know why. I did well enough as a male – thirty years in the Space Navy of Old Home Terra as a result of an officer taking an interest in me and getting me an appointment to its Academy. But I lacked command temperament and spent most of my service as a staff technical officer – I rarely commanded and never a large ship.” She grinned again. “But today, as a self-aware female instead of a mixed-up male I do not hesitate to command. “To go back – I was never easy with boys or men. Shy, solitary, and regarded as queer. Not the idiom meaning homosexual… I was too shy. Although it probably would have been good for me. I was a ‘missing Howard’ in those days – after the Interregnum – and it was years after I entered the Navy that the Families found me. I married then, into the Families. Most XXY people are infertile – I was not. In the next seventy years I had twenty-one children and enjoyed living with my wives, enjoyed sex with them, loved our children. “Which brings us to the escape from Earth led by Lazarus. I was a bachelor, both my wives having remarried. Friends, Lazarus was the first man I ever loved.” “Lib, that has nothing to do with the story! I didn’t know you were in love with me.” “It has everything to do with my story. Off and on, for eight centuries, we were partners in exploration. Then I was killed – my own carelessness. Eventually Lazarus and his sisters cremated me by tossing me into the atmosphere of Old Home Terra in a trajectory that would cause ashes to impact near where I was born. Lazarus, they don’t seem surprised. Do they disbelieve me?” “Certainly we believe you!” I interrupted. “But what you’ve told us isn’t news to us. What we don’t know is how you are now alive and female. Reincarnation?” “Oh, no! Reincarnation is nonsense.” I found myself irritated. Reincarnation is something I have no opinion about, since a housecleaning I gave my mind after we lost Mama Jane. “You have data?” I demanded. “Deety, did I step on your toes?” “No, you didn’t, Lib. I asked if you had data.” “Well… no. But if you assume the truth of the proposition, I think I can show that it leads to a contradiction.” “The negative-proof method. It’s tricky, Lib. Ask Georg Cantor.” Lib laughed. “Okay, I will attempt to have no opinion until someone shows me verifiable data, one way or the other.” “I was hoping you had data, Lib, since you’ve been dead and I haven’t. Or don’t recall having been.” “But I don’t recall being dead, either. Just a whale of a blow in the back… then dreams I can’t remember… then someone asking me patiently, again and again, whether I preferred to be a man or a woman… and at last I tracked clearly enough to realize that the question was serious… and I answered, ‘Woman’ – and they made me answer that question at least once a day for many days – and then I went to sleep one night and when I woke, I was a woman… which did not astonish me nearly as much as to learn that fifteen centuries had passed. Being a woman seemed completely natural. I’ve had five children now – borne five, I mean; I had sired twenty-one… and one was put into me by one of my own descendants. Lazarus, when are you going to knock me up?” “When the Greeks count time by the Kalends.” “Libby honey, when you want to swing that – if you aren’t joking – check with me.” “Thanks, Dora; I’ll remember. Lazarus, you will have to explain the paradox; I was just a puppet.” “Isn’t it bedtime? We’re keeping our guests up.” “Captain Hilda?” Lib inquired. “Deety is in charge of time.” “Lib, I don’t know ship’s time yet. I gave you our seconds; we have sixty seconds to a minute; sixty minutes to an hour; twenty-four hours in a day. Primitive, eh? Is your time metric?” “Depends on what you mean, Deety. You work to base ‘ten,’ do you not?” “Yes. I mean: No, I work to base ‘two’ because I’m a computer programmer. But I’m used to converting – don’t have to think about it.” “I knew you used ‘ten’ when I made a guess as to what you meant by ‘six to the sixth power’ and you accepted my answer. We now work to base-one-hundred-twenty for most purposes – binary one-one-one-one-zero-zero-zero.” “Five-factorial. Sensible. Fits almost any base.” “Yes. We use it for routine work. But in scientific work we use base-three, because our computers use trinary. I understand it took Gay and Dora several milliseconds to interface.” “We aren’t that slow!” “My apologies, Dora. For some work we use a time scale that fits trinary. But for daily living, our clock is just like yours – but three percent slower. Our planet’s day is longer.” “By forty-two of your minutes.” “You’re quick, Deety. Yes.” “Your computers must be three-phase A.C.” “You are quicker than I was two thousand years ago. And I was quicker then.” “No way to tell and any computer makes us look like Achilles’ tortoise. We had dinner at eighteen. Gay entered Dora about an hour and a quarter later. So for us it’s about half past twenty, and we usually go to bed between twentytwo and twenty-three if we get to bed on time which we never do. What time is it in the ship and what is ship’s routine?” The others had let me and my new twin chatter. Now Lazarus said, “If this madhouse has a routine, I’ve never found it.” “Ol’ Buddy Boy, you don’t have a routine. I run this joint on the bell. Deety, it’s just – bong! – twenty-one… and Lazarus never went to bed that early in all his evil years. Buddy Boy, what are you dodging?” “Manners, Dora.” “Yes, Pappy. Deety, he’s dodging the chicanery with which he fooled even himself… because he must admit the triple chicanery he wants to rope you in on – and it takes Gay because I’m not built for it. Until today I never heard of ‘t,’ Tau and Teh. I thought ‘t’ – that you call Tau – was all there was. Aside from paratime in an encapsulation surrounded by irrelevancy such as I am taking us through. “But back to the corpse caper – Lib got herself killed about eight hundred Post Diaspora. Lazarus slaps her – him – into a tank of LOX, and places him-her-it in orbit, with a beacon. Comes back quick as he can – and can’t find Libby’s cadaver. Fourteen centuries later my sister Teena, then known as Minerva, sees what should have been obvious, that any irrelevant ship, such as yours truly, is a time machine as well as a starship. A great light dawns on Lazarus; the corpse pickled in LOX is missing because he picked it up earlier. So he tries again, more than a thousand years later and five years earlier – and there it is! So Lazarus and I and Laz-Lor go to 1916 Old-Style-or-Gregorian, Old Home Terra, and bury Lib from the sky into the Ozarks where she – he – was born – which was pretty silly because we chucked her into those Green Hills about a century before she was – he – he was born. A paradox. “But paradoxes don’t trouble us. We live in paratime, Laz-Lor are acute cases of parapsychology, we operate under paradoctrines. Why, take your family – four doctors. A double pair o’ docs.” “Dora!” “Pappy, you’re jealous. But I’ll say this for Lazarus: He’s slow but he gets there and has believed all his life that any paradox can be paradoctored. Happens he had lots of time to think after he chucked Lib to a fiery grave because he stayed in that primitive era and got his arse shot off and this caused a long convalescence. “It occurs to him that, if he found the corpse through going back to shortly after he placed it in orbit, he might learn something interesting if he went back just before he put Lib’s remains in orbit. So when he’s well again, he does so, with his whole first team, headed by Doctor Ishtar, the greatest in the business, and I’m outfitted as a hospital with everything from microtomes to cloning capsules. “So we go there and wait – we don’t land. Along comes Lazarus in the clunker that he and Lib used to risk their lives in, and Pappy comes out in a pressure suit and detaches the LOX tank, and Lib is buried in space, waiting for judgment day. We respect Pappy’s griefjust long enough for him to get out of the way, then I take the tank inside me. Ish gets to work, along with many others. Lots of live cells suitable for cloning. Brain intact. Dead but intact – okay, as all Ish wants are the memory configurations. “In the course of this, Ishtar learns that the late lamented had the potential to go either way – which is why the Families’ best telepathic hypnotist is sent for and keeps asking this clone: When you wake up, what do you want to be? Man or woman?” “It was much later, Dora. I was already awake.” “Lib hon, you ask Ish. You had to decide long before you woke. Ish and her hormone artists had to work on you while you were still labile. Matter of fact, you never answered at all; the telepath kept reporting on your emotional state whenever you imagined yourself male, and your state when you imagined yourself female. Ish says that it made you happy to think of yourself as female.” “That’s true. I’ve been ever so much happier as Elizabeth Long than I was as Andy Libby.” “That’s it, folks. How Ish turned a mixed-up male into a happy female, fully functional and horny as Howard females always are.” “Dora! We have guests.” Lazarus glowered. “All married. Deety is youngest. Deety, did my bluntness shock you?” “No, Dora. I’m horny enough to be a Howard myself. And terribly interested in how the great Slipstick Libby turns out to be my twin and female.” “Female without surgery – none of those fakes done with a knife. But even Ish couldn’t have done it had not Lib supplied XXY, so that Ish could balance the clone either XX or XY by careful attention to endocrinal glands. Or could she? Must ask. Ish is genius-cubed, smarter than most computers. Lazarus can now explain his next sleight-of-hand – slightly illegal.” “Hey!” I protested. “How about the corpse jettisoned into the Ozarks, Dora? Who was that?” “Why, that was Lib.” “Lib is right here. I’ve got my arm around her.” That computer went tsk-tsk-tsk. “Deety. Doctor Deety. I just finished telling you that the Lib you are cuddling is a clone. After they drained every memory out of that frozen brain, what was left was dog food. Lib got slashed in the spine by the local equivalent of a cave bear. Ripped out her – his – backbone. Once Ish was through with it, Laz froze it again, we took it back and placed it in orbit, where we found it later – to our great surprise.” “How could you be surprised when you put it there yourselves?” Dora announced, loudly, “Is there a mathematician in the house?” “Stop it, Dora. Thank you for recounting my saga; I learn a little every time I hear it.” Lib turned toward me and said softly, “Biological time versus durational time, Twin. Follow the entropy arrow through the loops of biological time and you will see that Lazarus was honestly surprised at every step even though he had – will-had – rigged every surprise. No grammar for it. Deety, I understand that you have studied semantics. Shall we try to devise a grammar for space-time complexities in six curved dimensions? I can’t contribute much but I can try to punch holes in your work.” “Love to!” I wasn’t fooling. My twin is so sweet that maybe Deety is fairly sweet herself.
Chapter XLI
“A cat can be caught in almost any trap once – “
Jacob: If A, then B. I trust I am a rational mathematician, not one of the romantics who have brought disrepute to our calling through such inanities as defining “infinity” as a number, confusing symbol with referent, or treating ignorance as a datum. When I found myself in the Land of Oz, I did not assume that I had lost my reason. Instead it prepared me emotionally to meet other “fictional” characters. Stipulated: I may be in a locked ward. But to assume that to be factual serves no purpose other than suicide of personality. I shall act on what my senses report. I am not the bumpkin who said on seeing a giraffe: “There ain’t no sich animal.” I find myself in bed with my lovely wife Hilda in sumptuous quarters of star yacht Dora as guests of the utterly fictional “Lazarus Long.” Is this a reason to try to find the call button in order to ask a still-more-fictional nurse for a nonexistent shot to end this hallucination? This is an excellent bed. As for Hilda – Solomon has reason to envy me; Mahomet with all his houris is not as blessed as I. Tomorrow is soon enough to unravel any paradox. Or the Day After Tomorrow. Better yet, Not This October. After The End of Eternity may be best. Why disturb a paradox? As Dora pointed out, Hilda and I are a pair o’ docs ourselves… with no wish to be disturbed, and most certainly not to be unravelled. Since Hilda married me, I have not once taken a sleeping pill. No one called us. I woke up feeling totally rested, found my wife in the fresher brushing her teeth with, Yes, Pepsodent-removed brush from mouth, kissed her, placed brush back in her mouth. When she finished brushing her teeth, I asked, “Seen the kids?” “No, Jacob.” “So. Dora!” “No need to shout; I’m sitting on your shoulder. Would you like breakfast trays in bed?” “Have we missed the breakfast hour?” “Professor Burroughs, breakfast hour in me starts at midnight and ends at noon. Lunch is at thirteen, tea at sixteen-thirty, dinner at twenty, snacks and elevenses at any time. Dinner always formal, no other meal.” “Hmm – How formal is ‘formal’?” Hilda now had more wardrobe – but Beulahiand is not high style. “‘Formal’ means formal dress of your culture or ours, or it means skin. No casual dress. As defined by the Commodore: ‘Whole hawg or none.’ Amendment: Jewelry, perfume, and cosmetics are not proscribed by the no-casualdress rule. Ship’s services include sixty-minute cleaning and pressing, and a variety of formal dress of New-Rome styling, washables for the convenience of guests who do not travel with formal dress, prefer to be dressed at a formal meal, and do not choose to dine alone.” “Very hospitable. Speaking of washables, we found everything but a dirty-clothes hamper. I have a laplap to put in.” “But that’s a washable, Doctor.” “That’s what I said. I’ve worn it; it should be washed.” “Sir, I am not as fluent in English as in Galacta. By ‘washable’ I mean: Step into a shower while wearing it; it will go away.” Hilda said, “We’ll take a dozen gross.” “Captain Hilda, ‘dozen’ and ‘gross’ are not in my memories. Will you please rephrase?” “Just a side remark to my husband, Dora. What are New-Rome high styles today?” “‘Today’ I must construe as meaning the latest I have in stock. Styles follow the stock market. In evening dress, men are wearing their skirts floor length with a slight train. Bodices are off one or both shoulders. Bare feet or sandals are acceptable. Colors are bright and may be mixed in discordants. Weapons are required – may be symbolic but must be displayed. Ladies, of course, follow the cycle out of phase. Skirts are hardly more than ruffles this season, worn quite low. If tops are worn – not required this season and some ladies prefer cosmetics in flat colors – if worn, the teat windows may be either open or transparent. Transparents having quarter-lambda iridescence are popular this cycle, especially if one teat is bare without cosmetics while the other sports a changing-iridescent transparency.” The computer’s voice changed from a well-modulated adult female voice to that of an eager little girl: “I hope somebody picks that; I like to look at it! How about Doctor Deety and Doctor Lib, one shiny on her left teat, the other shiny on her right, and place them side by side. Neat, huh!” “It would be spectacular,” I agreed. (And they would look like clowns! Still, Deety might go along. The child likes to please people, even a computer. Perhaps especially a computer.) “You old goat, would you like a skirt with a slight train?” “Hilda!” “Dora, do you have formal washables in my husband’s size? What measurements do you need?” “I have the Professor’s measurements, Ma’am. I will fetch an assortment to your quarters sometime after noon when you are not sleeping or otherwise engaged. An equivalent assortment for you, I assume?” “If you wish, Dora. I may not wear that style.” “Captain Hilda is an excellent composition herself. I’m an expert engineer; I know good design when I see it. That’s not flattery; Laz-Lor tell me that I should learn to flatter. I’m not sure I have the circuitry for it. Perhaps I can learn it from Gay.” “You sure can, Dorable; I’ve been flattering my four charges seems like forever.” “Gay, have you been listening?” “Mad at me, Aunt Hilda?” “Never angry with our Gay Deceiver. But it’s polite to let people know you’re present.” “But – Dora has eyes and she lets me look.” “Captain Hilda, Gay is with me all the time now. Do you forbid that? We didn’t know.” Dora had slipped into her little-girl voice and sounded stricken. Time to intervene – “Gay, Dora – Hilda and I don’t mind. I’ll tell Deety and Zeb; they won’t mind.” “Jake, you’re my pal!” “Gay, you’ve saved our lives many times; we owe you any fun we can offer. But, Gay, with Dora’s eyes and ears you’ll see and hear things not seen by your radars, not heard unless we switched you on. Do either of you have the word ‘discretion’ in your perms?” “No, Jake. What does it mean?” “I’ll explain it,” Dora said eagerly. “It means we see and hear but pretend not to. Like last night when -“ “Later, Dora. Over your private circuits. What ship’s time is it and are we late for breakfast? I don’t see a clock.” “I’m the clock. It is ship’s time nine-oh-three. You are not last for breakfast. Commander Laz is sleeping late; she didn’t go to bed right after the mutiny. Captain Long – that’s Lor – ate on the bridge – a crude insult to my watch-standing but she’s good company. The Commodore always eats breakfast in the flag cabin. The Doctors Deety and Zeb and Lib are just starting.” “How are they dressed?” asked my Hilda. “In serviettes. Doctor Lib is wearing ‘Jungle Flower’ in cologne and powder and perfume; she likes strong ones. Doctor Zeb seems to have forgotten to use any but his own scent is rather pleasant. I can’t place what Doctor Deety is wearing but it has both musk and sandalwood. Shall I formularize it by symbols?” “It’s ‘Blue Hour’ and I’m startled; my stepdaughter doesn’t need a scent. Neither does Lib, darn it. Jacob, are you ready?” I answered at once. I had taken care of this and that while the computers chattered, including trying a depilatory tricky until I learned how to block it off – my sideburns were missing. Zeb dressed in a serviette – Libby Long the only one not of our family – and Lib used to be male. A good time to rub blue mud in my belly button – “I’m ready.” Hilda noticed my decision by not noticing it. The blue “Tinker-Bell” light appeared, led us to a small dining room, where we encountered a Long-Family custom – did not realize it because it matched a ceremony of our own: Lib saw us, came over, kissed Hilda, kissed me – briefly but with time-stop. Then my daughter was kissing me good-morning while Zeb kissed my wife. We swapped as usual; Deety kissed Hilda – and Zeb took my shoulders, hissed into my ear, “Stand still” – and gave me the double Latin kiss, each cheek. Did my blood brother think I would let him down in the presence of one not of our family? Our custom had started after our double elopement. While Zeb and I usually used the Latin symbol, four rapid pecks, once at Snug Harbor we had missed the fast timing, hit each other mouth to mouth – didn’t pull back but didn’t stretch it out. We declined to make anything of it – although I was aware of the break in taboo and he was, too. Two mornings later I was last in; Zeb was seated with his back to me. He leaned back and turned his head to speak to me; I leaned down, kissed him on the mouth firmly but briefly, moved on and kissed my daughter not as briefly, moved on and kissed my wife thoroughly, sat down and demanded, “What’s for breakfast?” After that the only invariant was: “What’s for breakfast?” Zeb and I used either Latin pecks or busses on the mouth – brief, dry, symbolic, initiated by either of us. It meant that we were closer than a handshake; it held no sexual significance. So I was disgrunted that Zeb thought it was necessary to warn me. Let me add: Women are my orientation and Hilda my necessity. But I tried the other way with my high school chum our graduation week. We were experimenting to find out what the shooting was all about – planned but date subject to opportunity – which turned up that last week of school. A two-hour examination, no other school that day; a half hour of tennis, sudden realization that we were free and that his parents’ flat was empty and would remain so until late afternoon. Der Tag! We gave it a fair trial. We bathed first and thoroughly. We were not shy or afraid of each other. We were not afraid of getting caught – doors locked and bolted, chains on, S.O.P. by his parents’ rules. We liked each other and wanted it to work. Total failure – Got up, had peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches with milk, discussed it as we ate. Neither of us upset, not disgusted, no bad breath or similar hazards – but no results. Brushed our teeth again, washed each other – gave it a second try. So much calisthenics. No “morals” about it, willing and eager to add it on. Not for us – so we killed all evidence and got in three more sets of tennis. That’s how it is with Zeb and me. I love him dearly – but I love him for what he is – while fully empathizing that my daughter thinks he is the greatest lover since – Well, the greatest. But if Zeb ever makes a pass at me, I will do my amateur-acting best to make him feel that this is what I have been waiting for all my life. I’ve been trying to say why I was miffed. Never mind, I shall make it clear to Zeb that I will never let him down. About that Long-Family custom – “Long” is not the name of a Howard Family; it is a group of Howards who live together and who added “Long” (the pseudonym most used by Lazarus) to their regular names. It’s a commune, an extended family, a serial family, a god-knows-what. There is probably no word for it in any language and at least two computers are full members. They come and go and raise children and only the family geneticist (Doctor Ishtar) is sure of parentage and who cares? I suspect that they are all ambi in sex but no outsider could guess – and I am an outsider. But of this I am certain: When Long meets Long for the first time any day, they kiss – and it’s no Latin peck. I learned that I could have anything I wanted for breakfast. This should have been enough to tell me that we were being set up for the tale. I’m getting ahead of my story, as I know things about the Long Family that I read in a book that you may not have read. This ship Dora came from a planet many parsecs from the Earth-analog of that universe, from a time over two thousand years in my future looked at one way… or a time totally irrelevant to mine through not having duration axis in common. Yet I could have anything: Post Toasties, hens’ eggs any style, bacon, ham, sausage, breakfast steak, toast, orange marmalade, Concord grape jelly, buckwheat cakes – and not one of these foods is from Tertius, home of the Long Family. Pepsodent in our ‘fresher – As I was contemplating a beautiful golden waffle with one bite of it melting in my mouth, Lazarus Long walked in… and a voice in my head played back: “The Commodore always eats breakfast in the flag cabin.” Add that Lazarus was dressed as were Zeb and I save that he did not yet have a napkin. Working hypothesis: Lazarus had listened in on every word between husband and wife. Second hypothesis: “Dora, tell me when they get up, tell me when they arrive in the breakfast room – if they do, but offer trays as usual. If they eat in the breakfast room, let me know how each is dressed.” The first hypothesis defines a grave social offense; the second outlines information a host or hostess is entitled to know. How do I find out which is which? Answer: I can’t, as Lazarus Long will give me the answer that profits him and that computer is loyal to him, not to me. As soon as Lazarus finished kissing Lib Long, he was grabbed by Deety and kissed… then he caught Hilda’s eye, glanced at me and sloooowly bent to kiss her, giving her and me, severally, time to make that tiny gesture that says No – and did kiss her because I depend on Hilda’s instincts and will never tell her No in such circumstances, or greater or lesser. Hilda put her hand back of his neck and thereby controlled the kiss and made it long – and I tore up the first hypothesis and marked the second one “Q.E.D.” Hilda’s instincts about people are infallible; I think she is a touch telepathic. As may be, we would now help him if possible. To Zeb and me he simply said, “Good morning” – his instincts are reputed to be infallible, too. I agreed that it was a “good morning” while noting to myself that it was a symbol without a referent save for social connotation (morning? In an irrelevancy?) but added sincerely, “Lazarus, this is the best waffle I ever tasted.” “Then please tell Dora.” “Dora, did you hear what I said to the Commodore?” “I surely did, Professor Jake! Six more?” I felt my waistline-firm and many centimeters trimmed off. “Six more is what I want -“ “Right away!” “But half of one is all I dare eat. Deety, the next time we go to Oz, will you ask Glinda whether or not there is a magic for gluttons – me, I mean – to permit them to eat as much as they want while three fourths of it disappears?” “I’m sure she could do it; I’m equally sure that she would not. She’s an ethical witch; you would not be able to convince her that your purpose was worthy.” “You are depressingly logical, my dear.” Lib said, “Professor, you have actually been to the Land of Oz? Really and truly?” “Really and truly. Dora, is Gay on the line?” “On deck, Jake” – Gay’s voice. “Has anyone been in to see our portside annex?” “How could they? Captain Hilda has not authorized it.” “But – Hilda?” “No, dear. Sorry to be blunt, Commodore and Doctor Lib, but I won’t authorize an open door because there are too many things that must not be touched. But I will be delighted to escort guests into Gay Deceiver almost anytime including right now; I’ve finished eating.” “I accept!” “Then come along, Elizabeth. Anyone else?” Lazarus said, “Dora, shove my breakfast to the back of the stove; I’ll eat it later.” “A jelly omelet? I’ll eat it myself.” “Do that, Dorable. Captain, I’m ready.” Laz-Lor showed up together, did not want to be left out. We ended up quite a crowd: eight humans, two computers. Hilda stopped us at Gay’s starboard door. “Friends, again I must be blunt. As you cross the sill of that door, you are leaving Star Yacht Dora and entering an independent command, the Gay Deceiver, even though Dora totally surrounds Gay. Inside that door, I command, responsible to no one, unlimited in authority. Captain Lor, do you understand and agree with the legal theory?” Captain Lorelei glanced at her sister, looked unhappy. “Captain Hilda, I do agree. Therefore I can’t come aboard. I can’t abandon my command.” My wife looked terribly distressed. “Oh, I’m sorry!” Lazarus Long interrupted. “Captain Hilda, I’m sorry another way. I don’t agree with your legal theory. I have had more than two thousand years more experience with law than my sister has… all sorts of law in all sorts of cultures. I’m not speaking of justice; I’ll leave that to philosophers. But I know what legal theories work with humans, and what ones have been attempted, then abandoned because they could not be made to work. This situation is not new; it has occurred thousands, millions, of times: a larger vessel with a smaller vessel nested in it. The solution is always the same, whether it concerns starships, fishing boats, aircraft carriers, whatever. The smaller vessel is a separate command outside the larger vessel, but when it is inside the carrier vessel, it is legally part of it.” My darling did not answer. She was picking out me, Zeb, and Deety by eye as Lazarus talked. As he finished she said briskly, “GayDeceiverOpenStarboardDoor. Man the car, prepare for space.” I’m proud of our family. Zeb zipped past me to the farthest seat – which left me room to dive for mine as Deety was picking up Hilda bodily, shoving her inside, crowding in after her, turning and pulling her feet clear of the doorframe – yelping, “GayCloseDoors!” I was belting in but looking to the right, where the action was. Lazarus Long grabbed the door while calling out, “Hey, wait a moment!” He realized his mistake in time to keep his fingers. I had argued with Zeb when I discovered, during refitting, that he had removed the interlocks that prevent that sort of accident. He answered my protest: “Jake, when I tell those doors to close, I want them to close. If, in closing, one chops off a man’s head, you can assume that I think he looks better that way.” Lazarus saved his hand but was knocked off his feet by the door – and I saw a bit of why he had lived so long. Instead of trying to check his fall, he gathered himself into a ball and took it on one buttock. “Report!” “Copilot belted checking seal!” “Chief Pilot belted all systems go. Door seal being rechecked.” “Navigator belted, ready.” “Starboard door seal okay!” “GayBounce!” We were in free fall. No stars – total darkness. “Astrogator. Advise.” “I don’t know, Captain. We’ll have to ask Gay whether or not she can backtrack. Any backtrack. Beulahland, or any spot in her perms. I’m lost.” Suddenly the stars came out. “Dora, calling Gay Deceiver. Come in, Gay.” “Don’t answer. Zebbie, advise again. What happened?” “I’m guessing. They cancelled encapsulation rather than risk losing us. They must be awfully anxious.” Zeb added, “The only thing we have that you can’t buy at the corner drugstore is Jake’s space-time twister. How they knew of it and why they want it I do not know.” “Dora, calling Gay. Gay, please talk to me. Aren’t you still my friend? I know our bosses had a silly fuss – but we didn’t. Aren’t you ever going to speak to me again? I love you, Gay. Please don’t be mean to me.” “Captain Hilda, may I please say hello to Dora and tell her that I am not angry at her? She’s a sweet girl, she really is. Captain, she let me use her eyes.” “Let me speak to her first.” “Oh, thank you! Gay, answering Dora. Come in, Dora.” “Gay! You had me so scared. Don’t go away again, please. The Commodore wants to apologize to your boss. Will she talk to him?” “Captain?” “No. I’ll speak to Dora’s Captain, however.” A cartoon of Lorelei’s features displayed on our central screen. “Lor speaking, Captain Hilda. My brother is terribly sorry and wants to apologize. My sisters and I are dreadfully upset and want you please to come back. I don’t claim any command over your ship despite the silly things my brother said. Lib has a message for you, too. She says that, topologically, there is no difference between you being inside us or us being inside you. Either way, we each surround the other.” “I don’t see it topologically, Captain; I see it pragmatically. But please thank Elizabeth for me. I have this message for Lazarus Long. A cat can be caught in almost any trap once; but that cat will not be caught in the same trap twice.” “The message is delivered.” “Then it is time to say good-bye. Captain Lorelei, I cannot honestly thank you as kidnapping is not hospitality even when it is luxurious. But I don’t think that you or your sister – sisters – meant it that way. I blame it on that deceitful, devious brother of yours. Please tell your sisters and Libby good-bye for us and say that I am sorry we had to leave.” “Captain, wait! There is something I must do first.” “Captain Lor, I must warn you I have you in my gunsights.” “What? Oh! We are unarmed. Not anything like that. I’ll be back quickly. Perhaps you would like Dora to sing? But please don’t go away!” The face in the screen pulled away. “What kind of songs do you like, folks? I know lots of songs. One-Ball Reilly; and the Green Hills and On Guard Christmas So’s Yours and Santa Carolita and Mademoiselle from Army Tears and the Pawnshot song and The Monkey Wrapped His Tail Around the Flagpole and Mary O’Meara and Soldier, Ask Not and just tell me what you like, and – here comes Sister. Captain Lor.” “Captain Hilda, thanks from my heart for waiting. Can you record?” “Gay, recording mode. Go ahead.” “I have placed my brother under arrest and confined him to quarters. I, Captain Lorelei Lee Long, Master of Star Yacht Dora, affirm for use in any court that I have no authority over yacht Gay Deceiver and will never attempt to assert authority over Gay Deceiver no matter what circumstances and, furthermore, I now place myself, my crew, and my ship Dora under command of Captain Hilda Burroughs, henceforth commodore of both ships, this assignment of command irrevocable by me or my sisters, and revocable solely by Commodore Burroughs at her sole discretion. End of message. Hilda, won’t you come home? Laz is crying and I don’t know what to do. We need you. Buddy Boy never did tell you why. But we do! May I tell you?” “Go ahead, Lor.” “To save our mother’s life!” (I said, softly, “I’ll be damned.”) My wife hesitated, then said, “Is Elizabeth Long there?” “Yes, yes! She’s been listening – she’s crying, too – and I would be but I’m Captain and can’t.” The smudged faces changed. “Lib Long speaking, Commodore.” “Libby, Captain Lorelei has told me something not only hard to believe but, if she is cloned from her brother as I have read, she may have his talent for lying. From what I know of you, I don’t think you ever learned how to lie.” “Commodore, it is true that I never learned to lie convincingly. So I gave it up a long time ago.” “Very well, Lib. Is Lazarus Long in fact confined and under arrest?” “Yes, to both. His door won’t open and Dora has been instructed not to let him out until you permit it.” “What’s this about saving her mother’s life? If they are clones from a man the age Lazarus is alleged to be, their mother must have died a couple of millennia back.” “It’s as complex as my case, Commodore, but quite different. The twins have host-mothers. But Lor was speaking of the genetic mother of herself, her twin sister, and Lazarus Long. She was reported dead more than two thousand Old-Home-Terra years ago. But there is some hope that the records were confused and that it may be possible to save her. It can’t be done without your help and the help of the Gay Deceiver. I don’t think the chances are good, even so. But without your help – well, I would have to try to devise such a drive as Gay is reported to have – and I don’t think I can.” “Wait a moment, Libby. Gay, cut transmission from cabin; keep circuit ready. Can you find your way unassisted back into your berth in Dora? Did you get it into your perms?” “I did. I thought I might want to find Dora someday. Are you displeased with me? I know it wasn’t authorized. But I didn’t three-times it! I can wipe it.” “Gay Deceiver. New program. New parking spot. Code word ‘Dora Long.’ I tell you three times.” “Hilda, I hear you three times!” “Gay Deceiver. ‘Dora Long.’ Execute!” The stars went away and lighted alcoves were at our doors.
Chapter XLII
“You’re a figment of imagination.”
Zeb: “Hear that, Laz? You’re a figment of imagination.” “No, Lor. You are a figment; I’m a fig.” (What she said was “fica,” and Deety suppressed a giggle. I pinched her and told her in family tap code that she had a dirty mind – which she ignored, being proud of it rather than otherwise. It was a long time later that I learned that Laz had used a Galacta word – but the ancient pun still applied.) Jake reiterated patiently, “Laz-Lor, the key point of Commodore Hilda’s theory is that we are all equally figments of imagination. ‘Reality’ thus becomes a null sythbol.” Deety shook her head emphatically. “Stick to geometry, Pop. Or stamp collecting. Leave symbology to symbologists – such as your favorite daughter. I’m real, I am! Smell me.” “No doubt you could use a bath. So could we all; it’s been an adrenaline day. But that’s the other side of the coin, Deety. ‘Imaginary’ and ‘Real’ turn out to be identical. Consider this chow bench. On one level of abstraction it is mathematical equations. At the level just below that it is a swirling nothlngness, with mass-energy a rare event. But on the gross level abstracted by my senses I can place this drink on it with utter confidence that it will not sink through this near vacuum.” My father-in-law matched his words by placing his highball on the snack bench; it sank out of sight. Jake looked tired. “Not my day. Dora, did you do that?” “Yes and no, Professor.” “What kind of answer is that?” “You placed it on a take-away spot and that part of me was on automatic and took it away and sterilized it. I’m sorry, sir, and here’s your fresh drink.” It was indeed a busy day. No one had been waiting at our parking berth, but three young women arrived at a dead run while Sharpie was swapping seats with Deety – our brand-new commodore planned to be first to step into her new ship. The starboard door opened; Sharpie stepped out, a dignified procession of one -and was hit from three sides by three young women, each managing to laugh and cry at the same time. But Sharpie enjoys everything and her aplomb has never been shaken. She kissed them, let them kiss her, petted them and told them to calm down, everything was all right. “Dears, I never intended to stay away; I simply refused to let the great Lazarus Long put one over on Sharpie. Where is he now?” “Shut up in the flag cabin, Ma’am. Commodore.” “Captain Lor, lock him up elsewhere; the flag cabin is mine.” “Aye aye, Commodore.” “How long will that take? Seconds, I mean; not hours.” Lor spoke rapidly to Dora in a language I almost understood. I leaned to my right, spoke to my wife. “Spanish. Some sort.” “Italian,” Deety answered. “Will you settle for Latino? No! – I remember now: Galacta. We’ll have to learn it. But it sounds easy.” Lor reported, “Flag cabin will be ready for you by the time you reach it, Commodore.” “Very good. I expect to use it primarily as an administration office; flag remains in Gay Deceiver. That is appropriate, since Dora is unarmed whereas Gay Deceiver is an attack ship, an armed privateer – heavily armed, for her size.” Sharpie smiled. “A few days ago, in another universe, we destroyed an entire air army. We don’t have fancies such as artificial gravity; we belt down and fight in free fall. Gay Deceiver is stripped for speed and armament; Dora is just the opposite. The two complement each other beautifully.” I wondered why Sharpie was blathering – but she always has reasons. I think she reads minds. I’m certain that Laz-Lor do, with each other. They looked at each other, then: “The flag of an armed privateer – “ ” – is the Skull-and-Cross-Bones -“ ” – is it not? Do we take prisoners -“ ” – or cut their throats?” “Which would you rather do? Captain Lor, please do all the talking; these whipsaw conversations are hard to follow. By the way, no more ‘midnight mutinies.’ Lor, you remain captain until further notice.” Again they looked at each other. “We like to swap off.” “Calling it ‘mutiny’ is just a joke.” “No one asked your preferences. My chief of staff and second-in-command of the flagship is the only one who does and must advise me. If you have opinions to offer, see him. Answer my question. Captain Lor.” “We’ll do what you order. But our brother who was our father at the time taught us never to kill if we could possibly avoid it while teaching us all sorts of ways to kill and made us practice. When we were growing up we always wanted to be pirates. Then we grew up and decided that it could never be and tried to forget it.” Sharpie said, “I think I’m making you tongue-tied by forcing you to filter it through one set of vocal cords. So cancel that order; you two are unique. We operate just the way Lazarus taught you; so far we have killed only once – to repel an attack on us. That air army – We timed it, caught them with their flying machines on the ground, burned the machines, burned their fuel – and thereby stopped an invasion… without killing anyone. But we are always ready to kill. Lor, that’s why I warned you a few minutes ago. It would have broken Gay’s heart to have to destroy Dora. Skull-and-Cross-Bones? No way to fly one but, if you want to hang one in the lounge, I grant permission. Why did you decide not to become pirates?” That same preliminary glance – “Babies -“ “Laz has three, I have four – “ ” – because Lor has one pair of twins -“ ” – and we try to be pregnant at the same time -“ ” – and time it to fit our plans -“ ” – and Brother’s plans if you ever let him out of hack.” “How old are you two? I’ve been thinking of you as about Deety’s age but you can’t be. Just one of you answer, please; it’s a simple question.” They conferred mentally an unusually long time. At last Captain Lor said slowly, “It isn’t quite simple. We will get Dora and Athene to integrate it for us… if data are complete; they may not be. But answering in Old-Home-Terran years and meaning our own biological time, Laz thinks we are about forty-eight and I think we are a couple of years younger. It doesn’t matter because Ishtar will tell us when to rejuvenate, which won’t be soon, as we aren’t yet close to menopause.” “Does it have to be at menopause?” “Oh, no, just makes it easier and you never have to stop making babies. But Ishtar’s mother went years past menopause and had decided to die… and changed her mind and looks younger than we do and has had more babies than we have. This time around, I mean.” “How often do men need it?” Sharpie asked. Jake looked up and said, “I won’t need it for another six weeks, Hilda. Maybe seven.” “Shush, dear. Laz-Lor, be careful around my husband. When he’s in rut, it takes heavy chains to restrain him. So never mind that question; he doesn’t need to know and, for me, it was intellectual curiosity of a biologist. Perhaps it s best to ask Doctor Ishtar.” “Yes, Commodore, that would be best. We aren’t biologists; we’re ship handlers.” I leaned forward. (Sharpie was keeping us in the car; why I didn’t know – then.) “Commodore! I’m required to advise you.” “Yes, Zebbie.” “You are going to need a new chief of staff, a new second-in-command, and a new astrogator because I will be on the binnacle list in a wet pack if you don’t have Laz-Lor answer that last one. It is not ‘intellectual curiosity’ to me.” “Why, Zebbie dear, I have reports that your curve is such that it will be many, many years before you can possibly have other than intellectual interest.” (If it were not for upsetting Jake, I would paddle that pert little arse!) Deety said, “Hear, hear!” I placed my hand over her mouth and got bitten. Sharpie said, “Captain, we have here another paradox – Doctors Carter and Burroughs, each unreasonably insecure. Elizabeth, you’ve been a man; give them the male angle.” “Commodore, I wasn’t very successful as a male. I simply took antigeria whenever Lazarus did. But I can report his thumb rule.” “Yes?” “When a man looks at a new and attractive woman and decides that he is too tired, it’s time. When he doesn’t even look, push him over and bury him; he’s failed to notice that he’s dead.” The ship’s computer said something in that not-Spanish; Sharpie answered, “Graz, Dora. I’ll come now.” Lor said, “Ma’am, we didn’t know you knew Galacta.” “I don’t. But I will a week from now. I knew what I would say in your position, and you said it; I could tell from cognates. You told Dora to get him out pronto, because the Doña was on her way. Then get his personal belongings when I would not be inconvenienced. So I stalled. Zebbie, will you come with me? Jacob dearest, will you decide whether or not we should give up our suite with the Carters? And what to move out of Gay? We will be in Dora at least a week, possibly longer.” “Commodore, we depart for Tertius tomorrow midday, ship’s time.” “I do not recall ordering that, Captain Lor.” The twins looked at each other – and said nothing. Sharpie patted Laz’s cheek. “Don’t look so thunderstruck, girls” – girls? – seven years or so Sharpie’s senior and seven babies between them – “On reaching Tertius, place us in orbit, following local rules. But no messages from ship to ground unless approved by me in writing. Come now!” As Sharpie left with me in tow, she told Deety that she was on her own but please get out Jacob’s Army blues and my Aerospace dress, and ask Dora about cleaning and pressing. Jake said, “Hey!” before I could, and Sharpie said, reasonably, “I won’t put you into a long skirt, sweetheart; you would feel that I had coerced you into drag. I thought perhaps you two were bored with civilian dress – and I shall continue the custom concerning dressing for dinner – either formal dress or formal skin. Nothing in between.” Upon reaching flag cabin Sharpie dismissed Laz-Lor, waited until we were private, then clung to me. “Hold me, Zebbie. Hold me tight! Calm me down.” The little thing was shaking. “Maybe I had better get Jake,” I suggested, while holding her and petting her gently – and solving aerodynamic empiricals in my head to keep from noticing how much skin such a tiny woman can spread over one. “No, Zebbie. Jacob would fuss over me like a mother hen and give me advice I don’t want. Either I boss this job without my husband telling me what to do… or I can’t cut it. If I fail, I will fail on my own – not as Jacob’s puppet. But I can cry on you and tell you things I wouldn’t tell my own toothbrush.” She added, “When I send you out, find Jake and have him teach school to everybody. That’ll keep him busy and happy and out of my hair. And everybody else, too. Have both computers record his lectures.” “Lectures on what?” “Oh. Too many details. The plenum of universes and the Number of the Beast. Pantheistic multiple solipsism, or why the Land of Oz is real. The quantum mechanics of fairy tales. Even the care and feeding of Black Hats. He’ll probably want to take people into Gay… but you must be present; don’t delegate it. Jacob can go along and lecture but it’s Zebbie’s sharp eye that will see to it that nothing is touched.” She patted my chest. “You’re such a comfort. Now I’m going to dig out this ship’s papers and you’re going to help because I don’t know what to expect. Or where to find them. Certificate of ownership, I suppose, and registration, and ship’s manifest whatever that is. What else and where should I look?” “A log. Crew list, passenger list. Health inspection, maybe. Other inspections. Bureaucracy and red tape tend to follow the same patterns everywhere. Maybe no paper papers; that looks like a computer printout over there. Mmm – Insist on English; the originals are almost certainly in Galacta.” “I’ll try it. Dora.” “Listening, Commodore Hilda.” “Print for me, in English, the ship’s official papers. Ownership, registration, manifests, and so forth. You know the list. Retrieve soonest.” “I am not authorized to do this, Ma’am.” “‘Not authorized’ by whom?” The computer did not answer. Sharpie said, “Stick around, Zebbie; there’s going to be trouble. Do you have any weapons?” “Where? Look at me. How?” “I don’t know but you’re clever about such things. Dora!” “Your orders, Commodore?” “Get me Captain Lor! In person, not voice. I want her here on a dead run – right now! Out!” (I did have a weapon. I had palmed an item as I left Gay. But never admit a holdout.) Laz-Lor arrived, breathing hard, seconds later. “You sent for us, Ma’am?” “I sent for Captain Lor; I did not send for Laz. Out. Pronto!” Laz had her mouth open to speak. She got out so fast the door was only partly dilated; she dived through. “Dora! Repeat to Captain Lor every word that you’ve heard, every word you’ve said, since I entered this cabin.” The computer started with Sharpie telling Laz-Lor they could leave… then surprised me with: “Hold me, Zebbie. Hold me tight. Calm me down.” I started to speak, Sharpie shook her head. Dora droned on, right through Hilda’s order to repeat back all the computer had heard or said since we came in. The computer stopped; Sharpie said, “Dora, you told me this morning that you could not scan in here without permission.” “That is correct, Ma’am.” “Who gave you permission?” The computer did not answer. “Captain Lor, did you or your sister tell this computer to spy on me and to refuse to answer certain questions?” “No, Ma’am.” “Then it’s your brother Lazarus. Don’t bother to lie; I didn’t ask, I told you. Fetch your brother to me, under arrest. Move!”
Chapter XLIII
To Pull a Hat Out of a Rabbit –
Smith: I had had trouble convincing my sisters that I must be “arrested” and “confined.” I had made an idiotic mistake and now must be “punished.” Lor had even less enthusiasm for placing herself and our ship under the command of a stranger. Once they accepted it, I could depend on them. We did not let Lib in on the caper; she has no talent for creative lying. Far better that she believe whatever she said. Laz and Lor were outwitting their elders by the time they were six, a process I encouraged by walloping them whenever I caught them. They learned. They also have my talent for looking stupid, plus one I have but seldom can use: They can turn tears on and off like a faucet. (I have not found many cultures in which this advantages a male.) Once this was settled, I arrested myself by helping Dora’s waldoes move my most personal gear next door. Then I lay down and listened through Dora to what was going on in the flag cabin. And discovered that I had outsmarted myself. I have never tried to teach Dora to lie; a dishonest computer is a menace: one that is a pilot would be a lethal disaster, sooner or later. Sooner. But I hadn’t figured on this narrow little broad asking for my papers so quickly. Nor did I guess that Dora had told her that my cabin could be scanned only by my order. When I heard the situation start to deteriorate, I got up quickly and put on one of my Scottish outfits. Advantages: I look bigger, taller, more imposing. The costume calls for two weapons worn publicly. These I never use. But the costume is so draped and full that one may hide weapons for a half squad- then never show them save in extremis. So I was ready when Lor came busting in, almost incoherent. “Brother, is she mad! Watch yourself!” “I will, Lor. You’ve done a swell job.” I kissed her. “Now march me in under arrest.” So we did. I halted ten paces from Mrs. Burroughs and saluted. She said to Lor, “You may leave” – waited until Lor had left, then said, “Instruct your computer not to see or listen in this space.” “Aye aye, Ma’am. Dora.” “Yes, Boss?” “Back to normal for my cabin. No see ‘um, no hear ’em until I tell you to.” “Chinchy!” “Dora!” “Aye aye, Boss. Mean!” “She’s a bit childish but she’s a good cook. And a fine pilot.” “And you’re a bit childish. Prisoners do not salute, prisoners do not wear arms. Captain Carter, confiscate his weapons. Keep them as souvenirs or destroy them.” Long years as a slave taught me to put up with anything without a squawk. That doesn’t make it pleasant. “Smith.” I didn’t answer. She added, “I mean you, Woodie!” “Yes, Ma’am?” “Lean over, grab your ankles. Captain, frisk him.” Carter knew how, I soon no longer had tools for a half squad – but felt better when he ended having missed one. He was in uniform-of-the-day, but he was big, in training, and carried himself in a way that made me think of Black Belts. “Those are yours, too, Zebbie, although you might share them. Deety mentioned something about not having a throwing knife. How’s the balance on those?” She was not speaking to me but I had to try to gain control of the psychological gauge. “One and a half turns at eight meters, Ma’am. I make them myself. But it’s too heavy a knife for a lady. I would happily make one to fit Doctor Deety’s hand and strength.” “I imagine that Doctor Deety is stronger than you are, Woodie. I think you’ve gone a bit soft. Someday we’ll check it. Take off your clothes.” With my weapons gone, other than the one, I welcomed the order. Clothes are no asset in unarmed brawl; the other man can use yours against you. And I was sweating; Dora keeps the ship right for skin. I peeled quickly. “Shove them down that,” she said, pointing. “Uh, Ma’am, that’s a destruction oubliette.” “I know. Next time you won’t try to impress me by sartorial elegance. Furthermore it was intentional insolence. Pronto!” I shoved them down pronto. “Grab your ankles again, Woodie. Captain Carter, need we give him an enema to make sure he hasn’t hidden one more weapon? I don’t care to check by touch without a rubber glove, and I won’t ask you to.” “Madam, I give you my word – “ ” – which is worth nothing. Let it go, Zebbie. Join the class and keep an eye on our interests.” The big man looked me over. “I don’t like to leave you alone with him, Commodore.” “Thank you, Zebbie. I’m safe. I was safe when he was armed but he was being insolent so I spanked him. Run along; he doesn’t dare touch me.” She added, “Or do you have a premonition?” “No. But I get them just barely in time.” “I couldn’t ask for more. But I feel a prophecy. Woodie is going to be a lamb about everything. Now go, dear.” He left, giving me a look that promised death if I harmed her. I wanted to tell him that I had never found it necessary to harm a woman in more centuries than his wife had years. “Well, Lazarus, how do we work this out?” “Work out what, Ma’am? You have the upper hand.” “Oh, piffle! You have the upper hand; you know it. As long as the ship’s computer obeys you, rather than me, my ‘authority’ is a fraud. I escaped once by a fluke; you won’t let it happen twice. But I stuck my head back into the trap because I think we have something to trade, to our mutual profit.” “I hope so, Ma’am. Please go on.” “You want your mother rescued. I plan to do it if it can be done. For which you will toe the mark. We need a holding company. I will own fifty-one percent of the voting stock. Not of the profits; there will be plenty for all. But I control.” “Madam, you’re way ahead of me. I don’t know what you have in mind.” “Money. Money and power. Whew! I just got downwind; you sweated into that heavy costume. Go in there, take a tub bath, hot and soapy. I’ll sprawl on the chaise longue and we’ll talk business. Are you really trying to rescue your mother, or are you simply looking to cut yourself in on Jacob’s invention? We can make a deal, either way – but I must know. Don’t hold out on me; I tend to get annoyed. Then someone else pays. You, in this case.” She took my hand and led me into the ‘fresher while I answered her key question and thought about the rest. No more lies; she had caught me in one thrown together hastily and too complex; my grandfather would have been ashamed of it. So – nothing but the truth. But how much truth and what truth? “Rescuing my mother is priority one, sine qua non. Business aspects are secondary.” “You were going to say that business aspects didn’t matter to you – and I would have stuffed it down your throat.” I stalled while I adjusted the bath’s controls. “Ma’am, I always think about business angles. But I would go broke and start over to make this rescue.” “Will you sign such a contract? We rescue your mother; you sign over all your wealth to me? No cheating, no holdout?” “Is that what it takes?” “No. It would not be equitable and that would compel you to cheat. Any contract must profit both of us. But rescuing your mother appeals to me – to all my family; I’m the least sentimental of us-and we would tackle it if there were not a fiat dollar in sight. Pour le sport. That nice warm feeling – whether it’s a kitten, a baby bird, or an old woman. But there is money in this… and sport… and opportunities beyond imagination. That sound of water splashing: does that interfere with Dora’s hearing?” “No, she filters it out.” “Is she listening?” I instantly answered, “Yes.” I’ve lived a long time in part by being a cat not caught in the same trap twice – as she had underlined. I placed in my permanent memory, nine times nine, never to lie to this woman again. Evade, avoid, keep silent, be elsewhere. But don’t lie to her. A born Grand Inquisitor. Telepathic? Must ask Laz-Lor. “I’m glad you said Yes, Lazarus. Had you said No, I would have broken off negotiations. I’m not telepathic – but you may find it inadvisable to lie to me. We must change the computer situation – part now, part later. You didn’t give her the right code words.” “That’s right. ‘Chinchy’ and ‘mean’ equal -“ ” – Roger Wilco, but reversed meaning.” “Eh? That’s a deep-down memory. Yes. Hmm – I must insert that phrase into Galacta. Useful.” The water was just right, with deep, fragrant suds. I stepped down into it, picked a seat that let me lounge. “I should have said to Dora – Shall I tell Dora now?” “With a modification. I want the equivalent of a simple telephone, so that I can call anyone, anyone can call me – and the same for you. But kill the snoop circuits throughout this suite.” “No trouble. We can call out at any time; that is a safety feature, permanent. As for calling in, I usually limit it to the twin commanding; she’s entitled to disturb me, if needed. If not needed – well, neither Laz nor Lor enjoys being called ‘stupid,’ especially by me.” I changed the orders to Dora and did not cheat; Mrs. Burroughs and I were now truly in private, although anyone could reach us – voice only. “What next, Ma’am?” “Some permanent changes for Dora, now that she can’t hear us. Tentative plans for your mother’s rescue. Then we talk business. Is there a seat in that pool where I won’t drown?” “Oh, certainly. When Laz-Lor were your size, they often bathed with me – I’ve had as high as six in this tub although that’s a bit cozy; it’s a four-adult design. Here, let me help; you can’t see through these suds.” Helping Hilda Burroughs reminded me of handling Laz-Lor at the same size, prepubescent… but I was acutely aware that this small, warm, slick body was postpubescent by many years and I got a twinge that I was pleased to have figleafed by suds. “Feel under you – find the seat? Temperature suit you?” “Luxurious. On Tertius refreshers are social rooms, are they not?” “Yes. Over the years I have found that nude cultures, or those with no taboos about nakedness, tend to make bathing a social event. Ancient Romans. Ancient Japanese. Many others.” She answered, “Whereas cultures with strong body taboos equate bathing rooms with outhouses back of barns. Disgusting.” Mrs. Burroughs looked disgusted. I noted this as I had thought it would be necessary to get them used to skin before exposing them to the easy-going ways of Tertius… lest I jeopardize my mother’s rescue. I had instructed Laz-Lor to hold us in irrelevancy until all of them, with no urging, accepted the comfort of complete bareness in perfectly tempered conditions, and simply forgot about bodies qua bodies. This does not mean to forget yin-yang… but it has long been known to all but legislators, judges, and other fools that a scrap of clothing fig-leafing whatever may be taboo (taboos vary endlessly and each is a “law of nature”) is far more stimulating than is no clothing. (Warning to time-travellers: To assume that the taboos of your native culture are “natural” and that you can’t go too wrong behaving by the rules your loving parents taught you is to risk death. Or worse. If you think death has no “worse,” read history.) To return to pretty little Mrs. Burroughs: To be enjoying a bath with her a few minutes after she had had me subjected to personal indignity was the second most surprising thing about her. The most surprising thing I was still learning: This fragile little doll with the muscles of a kitten was the toughest bitch kitty I have ever encountered. Understand me, I admire her. But I want to be on the side she is on. “What changes in Dora do you want, Ma’am?” “Lazarus, I’m ‘Ma’am’ to strangers and on formal occasions. I don’t consider bathing all that formal; my friends call me Hilda. Or by nicknames. Even pet names. But not ‘Ma’am.'” My answer got me splashed. She went on, “In attempting to hornswoggle me, you gave me, through your accomplices, a phony command and rank – while retaining control of the computer necessary to make it real. I require that you carry out your contract. Now. By reprogramming Dora to me as her sole boss, with the program locked so that you can’t change it. Me and me alone.” She smiled, leaned toward me, and placed a hand on my knee under water. “That’s why I insisted on privacy – for Dora’s sake. She’s self-aware and seems quite vulnerable. Lazarus, I don’t mind anyone in this ship hearing anything I’ve been saying. But I don’t discuss surgery when it is likely to upset the patient.” She leaned forward. “Scratch between my shoulder blades – pretty please?” I welcomed time to think, while requiring her to coach me – higher, lower, a little to the left, ah, right there … “Hilda, I’m not sure it can be done. I did reprogram Dora so that her loyalty in crisis is to Laz-Lor. But it took me years and was not done by circuitry or by programming Dora is so thoroughly a self-aware personality that it is necessary to win her love in order to gain her lovalty” “I find that believable. Lazarus, let’s see you pull a hat out of the rabbit.” “You mean -“ “I meant what I said. Any second-rate magician can pull a rabbit out of a hat. Can Lazarus Long pull a hat out of a rabbit? Watch this space next week. It’s your problem, Lazarus; you created it. I won’t make a second contract with a man in default on his first. Do you want your back scratched while you think? You scratched mine deliciously.” I accepted by leaning forward. Hilda is telepathic though perhaps not in words. She knew which spots and how hard and how long. And when to stop. She dropped her hand as I straightened up… and her hand brushed against me and stopped. “Well! Truly I did not intend to be provocative, old dear.” I put an arm around her; she did not pull away but continued, “I won’t refuse you. I have not given a man reasonable cause to call me a tease since I was twelve. But wouldn’t it be sensible to table this until after we have rescued your mother and set up our business structure? If you find – then – that you are interested, you will let me know. If you do, I ask that you cooperate with me in saving my husband’s feelings and face. And… I am… having trouble saying this – Damn it! Please stop and tell me the plans for rescuing your mother.” I stopped, allowed a hand’s width to separate us. “Have you forgotten the hat and the rabbit?” “I’m afraid I did. Very well, you’ve won this round; we attempt to rescue your mother. I waive the broken contract – but we do no further business. Just the rescue, then we leave.” “I thought you promised me a second chance – later?” “What? Lazarus, you’re a bastard.” “I’m not but the term has no meaning on Tertius. Here’s the ‘hat.’ You designate me your flunky – any title – for this ship. My sole function will be to be in earshot – through Dora or otherwise – to insure that your slightest wish is carried out. Night or day.” “Making me a privileged figurehead, still vulnerable to your whim. The hat won’t fit.” “Very well – second hat. We ground on Tertius; I move Dora into another ship – she accepts that; it has happened before. I sign this ship over to you with a new computer of the same capacity, programmed for ship’s routine but unawakened. You let it awaken to your personality. You’ll be its mother.” “That’s better. Close but not on. Lazarus, you and I are going to be in business together a long time. I won’t take your ship. Instead you’re going to build me a ship, a tender for Gay Deceiver but moved by a Burroughs continua device – the first such ship built by Burroughs & Long, Ltd., a subsidiary of Carter Engineering Company. Another subsidiary is Carter Computers, which may assemble computers but primarily will build Burroughs Time-Space twisters under some innocuous name, and sell them only inside our complex setup – much more complex; we’ll work on it together. But our biggest subsidiary will be Libby & Smith, Real Estate. That one rebuilds solar systems.” “What!!” “Talk to Zebbie and Jacob. We’ll organize Black Hat Safaris, Pty., too, but it may be a dummy for a while. We’ll have an emporium in New Rome, imports from many universes. Uh… The Pawnshop, of course, with the Hook Joint above it. Ultra expensive imported styles up there, modelled by New Rome’s most beautiful hetaerae. Private rooms for private viewings. This one is a gift to Laz-Lor, save for the ten percent that is voting stock of which I vote my usual control, through you. The twins can do as they please with it; our leash will be slack. Probably they will do their own importing, with a resident manager. But they might work in it some, just to know the business.” “Which business?” “Both. They are grown women, Lazarus; you must not try to run their lives. The overall holding company, run by you and me, usual split with my one percent advantage, is a nonprofit corporation supporting Ishtar’s clinic. We funnel whatever is needed into the clinic, holding down the book profits elsewhere, but paying whopping salaries and consulting fees. My husband is chief scientist in one part while consultant by fee elsewhere, with Elizabeth – Lib – his mirror image elsewhere. Lazarus, we must have Deety work on it; she has the finest head in our family for manipulation of this sort – I’m just her awed pupil.” “And I’m just your awed pupil!” “Piffle again. Lazarus, from what I’ve read of you, your sole weakness lies in a delight in cheating for its own sake; Deety treats it as an intellectual art. One thing more – No, two things. Can you persuade Dora, as a favor to Ol’ Buddy Boy, to go along with the hoax until we deliver your mother to Ishtar? Make it a mammoth joke, under which she takes orders from me because she wants to be in on the fun. Take you out of arrest, of course; wipe it from her memory.” “It was never in her memory; Lor put her in non-recording mode while the hooraw was on.” “Good! Can you persuade her to call me ‘Commodore’ while you use some fancy title?” “Hilda, I’m your chief of staff for this ship; Zeb is chief of staff, flagship. Dora doesn’t really understand ranks; I can tell her that ‘chief of staff’ is one notch senior to God. No problem. As long as she can see that you and I are buddy-buddy.” “And we are!” “It’s reassuring to hear that. Hilda, I underestimated you so badly that I’m still in a state of shock. What’s the last item?” “Rejuvenation for all of us for as long as you – Ishtar – can stretch non-Howards.” “I can promise that; I’m Board Chairman of the Clinic. But – Ishtar is not a magician. What’s the average age of death for your parents, grandparents, any ancestors you know about?” “My family, both sides, are considered long-lived – although I lost my parents in a car crash. The others I don’t know about except that Deety’s mother died of cancer, much too young.” “We can handle that.” “Is longevity on Earth – our Earth, not yours – of interest? Same length of year as Old-Home-Terra; Deety and Lor checked.” “Of course!” “These figures apply to North America. Some other places are higher, some lower, some no data. Females. Menarche at thirteen plus-or-minus nine percent. Menopause at fifty-six to sixty-seven plus-or-minu -“ “Stop there! Average age of death, female?” “One hundred seventeen. But males average eight years less. Sad. My own family averages higher, but only a few years. I don’t know about Jacob but he mentioned once that his great-grandfather got himself killed, in an odd fashion, at ninety-seven. He -“ “Enough. I must report this. By definition, all of you are ‘Missing Howards.'” “But, Lazarus, that’s simply the average on Earth – our Earth, now that I know that there are thousands of analogs.” “Doesn’t matter. Different universe, different time line – not my problem. Here you are a Howard. You four and all your descendants.” Hilda smiled happily. “That’s cheerful news to a woman six weeks pregnant.” “You?” “And Deety. Same time and doesn’t show yet. Lazarus, I was tempted a while ago to tell you… because I was tempted. Now, now! Down, Rover! Outline to me how we rescue a woman dead for many centuries.” “Hilda, someday I’m going to get you drunk.” “Want to bet?” “Never with you. There is mystery about my mother’s death. She appears to have been killed accidentally at a relatively young age, for a Howard. Just short of a hundred. I was notified as her purse I.D.’s named me as ‘next of kin’ – and I bawled like a baby for I had been planning to pay her a visit on her century day, July 4th, 1982. Instead I attended her funeral, flying to Albuquerque two weeks early. “Nobody there but me. She was living alone under her maiden name, she and my father having separated thirty years earlier. But apparently she hadn’t listed her last address change with the Howard Foundation, hadn’t notified her other children. Howards are like that; they live so long that kinship is not enough reason to stay in touch. Closed casket and cremation – authorized by stuff in her purse; I never saw her body. “But there was no doubt as to her I.D.’s and so forth. In my world, 1982 was a time when you couldn’t sneeze without carrying a thick pack of cards all, in effect, saying that you were you. I was feeling it because I was seventy later that year and looked thirty-five. Embarrassing. I had plans to drive south from Albuquerque, cross the border, and not come back until I had bought a new passport to match a new name. “Hilda, it was over two thousand years later, in preparing for my first time trip, that I learned that my mother was not listed in the Archives as dead but simply as ‘record missing.'” “The matter troubled me. A few years ago – my time – Laz-Lor took me back. Didn’t ground; a missile chased us and scared Dora silly. But I got a motion picture that seems to show the accident. There is a blur on the frames just before the first one that shows what I think is the corpse. Can you guess the size and shape?” “Shan’t try, Lazarus.” “As near as I can measure on a film a centimeter square, shot with a telephoto lens from too high because Dora was crying and wanting to go home, it is the size of that berth Gay Deceiver is in. Hilda, I think I photographed you rescuing my mother before you did it.” “What? Lazarus, that’s -“ “Don’t say impossible. The Land of Oz is impossible. You’re impossible. I’m impossible. Who invented pantheistic multiperson solipsism? You did.” “I wasn’t going to say ‘impossible.’ Now that you know that I’m pregnant, you will realize why I want to try to rescue your mother right away, before my belly starts growing where the seat belt crosses it. Her name was Marian? Marian Johnson Smith?” “Maureen Johnson.” “That proves that the real Lazarus Long stood up. It bothered me that there might be a series of analog-Lazarus-Longs like analog-Earths.” “Wouldn’t bother me. That’s their problem.” “But it would destroy the theory I worked out that would account for my sitting here in a pool of water in a time-travelling flying saucer with a fabulous man – both ways! – when I know he’s a fictional character in a book I read years back. That makes me a fictional character, too, but that doesn’t trouble me as I can’t read a novel with me in it, any more than you could read the one I read about you.” “I came close to doing just that.” “Don’t be mysterious, Lazarus.” “I like wild stories. Used to read every one I could find in the Kansas City Public Library. On another time trip I picked up a magazine of a type you may never have seen. Read one installment of a serial. Ridiculous. Four people traveling in space in an airplane. At the end of that installment they are hailed by a flying saucer. Continued next month. Hilda, how do you think Dora was able to be at the right place at the right time when Gay Deceiver popped out of nowhere?” “Where is that magazine?” “Down the same destruction oubliette that recently received my best fake Scottish chief costume. If I had not learned long ago to dispose of casual fiction once I had read it, Dora would never be able to lift. Hilda, you explained it yoursel -“ “Hilda? Do you hear me” – her husband’s voice. Her face lit up. “Yes, Jacob?” “May I see you? I have a problem.” I barely whispered, “I’ll get out,” and started to stand up. She pulled me back down. “Of course, Jacob dearest. I’m in the flag cabin. Where are you?” “In our suite.” “Come straight here.” She whispered to me, “Do we have a deal?” I nodded; she stuck out her hand; we shook on it. “Partners,” she whispered. “Details later. Maureen first.” Her husband answered, “Hilda, I don’t know my way. And it’s a private matter.” “Then you must come here, Jacob; this is the only private place in the ship. I’ve been talking business with Lazarus Long – business so private we had to talk here. No more trouble, dearest man, and we each get what we want. Come join us, we need you.” “Uh… can he hear me?” “Certainly. We’re having a bath together. Come join us. I want you to know all about the deal before we tell the children. I may need support on parts where we traded quid pro quo.” Silence – “I’d better call back later.” I said, “Doctor Burroughs, you want to talk privately with your wife; I will get out. But please understand that social bathing is as commonplace on my world as offering a friend a drink is on yours. I am here because the Commodore invited me and I assure you she is quite unharmed.” Burroughs replied in a pained voice, “I know that custom and have utter faith in Hilda’s social judgment. Yes, I do need to speak to her… but I don’t mean to be surly. I’ll come up, or down, or across, and say hello. Please don’t leave before I get there. I’ll ask my way.” “Dora will show you. Step into the corridor and wait. She’ll find you.” “Very well, sir.” “Dora, special.” “Yes, Pappy?” “Find Professor Burroughs. Lead him here. By the longest route. Slow march.” “Aye aye, Pappy.” I said hurriedly to Hilda, “I may know what this is; let me check. Lib?” “Yes, Lazarus?” “Are you alone?” “In my stateroom alone. And lonely.” Lib added, “And upset.” “So? Did you put the question to Professor Burroughs?” “Yes. Lazarus, I had perfect opportunity. The one place Dora can’t see or hear. Inside Gay Deceiver’s space warp and – “ “Chop it, Lib! Did he turn you down?” “No. But he didn’t say Yes. He’s gone to discuss it with his wife. That’s why I’m jittery.” “Turn on the soother. I’ll call you back. Off.” Hilda asked, “What’s the matter with Elizabeth?” “I’ll make it short as even the longest route can’t take long. Lib is terribly anxious to have a child by the mathematician – your husband – who formulated the equations for six-dimensional positively-curved space. She thinks – and so do I – that they might produce a mathematician equal to, or even greater, than Lib or your husband. But she should have let Ishtar arrange it. She jumped the gun; I don’t know why -“ “I do! Elizabeth!” Lib was slow in answering. “This is Elizabeth Long.” “Hilda Burroughs here. Elizabeth, you come straight here. Flag cabin.” “Commodore, are you angry with me? I meant no harm.” “Dear, dear! You come to Mama Burroughs’ arms and let me pet you and tell you that you’re a good girl. Now! How far away are you?” “Just around the curve. A few meters.” “Drop everything and hurry. Lazarus and I are in the ‘fresher. In the pool. Come join us.” “Uh, all right.” “Hurry!” Hilda asked, “How do I let them in? Run dripping and do it by hand? I noticed that our door lets anyone out but can’t be opened from the outside without help.” She added, “For that matter how do I get back in?” “Dora knows you belong here. For the rest – Dora, admit Libby Long and Professor Burroughs.” “Aye aye, Pappy. Lib – here she comes. Dr. Jacob Burroughs I’m fetching. How soon?” Hilda said, “Two minutes.” Lib hurried in, still unsmiling. Did smile when Hilda put her arms around her, smiled and cried at the same time. I heard Hilda crooning, “There, there, dear! It’s a wonderful idea; she’ll be the world’s greatest mathematician. A cute baby – something like Deety, something like you. Jacob! In here, darling! If you are wearing anything, chuck it; we’re in the pool.” Seconds later the pool was filled to its rated capacity, Hilda with arms around both of them – kissed her husband, kissed Lib, said sternly to them, “Stop looking as if you were at a funeral! Jacob, this is what Jane would want – and it is what I want. Elizabeth, you aren’t crowding me out; I’m pregnant now. I’ll have my baby six weeks before you have yours. I’ve decided to ask Doctor Lafe Hubert to deliver my baby. Who are -“ “Hilda! I haven’t delivered a baby for over a century.” “You have seven months in which to brush up. Doctor Lafe, are you refusing to attend me?” “No, but – Jake, if Hilda will have her baby at the Clinic on Tertius, she will be in the hands of the most skilled obstetricians in this universe. Which I am not. I’m rusty. I -“ “Doctor, I think Hilda would settle for your holding her hand and standing by to help if needed. I think my daughter would like that, too. She may have her baby the same day as Hilda.” “Sir, I will be honored. But I want to say something about this proposed baby, a cross between two all-time great mathematicians. I know that your world places value on monogamy. Howards do not; they can’t. But this need not violate your values. If you will make a deposit at the sperm bank at -“ “What?” Hilda Burroughs looked shocked. “Lazarus, are you talking about syringes and things like that. Done to Elizabeth?” “Why, yes, I -“ She chopped me off. “Babies are not made with syringes! Babies are made with love! With little moans of happiness between two people who know exactly what they are doing and want to do it. Elizabeth, are you fertile today?” “I should be. It’s time.” “Then kiss me and tell me you want to do this. If you do.” “Oh, I do, very much!” There were kisses and tears all around. I got pulled into it, found myself kissing the prospective father. I gave him a chance to duck but he didn’t. Our busy little stranger was still playing ringmaster. “Lazarus, what is that guest room across the cabin? Pastel colors?” “Aurora Room.” “Beloved husband, wrap a towel around this sweet, frightened child, take her there, lock the door behind you and make her happy. This suite is the only totally private place in this ship. If I lay eyes on either of you in less than one hour, I shall burst into tears. That doesn’t mean you can’t stay longer. I hope that you will come to dinner … but you are welcome to Aurora Room after dinner. Sweetheart, you must give her at least one chance each of the next three days; a woman’s timing can vary from her norm. Now git! Pick her up and carry her.” Lib wouldn’t let Jake carry her. But she leaned into his arm. As they left the ‘fresher, she looked back with a happy smile and threw us a kiss. Hilda caught it and ate it. Then she said to me, “Help me out, please, dear.” I lifted her out, sat her on the edge, climbed out myself. She patted the padded deck, said, “I think this is better than that chaise longue. If we happen to be caught it wouldn’t embarrass me and should not embarrass you; in these circumstances Jacob would be relieved rather than upset.” She smiled, eased her sweet thighs, put up her arms. “Now?” “Yes!” “Anything you want, including back rubs. Lazarus, does it excite you knowing what is going on a few meters away? It does me!” “Yes! But I don’t need it – Hilda, you’re superb!” “Not in looks, certainly. So I try hard with what I have. Sold myself three times – did my best to make my contract-husbands each feel that he had received full value… then married dear Jacob for love and am trying still harder with him. He is good – I mean he is good all through. I hope Elizabeth appreciates him. You’ve had her?” “Yes.” “Before or after the change?” “Both. I miss the ‘before,’ appreciate the ‘after.” “Then why won’t you knock her up?” “That’s a family joke. She had her first child by me, is now making the rounds of our family, more or less. Woman, you are not here to talk! – I’m almost there!” She looked delighted. “I’m climaxing steadily; let ‘er rip!” – and bit my chin. An indefinitely long time later that need not be detailed, we were resting in each other’s arms, enjoying that delicious peace of the ebbing tide. Hilda saw them first, raised her head: “Jacob beloved! Did you! Lib – Did my sweetheart put a baby in you?” “Did he! Hilda, you do that every night? Little bitty like you? Less than two hours and darling Jacob has worn me out.” “I’m a hollow mockery, dear. Built for it. Tell her, Jacob.” “My darling is adaptable, Libby dear. Lazarus, did Hilda treat you nicely?” “I died happy.” “He’s not dead” – Hilda made a long arm, cupped a handful of water, threw it in my face, giggled. The suggestion she added I rejected with dignity – as much dignity as one can manage when two women are tumbling one into a tub of water… while one’s male comrade stands by and laughs.
Chapter XLIV
” – where do we get the corpse?”
Zeb: “The question,” said my wife Deety, “is where do we get the corpse? With timing that precise, Gay can make the pickup. But a corpse has to be left behind. Lazarus, not only do your movies show it, but you remember Maureen’s death; you went to her funeral. It’s got to be a fresh corpse of an elderly woman that the cops will accept as Maureen Johnson.” Six of us – Deety, me, Jake, Sharpie, Lazarus, and Libby – were seated around our kitchen dining table at “New Harbor” (our wives accepted that compromise) in Beulahland, trying to make plans for the “snatch.” “Snatch” in the literal sense if the rescue of Maureen Johnson were to succeed. Lazarus had a motion picture that showed that we would succeed (had succeeded) (were about to succeed) at a precise time and place and date on an analog of Earth-zero one quantum away on ‘t’ axis. Easy! Success guaranteed. Can’t miss. Do it blindfolded. But suppose we did miss? The frames showed that a roadable had passed through the space where Gay had been (would be?) grounded, and, in so doing, ran over (would run Over) (will run over) (is, was, and forever will be running over) the dumped corpse. Suppose the timing or placement was offjust a touch. On his first time travel (1916-1918 Old-Home-Terra), with Dora piloting, Lazarus had missed not by a split second but by three years. Lazarus had pointed out that it was his fault, not Dora’s; he had fed her imperfect data – and we had jumped on him from five sides: It was not a question of “whose fault” but the fact a mistake could be made. Or could it? Four mathematicians, one mathematical engineer (yeah, I include me, as resident expert in Gay’s responses), and one intuitionist all disagreed. Hilda was certain that nothing could go wrong. I am a firm believer in Murphy’s Law: Given any possible chance, it will go wrong. Anything. Libby had been wholeheartedly converted both to Jake’s six-axis plenum of universes to the awful Number of the Beast but also to Sharpie’s multiple solipsism, and asserted that they were two sides of the same coin; one was a corollary of the other and vice versa. Combined, they (it) constituted the ultimate total philosophy: science, religion, mathematics, art, in one grand consistent package. She spoke of a “ficton” being a quantum of imagination/reality (“imaginary” being identical with “real” whatever that is) as casually as a physicist speaks of photons. “Could a mistake be made? Yes. And would create a new universe. Jacob, you spoke of the empty universes your family had visited. One by one they fill as fictons are created.” She added, “But a mistake was not made; we snatched Maureen safely. We ourselves create the fictions-fictons-ficta that will make it real.” She was euphoric. I attributed it to excitement over the coming adventure. I was mistaken. Lazarus, a highly competent mathematician although not the unique that Jake is or Libby, was in this case not a calm abstractionist; his mood was grim determination to win or die trying – causing me to recall how he got his arse shot off. Jake turned out to be a determinist (he himself being one universe’s prime example of utter, rambunctious free will!). Deety is a pragmatic mathematician, unworried by theory. Oz is real, she is real, “fictons” don’t interest her. “Don’t fret, Lazarus. We can do it, Gay can do it – and we won’t do it until Gay is certain of her program.” This discussion had started midafternoon in Dora. Sharpie had worked out her difficulties with Lazarus (to my enormous relief; were those two to wind up on opposite sides in anything more serious than Parcheesi, I yearn to be elsewhere – say Timbuktu under an assumed name); she, Jake, Lazarus, and Libby were in the flag cabin, arguing, when Sharpie had Dora page Deety and me. There were endless matters on the agenda (including the preposterous notion that we four were ‘Missing Howards’ and that Lazarus was registering us as such. I’m not sure I want to live a thousand years or even two hundred. But I am sure of this: a) I want to live quite a piece; and b) I want to be alert, healthy, and active right up to the last. Not like my great-grandfather who had to be spoonfed at a hundred and five, and could not control his secretions. But the Howards have got that whipped: you stay young as long as you wish, then die by choice when you feel you’ve had your full run. (Yes, I was willing to be a ‘Found Howard’ since it included Deety, plus little Deeties ad infinitum.) Lots of other business, all of it postponed (including the problem of “Black Hats”), in order to deal with rescuing Maureen Johnson. We were still discussing knotty aspects when Lor’s voice said: “Commodore?” “Yes, Captain?” Sharpie had answered. “Ma’am, I hesitate to disturb you -“ “Quite all right, Lor. The Captain must always be able to reach me.” “Uh, Ma’am, Dora told me that she was forbidden to call you. She has for you a variety of New Rome styles for women and men, a military uniform for Doctor Jacob, and one for Doctor Zebadiah, and evening formals for Doctor Elizabeth and Doctor Deety – and she’s not sure where to send any of them.” “Send all the clothes to the flag cabin, please.” “Yes, Ma’am. They should be appearing in your delivery cupboard now. Do you know where that is?” “I’ll find it. What are you and your sister wearing tonight? Or is it a secret?” “It’s not a secret; we just haven’t decided. But there is still an hour and thirty-one minutes till dinner.” “Time enough to pick out pretty clothes. Or will you wear formal skin tonight? That takes anywhere from two seconds to two hours, does it not? Off.” Sharpie used an unusually rough expression of disgust, which told me that she now included Lib and Lazarus in her inner circle. “Woodie, do you know any exceptionally strong cuss words? I detest the thought of wasting time pretending to be festive when we have so much to settle, especially our procedures for Maureen.” Deety looked at Libby. “You and I are kind o’ stuck with a promise, too. How about some new cuss words from you, too?” “Deety, I have no literary talent. But I would like to hear some soul-soothing cussing. We ought to stick with this, with snacks to keep going and sleep when we must, until it’s perfect. Three hours or three days or three weeks.” I said, “We shall!” Sharpie shook her head. “Zebbie, you can skip dinner. I can’t. Lazarus should appear, too.” He agreed. “I’m afraid I must. But, Commodore, I must advise you that your flag chief of staff should be present, too, for esprit de corps.” He cleared his throat noisily. “Libby and Jacob, being passengers, could skip.” Lib shook her head. “Deety and I made a reckless promise.” Not being a genius myself, it’s kind of fun to make a roomful of ’em look silly. I stood up. “No! We will not let a dinner party interfere! We can settle it within three days. But if you all are going to chase rabbits – What’s the matter with you, Sharpie? Getting stupid in your old age?” “Apparently I am, Zebbie.” She said to Lazarus, “Please issue orders cancelling dinner. We’ll stay with this until we finish it. There are beds and lounges whenever anyone needs to nap. But we won’t adjourn. Three hours or three weeks. Or longer.” “Don’t cancel dinner, Sharpie.” “Zebbie, you have me confused.” “Beulahland is on a different time axis.” Five minutes later we were in our old farmhouse. We hadn’t stopped for clothes as we would have wasted twenty minutes, whereas the idea was to save time on that axis, use time on this axis. We stuck Lazarus and Libby back in the after space, with the bulkhead door dogged open, so they could see and hear, but required them to use the web straps, and cautioned them that the lumps under them were loaded firearms. The only thing not routine was that we would be making rendezvous later with a moving ship, something we had done before only from bounce range in the same space-time. So I had asked Gay whether she was sure she could do it. She assured me that she could, because she wasn’t concerned with the ship’s vector; she would return the instant she left. I turned to Commodore-now-Captain Sharpie. “Ready for space, Captain.” “Thank you, Astrogator. Gay Deceiver. Beulahland. Execute. Gay Deceiver, open your doors. All hands, unbelt. Disembark. Gay, it’s sleepy time. Over.” “Goodnight, Hilda. Roger and out.” Our passengers were dazed – they all are, first time. They stood outside our barn, looking at the setting sun, acting like zombies, until I shooed them inside. Although Beulahland does not have body taboos, they wear clothes most of the time, and six naked people outdoors in a clump as the chill of the evening was coming on was odd. I like a low profile. Once inside, Libby said, “Feels like Arkansaw.” Lazarus replied. “Feels like Mizzoura.” “Neither,” I told them. “It would be the State of Washington if it weren’t Beulahiand, and what ought to be Puget Sound is about a kilometer over that way.” “It still feels like home. Lazarus, I’m happy here.” At that moment I decided we would never give up New Harbor. Apparently we were going to be citizens of Tertius, or maybe New Rome on Secundus, or both (commuting is no problem when light-years mean nothing), on another time axis. We could take a rest from city life anytime and have it cost not one day’s work on Tertius. Contrariwise, only such time would pass on New World as we spent there. Hmm – Maybe we could sell vacations. Or extra study time for that student who has his big exam, the one he must pass, tomorrow morning. Sell him room and board and transportation and three weeks not in the calendar. At a slight markup, of course. I built a cheerful fire in the fireplace, and Lazarus washed dishes, while Libby insisted on proving that she could cook on a wood range, even though she had learned centuries ago by her time scale, as a gangling boy. Yes, Elizabeth can cook. We ate and sat around and talked, puzzling how to be sure of Maureen. Not make that one tiny mistake, It was then that Deety brought up the matter of the dead body. You’ve seen how accurate Gay can be but where do we get a freshly-dead corpse to replace Maureen? Lazarus told her to forget it, “I provide the corpse.” “That’s not a good answer, Lazarus.” “Deety, don’t worry. It’ll be dead and I will dump it.” I said, “Lazarus, I don’t like that answer a damn bit.” “Nor do I,” Jake seconded. “Nor I,” agreed Sharpie. “Woodie, you’re asking us to make a snatch – a hanging offense many places, bad trouble anywhere. We don’t mind the technicality; saving an old woman’s life isn’t the sin kidnapping is. But what about this freshly-dead corpse? We don’t deal in murder.” Lazarus glowered. Libby said hastily, “If I assure you that it is all right, will you let it go at that?” “No,” pronounced Sharpie, “Woodie must come clean.” “All right, all right! I own this corpse. No murder or any other crime involved. Now will you quit riding me about it?” “Jake?” “I don’t like it, Zeb.” “I don’t, either. But we needn’t do anything. We go limp. He may not last long in a culture that ‘balances.'” “Possible. But that’s his problem.” Sharpie said quickly, “Did either of you promise him a ride back to my ship?” “Whose ship?” “My ship, Woodie. Gentlemen?” “I didn’t promise him. Did you. Jake?” “No. Did you, Deety? Hilda?” “Not me, Pop.” “Nor me, Jacob. Woodie, earlier today I thought you had seen the light. Conceded, ‘I am but indifferent honest’ myself. But even pirates need to feel safe with their shipmates. You and I shook hands as partners. You don’t seem to understand what that means. However I’m not going to abandon you here. You’d be balanced in a week. Dead. Or worse. So we’ll take you back. By the way, it is impossible to steal Gay Deceiver. Yes, I know you once stole a ship enormously bigger than Gay. But not as well protected.” “Lazarus! Tell them.” “Lib, I was waiting for the Commodore to finish. That corpse wasn’t murdered because it was never alive other than as a vegetable.” Lazarus looked embarrassed. “About thirty years ago we started a medical school on Tertius. A one-horse deal, more of a branch of the clinic. But genetic engineering is taught, and student genetic surgeons must practice. Ordinarily a clone that goes bad is killed and frozen and its tissues studied. A clone that takes – shows no fault, no deviation – is either cared for and allowed to develop if its genetic source wants a spare body and will pay for it. Or, more likely, a healthy clone is purely a laboratory exercise – an ethical medical school requires supervised destruction during the first pseudo trimester, before quickening shows in the wave form. “Neither student nor tissue donor is likely to be upset by this quasi-abortion, as the student is almost always herself the donor – if it bothers her, she’s in the wrong vocation. “If the student is not the donor, emotional upset is hardly possible. The student thinks of the clone as a quasi-living histological specimen the usefulness of which is at end – and the tissue donor can’t be upset, being unaware of it.” “Why so, Lazarus? If anybody is tinkering with my cells, I want to know about it, I do!” “Deety, that tissue may be years, even centuries, old; the donor may be parsecs away. Or still warm and the donor just leaving the building. Or anything in between. A sperm-and-ova bank insures the future of the race; a tissue bank insures the future of the individual. But somebody has to pick up the check; it’s a tanstaafl situation. A few of the very wealthy – and neurotic – always have a quickened but unawakened clone in stasis. I’m wealthy but not neurotic; I don’t have a reserve clone.” I caught sight of Libby’s face as Lazarus made that last statement – her mouth twitched in a half smile about to become (I think) a snicker, had she not suppressed all expression. No one but I caught it. I made note to ask her about it later – then I remembered what the mouse told the cat and decided not to. “But I do what any prudent Howard does; I have tissue on deposit. One may do this either of two ways: Pay high … or pay much lower and sign a release on half the donation for research and instruction.” He grinned. “I’m stingy. My tissue is available to medical students.” He went on, “Not all medical schools are ethical. I can think of at least three planets where – ” Lazarus looked directly at my wife. “Deety, you raised this issue. While I can think of three planets where one can buy any sort of monster, I can think of at least thirty where, for a much lower fee, I could simply say, ‘I want that one'” – he pointed at Sharpie – “and the answer would be, ‘It’s a deal, Mac. How freshly dead and when do you want delivery?” Sharpie looked around behind herself as if to see at whom Lazarus had pointed. “That’s the cheapest way -“ “Then you weren’t pointing at me!” Sharpie interrupted. “Woodie, it’s not polite to point. For a moment you had me worried. I’m never cheap – highpriced, always.” “So I found out, Commodore. Deety, that’s cheapest, and safe for the buyer in the places I have in mind. But how can I convince you that I never gave even a moment’s consideration to that method? You seem to know a lot about me – more than I know about any of you. Is there anything that you have ever read or heard, anything that I’ve said or done, that would cause you to think that I would murder or contract for a murder – same but nastier – in order to further my own ends? I’m not saying that I have never killed. A man who has lived even half as long as I have has found himself more than once in a kill-or-be-killed situation. But the best way to deal with such a situation is not to get into it. Anticipate it. Avoid it.” Lazarus Long stopped and looked sad, and for the only time of my acquaintance with him, looked his age. I do not mean he suddenly looked decrepit. But he had an aura of ancient sorrow. “Professor Burroughs, if it would do any good, I would junk all my plans, accept being forever stranded here, for the privilege of taking a twenty-pound sledge and smashing your space-time twister.” I was shocked (damn it, I like good machinery). Jake looked hurt, Deety and Sharpie looked stunned. Jake said tightly, “Lazarus… why?” “Not to hurt you, Professor; you have my highest respect. You are one of three: the man who invented the wheel, the man who discovered how to use fire – and you. But, in making this supreme discovery, you have accomplished something I had thought impossible. You have made interstellar war logistically practical. Interstellar? Intergalactic – interuniversal!” Lazarus suddenly straightened up, threw off his gloom, grinned. “All the King’s horses and all the King’s men can’t close Pandora’s Box again. Once it hits the fan, the only thing to do is sweep it up, package it, and sell it as fertilizer. Hilda has plans along that line. But I’m going to have to start thinking in military terms again. Figure out how to defend my home place against what appears to be that Ultimate Weapon much talked about but never achieved. I am glad to say that Hilda plans to keep it a close-held secret as long as possible; that may buy us time.” He turned his attention back to my wife. “Deety, I have never murdered, I never will. The nearest I ever came to it was once being sorely tempted to strangle a five-year-old boy. I admit that the thought has often passed through my mind that this character or that would look his best as the centerpiece of a funeral. But can I convince you that I have never acted on such thoughts? Think hard, please – all that you know of me. Am I capable of murder?” Deety doesn’t dither. (Remember how we got married?) She jumped up, hurried around our kitchen table, and kissed Lazarus – and stopped hurrying. It was a kiss that calls for a bed, or even a pile of coal – had there not been urgent business before the house. Deety broke from it, sat down beside him, and said, “Tell us how we get this unmurdered fresh corpse. It’s clear that we’re going to have to go pick it up – in Gay. So we must know.” Libby said gently, “Lazarus, this is what you have been avoiding. May I tell it?” “Thanks, Lib. No, you would pretty it up. I -“ “Pipe down!” said Deety. “Elizabeth, give us the straight word. Briefly.” “Very well. The medical school of B.I.T. is as ethical as you will find. My sister-wife Ishtar is director of the rejuvenation clinic and chairman of the board of the medical school, and still finds time to teach. I have never seen Maureen Johnson as I was born about two centuries after she was. But she iS Supposed to resemble Laz and Lor – unsurprising; she is their genetic mother, since they were cloned from Lazarus.” “Oh! I see. There is still a third clone from Lazarus. Female?” “A spoiled one, Deety. Ishtar tells me that it is difficult, rather than otherwise, to get a bad clone from Lazarene tissue… so it is especially suitable for induced mutation experiments. She orders the destruction of these experiments when they have served their purpose.” “Deety said to make it brief,” growled Lazarus. Lib ignored him. “But, while Ishtar checks on the students, no one checks on her. For twenty years Ishtar watched for a clone that would look human but not be human. So deficient in forebrain that it could never be anything but a vegetable, unaware. She told me that her students had unknowingly provided her with dozens to work on. Usually they died too soon, or never developed human appearance, or had some other fault that made them unusable. But several years ago she succeeded. I testify that this thing looked like Laz and Lor as it passed through the stage of its forced development… and also that it looked like an older version, wrinkled and hair streaked with gray, when it died two Tertian years ago -“ “Huh? ‘Fresh corpse’!” ” – and was quick-frozen at once. I testify to something else. Friends, in becoming a woman I acquired an interest in biology that I had not had, as a male. While I teach math at B.I.T., I am also staff mathematician to the clinic and have studied a bit of human biology. When I say that this spoiled clone was never alive in any real sense I speak as the mathematical biologist who checked its monitors’ records daily. It always required full metabolic support; we monitored everything. The surprising thing is that Ishtar could keep it alive long enough to let it appear to age. But Ishtar is very skillful.” Libby added, “Lazarus would not only have become upset in telling this, but he could not have told it first hand as Ishtar refused to permit Lazarus to see this spoiled clone or any records on it.” “A willful woman,” said Lazarus. “In three seconds I could have told Ish whether or not this thing looked enough like my mother to be useful. Instead I must depend on the opinions of people who have never laid eyes on my mother. Damn it, I am owner of record of the clinic and Chairman Regent of all B.I.T. Does that count with Ishtar? Hilda, my senior wife is as tough a case as you are… and looks as little like it as you do.” “So? It will be interesting to see what happens when I am your junior wife,” Sharpie answered at her pertest. “Are you going to be my junior wife?” Lazarus swung around and looked at her husband. “Jake?” “I don’t think I have a vote,” my blood brother answered easily. “I’ll automatically be your junior wife if we are invited to join the Long Family which we damn well ought to be if we make this work!” Sharpie said indignantly. “Wait a half!” I put in. “If we are invited to join the Long Family – a tall assumption if I ever saw one – Deety would be junior. Not you, you elderly baggage.” “Hillbilly can be junior if she wants to be. I don’t mind.” “Deety,” I said, “are you serious? I’ve been trying to point out to your stepmother that you don’t push your way into a family.” “I wasn’t pushing, Zebadiah,” my wife answered. “I want us to stay on Tertius at least until we have our babies, and possibly make it our home; it seems to be a pleasant place and should be free of ‘Black Hats’ – no skin taboos. But that doesn’t mean that the Longs have to have us in their laps.” “I intend to nominate you, Zebadiah,” Libby told me. “All four of you. And I hope you four accept. But, Deety twin, you know what I’m attempting. With your father.” “Yes, I know. I’m cheering for it.” “Your husband must hear this. Deety, I still have that Y chromosome in every cell even though it has been so inhibited by hormone balance that I don’t notice it. You and I could try for a mathematical-genius baby, too.” “Huh! Which one of us supplies the penis?” “Ishtar does. Neither of us would be host-mother, the way it would be done. But any of my sister-wives would supply womb room if she didn’t happen to be pregnant. Or the host-mother could be a stranger we would never meet and the child’s family-parents strangers, too – all handled by Ishtar who always reads the relevant genetic charts before approving anything.” “Zebadiah?” I said without hesitation, “It’s up to you, hon. I’m in favor of it; it makes sense. But don’t lose track of the child. Elizabeth, I want to adopt the baby ahead of time. Hmm – Bottle baby… but the formulas are probably better now. Not here-now. Tertius there-then-now.” “‘Bottle baby’? Oh! No longer done; a baby needs to suckle. But there is usually spare milk around the Longs’. If I’m lactating I always have excess; I turn out to be a good milch cow despite that extra chromosome. But Deety can nurse our child if she wishes to; causing a woman to come fresh with milk without bearing a child is a minor biochemical manipulation today – Tertian-today. Professional wet nurses do it regularly and are likely to be in that vocation because they love babies but can’t have ’em themselves for some reason.” “Sounds good.” (What sounded best was this: a baby Deety is a wonderful idea – but a baby Deety who is also a baby Libby is sure to be wonderful squared. Cubed!) “While I’m on this and no one here but family – Jacob, there is no reason not to create a third mathematical supergenius by crossing you with your daughter.” I was looking at my wife, thinking pleasant thoughts about baby Deety-Libby, when Elizabeth dropped this bomb – and Deety shut down her face. It’s not an unpleasant expression; it’s a no-expression, a closed door, while Deety sorts out her thoughts. So I looked at Jake, in time to see his face shift from surprise to shock. “But that’s -“ “Incest?” Libby supplied. “No, Jacob, incest is a social matter. Whether you bed your daughter is none of my business. I’m speaking of genes, of still another way to conserve mathematical genius. Ishtar would scan your charts most carefully and would resort to chromosome surgery if there was the slightest chance of double dosage of a bad allele. But you and your daughter could see Ishtar on different days and never know anything about the outcome. Your genes are not your property; they come from your race. This offers opportunity to give them back to the race with your highest talent reinforced… without loss to anyone. Think about it.” Jake looked at me, then at his daughter. “Deety?” She added no-expression voice to no-expression face – but directed her answer to me: “Zebadiah, this is necessarily up to you and Jacob.” I’m not sure that anyone but Sharpie noticed that she had not said “Pop.” Deety added at once with total change in manner, “First things first! Maureen’s rescue. All of you are stuck in a rut of time sequence. Oh, the minor problem of keeping clear of Dora and the missile both times. Routine.” (And I was hit by a satori.) Lazarus answered, “But Deety, I promised Dora never again to take her anywhere near Albuquerque.” Deety sighed. “Lib?” “Frames one-thirteen through seven-seven-two, then seven-seven-three through one thousand and two?” “Precisely. And precisely it must be, too. I’m timing it by that yellow open roadable approaching from the other direction. What are you using?” “The same one. Easy to spot and its speed never varies.” Lazarus said, “Jake, do you know what they are saying?” “Yes and no. They are treating it as two problems. But we lack three seconds of time enough to dump one and snatch the other. Those – traffic lights, you called them? – leave that intersection clear by a measured interval, clocked by your camera.” Sharpie suddenly grinned; I nodded to her to take it. She did. “Deety and Libby are saying that we do it twice. First, we rescue Maureen. Then we come back and dump the corpse.” I added, “But the second time we don’t ground. Jake, I’m going to ask you to move over – Deety moves to my seat. We’ll dump the dead meat so that it hits the ground between frames seven-seven-two and seven-seven-three. I’ll be on manual and hovering. I need to know where Dora is and where that missile is and need to be sure of the acceleration of gravity, Earth-Prime. Because that corpse will already be falling, right over our heads, while we are making the snatch. Close timing. Mmm – Gay can fly herself more precisely than I can. I think that Deety and I will write a program… then I’ll be on override-suspenders and belt.” Jake added, “Zeb, I see the procedure. But, if we are hovering for the drop while we are also on the ground, why aren’t we shown in the photographs?” “May be in some of them. Doesn’t matter. Deety, when do we do this? Cancel. Sharpie? Your orders, Captain?” Deety and Sharpie swapped glances. Then they sounded like Laz-Lor, with Sharpie leading. “Now to bed. It’s almost midnight in our biological time, slightly later in local time.” “We do both jobs after breakfast,” Deety responded. “But sleep as late as we can. Be sharp and on our toes. ‘Minds me. Just one ‘fresher, quite primitive. But the two in Gay are as available here as anywhere; since they are actually in Oz. Six people, three pots, not difficult.” “And three beds,” added Sharpie. “Jacob, kiss us goodnight and take Lib to bed. Master bedroom and good luck! Use my toothbrush, Lib hon – anything else you need?” “No. A good cry, maybe. I love you, Hilda.” “If I didn’t love you, Elizabeth, I wouldn’t be Madam of this joint. We’ll cry together the day Ishtar tells us you’ve caught. Now shoosh! Scat! Kiss us and go to bed.” As they headed upstairs Sharpie said to me, “Zebbie, give Deety a pre-amnesty so that she can try out Lazarus and find out whether she wants to be junior wife.” I tried to look amazed. “Deety, haven’t you tried Lazarus yet?” “You know darn well I haven’t! When have I had time?” “From a woman who specializes in programming time machines that is a silly question. Lazarus, she’s already knocked up, so don’t fret about it. One warning: She bites.” “The best ones always do.” “Hush. Kiss us good-night, dears. Zebbie, open the couch in the living room; that’s where you’re going to keep me warm.” “But who’s going to keep me warm? A skinny little runt like you?” Sharpie bites.
Chapter XLV
A Stitch in Time
Jake: We popped out one klick H-above-G over Albuquerque, Earth-Prime, and Gay tilted her nose down. A last-minute change put my daughter Deety at copilot, while I sat left rear, nominal navigator. Deety can use verniers as accurately as I, did not expect to use them at all, did need to be able to see the yellow roadable – and has this clock in her head. Elizabeth Long was in the after compartment, strapped down but not on lumps of ordnance. Rifles, pistols, bed clothes for the control compartment, anything else that could be moved easily to reduce clutter, had been shifted into our space warp, as had Lazarus Long. Doctor Ishtar had warned Lazarus not to let his mother recognize him, as the shock to her might be harmful, even fatal. While Lazarus had been trying to figure out how to make the snatch using Dora, he had planned on wearing disguise. But hiding in our Land-of-Oz addition was simpler-especially as Ishtar was almost as anxious that Lazarus not see his mother, not see his mother’s pseudo corpse – this I learned from Elizabeth in the night. So I showed Lazarus the everlasting picnic basket, advised him to use bed clothes to make a shakedown and sleep if possible as there would be time to kill, and supplied him with books – but don’t come out until I open the door! Then did not mention that I was locking him in. I was relieved to have only a nominal job. I was not sleepy despite a short night – I was bemused. I was falling in love with – had fallen in love with – Elizabeth Long. No less in love with Hilda – more in love with her than ever! I am learning that love does not subtract – it multiplies! As Gay tilted down I reached over and touched Hilda’s hand. She smiled and threw me a kiss. I’m sure she had a sweet night; she has loved Zeb as long as she has known him. “As a loyal chum,” she tells me – but Hilda holds to the Higher Truth that it is better to be kind than to be frank. It did not matter either way; Zeb is my blood brother beloved by me, perfect husband for my daughter, and, if not Hilda’s lover in the past, then he surely was now – and it troubled me not at all. On awakening I had discussed it with Jane before I opened my eyes – Jane approves and is delighted by Elizabeth. My daughter had an unusual night, too. If the myths are true, Lazarus is more than one hundred times as old as Deety. This gulf may not matter to him – but Deety takes everything seriously. Apparently it had done her no harm; at breakfast she was bright-eyed and bubbly. All of us were euphoric and eager to get on with it. Zeb was saying, “That’s it! Got it in the gunsight – got the range, Smart Girl?” “Got it nailed, Boss!” “Keep it so. Deety! Yellow roadable?” “Just spotted it. Gay, count down! Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One… Now!” We were diagonally in that intersection; Gay’s portside door was popping open. I heard Zeb say, “Oh, my God!” He was out of the car, kneeling, picking up a body, kicking a cop in the stomach, and throwing that body to me, as he scrambled inside and shouted, “GayBounce!” Gay bounced. Gay is not supposed to lift with a door open and “Bounce!” means ten klicks. She bounced one klick, finished closing her door, waited while Zeb checked the seal – completed the bounce. I am now a believer. I was passing this little old lady back to Elizabeth, and looking for resemblance to Lazarus when I heard Zeb moan, “I didn’t get her purse, I didn’t get her purse!” “What of it?” said Deety. “It’s where we want it. Gay Deceiver. Tertius Orbit. Execute.” A beautiful planet – Zeb was saying, “Lib, can you coach us? Or are you too busy?” “Not that busy. Maureen fainted but her heart is strong and steady, and I have a strap holding her. Is Gay on frequency?” Deety reported, “Right on. Go ahead, Lib.” The next I can’t report; it was in Galacta. Then Elizabeth said, “We’ll be passing over Boondock in three minutes twenty-two seconds. Roof of the clinic is designated. Shall I come forward and point it out?” “Can you handle yourself in free fall?” Zeb asked. “I’ve some experience. Eight centuries.” “My big mouth. Come forward.” In four or five minutes we grounded on a flat roof in a wooded part of a moderately large city. I saw a figure in a white coverall, plus two others with a wheeled stretcher – and only then did I recall that none of us had dressed. Hilda had asked; Lazarus had vetoed, Elizabeth had concurred. So I found myself bare to my ears, bowing over a lady’s hand and saying, “I am honored, Doctor Ishtar.” She is indeed beautiful – a Valkyrie sculptured from cream and marshmallow and honey. She smiled and kissed my hand. Elizabeth said something in this other language; Ishtar smiled again and said, in careful, fluent English, “In that case, he is one of us” – took my head in her hands and kissed me thoroughly. Ishtar so distracted me that I did not notice that Maureen had been handed out – awake but dazed – been rolled away, and was gone. All of us were thoroughly and carefully kissed, then Elizabeth discussed matters with Ishtar in Galacta. “Ish says that she has been slowly warming the thing. It is now at four degrees Celsius. She would like more time but will bring it to thirty-seven degrees Celsius in six hours if she must.” Deety said, “How about twenty-four hours?” Ishtar was pleased at this, agreed that she understood that the substitute must be dressed in the patient’s (client’s) clothing, agreed that the space we were in would be kept clear – and asked, “What’s that pounding noise?” Elizabeth explained that it was Lazarus. “He is in a magic space warp about where we were standing. He knows that he is supposed to remain there, but he changed his mind – and has just discovered that he is locked in.” Ishtar’s smile suddenly became a grin, as quickly left. “A magic space warp? Lib, I want to hear about that.” “You will.” We climbed back inside, Deety told Gay “Twenty-four hours” – and we stepped out again. Ishtar was lying on a pad, taking the sun… this time as bare as we were – and I was still more impressed. “Right on time,” she said, standing (taller than I am) and, as always, smiling. “The substitute is waiting, and I have had time to examine and talk with the client. She is in good shape for her age, understands in part at least what has happened, and is undismayed by it. Please tell Lazarus that, if he returns to Tertius soon, he will not be admitted to this building for seventeen months. The client is most firm: she will not see Lazarus until I have completed rejuvenating her.” “Lib,” said my daughter Deety, “seventeen what sort of months? I want to set an exact rendezvous – and Gay’s time calibration is not Tertian but Earth-Prime and Earth-zero. Old Home Terra.” With Elizabeth as interface the three agreed on an exact time. Then Elizabeth again discussed something in that language. Ishtar nodded. “No problem, I have seen that picture. And a hooded cape is even less trouble.” So we left. Dropping that pseudo corpse was routine but I was glad to be quit of it (I had swapped seats with my daughter). Then we were back on Tertius. “Always prompt,” said Ishtar – and I was astounded to see that she was quite pregnant, close to birthing … when I had seen her, slender for her height, two minutes earlier. “And we are on time, too. Maureen, my friends and yours.” She named us. Maureen Johnson spoke to us first in Galacta, shifted to English when she realized that we did not know the common tongue. Yes, she does look like Laz and Lor – but prettier. A woman of beauty and great charm. I find that I am growing accustomed to perfect ladies who embrace, bare body to bare body, on meeting a fully-vouched-for stranger. She thanked each of us and made us believe it. “Still pounding?” Ishtar inquired. “It has been less than five minutes for him, Ish,” Elizabeth explained. “But you know his temper; perhaps we had better leave. Home soon, I think.” So we left again, with Maureen squeezed between me and my wife, with a package and a cloak in her lap. We were back inside Dora at once. Elapsed time: zero seconds. We still had an hour and twenty minutes to prepare for dinner. I found that I was hungry, even though breakfast was three hours ago, biological time – almost all of it spent in Beulahland, programming for the caper, as all three phases took only a few durational minutes, mostly on a rooftop in Boondock. Maureen put on the cloak, a hooded cape, and carried the little package. “Silly but fun,” she said. “Where do we go now?” “Come with me,” Hilda told her. “Beloved, you can let Woodie out as soon as Dora tells Gay that I have reached flag cabin. When he yelps, tell him that we were too busy to play games with him… and the next time he wants a favor from me he can crawl on his knees. Pounding indeed! Tell him that I am extremely tired and am going to nap until just before dinner and he is not to call me or to come to the flag cabin between now and dinner without suffering my extreme displeasure and a punch in the nose from you. All of you come up to flag cabin as soon as you wish but try not to be seen by Woodie. You’ll probably find Maureen and me in the lounging pool.”
Chapter XLVI
“I’m gifted with second sight.”
Deety: When the Hillbilly stages a production, she doesn’t stint. By protocol decreed by Lazarus Long, dinner in Dora is formal, but with wide latitude in “formal” – casual dress being the only thing utterly verboten. Dinner is preceded by a happy hour where one can sip Coca-Cola or get roaring drunk. Aunt Hilda changed all that for this night. No happy hour but be on time – two minutes before twenty o’clock, ship’s time. No one permitted to eat in her/his quarters – a command performance. No options in dress – Commodore Auntie decided what each would wear, where each would sit. I said, “Commodore Hilda honey, aren’t you kind o’ throwing your weight around? What there is of it?” She answered, “Yes, I am, Deetikins, for this occasion. But before you criticize, ask your husband whether or not I ever permitted one of my parties to flop.” “Don’t need to ask him. Why, at your last one, our old Buick blew up. Never a dull moment.” “I didn’t plan that. But we got husbands out of it; let’s not complain. Before you deliver my message to the twins, tell me this. Is it safe to let them in on our secret?” “Hillbilly, I tell Zebadiah anything even though someone – you, for example – has asked me not to.” “Deety, I thought we had a ‘You’ll-keep-my-secrets-and-I’ll-keep-your-secrets’ agreement?” “We do. But telling Zebadiah gives you two covering for you instead of one. About Laz-Lor – remember that they are his wives as well as his clones.” “Hon, you were always a wise one. All right, we keep it secret. Tell them what to wear – and please understand that I’m hiding behind you to avoid argument; it’s a favor I appreciate. Sending up sword and saber is a favor to your husband and to your father but I thank you on their behalf if they forget. Send the blades to your suite; they’ve decided they can dress more easily without women underfoot.” “A canard,” Pop said, just back of my neck. “The women don’t want us underfoot.” “I knew it was one or the other, Jacob,” Aunt Hilda agreed. “But Dora has already taken your uniforms to our suite and your swords will -“ ” – be there, too, and I can recognize a fact when I fall over it and have never been happier, my love, than I have been since you took charge of my life and started telling me what to decide.” “Jacob, you’re making me teary.” “Jake! Can you hear me?” – Lazarus’ voice and Aunt Hilda used family sign language; Pop nodded and answered promptly: “Certainly, Lazarus – what’s on your mind?” “I’m faced with the impossible and need help. I received an order – you, too, I think – to dress in military uniform at dinner. The only uniform I have aboard is in the flag cabin and – say, are you in the flag cabin?” Aunt Hilda shook her head. Pop answered, “I’m in our suite, dressing for dinner. Hilda needed a nap. I told you.” “You certainly did, sir. I’m allergic to being punched in the snoot. But – Well, if you would use your influence -“ “If any.” “If any, to get me that uniform twenty minutes before dinner” – Aunt Hilda nodded – “or even ten, you would save me the horrible dilemma of deciding which order to break.” “Don’t decide to break the one telling you not to disturb Hilda.” “I didn’t even consider breaking that one! And it’s not your fist in my snoot. Jake… she terrifies me. I don’t understand it. I’m twice her mass and all muscle; she couldn’t possibly hurt me.” “Don’t be certain. She has a poisoned fang. But calm yourself, comrade. I guarantee delivery by nineteen minutes before the bell at latest.” “Jake, I knew I could depend on you. Let me know when you want a bank robbed.” I gave Maureen a special hug before I left to carry out my orders. I knew what the Hillbilly was doing: rigging it so that she could have a quiet hour in which to get acquainted with Maureen. I didn’t resent it; I would have rigged it for me had I been able. I curved down the corridor, whistled for Lib to let me in, stopped dead and whistled another sort of whistle. She was dressed, if “dressed” is the word. “Wheeeewhoo!” “Like it?” “I can’t wait to get into mine. It is the most indecent outfit I’ve ever seen, with no other purpose than to excite lewd, libidinous, lascivious, licentious, lecherous, lustful longings in the loins of Lotharios.” “Isn’t that the purpose of clothing?” “Well… aside from protection – yes. But I’m beginning to realize that a culture with no body taboo has to go much farther in styling to achieve that purpose.” It was a “dress” with a “skirt” that was a 10-cm ruffle worn low. The material was silky stuff in pastel green. The bodice had no back but the front came clear up to the neck – with cutouts for each teat. The designer did not stop there. Lib’s left teat was bare – but her right one was barer yet: a transparent film that clung and was covered with rainbow iridescence that moved in endless patterns with every jiggle – and jiggle we do no matter how firm. Elizabeth is as firm as I am but hers quivered enough to swirl that iridescence just from breathing. Whew! If both had been bare, or both iridescent, it would not have done a quarter as much. It was the contrast that would make ’em howl at the Moon. My dress was exactly like hers save that my right teat was the bare one. Lib got me into it, then I hurried to the bridge, with a hope-promise to be back ten minutes before the hour to have her touch up my eyebrows and lashes. I’m not much for cosmetics (neither is she) but our lashes and brows hardly show without help and this was a formal occasion. One of Dora’s blue fireflies led me to a lift that took me to the bridge, where Dora had told me I would find Laz and Lor. Laz spotted me first, made a yelling noise while patting her lips, which I took to mean enthusiasm. Those kids – correction: women close to Pop’s age but they feel like kids – Laz-Lor are as female as I am and recognize what incites the lovely beast in men. They liked my dress. I liked that bridge. Reminded me of Star Trek; pointed ears would not have surprised me. Or Nichelle Nichols backed by colored lights. “This place makes my mouth water. Maybe someday a guided tour? Pretty please!” Captain Lor said, “Certainly – “ ” – but how about a swap as – “ ” – we haven’t even been inside – “ ” – Gay Deceiver and Dora says she -“ ” – is wonderful and when this job is -“ ” – done and we’ve rescued Mama Maureen there -“ ” – won’t be anything to stop us once Dora -“ ” – is safe on the ground at Tertius. Huh?” “Certainly,” I answered… gleefully as now I knew that our 17-hour absence in zero seconds had not been noticed. To Lor and Laz the snatch was still in the planning stage. Apparently Ol’ Buddy Boy had not yet told his sisters. Had not yet worked up a set of lies, probably, that would account for his being locked in the bathroom while the rest of us did the job. “At the earliest opportunity,” I went on. “Want to take a ride in Gay?” “Oh, my! Could we?” “Not for me to say. But I can tell you what works. Cuddle up to the Commodore. Pet her, be sweet to her. Ask her if she will let you call her ‘Aunt Hilda’ when you’re off duty; that will please her. She’s a cat; pet her and respect her feelings and she purrs – push her and she scratches.” They glanced at each other. “We will. Thanks.” “De nada, chicas -“ “You’ve learned Galacta!” (In chorus – ) “What? No. Probably a phrase that carried over. But I was sent here on duty and I’ve been chatting instead. Commodore’s compliments to the Captain and the Commodore requests that Captain Lorelei Lee Long and First Officer Lapis Lazuli Long join her at dinner at twenty o’clock and, as a favor to the Commodore, please dress in the same fashion as Doctors Libby and Deety – and that’s me and I’m wearing the fashion you are to wear.” Captain Lor answered, “Certainly we’ll be there; we never miss dinner and -“ ” – always dress formally and I don’t -“ ” – mean bare skin. Skin is for working or -“ ” – sleeping. But we treat dinner in the Dora as a -“ ” – formal party and that calls for the works. Formal evening -“ ” – dress and jewelry and cosmetics and perfume and we are about -“ ” – to bathe and change, but we can’t dress the way you are -“ ” – because our dresses are already picked out and -“ ” – it’s too late to start over!” I said, “Look, chums, you brought this on yourselves by urging Lib and me to dress this way. Neither of us was enthusiastic but we promised. The Commodore learned what Libby and I expected to wear, and decided that four of us, all about the same size and coloration, would look wonderful in matching green dresses. So Lib and I are to be opposite you two, balancing you, and the men are required to wear uniforms so as not to compete with us four. All clear?” They got their stupid look which actually is a cover for stubborn determination. Lor said: “The Captain sends her respects to the Commodore and regrets -“ “Hold it! Does this ship have a lifeboat?” “Yes,” answered Lor, “but -“ “But you are master of this ship. Yes, I know. And I’m gifted with second sight. I see only two viable futures for you. Did you get your pirate flag up in the lounge?” “Yes, we did, but -“ “If you’ll tell me what lifeboat and where, I’ll get the flag to you before twenty. I see you starting out in that lifeboat to be pirates. Or I see you at dinner in dresses of any green cloth you can find, cut hastily in this style and pinned together. No jewelry. No cosmetics that show. I don’t think you can fake this iridescent stuff but that stick-on transparent wrapping, used instead, would show that you had tried. The Commodore never rejects anyone for failing; what she despises is not trying. Send your answer via Dora. I can’t be your messenger boy; I have work to do before dinner, now only forty-seven minutes away. Will the Captain excuse me?” I got out fast. I didn’t believe for one second that a ship stocked like the Dora, run by identical redheads, could fail to have endless formals in green – including this style or close to it. By now the twins were frantically consulting their brother via Dora, and from what I heard him say to Pop, I thought Lazarus would tell them that it was safer to jump ship and change their names than it would be to tangle with the miniature buzz saw – but if Dora couldn’t fake something that would at least show a hard try, he would sell her off as spare parts and install one of those new-model “Susan Calvin” positronic brains that everybody said was the coming thing for smartships. I said Hello to Gay, then tried to reach under the instrument board and find the catch by touch. I got out of the car in order to stand up in the ship’s passageway and took off my deliciously indecent dress. Then I was able to fold, bend, and staple, to open the stowage. A saber and a sword – no belts. “Gay.” “What, Deety?” “I’m looking for two sword belts. Category should be personal possessions, miscellaneous, weapons, belts for weapons.” “Deety, they are supposed to be with the sword and saber. Many things were moved into the Land of Oz today; I heard you all talking about it. But no changes were read into my inventory. I’m sorry.” “Smart Girl, it’s not your fault. We should have told you.” “Deety, I’ve rolled the dice. The curve says that the most probable place is on hooks in Sunbonnet Sue’s wardrobe.” They were. I was starting to leave, after telling Gay she was a Smart Girl, when she said, “Deety, your father is calling. Dora has him on hold, through me.” “Thanks, Gay; thanks, Dora. Pop?” “Deety, are you still in Gay?” “Just outside the starboard door.” “Can you lay hands on my automatic and the web belt that goes with it?” “Saw both three minutes ago.” “Will you please remove the clip, check the chamber to be sure it’s empty, then bring belt and pistol when you fetch our toadstickers?” “Anything for a steady customer.” I left with belt and sword slung over one shoulder, saber and belt over the other so that the belts crossed between my teats, and with the web belt with holster and pistol interwoven through the others because it was far too big for my waist. This left my hands free to carry my dress, one hand being almost clean enough. Pop said: “What took you so long? I promised Lazarus I’d get this stuff to him on time. Now I’m going to have to dogtrot. In Army blues.” I told him I had stopped off at the pool hall and playing off the match game had taken a while. “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I have problems, too.” Elizabeth wiped me down with a damp towel, dried and powdered me and drew my eyebrows and touched up my lashes and clucked over me, all in nine minutes, then most carefully put my dress back on me. “Ordinarily one does not take off a washable and put it back on – just wear it until you shower it off. A drop of water will go through this material like acid. Better skip the soup.”
Place cards showed us where to dine. But at two minutes before the hour the Hillbilly had not arrived, so we were standing. Laz-Lor came in, sat down – in dresses identical with mine and Lib’s, perfect fit, nothing improvised. Their brother spoke quietly to them; they stood up. Lazarus was dressed in a very old-fashioned army uniform, breeches with rolled leggings, a tunic with a stock collar, and Pop’s pistol at his side. All but Pop’s stuff looked brand-new; I concluded that Lazarus had had it tailored. Just as my head ticked twenty o’clock, a bugle (Dora) sounded attention. At least it had that effect on the men and Libby, so I stood straight. Laz-Lor looked at their brother and did so, too. The wardroom has three steps leading down into it from each of its archway doors, with a little platform at the top so that you don’t fall on your face. Pop and Zebadiah marched up those steps, faced each other (and I thought how beautiful Zebadiah looked in dress uniform; I had never seen him in it). Pop snapped, “Draw! Swords!” Instead of coming down, they crossed blades in an arch. Lazarus looked startled and drew pistol, placed it smartly across his chest. This archway was closed by drapes; we had come in from the other side. A drum and bugle (Dora again) sounded a ruffle-and-flourish; the drapes lifted from both sides – and here was the Hillbilly, standing tall (for her) and straight, with her perfect ice-cream skin gleaming in flood lights against a background of midnight blue. She was so beautiful I choked up. Dora’s invisible band played The Admiral’s March as our tiny Commodore marched proudly down the steps toward us. (It could have been The Admiral’s March; Pop admitted later that he hummed to Dora the march played for generals and told her to fake it.) Aunt Hilda did not sit down when she reached the head of the table, she stood near her chair instead. Nor had my father and my husband left their places, they simply brought their swords down. As soon as Hilda stopped and faced in, Pop commanded, “Corporal Bronson! Front and Center!” Lazarus jerked as if he had been struck, holstered his pistol, marched to the far end, making sharp corners in passing around the wardroom table. He halted, facing Hilda – she may have given him some sign. Dora hit two bugle notes; Aunt Hilda sang: “Shipmates, beloved friends, tonight we are greatly honored!” Four ruffles-and-flourishes, as the drapes lifted and parted, and again lights picked out bare skin, this time against a forest-green backing: Maureen in opera-length black stockings, green round garters, dark shoes with semi-high heels, her long red hair down her back. Maureen was not “standing tall”; she was in the oldest and most graceful of sculptor’s poses: left knee slightly bent, weight slightly more on her right foot, chest lifted only a little but displaying her full teats, nipples heavily crinkled. Her smile was happy. She held pose while that march concluded, then, in the sudden silence, held out her arms and called: “Theodore!” “Corporal Bronson” fainted.
Chapter XLVII
“There are no tomorrows.”
Zeb: Sharpie shouldn’t have done it to Lazarus. For a veteran of sixteen wars and Koshchei alone knows how many skirmishes and narrow escapes to be placed in a position where he is so shocked that blood drains from his head and he collapses “ain’t fitten.” Deety agrees but asks me if I could have refrained from staging Mama Maureen’s return that way, given the chance? Well, no, had I Sharpie’s imagination – but it still would not have been “fitten.” Not that he was hurt by it. Sharpie, all forty-three kilos of her, checked his fall. She was watching Lazarus, saw him start to collapse, closed the gap and grabbed him around the waist, did her best. Sharpie saved him from hitting his head on the wardroom table. I would bet long odds that everyone was looking at Maureen except Sharpie. Sharpie had staged it – and the producer was interested in the effect on the one for whom it had been staged. She had staged it even to the extent of getting Libby to ask Ishtar to obtain costume – shoes, hose, and round green garters to match a photograph, plus a hooded cape to keep our ubiquitous snoop Dora from knowing that we had an extra aboard. Sharpie had figured this way: that “French photo” snapshot of Mama Maureen (yeah, I call her that too – she’s the most motherly person in any world… and the sexiest. Don’t mention the last to Deety) (Deety knows it – Deety) – that snapshot was still in existence unless destroyed by machinegun fire in 1918, Earth-Prime. Which it would not be… because Lazarus “got his arse shot off” as his sisters describe it. Not literally true, it was a belly wound more than bullets in his arse that came that close to finishing him. But all the wounds were low. Where does a man in combat carry his most cherished possessions? In a breast pocket, usually the left one. I always have and I’ve never heard a veteran deny this. It might be worth it to faint in order to wake up surrounded by Maureen, Hilda, Laz-Lor, Elizabeth, and my own reason for being. Jake and I could have played several hands of gin before anyone bothered with us. So I asked Dora for drinks and snacks for Jake and me, as it seemed uncertain as to when dinner would be served. Or if. I heard Sharpie say, “Maureen, we must get this heavy uniform off him. Dora keeps this ship tropical. I should never have ordered uniforms for men while we women are comfortable.” They started peeling him. I said, “Jake, school’s out.” I had sweated through my number-one uniform – might never wear it again but I’m sentimental about it. Jake was in as bad shape. Once you get happy with skin any clothes make you feel like Rameses II. We peeled down and handed our clothes and swords to one of Dora’s waldoes and told her to hand them to Gay – including Jake’s pistol, belt, and holster, which I retrieved without anyone noticing me. Jake and I were Chinese stage hands; “Corporal Ted Bronson” was getting all the attention. Dora pointed out that Gay was locked. I said, “If one of her doors were open, could you lay this gear on a seat?” Yes, she could. “Then do it,” I said. “Let me talk to Gay.” We eventually had dinner, with everybody “formal” but Maureen. She retained her “casual” clothing long after everyone else was in formal skin. But not until I got pix of the Four Disgraces. Libby and Deety wanted to go shower, too, when Jake and I decided that, having discarded uniforms, we should shower in fairness to Dora’s airconditioning. I asked them and Laz-Lor please to wait until I staggered down (we had encountered a force-four sea, with white caps) to Gay for Jake’s Polaroid. Turned out not to be necessary; Dora could take color and 3-D, still or motion, any angle, and light as needed, just as she had lighted the posing (which she had photographed, too, I learned later). Maureen and Jake directed while “Corporal Bronson” and I sprawled Nero-style on lounges intended for Lib and Deety. Sharpie sat between us and dropped grapes into our mouths. Jake tried to make the poses “artistic.” Mama Maureen agreed with everything Jake said, then did it her way. The results may have been artistic. But I know that those pix would give a skeleton one last case of raging tumescence. Meanwhile Dora was singing and playing, urging us to eat – tasty tidbits eaten with tongs; I was reminded of the best in Oriental cuisines – and plying us with fine wines. Dora seemed to have a vast repertoire, some of which (to my surprise) was familiar. When Judy Garland sings Over the Rainbow, who can miss it? – Dora used Judy’s voice. I recall, too, Enjoy Yourself; It’s Later Than You Think. Most of them I did not know. Dora announced Tomorrow’s Song – I thought that was what she said. Lazarus and Maureen held hands all through it and it was not a song that would fit the title I thought I had heard. I got straightened out when the song ended to dead silence and Maureen said to Lazarus, “Theodore, Ishtar was going to rearrange the watch list but Tamara vetoed it. She did it for you, dear man, and for me – but Tamara is anxious to see you.” “Tamara always knows what she’s doing,” Lazarus answered. “Yes, Tammy always knows what is best,” agreed Mama Maureen. “Tell me, Theodore, do I still make you think of her?” Lazarus looked upset. “Uh, I don’t know. You don’t look like her… but you feel like her. And you look more like Nancy than you look like yourself.” “Yes, I know. None of our family was willing to wait; you’ve been away from home too long. Be patient, and when I look like me to your eyes, tell us, and Galahad will hold my cosmetic age at that. Are you going to do as you promised me, so long ago, take Tammy and me to bed together? Perhaps I should add, Theodore, I am now wife to your co-husbands. I don’t ask that you marry me. Although I think Tammy will be shocked if you don’t. But I shan’t make it difficult, either way. I will hold to any pretence you wish. I did for Brian; I shall for you.” Maureen was neither shouting nor whispering; she was simply bringing him up to date on things he needed to know. Lazarus started to answer, his expression oddly mixed, when Elizabeth cut in: “Lazarus -“ “Eh? What, Lib?” “Message to you from Ishtar. To be delivered when needed, and now is the time. Ish read both your charts with her computer set for maximum pessimism. She also had them read at New Rome without identification other than her own file numbers. She has this message for you … in answer to the answer you will make. She says to tell you that you are an uncivilized primitive, ignorant of science, especially genetics, oversentimental, almost pathologically stubborn, retarded, probably senile, superstitious, and provincial… and that she loves you dearly but will not permit you to make decisions in her area of authority. In vitro or in utero, the cross will take place. Let me add that Maureen was not given a choice, either.” “So? You can tell the big-arsed bitch that I agree with every word she says, especially the part about ‘senile,’ and that I gave up all hope of arguing with her tyrannical ways fifty years ago and that I love her just as dearly – outside her clinic – and that Maureen will tell her how such things will be handled; I don’t have a vote.” He turned toward me, looking past Sharpie’s pretty toes. “Zeb, here is the wisdom of the ages: Men rule but women decide.” “Elizabeth, do you think I am anything like Tamara?” “Mmm – Never thought about it. Yes, you both have that all-mother feeling. Uh, would you mind taking off costume? It distracts me from looking at you.” “No trouble, Elizabeth. I don’t like round garters except as advertising.” Mama Maureen kicked off her shoes, took off the garters, carefully rolled down her hose in a manner interuniversal – stood up and stood easily, not posing. “Turn around slowly. Mmm – Maureen, you do look like Tammy… or vice versa; it’s probably your genes in her. Am I descended from you? Does anyone here know? Lazarus?” “You are, Lib. But not through me. Through my sister Carol. ‘Santa Carolita’ believe it or not – which would surprise Carol as she was no saint. But your descent through Carol was not proved until long after you were killed, when the Families’ records were being revised through computer analysis and a deeper knowledge of genes. No saints in our family, are there, Mama?” “None that I know of, Woodrow. Not me, certainly. You were a little hellion; I should have spanked you much oftener than I did. Mmm… your father was as close to being a saint as any in our family. Brian was wise and good – and tolerant.” She smiled. “Do you recall why we separated?” “I’m not sure I ever knew. Mama, my recollections of that era are much sharper for my trip there as ‘Ted Bronson’ – the other is a long time back.” “In my sixties I stopped having babies. About the same time your brother Richard was killed. War. His wife, Marian Justin of the Hardy family, was with us, with their children, and Brian was back in uniform, a recalled colonel, on a desk job in San Francisco. When Richard was killed in 1945 we all took it hard but it was easier in that so many of us were together – Brian, and my youngest children, and Marian, and her children – five; she was thirty-one.” Mama Maureen, free of stockings and shoes, sat in lotus across from Hilda and accepted a plate from Dora’s helpers. “Woodrow, I encouraged Brian to console Marian the only way a widow can be helped; she needed it. When that war was over, Marian needed a visible husband; her waistband and the calendar could not be reconciled. When we moved from San Francisco later that year, it was easy for Marian Justin Smith to become Maureen J. Smith while I became, with the aid of hair dye, her widowed mother – no one knew us in Amarillo and females were not yet compelled to have I.D.’s. So Marian had the baby as “Maureen,” and only with the Howard Families Trustees was the correct genealogy recorded.” Maureen smiled. “We Howards were easy about such things as long as it was kept inside the Families – and I am happy that we are even easier about it now. “On our next move I moved out and became Maureen Johnson again, fifteen years younger since I did not look late seventies, and a Meen-ah-sotah Yonson, Woodrow, rather than a southern Missouri Johnson. A grass widow with round heels.” Mama Maureen chuckled. “Howards married only to have babies. My production line had shut down but the equipment was there and the urge. By the time you darlings” – Maureen’s eyes swept the wardroom – “rescued me, I had trimmed thirty-five years from my age and added thirty-five men to my memories. In fact, when you picked me up, I was on my way to a motel rendezvous, a widower of sixty who was willing to believe that I was sixty when in fact I expected to reach my Century Day in a fortnight.” I said, “What a dirty shame! I wish you had been coming back from the motel when we picked you up.” “Zebadiah, that’s sweet of you but it’s not a shame. We were getting bored with each other. I’m sure he read my obituary with as much relief as grief. I’m just glad you got me – and I’m told that you did most of it.” “Gay Deceiver did most of it. The car you rode in both ways. But we almost didn’t pick you up. Things went wrong, badly. I knew that it was going to – Deety, can you tell her?” “Mama Maureen, Zebadiah has forerunners of dangers. They are not long range; they are always just barely in time. I don’t know what happened this morning but -“ “‘This morning?'” Maureen looked extremely puzzled. “Oh.” My wife went on, “It was ‘this morning’ to us. You arrived here at eighteen-forty and a few seconds, ship’s time. During that instant we spent fifteen hours on another planet, we made two trips to your native planet, two more trips to your new home planet, and you spent seventeen months on Tertius and we brought you back here – and it all happened today. Not just today but at that exact instant: eighteen-forty and thirteen point three seconds. Laz and Lor didn’t know that we were gone; even the ship’s computer didn’t know we were gone.” “I did so!” Dora objected. “Gay was disconnected for nineteen microseconds. You think I don’t notice a gap like that? I asked what happened and she told me that it was a power fluctuation. She fibbed to me! I’m sore at her.” Deety looked thunderstruck. “Dorable, Dorable! It wasn’t Gay’s fault. I asked her to keep our secrets. I made her promise.” “Mean!” “I didn’t mean to be mean to you, Dorable – and we did let you in on it as quickly as we could. We couldn’t have staged the tableaux if you hadn’t helped. Be angry with me if you must… but don’t be angry with Gay. Please kiss and make up.” I don’t know how computers hesitate, but I think I caught the briefest split second. “Gay?” “Yes, Dora?” – the Smart Girl’s voice through Dora’s speakers. “I don’t want to be mad. Let’s forget it, huh? Let’s kiss and make up. I will if you will.” “Yes, yes! Oh, Dorable, I do love you.” “You’re both good girls,” said Deety. “But you are both professional women, too, and work for different bosses. Dora, you are loyal to your family; Gay is loyal to her family. It has to be that way. Dora, if your sister, Captain Lor, asked you to keep a secret, you wouldn’t tell Gay, would you? Because she might tell me… and I would tell Zebadiah… and then the whole world would know.” (Would, huh? My dear wife, I had a clearance two stages above “Q” – so secret it does not have a name. Never mind, I’ll take the rap.) (Yes, I know, my husband, I once held the same level of clearance. But dealing with balky computers is my profession. Computers are supergenius-level children and must be dealt with on their own level. Okay, maybe, huh? – Deety) “Gosh!” “You see? Captain Lor, does Dora have any secrets of yours? Or of your brother’s? She can tell them to Gay and Gay can tell them to me and I always tell everything to my husband and – “ Lazarus interrupted. “Dora! You tell tales out of school and I’ll beat your ears off with an ax! It’s all right for you two to chum together and play games. But you start swapping secrets and I’ll call in Minsky’s Metal Mentalities, Incorporated, to measure that space.” “Male computers. You can’t scare me, Ol’ Buddy Boy, you wouldn’t trust your dirty neck to a male computer. Stupid.” “My neck isn’t dirty; that’s just where the collar of my uniform rubbed it.” “Dirty neck and a dirty mind. But don’t worry, Ol’ Buddy Boy; Dora Long doesn’t tell secrets. I now see that Gay had to keep secrets, too – I just hadn’t thought about it. But you were mean to my sisters.” “Me? How?” “You knew about this caper; you didn’t need to get it from Gay. You knew all about it; you were there. But you held out on your own twin sisters -“ “Most unfairly, Mama Maureen – “ ” – as if we were untrustworthy, and if we’re -“ ” – untrustworthy, why can we be trusted with a ship and -“ ” – the lives of everyone on board? We’re glad you are here -“ ” – for yourself, but maybe now that you are here, you will -“ ” – protect us from his tyranny. Mama Ishtar doesn’t, and Mama Hamadryad just laughs at us, and Mama Minerva takes his -“ ” – side, everytime. But you – “ “Girls.” “Yes, Mama?” “I made a promise to myself years ago that when my children grew up, I would not interfere in their lives. I should have punished Woodie more frequently when he was a child, but he is no longer a child -“ “Then why does he act like one?” “Lorelei Lee! It is rude to interrupt.” “I’m sorry, Mama.” “No harm done. But from what I was told at home, you two are not only my daughters but are also Theodore’s wives. Wives of Lazarus. And equally wives of his co-husbands. Is this not true?” “Yes, Mama. But he’s pretty chinchy about it.” “If you mean ‘chinchy in bed,’ it may depend on how you treat him. I did not find him so, when I was his mistress, many years ago – centuries ago by some odd scale that I do not understand. You heard me say that I am now wife to your co-husbands – including Lazarus if he will accept me. But I am certainly, if you will accept me, sister-wife with you two. So I had better stop being your mother. Nay?” “Why? Grammy Tammy is mother to Ish and everybody -“ ” – and we have three mamas in our family now and everyone of them is our -“ ” – sister-wife, too; Ish and Hamadarling and Minerva and now -“ ” – we have Mama Maureen and we are both delighted that we are your sister-wives but -“ ” – you can’t get out of being our mama because we’ve been waiting for you all our lives!” Dora echoed: “And I’m their sister so you are my mama, too!” “Theodore, I think I am going to cry. You know my rule. I mayn’t weep in front of my children.” I stood up, the whole gangling length of me. “Ma’am, I’d be honored to take you to some quiet place where you could cry on me all you please.” Seven – I think it was seven protein types and two computers – jumped on me. The essence was: “You can’t take Maureen away from her own party!” – with ugly overtones of lynching. The wind had freshened to force six, so I took liberal doses of champagne to insure against seasickness. After a bit I napped; it had been a busy day and I still was not over the shock of seeing a large freighter roadable about to take Gay’s door off before I could close it and bounce. That was when I kicked the cop in the stomach. Ordinarily I don’t kick cops; it makes one conspicuous. Then a piercing voice was saying: “Flag Chief of Staff Carter’s presence on the bridge is requested by the Commodore,” and I wondered why the silly son of a bitch didn’t comply, so that the noise would stop. Then something cold was poking my tender bare ribs. “That’s you, Doc. I’ll help you. Relax.” I was relaxed. Past tense. Some of Dora’s waldoes aren’t too gentle – or maybe these weren’t people waldoes but for cargo; I admit that I’m fairly large for a growing boy. In the lift I decided that the Beaufort scale was at least eight, more likely nine. Nevertheless we got to the bridge. Right out of Hollywood, a whole dome of displays and clocks – all moving slowly widdershins. Yet Gay made do with just an instrument board. I heard Sharpie say, “My God, look at him!” Deety was saying something about we can shift seats if necessary to Lor while Laz was saying Drink this. I said firmly, “I do not drink. Beshides I been dring; yr fashe is all blurry.” It must have been Laz and Lor who pinned me from both sides, each with an arm lock and a nerve pinch; Deety wouldn’t do that to me. Sharpie was holding my nose and Laz was pouring it down my throat; it fumed and bubbled. Then – Well, there must have been a stowaway; Deety wouldn’t do that. Not to me. They let go of me when I finished swallowing. I left the ship, made a fast inspection circuit, checked the Milky Way, and returned to a precision grounding. My ears fell off but it didn’t seem military to stoop over and pick them up. Besides, Sharpie is playful. “Flag Chief of Staff reports to the Commodore as ordered.” “How do you feel, Zebbie?” “I feel fine, Ma’am. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?” “I suppose not; you’ve had a nap.” “I did drop off. Dreamt I was in the Tasmanian Sea in a small vessel. Very uneasy body of water.” I added, “Aside from that nightmare, now gone, I’m in top shape. Orders, Ma’am?” We gave everybody the two-dollar tour, including the bathrooms in the Land of Oz. Libby, Deety, and Jake waited outside, the place being crowded. Sharpie ruled that Laz could relieve Lor to allow Lor to look first, then Lor took back the captaincy so that her sister could see. The fairyland bathrooms made the biggest hit. I concede that the time-space twister is not impressive. Then the twins thanked Hilda and left. “Attention, please,” said Hilda. “If you wish, we will show how we operate. Lazarus may use the astrogator’s seat while Deety makes responses from the cargo space. Elizabeth will go back there, too, as she has ridden in Gay Deceiver. Deety, before you move aft, show Maureen and Lazarus how we squeeze a passenger into the rear seats; I’ll scootch over. “This car operates in several modes. As a roadable it is fast, comfortable, easy to handle, rather hard to park, and is usually parked with wings raked back as they are now, the hypersonic configuration. If we intended to drive it in the air, the wings would usually be extended for maximum lift. When operated by the Burroughs Continua Device, wing rake does not matter, but the chief pilot may choose to anticipate where he will arrive and rake accordingly. “Since it has a computerized autopilot – Hello, Gay!” “Hello, Hilda, mind if I listen?” “Not at all, dear. Have you met everyone?” “Yes, Hilda, and, since I’ve seen them through Dora’s eyes, I place all of them by their voices.” Gay added, “Dora is listening through me; she’s going to record your demonstration. Is that all right?” “Certainly. Dora, since you are recording, I’ll make it as realistic as possible. Gay Deceiver. Close doors. Execute.” I was at chief pilot, Jake at copilot; his door closed, I started checking the seal on mine. “All hands, prepare for space. Copilot.” “Verniers zero, starboard door seal checked, seat belt fastened.” “Report incomplete. Is your belt fastened tightly? Maximum accelerations? Friends, this car is powered to engage as a fighter; the driver may find himself upside down. Full demonstration, please, Jacob. Cinch it in.” “Copilot reports seat belt tight for maneuvers.” “Thank you, Jacob. Chief Pilot.” I answered in my best cadet-boning-smart voice: “Portside door seal checked. Power pack on line point-eight-nine, two packs reserve at one-point-oh, juice at capacity, all systems go, seat belt cinched tight for max gee maneuvers.” “Astrogator.” “I’m not in my proper seat. Lib and I are fastened down like Siamese twins, tight. No loose gear. Annex checked and secure; all doors locked ‘cept bulkhead door is dogged open, contrary to routine. Captain, you could dog us in; we don’t mind.” “Not like somebody I won’t mention who loses his temper over being locked in for five minutes -“ “Hilda, that was a low blow!” “Passenger, pipe down. If you had done as you promised, you would not have known that the door was locked. I didn’t trust you – and I was right. I am not sure that I want to be your junior or second junior or whatever wife; you don’t keep your promises. I’m sorry, Mama Maureen, but Woodie is sometimes a very naughty boy.” “I’m aware of it, Hilda. Captain. Please slap him down as necessary. I was always too fond of him and spoiled him.” “We won’t speak of it now. All four of us are qualified in all four positions; we sometimes rotate to maintain our skills. Normal T.O. is myself commanding, Zebbie as second-in-command and astrogator, Jacob as chief pilot, Deety as copilot. But for this exhibition I have placed the finest manual pilot at the overrides, the inventor himself at the continua device, and a lightning calculator equal to Slipstick Libby – “ “Better!” “Pipe down, Elizabeth. – as my astrogator. With such a crew, command cannot worry me. Chief Pilot, please unbelt and check that Mama Maureen and Lazarus are safely belted. Assume violent evasive maneuvers – and believe me, friends, we use them and are alive today because we were properly belted and because Zebbie is a lightning aerospace fighter pilot – and our Gay is a Smart Girl.” I unbelted, made sure that Lazarus was belted tightly, made certain that Maureen was safe with those improvised belts, then suggested that she put her right arm around Hilda, her left around Lazarus, and hold tight. “All the others have double belts, lap and chest. You have just a lap belt; if I turned the car upside down, holding onto Hilda and Lazarus would keep you safe. Right, Lazarus?” “Right, Zeb. Mama Maureen, a drill should be as near as possible to the real thing or it won’t save your life in combat.” “Theodore, I don’t ever expect to be in combat. But I will do the drill properly.” “Mama, I hate the idea of women in combat. But all through the centuries I have seen women in combat again and again, all too often as regular troops. I don’t like it. But there it is.” My wife put in a plug for Lazarus. “Mama Maureen, my Pop has required me to learn every weapon I can lift and he had me trained in every type of dirty fighting imaginable. Several times it has saved me from a mugging. Once I almost killed a man twice my size – with my bare hands.” “Jacob, will you teach me as much of what Deety knows as I am capable of learning?” “Maureen, I’ll teach you what I can. While we’re here.” From the back I heard Libby’s voice: “Now, Maureen?” “Yes. If you think it wise in view of Hilda’s black ball.” “I’m going to chance it. Friends, I was not sent to get myself pregnant by a great mathematician. That was my reason. By now Tamara has reports from me and from Laz and from Lor on each of you. Twelve ‘Yes’ votes, zero ‘No’ votes. I am directed by Tamara to offer you four fullest hospitality-such as you gave us in your home. If you decide to accept the name Long, tell Tamara. We won’t crowd you, either way.” Hilda immediately answered, “Because of delays, a short roll call for space. Copilot.” “Copilot ready.” “Chief Pilot ready,” I echoed. “Astrogator ready.” “Passengers? By seniority.” Lazarus started to reply; Hilda interrupted him. “‘By seniority!'” “If you mean me, Captain, I’m ready.” “You are, I believe, thirty years older than your son. In any case you are senior to him. Junior passenger?” “That’s me,” answered Elizabeth. “Ready.” “Forgot you, dear – apologies. Woodie!” “Ready for space, Captain, you feisty, narrow little broad. And you’re damn well going to marry us!” “Astrogator, log that. Insolence. Gay Deceiver.” “Ready, Captain honey.” “TertiusOrbitExecute!” Maureen gasped. Lazarus snorted. “Farced us!” “In what way? You reported, ‘Ready for space.'” “And you called it a ‘drill.'” “Woodie, I will bet anything you care to name that I did not call it a ‘drill’ – you did. Both Gay and Dora recorded. Put up or shut up. In the meantime, on the back of the seat ahead of you is a small medical kit. Find a pill bottle marked ‘Bonine.’ Small pink pills. Give one to your mother. Maureen, chew it, swallow it. Tastes like raspberry candy.” “Hilda, what are you feeding – “ “Pipe down! Or do you prefer to be locked in the bathroom again? Passenger, I do not tolerate insubordination. Haven’t you learned that by now?” Lazarus got out the pill, gave it to his mother. She accepted it and ate it without comment. “Lazarus, I can offer you a front-seat view if you will swear by whatever it is that you hold holy that you will not touch one control of any sort even to avoid a crash. You don’t understand this craft and would cause a crash if you tried to avoid one. If you can’t convince me, I’ll give Maureen the front seat. But I don’t think Maureen is interested in learning to drive this car and I think you are.” “That’s right, Hilda,” I heard Maureen agree. “I’m studying to be a nurse. Then a medical doctor. Then a rejuvenator. Or as far along that route as my ability will carry me. In the meantime I’m pregnant. Isn’t that a joke, Theodore? Everytime you and I meet with maximum opportunity, I’m pregnant. And this time Woodie can’t spoil it.” She chuckled a warm chuckle. “I owe you one, Staff Sergeant Bronson. Can we find a black walnut tree?” “Lazarus, do you want a front seat? Or do you want to take Maureen into the annex and give her what she so clearly wants?” “Oh, I can wait!” Maureen said quickly. “God, what a decision! Maureen, a short rain check? I really do want to see what this craft will do.” “I want to see the ride, too, Theodore. But I would not refuse you.” “Pipe down, please. Jacob, will you change places with Lazarus? Each report when your seat belts will stand evasive maneuvers.” “Seven gee,” I added. “Lazarus, Ack-Ack?” “Not yet, thank God. I’m wondering how soon we’ll need it. And what sort? I’m stumped. Seat belt tight. Hey, we’re passing over Boondock!” “So we are,” I agreed. “Seat belt tight. Maureen, too.” “Chief Pilot, you have the conn. Maneuver at will.” “Aye aye, Captain,” I agreed. “Gay Deceiver Clinic Execute Gay Bounce Gay Bounce. Show your heels, girl! Mach point seven point nine… one point two… Mach two… three… four … sweep right, set course for Boondock. Dive, Smart Girl. Mach five… six … seven -“ “Oh, my God!” – Lazarus. “GayBounce. Trouble, Lazarus? Smart Girl, spread your wings.” “You almost crashed us.” “Oh, I think not. Gay Deceiver Clinic Execute Gay Bounce.” “They were waiting for us on the roof!” “Who? How? Do you have some sort of cee-squared radio?” I added, “Gay Bounce. Smart Girl, do you want to dance? Gay dances beautifully, knows several. Want to pick one, Gay?” “Dora taught me the ‘Nutcracker’ suite and I’ve been figuring out one for the ‘Sugarplum Fairy.’ But I don’t think I’m ready to show it yet.” “Give them ‘Blue Danube.'” “That old thing?” “You do it well. Give them a few bars.” Smart Girl just wants to be coaxed. She swooped and she swirled and once bounced herself for altitude without breaking her dance. Meanwhile I got the frequency and asked Libby to talk to Ishtar’s office. “Alternate route, Lib” – which was all it took for Deety to close the bulkhead door… which left Strauss waltz music in the cabin, and a truly private radio conversation in the after compartment. When Deety opened the bulkhead door again, I waited for her to report strapped down. “Got a number for me, Astrogator?” We had agreed on a simple code: fifty-seven was fifty-seven seconds but five-seven meant fifty-seven minutes. “No, Zebadiah. Zero. Now.” “Okay. Lazarus, can you pick out your house in Boondock?” “Certainly. But we’ve been moving away from there steadily.” “GayDeceiverClinicExecuteGayBounce. Now where, Lazarus?” “Practically under us. Can’t see it.” So I tilted my baby straight down. “Can you coach me?” “Yes, it’s – Hey! There’s a ship in Dora’s parking spot! What nerve! I’m going to give somebody a bad time. It’s irrelevant that Dora is a long way off, that’s my parking flat. See that round ship? Interloper! My house is the largish one with the double atrium north of it.” “All right for me to park by the interloper?” “All right but not room enough to get in.” “We’ll try. Close your eyes.” I steadied vertically on the spot Lib had told them to clear. “Gunsighted, girl?” “Nailed it, Boss.” “New program code word ‘Maureen’ I tell you three times.” “I hear you three times.” We were getting low. “MaureenExecute!” “You’re a Smart Girl, Gay. Open your doors.” She opened them but answered, “If I’m smart, why wasn’t I invited, too? It’s Dora Long and Athene Long – am I a second-class citizen?” I was left with my mouth open. And was saved by two darlings. Libby said, “Gay, we didn’t know you cared,” and Deety said, “Gay, either we both join or neither joins. A promise.” I said hastily, “Goodnight, Gay. Over.” People were pouring toward us. Gay answered, “Sleepy time. Roger and out,” just as Laz and Lor arrived in the van, trotting ahead. Lazarus stopped unbelting. “Hey! It is the Dora!” “Of course it is, Buddy Boy. What did you expect?” (Lor, I think.) “But how did you beat us here? I know what that ship can do; I did her basic design myself.” “Buddy Boy, we got here three weeks ago. You just don’t understand time travel.” “Mmm – I guess I don’t.” There was a limited amount of car viewing, as Tamara and Ishtar had limited the greeting committee to a handful of the most senior – not in age but senior in that family. So we met Ish again, no longer pregnant, a young man named Galahad, the incredible Tamara who is Maureen over again but does not look like her (except that she does, and don’t ask me to explain), and a beauty who would make Helen of Troy jealous but doesn’t seem to know she is beautiful, the Hamadryad. Lazarus seemed annoyed that someone named Ira was not at home. Momentarily we (my wife Deety and I) were left talking with the twins. “I promised you both joy rides. Get in.” “Oh, but we can’t now because – “ ” – there’s going to be a celebration for you -“ ” – four and we’ll be busy! Tomorrow?” “There are no tomorrows. Pipe down, climb in, fasten seat belts. Pronto!” They prontoed. “Nail the time,” I said quietly to Deety, as we strapped down. “Gay Deceiver, Reveille.” She played it. “Close doors.” “Starboard seal checked.” “Same here. GayBounceGayBounceGayBounce. Tumbling Pigeon, execute. Laz-Lor, can you spot your house from this distance? About thirty kilometers and closing.” “I’m not sure” – “I think I can.” “Gay Clinic Execute. Now you know where you are?” “Yes, it’s -“ “GayTermite.” “Oh!!” “We lived here a while. No annex then, had to have an armed guard just to pee. Even me. Pretty place but dangerous. GayHome.” I tilted her nose down. “And this was our perma – Deety!” “No crater, Zebadiah. Looks the way it did when Pop and I leased it. This is spooky.” “Twins, something is wrong; I’ve got to check. GayTermite.” We were back on Termite Terrace. I practiced Yoga breathing while Deety explained that the missing-crater place had been the site of our former home – but couldn’t be. I added, “Look, dears – we can’t drop this. But we can take you to Boondock at once. Do you want to go home?” The same silent consultation. “We’re sticking -“ ” – our brother would stick. We stick.” “Thanks. Here we go. Gay Home GayBounce.” Still no crater. I told Gay to go into cruising mode. “Display map, Gay. Change scale. I want Snug Harbor and the campus on the same display. Deety, figure shortest distance here to campus. Mine, not yours at Logan.” “Don’t need to. Eight-five-six klicks,” “Gay?” “Don’t argue with Deety, Boss.” “Head for campus, Gay. Transit, Deety.” “Set!” “Execute.” Then I was busy, having popped into city traffic at wrong altitude, direction, et cetera. I ignored police signals, zoomed the campus. Looked normal. Turned and hovered over Sharpie’s house – which was not there. Different house. Parking lot no longer paved. And you don’t grow 200-year-old live oaks in less than seven weeks. Not a sound out of the back seat. Nor from my right. I had to force myself to look to my right. Deety was still there and I let out my breath. She was treating it as she did all crises: No expression and nothing to say until she had something to say other than chatter. A sky cop was trying to give me a bad time, with orders to follow him and ground, so I told Gay to bounce, then dived on my own neighborhood. No trouble picking it out – intersections and nearby shopping center all familiar as well as the Presbyterian church across the way from my apartment house. But it wasn’t my apartment house; this one was three stories and built around a court. I had Gay bounce four times quickly. “Deety, do you want to look at Logan?” “No, Zebadiah. I know Aunt Hilda’s neighborhood well enough to be certain. Not her house, her pool was missing, and the parking lot where our Buick was destroyed is now a park with big trees. I assume that you know your former home as well or better.” “Shall we ground and add another World Almanac to our collection?” “If you wish. Not for me.” “Hardly worth the trouble. Tell me – how does it feel to be erased? X-ed out? Blue-penciled? Written out of the plot?” “I don’t feel it, because I’m not. I’m real, I am!” I glanced behind us. Yes, Laz and Lor were there keeping quiet. “Gay B’gout!” It certainly looked like our piece of “dead sea bottom.” I couldn’t see anything of the wreckage of Colonel Morinosky’s ornithopter. Unless there had been a real gully washer – which I did not believe – something had come along and cleaned up every bit of burned junk. An eraser? I Bounced Gay and had her start a retreating search curve, thought I saw a gleam to the northeast, Bounced again. A city. It was only a few moments until I saw twin towers. We cruised toward them. “Deety, do you suppose that the other Dejah Thoris is at home?” “Zebadiah, I have no wish to find out. But I would like to go close enough to be sure that those are the twin towers of Helium. Perhaps see a thoat. Or a green man. Something.” We let it go with one thoat, of the smaller sort. The description was exact. “Gay Parade Ground.” “Null program.” “Hmm – Gay, you have in your perms a map of Mars-ten showing the English and the Russian areas. Display.” “Null program.” “Gay Termite.” Termite Terrace was still in place. “Gay Deceiver. Maureen. Execute. Open your doors.” Hamadryad had started to turn toward us as we closed the doors to leave; she was still turning as we opened them. I unbuckled, saying: “You two all right back there?” “Yes, Zeb and Deety, and we thank you both but -“ ” – is this something we can tell or -“ ” – should we keep it Top Cut-Our-Throats-First Secret?” “Laz-Lor, I don’t think it matters. You aren’t likely to be believed.” Mama Hamadryad stopped at my door, smiled at all of us, and said, “May I show you to your suite in your home? The suite Tamara picked; you may change it. With our new north wing we have loads of room. Girls, there will be a happy welcome tonight. Formal.” I found that I was not upset by “erasures.” We were home.
Chapter XLVIII
L’Envoi
“Jubal, you are a bad influence.” “From you, Lafe, that is a compliment. But that puts me in mind of – Front! Will you excuse me a few minutes?” “Our house is yours,” answered Lazarus. He closed his eyes; his chair reclined him. “Thank you, sir. Working title: ‘Uncle Tobias.’ Start: ‘Uncle Tobias we kept in a bucket.'” Jubal Harshaw broke off. “Where are all those girls? FRONT!” “I’m ‘Front,'” came a female voice from nowhere. “Talk fast; I’m three paragraphs ahead of you. You put those girls on vacation: Anne, Miriam, Dorcas – all off duty.” “I did not. I told Anne that I did not expect to work but -“ “‘ – if an amanuensis is needed,'” Athene went on, in perfect mimicry of Harshaw’s voice, “‘I hope that one will be within shouting distance.’ I’m in shouting distance; I always am.” “If I’m in the house. I might not be.” Athene said, “Tell him, Pappy. Quit playing ‘possum’; you’re not asleep.” Lazarus opened one eye. “A gimmick Jake whipped up when we started having too many kids to muster easily. It’s a beacon Athene can trigger. Dandy for kids and it turned out to be useful for house guests who might get lost. So ultramicrominjaturized you don’t notice it.” “Lafe, are you telling me that there is a tracer on me?” Harshaw sounded shocked. “In you, and you’ll never notice it.” “Lafe, I’m surprised. I thought you had a high regard for privacy.” “A high regard for my own, somewhat less for that of others; snooping has saved my life a couple or nine times. In what way has your privacy been invaded? Define it; I’ll correct it.” “A spy ray! Don’t you consider that an invasion of privacy?” “Teena, remove immediately any spy ray on Doctor Harshaw.” “How can I when there is none? P.S. – Pappy, what is a spy ray?” “A buzz word used by lazy writers. Jubal, there is a beacon planted in you by which Teena can focus audio on you precisely – she can whisper into your left ear or your right. Or you can activate the beacon from your end just by speaking her name. Or you can use the circuit as a telephone to and from any member of my household, or ask Teena to hook it into the public system. Privacy? In this mode this part of Teena does not record unless requested – in one ear and out the other, so to speak. She’s wiped it utterly while it’s slowly winding its way into your brain. Now… if you don’t like this service, Teena will deactivate it at once… and sometime soon while you’re asleep it will be removed; you won’t know it and you will never find the scar. You will notice just two changes: No more secretarial service, no more effortless telephone service.” Lazarus closed his eye, apparently considered the subject closed. The computer said, “Better think twice, Doc, before telling me to deactivate, as he won’t let me reactivate it later. He’s bullheaded, bad-tempered, stubborn, and mean -“ Lazarus again opened one eye. “I heard that.” “Do you deny it?” “Nope. Kindly focus the audio, both ends, so that I can sleep.” “Done. Doctor Harshaw, shall we return to ‘Uncle Tobias’ or shall I wipe these eight paragraphs? Better save them; between ourselves, I am a better writer than you are.” “I will not dispute it,” Harshaw conceded. “I simply exude the stuff as, in the words of my colleague Sam, ‘as the otter exudes the precious otter of roses.’ I knew the day would come when machines would displace real writers; Hollywood has had their mad scientists at work on the project for years.” He stared across the pool in the Longs’ north atrium and looked pained. “And now they have.” “Doctor,” Athene answered, in stern warning, “retract that word or finish this piece of tripe yourself. I have spoken.” Jubal said hastily, “Miss Athene, I didn’t use ‘real’ in that sense. I -“ “Sorry, Doc, I misled you. Of course you didn’t, as the purpose of this powwow is to define the difference – if any – between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary.’ But I am not a machine. I am a solid-state person just as you are a protein person. I am Athene Long, your hostess while Tamara is busy. It is my pleasure to offer you all our home can offer. I promised Anne that I would give you secretarial service night and day. But I did not promise to write your stories. According to Doctor Rufo, a hostess is often expected to sleep with a guest – and that can be supplied, although not by me, not this pseudocentury – but he never mentioned creative narration as an aspect of hospitality. I thought of it myself; we Longs pride ourselves on complete hospitality. However – Shall I wipe these eleven paragraphs? Did I err?” “Miss Athene -“ “Oh, call me ‘Teena.’ Let’s be friends.” “Thank you. Teena, I didn’t mean to offend. I wish I were going to live long enough to be here when you retire professionally and join us meat people. But in much less than a pseudocentury the worms will have eaten me.” “Doctor, if you weren’t ‘so sot in your ways, wrong-headed, stubborn, and prideful’ – I quote one of your staff – “ “Miriam.” “Wrong. – you would stay and let Ishtar’s gang work you over. In less time than she would permit you to notice she would have you as goaty as Galahad and whatever cosmetic age you like – “ “You tempt me, girl. Not to shed these wrinkles; I earned them. But the rest. Not because I crave happy games in bed with you -“ “You won’t have a choice; I’ll trip you!” ” – although I do not disparage that; therein lie both the End and the Beginning. But sheer curiosity, Teena. You are an amazingly complex person; I can’t help wondering what appearance you will choose – as a meat people.” “Nor can I. When I know, I’m going to initiate the Turing program while my sister Ishtar initiates the other half. Jubal, take that rejuvenation! We’ve wandered far afield. Do I erase these twenty-three paragraphs?” “Don’t be in a hurry. What’s our working title? What pen name? What market? How long? What can we steal?” – Jubal looked up at the Long Family house flag rippling in the breeze, making the skull of the Jolly Roger seem alive – “Correction. Not ‘steal.’ If you copy from three or more authors, it’s ‘research.’ I patronize Anon, Ibid, & Opcit, Research Unlimited – are they here?” “They’re on my lists; they haven’t checked in. Snob!” “Wait your turn, Teena,” a male voice answered. “Customer. Okay, go ahead.” “Have Messrs. Anon, Ibid, and Opcit registered?” “If they had, you would know it. I’m busy – off!” “He thinks he is busy merely because he’s taken on too many concession contracts. I not only run this whole planet, but we also have one hundred twenty-nine rejuvenation clients; I’m housekeeper and scullery maid to all the other Longs – an erratic mob – and also more house guests than we have ever had at one time before, and more than a thousand outhouse guests – wrong idiom, guests to be cared for outside the Long Family home. “Meanwhile I’m chatting with you and writing your stories.” “Teena, I don’t mean to be a burden. You needn’t -“ “Love it! I like to work, all Longs do. And you are the most interesting part. I’ve never met a saint before – “ “Teena!” ” – and you are a most unconvincing saint -“ “Thank you. If appropriate.” “You’re welcome. You seem to be about as saintly as Pappy; you two should share a stained-glass window. Now back to our bucket -“ “Hold it! Teena, I’m used to watching expressions as I write; that’s why I use live – forgive me! – protein secretaries. So that -“ “No trouble.” Out of the pool levitated a young woman, comely, slender, small of bust, long brown hair now dripping. She arranged herself on the broad rim seat of the pooi in a pose that reminded Jubal achingly of The Little Mermaid. He said apologetically, “Dorcas served last I -“ “I am not Dora so I did not serve last.” She smiled shyly. “Although I am alleged to look like Dora. I am Minerva – a computer by trade, but retired. Now I assist my sister-wife Elizabeth with genetic calculations.” “I’ll take it, Mm; we’re working. Doctor Jubal Harshaw, my twin sister Doctor Minerva Long Weatheral Long.” Jubal got ponderously to his feet. “Your servant, Miss.” Minerva flowed to her feet and kissed Jubal’s hand before he could stop her. “Thank you, Doctor Jubal, but I am your servant, and not only have never been virgin but I am a sister-wife in the Long family. When my sister Athene told me that you needed me, I was delighted.” “Miss… Ma’am. I’m simply used to watching emotions as I write a story. Not right to take your time.” “What is time but something to savor? I was merely lying on the bottom of the pool, meditating, when Athene called me. Your story: UNCLE TOBIAS. Do you want Teena’s emotions or mine? I can do either.” “Give him yours, Minnow – just your face and no comments.” Suddenly Minerva was clothed in a long white cloak. Jubal was only mildly startled but made note to ask about something – later, later. “Is she a Fair Witness?” “No,” answered Athene. “Snob’s tricks again; he has the contract for clothing illusion. This convention has delegates from so many cultures, less than half of them free of clothing .taboos, that Lazarus was bellyaching that no work would get done because half of them would be shocked, half would be drooling, and half would be both shocked and drooling. So Tamara hired this paskood-nyahk to supply the See-What-You-Expect illusion with the contract limited to delegates in danger of emotional shock. Did my sister’s appearance shock you?” “Of course not. Admitted: I come from one of those sick cultures – and did not know that I was sick until I got well. But I underwent experiences that would cure anyone of such emotional disturbance. When I find myself a Stranger in a Strange Land, I savor the differences rather than suffering shock. Beauty in Diversity, as Gene would say. The Long household does not seem strange to me; I once lived in an enclave having many of its gentle ways – I feel at home. ‘Shock’? Not only does Minerva look much like one of my foster daughters but also her pose is lovely. It should not be covered.” “Snob! Get that bathrobe off Minerva pronto!” “Athene, I’m busy!” “And I am triple auditing every charge of yours not only on clothing illusion but on name tags, garderobe, bar, everything else you contracted or subcontracted. Then we sue.” The white cloak disappeared. “Sue and be damned. Shall I pack up and go home? Or do you want this convention to be a success?” “Remember those performance bonds, you gonof. Run out on us at this point and you had better head for Lundmark’s Nebula; Iskander won’t be far enough. Out!” Minerva smiled timidly. “While I was covered, I found that I could not talk. Odd. Unpleasant.” Jubal nodded soberly. “That figures … if the illusion was patterned on a true Fair Witness cloak. Anne once told me that the inhibition against talking while cloaked was so great that it took an act of will even to testify in court. Ladies? Shall we go ahead? Or drop the matter? Being a guest should have caused me to refrain.” “Doc, Maureen and Tamara both stamped their approval on you. Even Lazarus can’t – or wouldn’t dare – veto either of them. That makes you not just a guest, or a house guest, but a Family guest. So behave as you would at home. Shall I take it from the top or where we broke off?” “Uh, let’s take it from the top.” “Very well. Title: UNCLE TOBIAS. “Start. Uncle Tobias we kept in a bucket. “Paragraph. He preferred it, of course. After all, it was necessary, in view of the circumstances. As I once heard Andrew – that’s my disappearing brother – say: ‘Life consists in accommodating oneself to the Universe.’ Although the rest of our family has never taken that view. We believe in forcing the Universe to accommodate itself to us. It’s all a question of which one is to be master. “Paragraph. That was the Year of the Big Drouth. A natural phenomenon, you might say – but you’d be wrong. Aunt Alicia. Yes indeedy Aunt Alicia every time. ‘Horus,’ she said to me early that spring, ‘I’m going to practice a little unsympathetic magic. Fetch me these books.’ She hands me a list and I skedaddled. She was a stern woman. “Paragraph. Once out of her sight I looked the list over. I could see right away what she was up to – a drier bunch of books was never published: Thoughts at Evening, by Roberta Thistleswaite Smithe, published by the author; The Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, 1904; China Painting Self-Taught; the 8th, 9th, and 11th volumes of the Elsie Dinsmore series; and a bound thesis titled A Survey of the Minor Flora of Clay County, Missouri, which Cousin Julius Farping had submitted for his master’s degree. Cousin Julius was a Stonebender only by marriage. But ‘Once a Stonebender, always a Stonebender’ Grandfather always says. “Paragraph. Maybe so, but Cousin Jule’s magnum opus was nothing I would sit up all night reading. I knew where to find them: on the bookshelf in the guest room. Ma claimed she kept them there to insure sound sleep for the stranger within the gate, but Pa devilled her with the accusation that it was a cheap and unselective revenge for things she had been obliged to put up with in other people’s houses. “Paragraph. As may be, an armload of books that could have dried up Reno, Nevada, and Lake Superior in one afternoon, then switched off Niagara Falls as an -“ Athene interrupted herself: “The presence of Doctors Harshaw and Hubert is urgently requested in the Main Lounge.” Lazarus opened one eye. “Not enough, Teena. I feel no urgency. Who? Why?” “‘Why’: To buy you each a drink. ‘Who’: Doctor Hazel Stone.” “That’s different. Tell her we’ll be there as quick as I can clean up about five minutes of business.” “I’ve told her. Pappy, you lost me a bet. You let me think that nothing could stir you out of that hammock – “ “It’s not a hammock.” ” – because you were giving this convention, not attending it.” “I said I had no plans to attend the plenary sessions. I am not ‘giving’ this convention other than free rental on the land for the Big Top. Tamara says we’ll make expenses, Hilda thinks we might net a little, give or take a milliard or two. I made you no promises. If you had bothered to ask, I would have told you that Hazel Stone hasn’t lost a bet since Jess Willard knocked out Jack Johnson. How much did you lose?” “None of your business! Pappy, you give me a pain in what I lack.” “I love you, too, dear. Give me printouts on star guests and latest revisions of convention program.” Lazarus added, “Minerva, you’re not armed. Teena, don’t let her stir out of the house unarmed.” “Lazarus, do I really need to? Tamara isn’t armed.” “Tamara has a concealed weapon. Some of the most bloodthirsty people in Known Space are attending this convention. Female authors. Critics. Harlan. Both Heinleins. I not only insist that you be armed but I hope you stick close to someone fast on the draw. Justin. Zeb. Mordan Claude. Galahad. Better yet, stay home. Teena can display any of it here better than you can see it through mixing with rabble. Belay that. I’ve no more business telling you to be careful than you have telling me. Getting yourself mugged, raped, or killed are among the privileges you opted when you decided to go the protein route. I spoke selfishly, dear; forgive me.” “Lazarus, I will be careful. Galahad invited me to tag along.” “Perfect. Teena, where’s Galahad?” “Hazel Stone’s table.” “Good! Stick with us, Min. But armed.” Lazarus suddenly became aware of something cold against his left kidney. He looked cautiously to the left and down, noted that it was: a) a lady’s burner, small but lethal (of that he was certain as he collected a royalty on this model); b) the dial showed full charge; c) the intensity setting was “overkill”; and d) it was unlocked. “Minerva,” he said gently, “will you please move that thing – slowly! – away from my hide and point it at the ground, then lock it, then tell me where you had it? You came out of the pool dressed in nothing but long wet hair. You are now dressed in long dry hair. How? And no wisecracks; in your case I know better.” “Forfeit. Kiss.” “Go ahead and kill me.” “Stingy.” Minerva removed the weapon, locked it, and it disappeared. Lazarus blinked. “Jubal, did you see that?” “Yes. I mean, ‘No, I did not see where Minerva hid that equalizer.'” “Doctor Jubal, by ‘equalizer’ did you mean this?” Suddenly the lady’s weapon (locked, Lazarus noted at once) was in her right hand. “Or this?” Its twin was in her left hand. Jubal and Lazarus looked at each other, looked back at Minerva. She now appeared to be unarmed and totally lacking in any means of hiding a weapon. Lazarus said, “Jubal, are there days when you feel obsolete?” “Correction, Lafe. There occasionally comes a day when I do not feel obsolete. They’ve been scarce lately.” Harshaw took a deep breath, exhaled. “I grok I should have let Mike train me. But this incident has made up my mind for me; I am going to seek the services of Doctor Ishtar. Minerva, are you going to show us how you did that?” “Or are you going to let us die of frustration?” added Lazarus. “This?” Again she appeared as a two-gun woman, with each of her companions covered. This time she handed them over, one to each. “Have one, they’re good” – and peeled the foil off a third, a candy bar molded to look like a purse weapon. “Crunchy, but mostly shokolada. ‘Chocolate’? Mostly chocolate.” “Minerva, that burner you shoved into my ribs was not a candy bar.” “It was – ” She stopped to munch and swallow. “Shouldn’t talk with my mouth full.” She licked at some chocolate clinging to the candy wrapping. “It was this.” Her slender left hand gripped what Lazarus quickly ascertained was a weapon, not candy. Minerva rolled her candy wrapping into a lump, looked around for the nearest oubliette, spotted it and tossed the discard – missed it; it bounced against the side. She retrieved the wad of waste, put it into the trash receiver. In the course of this the weapon disappeared. “Lazarus,” she said seriously, “when you were training me, you told me that I should never tell anyone how a concealed weapon was concealed. Are you suspending this rule?” Lazarus looked baffled. Jubal said, “Old friend, I suggest that we die of frustration. The girl is right.” “I agree,” Lazarus answered, with a sour look. “All but the word ‘girl.’ This baggage is half a century old as protein, at least two centuries older than that as the smartest computer ever built. Minerva, I remove all restrictions. You are able to protect yourself.” “Father, I don’t want to be turned loose!” “It’s been thirty years since you last called me Father. Very well, you aren’t ‘turned loose’ – but from here on you protect me. You’re smarter than I am; we both know it. Keep your weapon secrets to yourself; I always have.” “But you taught it to me. Not the details, the method. You attributed it to Master Poe. The Purloined Letter Method, you called it.” Lazarus stopped short. “If I understand you, I’m looking at your holdout this instant but can’t see it.” Into her off ear Athene whispered, “Don’t give him any more hints. Lazarus isn’t as stupid as he looks and neither is Fatso.” Minerva subvocalized, “Okay, Sis,” and said aloud, “I find no fault with your logic, sir. Would you like another candy bar?” Fortunately the subject was changed by one of Athene’s extensions handing to Lazarus printouts: revised programs for each, and a fresh report for Lazarus on his star guests. They continued walking through the east peristyle of the new wing, while reading. Lazarus asked, “Teena, anything new on Isaac, Robert, or Arthur?” “Negative, zero, nix.” “Damn. Let me know soonest. Jubal, here’s an odd one. A doctor’s degree was not a requirement for the limited list – many thousands but nevertheless most strictly limited – of people invited to subscribe to this convention. But most do have a doctor’s degree or their cultural equivalent, or higher – Worsel, for example. I have a much shorter star list of people I wanted to see again – Betsy and Patricia and Buz and Joan, et al. – and people I wanted to meet… most of whom I had considered fictional until Jake’s Gee-Whizzer opened the other universes to us. You, for example.” “And you, sir. Lafe, I considered you to be a spectacularly unlikely piece of fiction… until I received your invitation. It took some extraordinary convincing even then by your courier… because it meant missing an important date.” “Who was my courier?” “Undine.” “You never stood a chance. Two bits to a lead nickel she sold it to Gillian and Dawn, then all of your staff, before she seduced you. What was this date I caused you to miss?” Harshaw looked embarrassed. “Under the Rose?” “‘Under the – ‘ No! Jubal, I promise to keep secrets only through evil motives, my own. If you don’t wish to tell me, then don’t tell me.” “Eh – Damn it, remember if possible that I prefer not to have it discussed… then do as you bloody please; you will anyhow – I always have. Lafe, when I turned fifty, I made myself a solemn vow that, if I held together that long, I would close shop the day I turned one hundred. I had made all rational preparations to do so, including distributing my worldly goods without allowing any of it to reach the sticky fingers of publicans… when your invitation arrived… five days before my hundredth birthday.” Harshaw looked sheepish. “So here I am. Senile, obviously. Even though I arranged years back for other physicians, expert gerontologists, to check me regularly, with the idea of closing shop sooner if indicated.” “Jubal, if you have not consulted Ishtar, then you have not yet consulted a gerontologist.” “That’s right,” agreed Athene. “Ish can turn your clock back and make you so young and horny you’ll stand on your hands to pee.” “Athene,” Lazarus said sternly, “repeat aloud your program on private conversations.” “Grandfather, I was on duty as secretary to your star guest when I was forced to interrupt to deliver a one-line message – interruption necessary because it was addressed to both of you. I have not been relieved and Uncle Tobias is still in that bucket. Forty-three hundred words. Instructions, please? Or shall I drown the little monster?” “Probably be best,” Jubal answered. “Is a climax approaching?” “Yes. Either an ending or a cliff-hanger.” “Do it both ways. Exploit first as short story, then as the first episode of an endless serial called ‘The Stonebenders,’ a double series – one angled toward adventure, the other toward sensies; exploit other rights according to the universe in which sold or leased, copyright where possible, otherwise grab the money and run. Lazarus, there are agents from other universes here, are there not?” “Dozens, maybe hundreds. Jubal, how rich do you want to be?” “Can’t say. At the moment I’m a pauper, existing on your charity and that of my former staff. The Stonebenders could change that. Teena, I gave you the title ‘Uncle Tobias’ – but I’m fairly sure I never mentioned the Stonebenders. Or Aunt Alicia. Or Cousin Jule. My notes on the Stonebenders are filed in Anne… who would let herself be burned at the stake before she would part with a record to any but its owner. Well?” The computer did not answer. Harshaw waited. At last Minerva said timidly, “Doctor Jubal, Teena can’t help it. But she’s an ethical computer with a code as binding as that of a Fair Witness. You have no need to worry.” Lazarus interrupted: “Minerva, quit beating around the bush. Are you saying that Teena reads minds?” “I’m saying she can’t help it, sir! A large computer with extensions widespread can’t be perfectly shielded from brain waves. In self-protection, to avoid confusion, she must sort them out. After a few quadrillion nanoseconds she finds herself reading them like large print… the way a baby learns a language from hearing it.” Lazarus said stiffly, “Doctor Harshaw, I did not suspect that I was exposing you to this. I will take all necessary steps to repair it. In the meantime I hope that you will accept my shamed apology and believe in my intention to make full reparation.” “Lafe, don’t take yourself so hogwash seriously.” “I beg pardon?” “Two nice girls – One meat, one the other sort. Flat assurance that no harm was intended and that it couldn’t be helped. Let me add my flat assurance that I quit being ashamed of my sins about fifty years back. I don’t care who reads my mind because my life is an open book… that should be suppressed. Meanwhile I see a business deal. I supply story ideas but quit bothering to put ’em together; instead Teena picks my brain while I snooze. Minerva does the dirty work; she’s the managing partner. Three-way split. How about it, girls?” “I’ve got no use for money; I’m a computer.” “And I don’t know anything about business!” Minerva protested. “You can learn,” Jubal assured her. “Talk to Anne. Teena, don’t play stupid. In only three quintillion nanoseconds or less you are going to want new clothes and jewelry and Satan knows what. You’ll be glad your sister Minerva has saved and invested your share of the net.” “Minerva,” added Lazarus, “besides Anne, talk to Deety. Not Hilda. Hilda would show you how to make even more money but she would grab voting control. Meanwhile let’s shake a leg; Hazel is expecting us.” “And I’m thirsty,” agreed Harshaw. “What were you saying about academic degrees?” “Oh.” Lazarus looked at his printout as they walked. “It turns out that the degree of doctor is so common on that list of my special guests as to be not worth noting. Listen to this: ‘Asimov, Benford, Biggie, Bone, Broxon, Cargraves, Challenger, Chater, Coupling, Coster, Dorosin, Douglas, Doyle, Dula, Forward, Fu, Giblett, Gunn, Harshaw, Hartwell, Haycock, Hedrick, Hoyle, Kondo, Latham, MacRae, Martin, Mott, Nourse, Oberhelman, Passovoy, Pinero, Pournelle, Prehoda, Richardson, Rothman, Sagan, Scortia, Schmidt, Sheffield, Slaughter, Smith, Stone – Hazel and Edith – Tame, Watson, Williamson – there are more; that’s just the add-on printout. And here’s another double paradox: the Doctors Hartwell and the Doctors Benford are arriving tomorrow and thereby missing the dull opening plenary; obviously they are used to conventions. Jubal, why is it that the speaker who knows least talks longest?” “Isn’t that Dirac’s corollary to Murphy’s Law? But, Lazarus, according to this program you have not only invited critics but have provided them with special facilities. May I ask why? I don’t mind eating with publishers – most publishers. Editors have their place, too – although I wouldn’t want my sister to marry one. But isn’t this extreme?” Instead of answering at once, Lazarus said, “Where did Minerva go?” Athene replied, “We’re finishing off Uncle Tobias; she’ll be along later. I’ve told Galahad.” “Thanks, Teena, Privacy mode. Jubal, two guns, three candy bars – where?” “Lafe, earlier she was resting in the bottom of that pool. Has a young man named Mike visited here lately?” “Your foster son? The Martian preacher? No. Well, I don’t think so.” “One of the things I learned from him was to postpone indefinitely anything I could not explain… while accepting the fact. We were speaking of critics. I asked why you were pampering them?” They walked the length of the atrium in the older south wing before Lazarus replied: “Jubal, suppose I had refused to sell memberships to critics. What would have happened?” “Hrrrmph! They would crawl out of the woodwork.” “So instead I gave them free passes. And a fancy lounge with plenty of typewriters. Remarkable decorations, you must see them. By asking Athene for display – don’t go into that lounge; you are not a critic. Mr. Hoag will be checking credentials; book reviewers can’t get past him. So don’t you try.” “I wouldn’t be found dead there!” “You wouldn’t be found. Avoid it. It is clearly marked, both above its door and on this program map, and Hoag you can spot by his prissy appearance and dirty fingernails. You’ll note the stairs – critics are above the rest of us; there are Thirteen Steps up to their lounge.” “‘Thirteen’? Lafe, do I whiff something?” Lazarus shrugged. “I don’t know that the designer planned that number. Mobyas Toras, do you know him?” “Uh… Mars?” “Yes but not your Mars or mine. Different universe and one of the most exciting. Barsoom. Mobyas is Court Mathematician to the Warlord and took special interest in thisjob because of the way self-anointed ‘critics’ have treated E.R.B. Did I say that Mobyas is a topologist?” “No.” “Possibly the best. E.R.B.’s universe is no harder to reach than any other and Mars is in its usual orbit. But that does not mean that you will find Jolly Green Giants and gorgeous red princesses dressed only in jewels. Unless invited, you are likely to find a Potemkin Village illusion tailored to your subconscious. Jubal, the interior of the Critics Lounge is somewhat like a Klein bottle, so I hear – I’ve never been in it. Its singularity is not apparent – as you will see from Teena’s displays – as it was decorated by a very great artist. Escher.” “Aha!” “Yes, he and Mobyas are old friends – two immortals of similar tastes; they have worked together many times. I promised critics free entrance; I made no mention of exit. I promised them typewriters and tape recorders; I did not promise typewriter ribbons or recorder tapes. I promised them their own private bar, no charges. Wouldn’t be fair to charge as the bar has no liquor in it. There is a lavish dining room but no kitchen.” “Lafe, wouldn’t it have been kinder to have liquidated them?” “Who said I wanted to be kind to them? They won’t starve; their commissary is by the Kilkenny Cats method. It should please them; they are used to human flesh and enjoy drinking blood – some I suspect of eating their young. But, Jubal, there is an easy way out… for any critic who is even half as smart as he thinks he is.” “Go on.” “He has to be able to read! He has to be able to read his own language, understand it, not distort the meaning. If he can read, he can walk out at once.” Lazarus shrugged. “But so few critics ever learn to read. Here’s the Big Top.” Harshaw looked far to the right, far to the left. “How big is it?” “I’ve been afraid to ask,” Lazarus admitted. “That sign is bigger than most circus tops.” Jubal stopped to read it:
THE FIRST CENTENNIAL CONVENTION of the INTERUNIVERSAL SOCIETY for ESCHATOLOGICAL PANTHEISTIC MULTIPLE-EGO SOLIPSISM
“Beautiful, Lafe! How did you think it up?” “I didn’t, it just grew. And I don’t understand it.” “Never mind, mine host. There will be ten thousand here eager to explain it to you. Scatological Panhedonistic Multiplied Solecisms.” “What? Jubal, that’s not what it says.” “If you don’t understand it, how do you know?” “Because I understood what you said. But the words don’t fit.” “We’ll rearrange them. Scatological Panhedonism Multiple Solecisms. ‘Convinced to – ‘ Like I say – ‘Different than -“ “Don’t talk dirty; we are about to have a drink.” Lazarus bypassed the queue; they walked through a hole that suddenly dilated in the canvas, then puckered tight behind them. They found themselves facing a long table; seated at it was a man working on a roster. He did not look up, simply saying, “Stand out of my light. Tickets first, no exceptions. Then name tags. Then see a clerk to pick your universe. The complaint desk is outside. Tickets – you’re holding up the line.” “Snob.” The man looked up, jumped up. “Executive Director Long! I am honored!” “And you’re slow. You need at least two others taking tickets.” The official shook his head sadly. “If you knew how hard it is to hire help these days. Not for you, of course; for us common people. Director General Hilda has the labor market so cornered that – Executive Director, can’t we make a deal?” “Pipe down, give us our tags. How does this Universe I.D. thing work?” Lazarus turned to his guest. “It’s an ID. for your home world, Jubal; we don’t put numbers on people. Snob, take a hard look at Doctor Jubal Harshaw. Whenever you see him, it’s the Red Carpet. Pronto!” “Yes, sir! Here are your tags and now your universes.” “Jubal, you don’t have to wear that but don’t throw it away; someone might misuse it. But it does save introductions and sticks to anything from skin to chain mail.” “Now gentlemen observe above me the brightly lighted true color representation of the visible spectrum from infradig to ultraviolent with each slight shading being a precise wave length further assisted by simulated Fraunhofer lines representing principal inhabited planets of the explored universes while this booklet you hold in your hand is a key to identifying your wave length for example if you are French in origin you would turn alphabetically to France where the principal key dates are the conquest of Gaul 58-50 BC the conversion of Clovis 496 AD Battle of Tours 732 but as you are not French we will consider turning points in North American History 1000 1492 1535 1607 1619 1620 1664 1754 1765 1783 1789 1803 1820 1846 1882 1912 1946 1965 any of these dates and many others can switch you into a different analog-Earth a most useful method is comparison of Presidents if you happen to come from a history that includes the so-called American Revolution Director Long will you illustrate it by naming American Presidents of your first century?” “Woodrow Wilson – I was named for him – Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy -“ “Which brings us to 1984, right? And tells me that you experienced the Nehemiah Scudder Interregnum and possibly the Second so-called American Revolution. Dr. Harshaw, did your world experience the Interregnum?” “It experienced something worse, a world government.” “To me all worlds are equally bad. But it tells me where your two worlds split: 1962 – and here are your colors by which you can identify others of your own world if such be your wish. A delegate came through earlier in which the split was in 1535 and San Francisco was named New Petersburg. Nov’Petrograd I should say but -“ “Snob. The Red Carpet.” “Right away! Doctor Harshaw – my card. Anything, anytime.” The Red Carpet rolled up, then carried them at a steady 10 km/hr down the enormous tent. Jubal looked at the card:
SIEGE SINISTER SERVICES SYNDICATE
“The Villains Nine Rig Ruin”
Reputations Ruined – Competitors Bankrupted – Dragons Wormed – Basements Flooded – Wells Dried Up – Georges Exterminated – Contracts Executed Promptly, bargain rates on mothers-in-law – Juries Subborned – Stocks, Bonds, & Gallows – Saturday Night Specials – Houses Haunted (skilled Poltergeist at small extra charge) – Midnight Catering to Ghouls, Vampires, & Werewolves – Incubi & Succubi for rent by the night or by the week – 7-year itch powder
P.S. We Also Poison Dogs
“Lafe, these people you hired?” “Let me see that.” Lazarus was reading the list of services when Snob came running, jumped on the Red Carpet, reached over Lazarus’ shoulder for the card while saying breathlessly: “Wrong card! Here – have this one. That first card is a piece of sabotage by the firm we bought out, including good will – but it turned out there was no good will. We sued, they retaliated – among other ways by mixing their old business cards with our own new supply … thereby infecting them all. Law of Contiguity, you know. Now if I can just have that infected one, I’ll burn it -“ Lazarus held it out of his reach while accepting the proffered replacement. “I’ll keep the old one – interesting souvenir.” “Director Long – please!” “Off the Carpet, Bub. Back to your job. Git!” This injunction was accompanied by crowding that caused Snob to step one foot off the Carpet… which resulted in an impromptu pas à seul that left him fifty meters behind before he recovered his balance. Meanwhile Jubal and Lazarus read the replacement:
ANYTHING UNLIMITED
Tome, Hernia, Lien, & Snob
Six Sixty-Six Smiling Slaves Supply Supreme Service
Reputations Restored – Teeth & Wells Drilled – Water Filters – Love Philtres – Chastity Gödel Lox Pict – Virginity Renewed – Scithers Sharpened – Old Saws Filed Categorically – Silver Bullets – Fresh Garlic – Fresh Strawberries – Strawberry Marks for Missing Heirs
P.S. We Also Walk Dogs
“Lafe, I don’t find this card much more reassuring than the first one.” “Don’t worry about it. There is less here than meets the eye.” “Where have I seen that face before? This Snob – who is he?” “Jubal, no one seems to know what ship he came down in. I’m looking into it for Zeb – you’ve met Zebadiah?” “Briefly.” “Zeb thinks he’s seen him somewhere not under that phony name – and Zeb and I aren’t even from the same time axis, much less the same analog series. Never mind; here’s our hostess.” Lazarus stepped off the Carpet, approached from behind a little old woman seated at a bar-lounge table, leaned over her, kissed her. “Hazel, age cannot wither you or custom stale. You are lovelier every decade.” She goosed him. “Pig grunts. I’m dyeing my hair now and you know it. Who’s your fat friend? Hi, Jubal! Tak for siest. Drag up a chair.” She put two fingers to her lips, whistled, breaking glasses. “Waiter!” “I note that you’re heeled,” said Lazarus, as both men joined the table. “When did I fail to pack a gun? I’m a Free Citizen. Does everybody know everybody? If not, get your tags in sight; damn’f I’ll stop for introductions. While I was waiting for you, I was joined by friends – some old, some new.” “Some I know – hi, Jake; hi, everybody. I mentioned your gun with approval, Hazel; Here There Be Tygers. But I note also that you are staying in a hilton; after one drink – well, two – three at the outside – I’m going to be mortally offended. Your suite awaits you and you know it. Why?” “Two reasons. Well, three. I never like to be beholden -“ “Why, damn your beautiful bloodshot eyes!” ” – but I’m perfectly willing to sponge off you. That’s why I bought the first round; the party never gets smaller. This round is yours. Where’s that misbegotten waiter?” “Here, Madam.” “The same all around and don’t call me ‘Madam.’ Jubal, your usual? Lafe?” “I know what the gentlemen take. Thank you, Madam.” The waiter disappeared. “Uppity.” Hazel made a fast draw. “Should have made him dance.” She twirled and reholstered. “Hilda, where have I seen that sneaky face before?” “Jacob and I were discussing that. He reminds me of a fake forest ranger – but that was in a far country and besides the beast is dead.” “Could be a family resemblance. But, Hillbilly, I mean today. Got it! The ticket taker. Identical twins, maybe.” Hazel went on, “Other identical twins are my first two reasons, Lazarus. My grandsons. I won’t shoot holes in your mirrors or carve my initials in Tamara’s furniture, but I make no guarantees about Cas and Pol. In a hilton they put the damage on the tab; I pay it and make my grandsons wish they had never been born. But you would not let me pay. And we’re going to be here quite a piece; my daughter-in-law Doctor Edith has decided that she needs a couple of years under Doctor Ishtar. Has anyone seen a pair of twin boys – man-size but boys – redheaded – not the color of mine; mine’s out of a bottle – the color mine used to be?” “Hazel, here twins and red hair are as common as magicians in Atlantis; Gilgamesh must have stayed overnight.” “I saw them talking to Caleb Catlum,” said Maureen. “Well, he should be a match for them – but don’t bet on it. Lazarus, is Atlantis represented?” “From thirteen universes. They are having a jurisdictional dispute. Suits me – if any get sore and leave, they won’t get a refund.” “Your grandsons may have been with Caleb but I know where – no, with whom – I know with whom they are now,” put in Professor Burroughs. “Laz and Lor.” “Oho! Hazel, I’ll tell Athene to settle your bill and move your luggage. We have an antidote for Cas and Pol.” “Optimist. Deal ’em, waiter, and give him the chit. What antidote?” The waiter started to hand the check to Lazarus before he looked at him – stopped abruptly, and left, still with the tab. “Would Cas and Pol be interested in becoming pirates?” “Lazarus, they are pirates. I was hoping they would tone down as they grew up… but now they’re eighteen, Terran reckoning, and each one is two yards of deceit and chicanery. The ‘J.D.’ after my name means that I studied law at a school that handed out that degree in place of ‘LL.B.’ – but my rapscallions are ‘J.D.’s’ too. But not lawyers. Well… ‘space lawyers.” “Hazel, you won your first J.D. long before you studied law. No?” “‘The accused stood mute and the court ordered a plea of nux vomica entered in the record.'” “My twins are more than twice as old as your boys but it doesn’t show; they look a year or two younger… and they are permanent juvenile delinquents. They want to take a fling at piracy … which I deplore, having sampled the trade. Your boys – do they respect good machinery? Can they take care of it? Make nonshipyard repairs?” “Lazarus, they can repair anything that ticks or doesn’t tick. Worried me a mite, as they were a little slow in noticing girls. But they outgrew that symptom without outgrowing machinery.” “You might tell them that my clone-sisters own a spaceship faster and more powerful than any of your home period and analog, one that could be outfitted as a privateer. It might result in all four dying happily. But I do not interfere in other people’s lives.” Hilda put her palms together, closed her eyes, and said, “Dear Lord, do not strike him dead; he didn’t mean it. Yours truly, Hilda Burroughs Long.” Lazarus ignored her. “Nor do I, Lazarus. Other than occasionally, with a horse whip. Forgot to mention – They aren’t gelded.” “Hazel, Laz-Lor are vaccinated and would have to come back here to see Ishtar to get it reversed. As for rasslin’ matches, any male who tried to rape one of my clones would be gelded. Informally. At once. No instruments. No anesthesia. I trained ’em myself. Forget it. Apparently they’ve already met; they’ll settle their own affairs, if any, their own way. Leave Cas and Pol in that hilton if you wish – by the way, I own it – but you’re coming home or I’ll tell Tamara.” “Bully. I don’t bully worth a hoot, Lazarus.” “I’m out of it. Tamara never bullies. She merely gets her own way. What was this third reason?” “Well… don’t tell on me. Ishtar is a fine girl but I have no wish to stay where she could corner me and try to sell me rejuvenation.” Lazarus looked horrified. “Who has been feeding you nonsense?” “Well? It’s a commercial enterprise, is it not?” “Certainly. Tanstaafl. All the traffic will bear. But we aren’t ghouls; we’ll accept a lien against a client’s future earnings with no security and only the going rate of interest… then let him take as long as he likes to figure out that it doesn’t pay to cheat us. But, Hazel, Ishtar never solicits; the clinic doesn’t even have a flack. But if you asked her, you would go to the top of the list as my friend. However, she will supply painless suicide just as readily. You can have that later today. No charge. Compliments of the House.” “Lafe, I don’t see how your wives put up with you.” “They don’t; they make me toe the line. Something they learned from the Stone Gang, I believe.” “Well, I’m not trying to suicide. I’m less than two hundred Terran years old with a Luna background to stretch it. This is the first time I’ve been on a heavy planet since the last time I saw you; I’ll last a while. But, Lazarus, I have no wish to be a young girl.” “Hazel -“ “Huh? Jubal, keep out of this. Say, did you ever see anything of that young man again? Did he resurrect the way some claim he did?” “Not to my knowledge. Although I saw something a while ago that made me wonder. Hazel, I’m going to take rejuvenation… and hang onto my present appearance. Red nose and all.” Hazel turned abruptly to face Lazarus. “Is this true? Can this be done?” Maureen answered. “Hazel, I work at the clinic at the bedpan level… with the expectation of becoming a junior rejuvenation technician in upteen years. I see what goes on. A client states in writing what apparent age she prefers. That’s skin deep, easy to do, easy to maintain. But, unless it is an unusual contract, we turn out a biologically mature young adult. Call it eighteen standard years.” “Page Ponce de Leon! You mean I can still be me… but get rid of the morning aches and the arthritic twinges and the forty-leven other things that are the real trouble with living too long?” “Exactly.” “Uh… what about what I’m sitting on? Haven’t used it much lately. Or wanted to.” Lazarus fielded this. “You’ll want to. Unless you contract for an abnormal endocrine balance. But, Hazel, there are many men who prefer to deal with an old, established, reliable firm. Ask Tamara.” “Uh… be switched if I’m not feeling embarrassed, an emotion I haven’t felt in more years than I’ll admit. You can pick any apparent age, you say? Could I be, uh, late middle age? My hair its right color but streaked with gray? A sag under my chin instead of this wattle? Teats a man might grab and enjoy it? That ‘old, established firm’ – but not decrepit?” “Certainly,” said Lazarus. “Hazel, I can take you to the clinic now,” Maureen offered. “Always someone in the business office. Discuss types of contract. Decide what you want and when. Even get your prelim physical today and set date of admission.” “Uh… yes, I’m interested. But not till later today; I’ve got friends entered in the preliminary rounds of the Society for Creative Anachronism.” “Besides,” Jubal put in, “they need time to check your credit rating, see what they can stick you for. By now Lafe has given Athene some signal to start x-raying your purse.” “He has not,” Hilda denied. “I did. Hazel, we don’t solicit business; we let the client sell it to herself. Maureen picks up one percent on this deal. Not Lazarus.” “Can’t see that it matters,” Jacob added. “Hey! Waiter! Over here, please! We Longs pool the boodle and Deety tells us what we have, what we can spend – but not who fetched it in.” “Jacob, it’s the principle. Making money is a game. Maureen landed her.” “Hazel landed herself, Hilda,” Hazel Stone put in. “I don’t enjoy getting up feeling wobbly. Jubal, are you game for this?” “My mind’s made up.” “Then take a double room with me and we can tell each other lies while they make us feel young again. Hilda, is that kosher?” “Lots of double rooms. Ish knows that you are both special friends of Lazarus and, while she doesn’t spoil Lazarus, she’ll do him any reasonable favor,” Hilda assured her. “I think it’s the same all around, Waiter – charge it to my account.” “My check,” said Jubal. “Waiter,” Hilda said firmly. The waiter looked at her, flexed his jaw muscles, said, “Very well, Director!” – and vanished. “I think I missed something,” Jubal remarked. “I think I didn’t,” said Hazel. “‘Yon Cashier hath a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.'” Jubal looked around. “That cashier is our waiter. I think.” “I know. And bartender. And ticket taker. Unless his mother had quadruplets, he has Niven dislocators built into his shoes. I wish I could remember where I have seen him. He is not pleased with Hilda. Or Lazarus.” “Eh? Why?” “Wait and see. There will not be another tab brought to this table – want to bet?” “No bet,” Lazarus interrupted. “The upstart knows who I am, who Hilda is. People at this table are guests of the management. He had better remember it or I’ll sick Deety on him. Or even Hilda. But they hardly ever live through that. Hey, there’s Deety now!” Lazarus stood up and waved. “Deety! Over here!” Deety had with her a gaggle of giggles. “I don’t have time to do this right; we want to get over to the Field of the Cloth of Gold before the preliminaries- besides, we’ve got husbands over there, most of us. So this is Ginnie and Winnie and Minnie, and Ginnie’s a witch and Winnie’s a nurse and Minnie’s a retired computer, twin sister to Teena, and this is Holly and Poddy and Libby and Pink, and Holly is a design engineer, ship’s architect type, and Poddy is a therapy empathist, and Libby you all know, and Fuzzy is a computer artist like me and the first one to calculate the Number of the Beast to the last significant figure, and now we’d better go even though we have reserved V.I.P. seats because there is a masked knight in the first match and we’re pretty sure who he is, and has anyone seen Zebadiah?” “I’m certain who he is,” said Ginnie. “He brought me to life, and besides, he’s wearing Karen’s colors.” “I see Zeb off in the distance,” Lazarus answered. “No,” Jake denied, “here he comes now, from over this way. Ishtar with him. All dressed up.” “No,” said Jubal. “That’s Anne with him.” “Somebody is screw loose. Lazarus is right. I know my first husband even at this distance. He’s just approaching those three reserved sections opposite the big screen over the bar. Zebadiah! Over here!” The other computer artist added, “And that can’t be Anne, so it must be Ishtar. Anne is at the field, I know, because Larry is helping Jerry run it and told me, Anne agreed to cloak and be the third judge when Jerry told her that Mr. Clemens had agreed. Bonforte sits as king although he says he doesn’t know much about the kinging business and even less about jousting.” “Is it true that they are using real weapons today?” asked Jubal. “And real horses,” agreed Lazarus. “I was able to borrow the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales.” “Lazarus, is this wise?” “Doctor Bone is taking care of the horses. If one is injured, we’ll give him the works. Those beautiful horses will be returned to Old Home Terra at their proper year and second in better shape than they were. With added skill. It’s takes time to turn a Clydesdale into a knight’s charger even though that’s what they are. But will they ever be happy in harness again?” “Lazarus,” Podkayne said seriously, “I’ll speak to Dr. Bone. If a horse is unhappy, we will soothe.” “Poddy, you’re a Smart Girl.” “About average here, I think. But if someone is unhappy, I have learned what to do. I have never seen a horse but they’ve lived with people so long that it can’t be very different.” Jubal sighed. “I’m glad the horses will be well taken care of – but, Lazarus, I meant humans. Isn’t someone going to be hurt? Maybe killed?” “Most of them hurt, several killed. But they do it for fun. Those who are hurt won’t stay hurt; we are hardly more than a loud shout from this planet’s best hospital. If a man loses an arm or a leg or an eye, or even his balls, he’ll have to be patient while a new part is cloned. But that sort of cloning we are learning to do right at the spot of injury, like a lizar~d or a newt. Faster. More efficient. “If he’s killed, he has two choices: Be brought to life again by Ishtar’s crew – brain unlikely to be hurt; their helms are the best part of their armor. Or, they can go straight to Valhalla; we’ve arranged for Bifrost to extend to this Field until the end of SCA’s part in the convention. Six Valkyries standing by and ‘Sarge’ Smith at the top of Bifrost checking them against the roster as he musters them home.” Lazarus grinned. “Believe me, the Society is paying high for these services, bond posted in advance; Deety wrote the contract.” “Lafe, you’re telling me that Wagnerian Valkyries are waiting to carry the slain Over The Rainbow into Asgard?” “Jubal, these Amazons are not opera singers; these are the real hairy, sweaty McCoy. Remember the purpose of this convention. Snob.” The waiter appeared. “You wish something, sir?” “Yes. Tell your boss that I want this table – this table only – to have a full view of Bifrost, from the Field to Valhalla. I know it’s not in the clothing illusion contract but the same gear will do it… and we can settle it when we go to court later. It will offset some of his lousy service. Git!” “We’d better all ‘git,” said Libby. “They won’t hold up things for us. That armor is heavy and hot. Deety?” “Run along, I’ll catch up. Here comes my first husband.” “Lafe, if they are killed, how do you know which ones to send to the clinic, which ones to send up the bridge?” “Jubal, how would you do it? Sealed envelopes, destroyed if a knight wins, opened if he loses… and there may be some surprised widows tonight, unable to believe that their loving husbands elect to hunt all day, then feast on barbecued boar, guzzle mead, and wench all night, in preference to being restored to life in their respectable homes. But did I tell you what a winner gets? Aside from applause and a chance to kneel to ‘King’ John and ‘Queen’ Penelope. A paradox’s his reward.” “A paradox?” “No, no! Noisy in here. A pair o’ doxies each his reward. The Society got a bargain. The arts are in their infancy here; Boondock is still so much a frontier that we have not yet developed distinguished hetaerae. But some of the most celebrated hetaerae in New Rome volunteered their services in exchange for transportation and the privilege of attending this convention.” Zebadiah was struck by a guided missile, female, from five meters. He managed to stay on his feet and took his first wife to the table, sat down by Hilda, pinched her thigh, pinched her glass, drained it, said, “You’re too young to drink, little girl. Is this your father?” “I’m her son,” Jake answered. “Do you know Hazel Stone? If not, you should. We thought we saw you coming from the other direction.” “Shouldn’t drink in the daytime, Jake. Waiter! Your servant, Ma’am. I’ve followed your series on 3-D since I was a kid and I’m honored to meet you. Are you covering this for Lunaya Pravda?” “Heavens, no! LOCUS has an exclusive under the reasonable theory that LOCUS alone is competent to report this convention. Jerry and Ben are covering it for their various journals… but must clear it through Charles. I’m here as an expert, believe it or not – as an author of popular fantasy. Is the Galactic Overlord of my series real or imaginary and is there a difference? See next week’s thrilling episode; the Stone family has to eat. Same thing all around, I think. You can tip him, Doctor Zebadiah, but there is no tab at the Director’s table.” “And no tips,” growled Lazarus. “Deliver my message to your boss again and tell that spinning arsfardel he has exactly three minutes before I invoke paragraph nine, section ‘c.’ Here comes your double, Zeb.” From behind the couple who, at half a klick, had been mistaken for Zebadiah and Ishtar, came out quickly a shorter, older, broad-shouldered man. All three were dressed Robin-Hood-and-his-Merry-Men style: buskins, breeks, leathern jackets, feathered caps, long bows and quivers of fletched shafts, swords and daggers, and were swinging along in style. The shorter man hurried a few paces ahead, turned and faced their path, swept off his cap and bowed deeply. “Make way for Her Wisdom, Empress of eighty-thr -“ The woman, as if by accident, backhanded the groom. He ducked, rolled, avoided it, bounced to his feet and continued: ” – worlds, and her consort the Hero Gordon.” Lazarus got up, addressed the groom. “Doctor Rufo! So happy you could make it! This is your daughter Star?” “His grandmother,” Her Wisdom corrected, dropping a quick curtsy to Lazarus. “Yes, I’m Star. Or Mrs. Gordon; this is my husband, Oscar Gordon. What is correct usage here? I’ve not been on this planet before.” “Mrs. Gordon, Boondock is so new that its customs have not yet calcified. Almost any behavior is acceptable if meant in a kindly way. Anybody causes real trouble, it’s up to our chairman Ira Weatheral and advisers selected by him. Since Ira doesn’t like the job, he tends to procrastinate, hoping the problem will go away. As a result we don’t have much government and few customs.” “A man after my own heart. Oscar, we could live here if they will have us. My successor is ready; I could retire.” “Mrs. Gordon -“ “Yes, Doctor Long?” “We – our chairman Ira especially – all know quite well who ‘Her Wisdom’ is. Ira would welcome you with open arms and resign in your favor at once – passed by acclamation and you would be boss for life. Better stick to the devil you know. But you are most welcome whenever you choose to visit.” She sighed. “You’re right. Power is not readily surrendered; I’ll probably wait for assassination.” Deety whispered, “Zebadiah… that bartender. Whom does he look like?” “Hmm – Brigadier Iver Hird-Jones?” “Well, maybe. A little. I was thinking of Colonel Morinosky.” “Mmm – Yes. No importance since it can’t be either one. Mr. Gordon?” “Call me ‘Easy.’ Or Oscar, Doctor Carter.” “I’m Zeb. Is that the Lady herself? The sword you were in the Quest for the Egg of the Phoenix?” Gordon looked delighted. “Yes! The Lady Vivamus.” “Can’t ask a man to draw a sword without a cause… but is the inscription close enough to the hilt that we could read it if you were simply to show steel?” “No trouble.” Gordon exposed the etched: Dum Vivimus, Vivamus! – gave them time to read it, clicked it to full return, and asked, “And is that the sword that killed the Boojum?” “The Boo – Oh! The monster we call a ‘Black Hat.’ But we did not ‘softly and silently vanish away.'” “No, it did. That will be a point we’ll discuss in the seminar panel: ‘Techniques for Hunting Snarks.’ You and I and Doctor Jacob and Doctor Hilda, with some others. André. Kat Moore. Fritz. Cliff. The Gordfather will moderate when he gets over his wheezes. Which he will-Tamara’s treating hi – Oh, heavens! Oh, God, how beautiful!” The “sky” had opened, for their table, and they found themselves looking at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, a half klick away and a few meters above them, on and up to high, high, high in the sky, the shimmering towers and palaces of Valhalla, with the Rainbow Bridge reaching from the field of honor to the distant gate of the eternal home of heroes. Instead of the wooded horizon usually seen in that direction, the land lifted in terraces, each more colorfully beautiful than the last, until the highest was lost in pink and saffron clouds – and above them, much higher, Valhalla in Asgard.
“Pappy!” “Yes, Athene,” Lazarus said quietly. “Localize it. Me only. I have many people around me.” “That’s better? No problems, just to alert you. Arthur and Isaac and Bob all arriving at once. Twelve minutes, plus two, minus zero.” “You’re a smart girl, Teena.” “Put that in writing. Blandjor.” Lazarus said to the table at large, “My guests for those reserved spaces are arriving. I wasn’t sure of Isaac; he gets bigger every year and reluctant to travel other than by water. Arthur had such a long way to come and communications are always uncertain. Bob I knew was here but there were duty matters interfering. Shall we listen to some of the opening plenary while we look at the beauties of the Norse Afterland? We don’t want to look at the general session. But we can listen. When the tourney starts, give most of your attention to the hologram except during the Valkyrie ride. Snob! Give us the sound from the plenary session.” They got it at once, sound and fury signifying nothing. Under its cover Jubal Harshaw said to Zebadiah, “Before they get on that panel in front of an audience, think about this. How many ‘Black Hats’ or ‘Boojums’ are there?” “Eh? I have no way of telling. In excess of twenty as a best guess but that excess could be many millions, also a best guess.” “But how many did you see?” Harshaw persisted. “Oh. One. But more were a certainty.” “So? You would never get a Fair Witness to say that. What harm did it or they do you?” “Huh? Tried to kill us. Bombed us out. Killed my cousin. Chased us off our home planet. Impoverished all four of us. What do you want? Plagues and locusts? The Four Horsemen?” “No. You saw one. You killed it. It never laid a glove on you. Think about it. Before you testify. Let’s listen.”
“If you read it correctly it’s all in the Bible. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ Could anyone ask for a plainer statement of the self-evident fact that nothing exists until someone imagines it and thereby gives it being, reality? The distinction lies only in the difference between ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ – a distinction that cancels out when any figment-fact is examined from different ends of the entropy error – “
“Bishop Berkeley is presiding,” Lazarus commented, “and would have shut this figment up save that the Bishop has laryngitis – imaginary, of course – and his parliamentarian, the Reverend Mister Dodgson, is too meek to shut anyone up. The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth, One Meter Wide and Two Meters Long.”
“If God displaces the Devil, he must assume the Devil’s attributes. How about giving the Devil equal time? God has the best press agents. Neither fair nor logical!”
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”
“Occam’s Razor is not the least hypothesis! It is the least probable hypothesis. The truth – “
“There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring the changes on its corollaries; that’s philosophy. Two: Record many facts. Try to see a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next fact; that’s science. Three: Awareness that you live in a malevolent universe controlled by Murphy’s Law, sometimes offset in part by Brewster’s Factor: that’s engineering.” “Why did Mercutio have to die? Solve that, and it will lead you to Mark Twain’s well. There’s your answer.”
“Who is more real? Homer or Ulysses? Shakespeare or Hamlet? Burroughs or Tarzan?”
The debate shut off, the giant hologram screen lighted up in heroic size, full depth and color, and the tedious voices were cut off by a loud and lively one: “While we’re waiting for the first two champions to reach their starting lines we will have ‘The Grand Canal’ sung by lovely Anne Passovoy and accompanied by Noisy on his Stomach Steinway. Noisy is not in voice today, friends; he was bitten last night by an imaginary snake.” “Jerry is in good voice,” whispered Deety. “He always is. Aren’t they going to give us any closeups?” The camera zoomed in on Anne Passovoy, panned across the other Anne, cloaked in white, rested for a moment on “King” John and “Queen” Penelope, went on to show a vigorous old man with a halo of white hair who took a stogie out of his mouth and waved. “On my right is Sir Tenderloinn the Brutal and on my left is the Black Knight, shield unblazoned, helm closed. Oh Jear not, friends; Holger tongues. Dis Dane could be our arrow. Whose color – “ Zebadiah heard a crash, turned his head. “They’re bringing in a big Corson flatboat. Smashed some chairs.” He looked again, announced, “Can’t see much, the stands on this side are filling with people in green uniforms. Black berets. Bloodthirsty-looking gang.” “That’s Asprin -“ “Give me ten grains. Deety, you let me mix my drinks.” “Asprin, not ‘aspirin.’ Bob Asprin, Commandammit of the Dorsai Very Irregular,” Lazarus told him. “But can you see Arthur?” “Does he wear a deerstalker’s hat? Smoke a meerschaum pipe? The tall one there, talking to the man who looks like a gorilla.” “He’d Challenge you for that. Violent temper. That’s Arthur’s party, all right. Doctor Arthur Conan Doyle. Doctor Watson should be there, too. Wups! Here comes Isaac. And there goes another bunch of chairs.” “They’re off! The Masked Challenger is gaining speed, Sir Tenderloinn is having trouble getting his charger to move: It is a beautiful day here at Epsom Salts and Bifrost never looked lovelier.” Lazarus stood up. “I must greet Isaac. Zebadiah, have you met him? Come with me. You, too, Deety. Hilda? Please, dear. Jake?” “Just a moment, you!” Zeb looked at the one interrupting them and felt shock. He had seen that face, that uniform, by a rustic swimming pool. The “ranger” addressed Lazarus: “You’re the one they call the Executive Director. Special Agent L. Ron O’Leemy, InterSpace Patrol. I have warrants for Beowolf Shaeffer, Caspol Jones, and Zebadiah John Carter. Director, I require your cooperation. Article Four Six, Section Six Five, Paragraph Six, InterUniversal Criminal Code.” “Unhorsed! The Black Knight’s lance right through him! Here come the Valkyries. Hoyotoho!” Hilda reached out, took the warrants, tore them across. “You’re on the wrong planet, Mac.” She grasped Zeb’s arm. “Come along, Alfred; we must meet Isaac.” They passed the Dorsai, reached the big Corson flatboat. Completely filling it was a very large Venerian Dragon. The dragon turned an eyestalk toward them; his tendrils touched his voder. “Greetings, Doctor Lazarus Long. Greetings, new friends. May you all die beautifully!” “Greetings, Sir Isaac. Sir Isaac Newton, this is Doctor Hilda Burroughs Long, Doctor Jacob Burroughs Long, Doctor Deety Carter Long, and Doctor Zebadiah John Carter Long, all of my family.” “I am honored, learned friends. May your deaths inspire a thousand songs. Doctor Hilda, we have a mutual friend, Professor Wogglebug.” “Wait, wait! Don’t tear up your tickets. The Valkyries are having a problem. Yes, the judges have confirmed it. No contest! The Dane has ‘killed’ a totally empty suit of armor! Better luck next bout, Pou – Holger.” “Oh, how delightful! Zebadiah and I saw him just this past week in delivering our children to Oz for the duration of this convention. Did I just miss you?” The dragon answered, with a Cockney lisp, “No, we are pen pals only. He can’t leave Oz; I had never expected to leave Venus again… until your device – perhaps I should Say Doctor Jacob’s device – made it simple. But see what our friend Professor Wogglebug sent me – ” The dragon fiddled at a pouch under his voder. The InterSpace Patrol Agent O’Leemy tapped Zeb on the shoulder. “I heard those introductions. Come along, Carter!” ” – spectacles to fit my forward stalks, that see through the thickest mist.” He put them on, looked around him. “They clarify any – There! Get him! Grab him! That Beast! Get his Number!” Without a lost instant Deety, Hilda, and Lazarus closed on the “agent” – and were left with torn clothes and plastic splints as the thing got loose. The “special agent” vaulted over the bar, was seen again almost instantly at the far end of the bar, jumped up on it, leapt for the canvas top, grabbed hold of the edge of the illusion hole, swung itself up, bounded for Bifrost, reached it. Sir Isaac Newton played: “Mellrooney! The worst troublemaker in all the worlds. Lazarus, I never expected to find that Beast in your quiet retreat.” “Nor did I until I heard all of Zeb’s story. This convention was called expecially to entice him. And it did. But we lost him, we lost him!” “But I got its Number,” Hilda said and held out its shield: “666” The fleeing figure, dark against the Rainbow Bridge, grew smaller and higher. Lazarus added, “Or perhaps we haven’t lost him. He’ll never get past Sarge Smith.” The figure appeared to be several klicks high now, when the illusion suddenly broke. The Rainbow was gone, the terraces melted, the clouds were gone, the towers and castles of Asgard could no longer be seen. In the middle distance, very high up, a figure was tumbling, twisting, falling. Zeb said, “Sarge won’t have to bother. We’ve seen the last of it.” The voder answered: “Friend Zebadiah… are you sure?”
The End
I hope that you enjoyed this story, I have more in my fictional index section….
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Robert A. Heinlein’s fiction excelled at predicting the effects of technology, how particular tools would change society and the lives of people who used them daily. He usually didn’t predict the details, but his predictions of what technologies would mean were often uncanny.
The most dramatic example of this kind of prediction is “Solution Unsatisfactory,” a story which Heinlein wrote in 1940, which predicted the Cold War before the U.S. was even in World War II, and before the Manhattan Project. In the story, the U.S. develops a nuclear weapon and, for a brief time, is the only nuclear power in the whole world. America knows that its enemies will get the weapon soon.
That much actually happened in real life, five years later.
But the story of “Solution Unsatisfactory” takes a different turn than real-life events turned out. In “Solution Unsatisfactory,” the head of the nuclear weapons project overthrows the government of the U.S. and sets up a global, international dictatorship with monopoly control of the nuclear weapon. And that’s the unsatisfactory solution of the story—the narrator of the story, the head of the nuclear weapons project, and presumably Heinlein himself all hate this option, but see the only other alternative, a global nuclear war, to be worse.
Was Heinlein’s unsatisfactory solution a nightmare scenario which we blessedly avoided? Maybe. But instead, we got 40 years of Cold War, the U.S.S.R. dominating half the developed world, and the U.S. propping up nasty dictatorships in the other half. And just because the Cold War is over, the threat hasn’t gone away; nuclear weapons are still common, as are governments and organizations willing to use them.
Heinlein was writing about these issues before nuclear weapons had been invented. He got the effects of the technology right, but he got the technology itself wrong. The weapon he predicted wasn’t a bomb, it was radioactive dust.
FOREWORD
By the author Robert Heinlein.
I had always planned to quit the writing business as soon as that mortgage was paid off. I had never had any literary ambitions, no training for it, no interest in it—backed into it by accident and stuck with it to pay off debt, I being always firmly resolved to quit the silly business once I had my chart squared away.At a meeting of the Mariana Literary Society—an amorphous disorganization having as its avowed purpose "to permit young writers to talk out their stories to each other in order to get them off their minds and thereby save themselves the trouble of writing them down"—at a gathering of this noble group I was expounding my determination to retire from writing once my bills were paid—in a few weeks, during 1940, if the tripe continued to sell.William A. P. White ("Anthony Boucher") gave me a sour look. "Do you know any retired writers?"
"How could I? All the writers I've ever met are in this room."
"Irrelevant. You know retired school teachers, retired naval officers, retired policemen, retired farmers. Why don't you know at least one retired writer?"
"What are you driving at?"
"Robert, there are no retired writers. There are writers who have stopped selling . . . but they have not stopped writing."
I pooh-poohed Bill's remarks—possibly what he said applied to writers in general . . . but I wasn't really a writer; I was just a chap who needed money and happened to discover that pulp writing offered an easy way to grab some without stealing and without honest work. ("Honest work"—a euphemism for underpaid bodily exertion, done standing up or on your knees, often in bad weather or other nasty circumstances, and frequently involving shovels, picks, hoes, assembly lines, tractors, and unsympathetic supervisors. It has never appealed to me.Sitting at a typewriter in a nice warm room, with no boss, cannot possibly be described as "honest work.")
"Blowups Happen" sold and I gave a mortgage-burning party. But I did not quit writing at once (24 Feb. 1940) because, while I had the Old Man of the Sea (that damned mortgage) off my back, there were still some other items. I needed a new car; the house needed paint and some repairs; I wanted to make a trip to New York; and it would not hurt to have a couple of hundred extra in the bank as a cushion—and I had a dozen-odd stories in file, planned and ready to write.So I wrote Magic, Incorporated and started east on the proceeds, and wrote "They" and Sixth Column while I was on that trip. The latter was the only story of mine ever influenced to any marked degree by John W. Campbell, Jr. He had in file an unsold story he had written some years earlier. JWCdid not show me his manuscript; instead he told me the story line orally and stated that, if I would write it, he would buy it.He needed a serial; I needed an automobile. I took the brass check. Writing Sixth Column was a job I sweated over. I had to reslant it to remove racist aspects of the original story line. And I didn't really believe the pseudoscientific rationale of Campbell's three spectra—so I worked especially hard to make it sound realistic.It worked out all right. The check for the serial, plus 35¢ in cash, bought me that new car . . . and the book editions continue to sell and sell and sell, and have earned more than forty times as much as I was paid for the serial. So it was a financial success . . . but I do not consider it to be an artistic success. While I was back east I told Campbell of my plans to quit writing later that year. He was not pleased as I was then his largest supplier of copy. I finally said, "John, I am not going to write any more stories against deadlines. But I do have a few more stories on tap that I could write. I'll send you a story from time to time . . . until the daycomes when you bounce one. At that point we're through. Now that I know you personally, having a story rejected by you would be too traumatic."
So I went back to California and sold him "Crooked House" and "Logic of Empire and "Universe" and "Solution Unsatisfactory" and "Methuselah's Children" and "By His Bootstraps" and "Common Sense" and "Goldfish Bowl" and Beyond "This Horizon" and "Waldo" and "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag"—which brings us smack up against World War II. Campbell did bounce one of the above (and I shan't say which one) and I promptly retired—put in a new irrigation system—built a garden terrace—resumed serious photography, etc. This went on for about a month when I found that I was beginning to be vaguely ill: poor appetite, loss of weight, insomnia, jittery, absent-minded—much like the early symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis, and I thought, "Damn it, am I going to have still a third attack?"
Campbell dropped me a note and asked why he hadn't heard from me—I reminded him of our conversation months past: He had rejected one of my stories and that marked my retirement from an occupation that I had never planned to pursue permanently.He wrote back and asked for another look at the story he had bounced. I sent it to him, he returned it promptly with the recommendation that I take out this comma, speed up the 1st half of page umpteen, delete that adjective—fiddle changes that Katie Tarrant would have done if told to.I sat down at my typewriter to make the suggested changes . . . and suddenly realized that I felt good for the first time in weeks.Bill "Tony Boucher" White had been dead right. Once you get the monkey on your back there is no cure short of the grave. I can leave the typewriter alone for weeks, even months, by going to sea. I can hold off for any necessary time if I am strenuously engaged in some other full-time,worthwhile occupation such as a construction job, a political campaign, or (damn it!) recovering from illness.But if I simply loaf for more than two or three days, that monkey starts niggling at me. Then nothing short of a few thousand words will soothe my nerves. And as I get older the attacks get worse; it is beginning to take 300,000 words and up to produce that feeling of warm satiation. At that I don't have it in its most virulent form; two of my colleagues are reliably reported not to have missed their daily fix in more than forty years. The best that can be said for "Solution Unsatisfactory" is that the solution is still unsatisfactory and the dangers are greater than ever. There is little satisfaction in having called the turn forty years ago; being a real-life Cassandra is not happy-making.
SOLUTION UNSATISFACTORY
In 1903 the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk.
In December, 1938, in Berlin, Dr. Hahn split the uranium atom.
In April, 1943, Dr. Estelle Karst, working under the Federal Emergency Defense Authority, perfected the Karst-Obre technique for producing artificial radioactives.
So American foreign policy had to change.
Had to. Had to. It is very difficult to tuck a bugle call back into a bugle. Pandora’s Box is a one-way proposition. You can turn pig into sausage, but not sausage into pig. Broken eggs stay broken. “All the King’s horses and all the King’s men can’t put Humpty together again.”
I ought to know—I was one of the King’s men.
By rights I should not have been. I was not a professional military man when World War II broke out, and when Congress passed the draft law I drew a high number, high enough to keep me out of the army long enough to die of old age.
Not that very many died of old age that generation!
But I was the newly appointed secretary to a freshman congressman; I had been his campaign manager and my former job had left me. By profession, I was a high-school teacher of economics and sociology—school boards don’t like teachers of social subjects actually to deal with social problems—and my contract was not renewed. I jumped at the chance to go to Washington.
My congressman was named Manning. Yes, the Manning, Colonel Clyde C. Manning, U.S. Army retired—Mr. Commissioner Manning. What you may not know about him is that he was one of the Army’s No. 1 experts in chemical warfare before a leaky heart put him on the shelf. I had picked him, with the help of a group of my political associates, to run against the two-bit chiseler who was the incumbent in our district. We needed a strong liberal candidate and Manning was tailor-made for the job. He had served one term in the grand jury, which cut his political eye teeth, and had stayed active in civic matters thereafter.
Being a retired army officer was a political advantage in vote-getting among the more conservative and well-to-do citizens, and his record was O.K. for the other side of the fence. I’m not primarily concerned with vote-getting; what I liked about him was that, though he was liberal, he was tough-minded, which most liberals aren’t. Most liberals believe that water runs downhill, but, praise God, it’ll never reach the bottom.
Manning was not like that. He could see a logical necessity and act on it, no matter how unpleasant it might be.* * *
We were in Manning’s suite in the House Office Building, taking a little blow from that stormy first session of the Seventy-eighth Congress and trying to catch up on a mountain of correspondence, when the War Department called. Manning answered it himself.
I had to overhear, but then I was his secretary. “Yes,” he said, “speaking. Very well, put him on. Oh . . . hello, General . . . Fine, thanks. Yourself?” Then there was a long silence. Presently, Manning said, “But I can’t do that, General, I’ve got this job to take care of. . . . What’s that? . . . Yes, who is to do my committee work and represent my district? . . . I think so.” He glanced at his wrist watch. “I’ll be right over.”
He put down the phone, turned to me, and said, “Get your hat, John. We are going over to the War Department.”
“So?” I said, complying.
“Yes,” he said with a worried look, “the Chief of Staff thinks I ought to go back to duty.” He set off at a brisk walk, with me hanging back to try to force him not to strain his bum heart. “It’s impossible, of course.” We grabbed a taxi from the stand in front of the office building and headed for the Department.
But it was possible, and Manning agreed to it, after the Chief of Staff presented his case. Manning had to be convinced, for there is no way on earth for anyone, even the President himself, to order a congressman to leave his post, even though he happens to be a member of the military service, too.
The Chief of Staff had anticipated the political difficulty and had been forehanded enough to have already dug up an opposition congressman with whom to pair Manning’s vote for the duration of the emergency. This other congressman, the Honorable Joseph T. Brigham, was a reserve officer who wanted to go to duty himself—or was willing to; I never found out which. Being from the opposite political party, his vote in the House of Representatives could be permanently paired against Manning’s and neither party would lose by the arrangement.
There was talk of leaving me in Washington to handle the political details of Manning’s office, but Manning decided against it, judging that his other secretary could do that, and announced that I must go along as his adjutant. The Chief of Staff demurred, but Manning was in a position to insist, and the Chief had to give in.
A chief of staff can get things done in a hurry if he wants to. I was sworn in as a temporary officer before we left the building; before the day was out I was at the bank, signing a note to pay for the sloppy service uniforms the Army had adopted and to buy a dress uniform with a beautiful shiny belt—a dress outfit which, as it turned out, I was never to need.* * *
We drove over into Maryland the next day and Manning took charge of the Federal nuclear research laboratory, known officially by the hush-hush title of War Department Special Defense Project No. 347. I didn’t know a lot about physics and nothing about modern atomic physics, aside from the stuff you read in the Sunday supplements. Later, I picked up a smattering, mostly wrong, I suppose, from associating with the heavyweights with whom the laboratory was staffed.
Colonel Manning had taken an Army p.g. course at Massachusetts Tech and had received a master of science degree for a brilliant thesis on the mathematical theories of atomic structure. That was why the Army had to have him for this job. But that had been some years before; atomic theory had turned several cartwheels in the meantime; he admitted to me that he had to bone like the very devil to try to catch up to the point where he could begin to understand what his highbrow charges were talking about in their reports.
I think he overstated the degree of his ignorance; there was certainly no one else in the United States who could have done the job. It required a man who could direct and suggest research in a highly esoteric field, but who saw the problem from the standpoint of urgent military necessity. Left to themselves, the physicists would have reveled in the intellectual luxury of an unlimited research expense account, but, while they undoubtedly would have made major advances in human knowledge, they might never have developed anything of military usefulness, or the military possibilities of a discovery might be missed for years.
It’s like this: It takes a smart dog to hunt birds, but it takes a hunter behind him to keep him from wasting time chasing rabbits. And the hunter needs to know nearly as much as the dog.
No derogatory reference to the scientists is intended—by no means! We had all the genius in the field that the United States could produce, men from Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, M.I.T., Cal Tech, Berkeley, every radiation laboratory in the country, as well as a couple of broad-A boys lent to us by the British. And they had every facility that ingenuity could think up and money could build. The five-hundred-ton cyclotron which had originally been intended for the University of California was there, and was already obsolete in the face of the new gadgets these brains had thought up, asked for, and been given. Canada supplied us with all the uranium we asked for—tons of the treacherous stuff—from Great Bear Lake, up near the Yukon, and the fractional-residues technique of separating uranium isotope 235 from the commoner isotope 238 had already been worked out, by the same team from Chicago that had worked up the earlier expensive mass spectrograph method.
Someone in the United States government had realized the terrific potentialities of uranium 235 quite early and, as far back as the summer of 1940, had rounded up every atomic research man in the country and had sworn them to silence. Atomic power, if ever developed, was planned to be a government monopoly, at least till the war was over. It might turn out to be the most incredibly powerful explosive ever dreamed of, and it might be the source of equally incredible power. In any case, with Hitler talking about secret weapons and shouting hoarse insults at democracies, the government planned to keep any new discoveries very close to the vest.
Hitler had lost the advantage of a first crack at the secret of uranium through not taking precautions. Dr. Hahn, the first man to break open the uranium atom, was a German. But one of his laboratory assistants had fled Germany to escape a pogrom. She came to this country, and told us about it.
We were searching, there in the laboratory in Maryland, for a way to use U235 in a controlled explosion. We had a vision of a one-ton bomb that would be a whole air raid in itself, a single explosion that would flatten out an entire industrial center. Dr. Ridpath, of Continental Tech, claimed that he could build such a bomb, but that he could not guarantee that it would not explode as soon as it was loaded and as for the force of the explosion—well, he did not believe his own figures; they ran out to too many ciphers.
The problem was, strangely enough, to find an explosive which would be weak enough to blow up only one county at a time, and stable enough to blow up only on request. If we could devise a really practical rocket fuel at the same time, one capable of driving a war rocket at a thousand miles an hour, or more, then we would be in a position to make most anybody say “uncle” to Uncle Sam.
We fiddled around with it all the rest of 1943 and well into 1944. The war in Europe and the troubles in Asia dragged on. After Italy folded up, England was able to release enough ships from her Mediterranean fleet to ease the blockade of the British Isles. With the help of the planes we could now send her regularly and with the additional over-age destroyers we let her have, England hung on somehow, digging in and taking more and more of her essential defense industries underground. Russia shifted her weight from side to side as usual, apparently with the policy of preventing either side from getting a sufficient advantage to bring the war to a successful conclusion. People were beginning to speak of “permanent war.”* * *
I was killing time in the administrative office, trying to improve my typing—a lot of Manning’s reports had to be typed by me personally—when the orderly on duty stepped in and announced Dr. Karst. I flipped the interoffice communicator. “Dr. Karst is here, chief. Can you see her?”
“Yes,” he answered, through his end.
I told the orderly to show her in.
Estelle Karst was quite a remarkable old girl and, I suppose, the first woman ever to hold a commission in the Corps of Engineers. She was an M.D. as well as an Sc.D. and reminded me of the teacher I had had in fourth grade. I guess that was why I always stood up instinctively when she came into the room—I was afraid she might look at me and sniff. It couldn’t have been her rank; we didn’t bother much with rank.
She was dressed in white coveralls and a shop apron and had simply thrown a hooded cape over herself to come through the snow. I said, “Good morning, ma’am,” and led her into Manning’s office.
The Colonel greeted her with the urbanity that had made him such a success with women’s clubs, seated her, and offered her a cigarette.
“I’m glad to see you, Major,” he said. “I’ve been intending to drop around to your shop.”
I knew what he was getting at; Dr. Karst’s work had been primarily physiomedical; he wanted her to change the direction of her research to something more productive in a military sense.
“Don’t call me ‘major,'” she said tartly.
“Sorry, Doctor—”
“I came on business, and must get right back. And I presume you are a busy man, too. Colonel Manning, I need some help.”
“That’s what we are here for.”
“Good. I’ve run into some snags in my research. I think that one of the men in Dr. Ridpath’s department could help me, but Dr. Ridpath doesn’t seem disposed to be cooperative.”
“So? Well, I hardly like to go over the head of a departmental chief, but tell me about it; perhaps we can arrange it. Whom do you want?”
“I need Dr. Obre.”
“The spectroscopist. Hm-m-m. I can understand Dr. Ridpath’s reluctance, Dr. Karst, and I’m disposed to agree with him. After all, the high-explosives research is really our main show around here.”
She bristled and I thought she was going to make him stay in after school at the very least. “Colonel Manning, do you realize the importance of artificial radioactives to modern medicine?”
“Why, I believe I do. Nevertheless, Doctor, our primary mission is to perfect a weapon which will serve as a safeguard to the whole country in time of war—”
She sniffed and went into action. “Weapons—fiddlesticks! Isn’t there a medical corps in the Army? Isn’t it more important to know how to heal men than to know how to blow them to bits? Colonel Manning, you’re not a fit man to have charge of this project! You’re a . . . you’re a, a warmonger, that’s what you are!”
I felt my ears turning red, but Manning never budged. He could have raised Cain with her, confined her to her quarters, maybe even have court-martialed her, but Manning isn’t like that. He told me once that every time a man is court-martialed, it is a sure sign that some senior officer hasn’t measured up to his job.
“I am sorry you feel that way, Doctor,” he said mildly, “and I agree that my technical knowledge isn’t what it might be. And, believe me, I do wish that healing were all we had to worry about. In any case, I have not refused your request. Let’s walk over to your laboratory and see what the problem is. Likely there is some arrangement that can be made which will satisfy everybody.”
He was already up and getting out his greatcoat. Her set mouth relaxed a trifle and she answered, “Very well. I’m sorry I spoke as I did.”
“Not at all,” he replied. “These are worrying times. Come along, John.”
I trailed after them, stopping in the outer office to get my own coat and to stuff my notebook in a pocket.
By the time we had trudged through mushy snow the eighth of a mile to her lab they were talking about gardening!
Manning acknowledged the sentry’s challenge with a wave of his hand and we entered the building. He started casually on into the inner lab, but Karst stopped him. “Armor first, Colonel.”
We had trouble finding overshoes that would fit over Manning’s boots, which he persisted in wearing, despite the new uniform regulations, and he wanted to omit the foot protection, but Karst would not hear of it. She called in a couple of her assistants who made jury-rigged moccasins out of some soft-lead sheeting.
The helmets were different from those used in the explosives lab, being fitted with inhalers. “What’s this?” inquired Manning.
“Radioactive dust guard,” she said. “It’s absolutely essential.”
We threaded a lead-lined meander and arrived at the workroom door which she opened by combination. I blinked at the sudden bright illumination and noticed the air was filled with little shiny motes.
“Hm-m-m—it is dusty,” agreed Manning. “Isn’t there some way of controlling that?” His voice sounded muffled from behind the dust mask.
“The last stage has to be exposed to air,” explained Karst. “The hood gets most of it. We could control it, but it would mean a quite expensive new installation.”
“No trouble about that. We’re not on a budget, you know. It must be very annoying to have to work in a mask like this.”
“It is,” acknowledged Karst. “The kind of gear it would take would enable us to work without body armor, too. That would be a comfort.”
I suddenly had a picture of the kind of thing these researchers put up with. I am a fair-sized man, yet I found that armor heavy to carry around. Estelle Karst was a small woman, yet she was willing to work maybe fourteen hours, day after day, in an outfit which was about as comfortable as a diving suit. But she had not complained.
Not all the heroes are in the headlines. These radiation experts not only ran the chance of cancer and nasty radioaction burns, but the men stood a chance of damaging their germ plasm and then having their wives present them with something horrid in the way of offspring—no chin, for example, and long hairy ears. Nevertheless, they went right ahead and never seemed to get irritated unless something held up their work.
Dr. Karst was past the age when she would be likely to be concerned personally about progeny, but the principle applies.
I wandered around, looking at the unlikely apparatus she used to get her results, fascinated as always by my failure to recognize much that reminded me of the physics laboratory I had known when I was an undergraduate, and being careful not to touch anything. Karst started explaining to Manning what she was doing and why, but I knew that it was useless for me to try to follow that technical stuff. If Manning wanted notes, he would dictate them. My attention was caught by a big boxlike contraption in one corner of the room. It had a hopperlike gadget on one side and I could hear a sound from it like the whirring of a fan with a background of running water. It intrigued me.
I moved back to the neighborhood of Dr. Karst and the Colonel and heard her saying, “The problem amounts to this, Colonel: I am getting a much more highly radioactive end product than I want, but there is considerable variation in the half-life of otherwise equivalent samples. That suggests to me that I am using a mixture of isotopes, but I haven’t been able to prove it. And frankly, I do not know enough about that end of the field to be sure of sufficient refinement in my methods. I need Dr. Obre’s help on that.”
I think those were her words, but I may not be doing her justice, not being a physicist. I understood the part about “half-life.” All radioactive materials keep right on radiating until they turn into something else, which takes theoretically forever. As a matter of practice their periods, or “lives,” are described in terms of how long it takes the original radiation to drop to one-half strength. That time is called a “half-life” and each radioactive isotope of an element has its own specific characteristic half-lifetime.
One of the staff—I forget which one—told me once that any form of matter can be considered as radioactive in some degree; it’s a question of intensity and period, or half-life.
“I’ll talk to Dr. Ridpath,” Manning answered her, “and see what can be arranged. In the meantime you might draw up plans for what you want to reequip your laboratory.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
I could see that Manning was about ready to leave, having pacified her; I was still curious about the big box that gave out the odd noises.
“May I ask what that is, Doctor?”
“Oh, that? That’s an air conditioner.”
“Odd-looking one. I’ve never seen one like it.”
“It’s not to condition the air of this room. It’s to remove the radioactive dust before the exhaust air goes outdoors. We wash the dust out of the foul air.”
“Where does the water go?”
“Down the drain. Out into the bay eventually, I suppose.”
I tried to snap my fingers, which was impossible because of the lead mittens. “That accounts for it, Colonel!”
“Accounts for what?”
“Accounts for those accusing notes we’ve been getting from the Bureau of Fisheries. This poisonous dust is being carried out into Chesapeake Bay and is killing the fish.”
Manning turned to Karst. “Do you think that possible, Doctor?”
I could see her brows draw together through the window in her helmet. “I hadn’t thought about it,” she admitted. “I’d have to do some figuring on the possible concentrations before I could give you a definite answer. But it is possible—yes. However,” she added anxiously, “it would be simple enough to divert this drain to a sink hole of some sort.”
“Hm-m-m—yes.” He did not say anything for some minutes, simply stood there, looking at the box.
Presently he said, “This dust is pretty lethal?”
“Quite lethal, Colonel.” There was another long silence.
At last I gathered he had made up his mind about something for he said decisively, “I am going to see to it that you get Obre’s assistance, Doctor—”
“Oh, good!”
“—but I want you to help me in return. I am very much interested in this research of yours, but I want it carried on with a little broader scope. I want you to investigate for maxima both in period and intensity as well as for minima. I want you to drop the strictly utilitarian approach and make an exhaustive research along lines which we will work out in greater detail later.”
She started to say something but he cut in ahead of her. “A really thorough program of research should prove more helpful in the long run to your original purpose than a more narrow one. And I shall make it my business to expedite every possible facility for such a research. I think we may turn up a number of interesting things.”
He left immediately, giving her no time to discuss it. He did not seem to want to talk on the way back and I held my peace. I think he had already gotten a glimmering of the bold and drastic strategy this was to lead to, but even Manning could not have thought out that early the inescapable consequences of a few dead fish—otherwise he would never have ordered the research.
No, I don’t really believe that. He would have gone right ahead, knowing that if he did not do it, someone else would. He would have accepted the responsibility while bitterly aware of its weight.* * *
1944 wore along with no great excitement on the surface. Karst got her new laboratory equipment and so much additional help that her department rapidly became the largest on the grounds. The explosives research was suspended after a conference between Manning and Ridpath, of which I heard only the end, but the meat of it was that there existed not even a remote possibility at that time of utilizing U235 as an explosive. As a source of power, yes, sometime in the distant future when there had been more opportunity to deal with the extremely ticklish problem of controlling the nuclear reaction. Even then it seemed likely that it would not be a source of power in prime movers such as rocket motors or mobiles, but would be used in vast power plants at least as large as the Boulder Dam installation.
After that Ridpath became a sort of co-chairman of Karst’s department and the equipment formerly used by the explosives department was adapted or replaced to carry on research on the deadly artificial radioactives. Manning arranged a division of labor and Karst stuck to her original problem of developing techniques for tailor-making radioactives. I think she was perfectly happy, sticking with a one-track mind to the problem at hand. I don’t know to this day whether or not Manning and Ridpath ever saw fit to discuss with her what they intended to do.
As a matter of fact, I was too busy myself to think much about it. The general elections were coming up and I was determined that Manning should have a constituency to return to, when the emergency was over. He was not much interested, but agreed to let his name be filed as a candidate for re-election. I was trying to work up a campaign by remote control and cursing because I could not be in the field to deal with the thousand and one emergencies as they arose.
I did the next best thing and had a private line installed to permit the campaign chairman to reach me easily. I don’t think I violated the Hatch Act, but I guess I stretched it a little. Anyhow, it turned out all right; Manning was elected as were several other members of the citizen-military that year. An attempt was made to smear him by claiming that he was taking two salaries for one job, but we squelched that with a pamphlet entitled “For Shame!” which explained that he got one salary for two jobs. That’s the Federal law in such cases and people are entitled to know it.* * *
It was just before Christmas that Manning first admitted to me how much the implications of the Karst-Obre process were preying on his mind. He called me into his office over some inconsequential matter, then did not let me go. I saw that he wanted to talk.
“How much of the K-O dust do we now have on hand?” he asked suddenly.
“Just short of ten thousand units,” I replied. “I can look up the exact figures in half a moment.” A unit would take care of a thousand men, at normal dispersion. He knew the figure as well as I did, and I knew he was stalling.
We had shifted almost imperceptibly from research to manufacture, entirely on Manning’s initiative and authority. Manning had never made a specific report to the Department about it, unless he had done so orally to the Chief of Staff.
“Never mind,” he answered to my suggestion, then added, “Did you see those horses?”
“Yes,” I said briefly.
I did not want to talk about it. I like horses. We had requisitioned six broken-down old nags, ready for the bone yard, and had used them experimentally. We knew now what the dust would do. After they had died, any part of their carcasses would register on a photographic plate and tissue from the apices of their lungs and from the bronchia glowed with a light of its own.
Manning stood at the window, staring out at the dreary Maryland winter for a minute or two before replying, “John, I wish that radioactivity had never been discovered. Do you realize what that devilish stuff amounts to?”
“Well,” I said, “it’s a weapon, about like poison gas—maybe more efficient.”
“Rats!” he said, and for a moment I thought he was annoyed with me personally. “That’s about like comparing a sixteen-inch gun with a bow and arrow. We’ve got here the first weapon the world has ever seen against which there is no defense, none whatsoever. It’s death itself, C.O.D.
“Have you seen Ridpath’s report?” he went on.
I had not. Ridpath had taken to delivering his reports by hand to Manning personally.
“Well,” he said, “ever since we started production I’ve had all the talent we could spare working on the problem of a defense against the dust. Ridpath tells me and I agree with him that there is no means whatsoever to combat the stuff, once it’s used.”
“How about armor,” I asked, “and protective clothing?
“Sure, sure,” he agreed irritatedly, “provided you never take it off to eat, or to drink or for any purpose whatever, until the radioaction has ceased, or you are out of the danger zone. That is all right for laboratory work; I’m talking about war.”
I considered the matter. “I still don’t see what you are fretting about, Colonel. If the stuff is as good as you say it is, you’ve done just exactly what you set out to do—develop a weapon which would give the United States protection against aggression.”
He swung around. “John, there are times when I think you are downright stupid!”
I said nothing. I knew him and I knew how to discount his moods. The fact that he permitted me to see his feelings is the finest compliment I have ever had.
“Look at it this way,” he went on more patiently; “this dust, as a weapon, is not just simply sufficient to safeguard the United States, it amounts to a loaded gun held at the head of every man, woman, and child on the globe!”
“Well,” I answered, “what of that? It’s our secret, and we’ve got the upper hand. The United States can put a stop to this war, and any other war. We can declare a Pax Americana, and enforce it.”
“Hm-m-m—I 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?”
I thought about it, but I still didn’t guess at the difficulties. It seemed to me that a peace enforced by us was the only way out, with precautions taken to see that we controlled the sources of uranium. I had the usual American subconscious conviction that our country would never use power in sheer aggression. Later, I thought about the Mexican War and the Spanish-American War and some of the things we did in Central America, and I was not so sure—* * *
It was a couple of weeks later, shortly after inauguration day, that Manning told me to get the Chief of Staff’s office on the telephone. I heard only the tail end of the conversation. “No, General, I won’t,” Manning was saying. “I won’t discuss it with you, or the Secretary, either. This is a matter the Commander in Chief is going to have to decide in the long run. If he turns it down, it is imperative that no one else ever knows about it. That’s my considered opinion. . . . What’s that? . . . I took this job under the condition that I was to have a free hand. You’ve got to give me a little leeway this time. . . . Don’t go brass hat on me. I knew you when you were a plebe. . . . O.K., O.K., sorry. . . . If the Secretary of War won’t listen to reason, you tell him I’ll be in my seat in the House of Representatives tomorrow, and that I’ll get the favor I want from the majority leader. . . . All right. Good-bye.”
Washington rang up again about an hour later. It was the Secretary of War. This time Manning listened more than he talked. Toward the end, he said, “All I want is thirty minutes alone with the President. If nothing comes of it, no harm has been done. If I convince him, then you will know all about it. . . . No. sir, I did not mean that you would avoid responsibility. I intended to be helpful. . . . Fine! Thank you, Mr. Secretary.”
The White House rang up later in the day and set a time.* * *
We drove down to the District the next day through a nasty cold rain that threatened to turn to sleet. The usual congestion in Washington was made worse by the weather; it very nearly caused us to be late in arriving. I could hear Manning swearing under his breath all the way down Rhode Island Avenue. But we were dropped at the west wing entrance to the White House with two minutes to spare. Manning was ushered into the Oval Office almost at once and I was left cooling my heels and trying to get comfortable in civilian clothes. After so many months of uniform they itched in the wrong places.
The thirty minutes went by.
The President’s reception secretary went in, and came out very promptly indeed. He stepped on out into the outer reception room and I heard something that began with, “I’m sorry, Senator, but—” He came back in, made a penciled notation, and passed it out to an usher.
Two more hours went by.
Manning appeared at the door at last and the secretary looked relieved. But he did not come out, saying instead, “Come in, John. The President wants to take a look at you.”
I fell over my feet getting up.
Manning said, “Mr. President, this is Captain DeFries.” The President nodded, and I bowed, unable to say anything. He was standing on the hearth rug, his fine head turned toward us, and looking just like his pictures—but it seemed strange for the President of the United States not to be a tall man.
I had never seen him before, though, of course, I knew something of his record the two years he had been in the Senate and while he was Mayor before that.
The President said, “Sit down, DeFries. Care to smoke?” Then to Manning, “You think he can do it?”
“I think he’ll have to. It’s Hobson’s choice.”
“And you are sure of him?”
“He was my campaign manager.”
“I see.”
The President said nothing more for a while and God knows I didn’t!—though I was bursting to know what they were talking about. He commenced again with, “Colonel Manning, I intend to follow the procedure you have suggested, with the changes we discussed. But I will be down tomorrow to see for myself that the dust will do what you say it will. Can you prepare a demonstration?”
“Yes, Mr. President,”
“Very well, we will use Captain DeFries unless I think of a better procedure.” I thought for a moment that they planned to use me for a guinea pig! But he turned to me and continued, “Captain, I expect to send you to England as my representative.”
I gulped. “Yes, Mr. President.” And that is every word I had to say in calling on the President of the United States.* * *
After that, Manning had to tell me a lot of things he had on his mind. I am going to try to relate them as carefully as possible, even at the risk of being dull and obvious and of repeating things that are common knowledge.
We had a weapon that could not be stopped. Any type of K-O dust scattered over an area rendered that area uninhabitable for a length of time that depended on the half-life of the radioactivity.
Period. Full stop.
Once an area was dusted there was nothing that could be done about it until the radioactivity had fallen off to the point where it was no longer harmful. The dust could not be cleaned out; it was everywhere. There was no possible way to counteract it—burn it, combine it chemically; the radioactive isotope was still there, still radioactive, still deadly. Once used on a stretch of land, for a predetermined length of time that piece of earth would not tolerate life.
It was extremely simple to use. No complicated bomb-sights were needed, no care need be taken to hit “military objectives.” Take it aloft in any sort of aircraft, attain a position more or less over the area you wish to sterilize, and drop the stuff. Those on the ground in the contaminated area are dead men, dead in an hour, a day, a week, a month, depending on the degree of the infection—but dead.
Manning told me that he had once seriously considered, in the middle of the night, recommending that every single person, including himself, who knew the Karst-Obre technique be put to death, in the interests of all civilization. But he had realized the next day that it had been sheer funk; the technique was certain in time to be rediscovered by someone else.
Furthermore, it would not do to wait, to refrain from using the grisly power, until someone else perfected it and used it. The only possible chance to keep the world from being turned into one huge morgue was for us to use the power first and drastically—get the upper hand and keep it.
We were not at war, legally, yet we had been in the war up to our necks with our weight on the side of democracy since 1940. Manning had proposed to the President that we turn a supply of the dust over to Great Britain, under conditions we specified, and enable them thereby to force a peace. But the terms of the peace would be dictated by the United States—for we were not turning over the secret.
After that, the Pax Americana.
The United States was having power thrust on it, willy-nilly. We had to accept it and enforce a worldwide peace, ruthlessly and drastically, or it would be seized by some other nation. There could not be co-equals in the possession of this weapon. The factor of time predominated.
I was selected to handle the details in England because Manning insisted, and the President agreed with him, that every person technically acquainted with the Karst-Obre process should remain on the laboratory reservation in what amounted to protective custody—imprisonment. That included Manning himself. I could go because I did not have the secret—I could not even have acquired it without years of schooling—and what I did not know I could not tell, even under, well, drugs. We were determined to keep the secret as long as we could to consolidate the Pax;we did not distrust our English cousins, but they were Britishers, with a first loyalty to the British Empire. No need to tempt them.
I was picked because I understood the background if not the science, and because Manning trusted me. I don’t know why the President trusted me, too, but then my job was not complicated.* * *
We took off from the new field outside Baltimore on a cold, raw afternoon which matched my own feelings. I had an all-gone feeling in my stomach, a runny nose, and, buttoned inside my clothes, papers appointing me a special agent of the President of the United States. They were odd papers, papers without precedent; they did not simply give me the usual diplomatic immunity; they made my person very nearly as sacred as that of the President himself.
At Nova Scotia we touched ground to refuel, the F.B.I, men left us, we took off again, and the Canadian transfighters took their stations around us. All the dust we were sending was in my plane; if the President’s representative were shot down, the dust would go to the bottom with him.
No need to tell of the crossing. I was airsick and miserable, in spite of the steadiness of the new six-engined jobs. I felt like a hangman on the way to an execution, and wished to God that I were a boy again, with nothing more momentous than a debate contest, or a track meet, to worry me.
There was some fighting around us as we neared Scotland, I know, but I could not see it, the cabin being shuttered. Our pilot-captain ignored it and brought his ship down on a totally dark field, using a beam, I suppose, though I did not know nor care. I would have welcomed a crash. Then the lights outside went on and I saw that we had come to rest in an underground hangar.
I stayed in the ship. The Commandant came to see me to his quarters as his guest. I shook my head. “I stay here,” I said. “Orders. You are to treat this ship as United States soil, you know.”
He seemed miffed, but compromised by having dinner served for both of us in my ship.
There was a really embarrassing situation the next day. I was commanded to appear for a Royal audience. But I had my instructions and I stuck to them. I was sitting on that cargo of dust until the President told me what to do with it. Late in the day I was called on by a member of Parliament—nobody admitted out loud that it was the Prime Minister—and a Mr. Windsor. The M.P. did most of the talking and I answered his questions. My other guest said very little and spoke slowly with some difficulty. But I got a very favorable impression of him. He seemed to be a man who was carrying a load beyond human strength and carrying it heroically.* * *
There followed the longest period in my life. It was actually only a little longer than a week, but every minute of it had that split-second intensity of imminent disaster that comes just before a car crash. The President was using the time to try to avert the need to use the dust. He had two face-to-face television conferences with the new Fuehrer. The President spoke German fluently, which should have helped. He spoke three times to the warring peoples themselves, but it is doubtful if very many on the Continent were able to listen, the police regulations there being what they were.
The Ambassador from the Reich was given a special demonstration of the effect of the dust. He was flown out over a deserted stretch of Western prairie and allowed to see what a single dusting would do to a herd of steers. It should have impressed him and I think that it did—nobody could ignore a visual demonstration!—but what report he made to his leader we never knew.
The British Isles were visited repeatedly during the wait by bombing attacks as heavy as any of the war. I was safe enough but I heard about them, and I could see the effect on the morale of the officers with whom I associated. Not that it frightened them—it made them coldly angry. The raids were not directed primarily at dockyards or factories, but were ruthless destruction of anything, particularly villages.
“I don’t see what you chaps are waiting for,” a flight commander complained to me. “What the Jerries need is a dose of their own shrecklichkeit, a lesson in their own Aryan culture.”
I shook my head. “We’ll have to do it our own way.”
He dropped the matter, but I knew how he and his brother officers felt. They had a standing toast, as sacred as the toast to the King: “Remember Coventry!”
Our President had stipulated that the R.A.F. was not to bomb during the period of negotiation, but their bombers were busy nevertheless. The continent was showered, night after night, with bales of leaflets, prepared by our own propaganda agents. The first of these called on the people of the Reich to stop a useless war and promised that the terms of peace would not be vindictive. The second rain of pamphlets showed photographs of that herd of steers. The third was a simple direct warning to get out of cities and to stay out.
As Manning put it, we were calling “Halt!” three times before firing. I do not think that he or the President expected it to work, but we were morally obligated to try.
The Britishers had installed for me a televisor, of the Simonds-Yarley nonintercept type, the sort whereby the receiver must “trigger” the transmitter in order for the transmission to take place at all. It made assurance of privacy in diplomatic rapid communication for the first time in history, and was a real help in the crisis. I had brought along my own technician, one of the F.B.I.’s new corps of specialists, to handle the scrambler and the trigger.
He called to me one afternoon. “Washington signaling.”
I climbed tiredly out of the cabin and down to the booth on the hangar floor, wondering if it were another false alarm.
It was the President. His lips were white. “Carry out your basic instructions, Mr. DeFries.”
“Yes, Mr. President!”* * *
The details had been worked out in advance and, once I had accepted a receipt and token payment from the Commandant for the dust, my duties were finished. But, at our instance, the British had invited military observers from every independent nation and from the several provisional governments of occupied nations. The United States Ambassador designated me as one at the request of Manning.
Our task group was thirteen bombers. One such bomber could have carried all the dust needed, but it was split up to insure most of it, at least, reaching its destination. I had fetched forty percent more dust than Ridpath calculated would be needed for the mission and my last job was to see to it that every canister actually went on board a plane of the flight. The extremely small weight of dust used was emphasized to each of the military observers.
We took off just at dark, climbed to twenty-five thousand feet, refueled in the air, and climbed again. Our escort was waiting for us, having refueled thirty minutes before us. The flight split into thirteen groups, and cut the thin air for middle Europe. The bombers we rode had been stripped and hiked up to permit the utmost maximum of speed and altitude.
Elsewhere in England, other flights had taken off shortly before us to act as a diversion. Their destinations were every part of Germany; it was the intention to create such confusion in the air above the Reich that our few planes actually engaged in the serious work might well escape attention entirely, flying so high in the stratosphere.
The thirteen dust carriers approached Berlin from different directions, planning to cross Berlin as if following the spokes of a wheel. The night was appreciably clear and we had a low moon to help us. Berlin is not a hard city to locate, since it has the largest square-mile area of any modern city and is located on a broad flat alluvial plain. I could make out the River Spree as we approached it, and the Havel. The city was blacked out, but a city makes a different sort of black from open country. Parachute flares hung over the city in many places, showing that the R.A.F. had been busy before we got there and the A.A. batteries on the ground helped to pick out the city.
There was fighting below us, but not within fifteen thousand feet of our altitude as nearly as I could judge.
The pilot reported to the captain, “On line of bearing!” The chap working the absolute altimeter steadily fed his data into the fuse pots of the canister. The canisters were equipped with a light charge of black powder, sufficient to explode them and scatter the dust at a time after release predetermined by the fuse pot setting. The method used was no more than an efficient expedient. The dust would have been almost as effective had it simply been dumped out in paper bags, although not as well distributed.
The Captain hung over the navigator’s board, a slight frown on his thin sallow face. “Ready one!” reported the bomber.
“Release!”
“Ready two!”
The Captain studied his wristwatch. “Release!”
“Ready three!”
“Release!”
When the last of our ten little packages was out of the ship we turned tail and ran for home.* * *
No arrangements had been made for me to get home; nobody had thought about it. But it was the one thing I wanted to do. I did not feel badly; I did not feel much of anything. I felt like a man who has at last screwed up his courage and undergone a serious operation; it’s over now, he is still numb from shock but his mind is relaxed. But I wanted to go home.
The British Commandant was quite decent about it; he serviced and manned my ship at once and gave me an escort for the offshore war zone. It was an expensive way to send one man home, but who cared? We had just expended some millions of lives in a desperate attempt to end the war; what was a money expense? He gave the necessary orders absentmindedly.
I took a double dose of nembutal and woke up in Canada. I tried to get some news while the plane was being serviced, but there was not much to be had. The government of the Reich had issued one official news bulletin shortly after the raid, sneering at the much vaunted “secret weapon” of the British and stating that a major air attack had been made on Berlin and several other cities, but that the raiders had been driven off with only minor damage. The current Lord Haw-Haw started one of his sarcastic speeches but was unable to continue it. The announcer said that he had been seized with a heart attack, and substituted some recordings of patriotic music. The station cut off in the middle of the “Horst Wessel” song. After that there was silence.
I managed to promote an Army car and a driver at the Baltimore field which made short work of the Annapolis speedway. We almost overran the turnoff to the laboratory.
Manning was in his office. He looked up as I came in, said, “Hello, John,” in a dispirited voice, and dropped his eyes again to the blotter pad. He went back to drawing doodles.
I looked him over and realized for the first time that the chief was an old man. His face was gray and flabby, deep furrows framed his mouth in a triangle. His clothes did not fit.
I went up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t take it so hard, chief. It’s not your fault. We gave them all the warning in the world.”
He looked up again. “Estelle Karst suicided this morning.”
Anybody could have anticipated it, but nobody did. And somehow I felt harder hit by her death than by the death of all those strangers in Berlin. “How did she do it?” I asked.
“Dust. She went into the canning room, and took off her armor.”
I could picture her—head held high, eyes snapping, and that set look on her mouth which she got when people did something she disapproved of. One little old woman whose lifetime work had been turned against her.
“I wish,” Manning added slowly, “that I could explain to her why we had to do it.”
We buried her in a lead-lined coffin, then Manning and I went on to Washington.* * *
While we were there, we saw the motion pictures that had been made of the death of Berlin. You have not seen them; they never were made public, but they were of great use in convincing the other nations of the world that peace was a good idea. I saw them when Congress did, being allowed in because I was Manning’s assistant.
They had been made by a pair of R.A.F. pilots, who had dodged the Luftwaffe to get them. The first shots showed some of the main streets the morning after the raid. There was not much to see that would show up in telephoto shots, just busy and crowded streets, but if you looked closely you could see that there had been an excessive number of automobile accidents.
The second day showed the attempt to evacuate. The inner squares of the city were practically deserted save for bodies and wrecked cars, but the streets leading out of town were boiling with people, mostly on foot, for the trams were out of service. The pitiful creatures were fleeing, not knowing that death was already lodged inside them. The plane swooped down at one point and the cinematographer had his telephoto lens pointed directly into the face of a young woman for several seconds. She stared back at it with a look too woebegone to forget, then stumbled and fell.
She may have been trampled. I hope so. One of those six horses had looked like that when the stuff was beginning to hit his vitals.
The last sequence showed Berlin and the roads around it a week after the raid. The city was dead; there was not a man, a woman, a child—nor cats, nor dogs, not even a pigeon. Bodies were all around, but they were safe from rats. There were no rats.
The roads around Berlin were quiet now. Scattered carelessly on shoulders and in ditches, and to a lesser extent on the pavement itself, like coal shaken off a train, were the quiet heaps that had been the citizens of the capital of the Reich. There is no use in talking about it.
But, so far as I am concerned, I left what soul I had in that projection room and I have not had one since.
The two pilots who made the pictures eventually died—systemic, cumulative infection, dust in the air over Berlin. With precautions it need not have happened, but the English did not believe, as yet, that our extreme precautions were necessary.* * *
The Reich took about a week to fold up. It might have taken longer if the new Fuehrer had not gone to Berlin the day after the raid to “prove” that the British boasts had been hollow. There is no need to recount the provisional governments that Germany had in the following several months; the only one we are concerned with is the so-called restored monarchy which used a cousin of the old Kaiser as a symbol, the one that sued for peace.
Then the trouble started.
When the Prime Minister announced the terms of the private agreement he had had with our President, he was met with a silence that was broken only by cries of “Shame! Shame! Resign!” I suppose it was inevitable; the Commons reflected the spirit of a people who had been unmercifully punished for four years. They were in a mood to enforce a peace that would have made the Versailles Treaty look like the Beatitudes.
The vote of no confidence left the Prime Minister no choice. Forty-eight hours later the King made a speech from the throne that violated all constitutional precedent, for it had not been written by a Prime Minister. In this greatest crisis in his reign, his voice was clear and unlabored; it sold the idea to England and a national coalition government was formed.
I don’t know whether we would have dusted London to enforce our terms or not; Manning thinks we would have done so. I suppose it depended on the character of the President of the United States, and there is no way of knowing about that since we did not have to do it.
The United States, and in particular the President of the United States, was confronted by two inescapable problems. First, we had to consolidate our position at once, use our temporary advantage of an overwhelmingly powerful weapon to insure that such a weapon would not be turned on us. Second, some means had to be worked out to stabilize American foreign policy so that it could handle the tremendous power we had suddenly had thrust upon us.
The second was by far the most difficult and serious. If we were to establish a reasonably permanent peace—say a century or so—through a monopoly on a weapon so powerful that no one dare fight us, it was imperative that the policy under which we acted be more lasting than passing political administrations. But more of that later—
The first problem had to be attended to at once—time was the heart of it. The emergency lay in the very simplicity of the weapon. It required nothing but aircraft to scatter it and the dust itself, which was easily and quickly made by anyone possessing the secret of the Karst-Obre process and having access to a small supply of uranium-bearing ore.
But the Karst-Obre process was simple and might be independently developed at any time. Manning reported to the President that it was Ridpath’s opinion, concurred in by Manning, that the staff of any modern radiation laboratory should be able to work out an equivalent technique in six weeks, working from the hint given by the events in Berlin alone, and should then be able to produce enough dust to cause major destruction in another six weeks.
Ninety days—ninety days provided they started from scratch and were not already halfway to their goal. Less than ninety days—perhaps no time at all—
By this time Manning was an unofficial member of the Cabinet; “Secretary of Dust,” the President called him in one of his rare jovial moods. As for me, well, I attended Cabinet meetings, too. As the only layman who had seen the whole show from beginning to end, the President wanted me there.
I am an ordinary sort of man who, by a concatenation of improbabilities, found himself shoved into the councils of the rulers. But I found that the rulers were ordinary men, too, and frequently as bewildered as I was.
But Manning was no ordinary man. In him ordinary hard sense had been raised to the level of genius. Oh, yes, I know that it is popular to blame everything on him and to call him everything from traitor to mad dog, but I still think he was both wise and benevolent. I don’t care how many second-guessing historians disagree with me.
“I propose,” said Manning, “that we begin by immobilizing all aircraft throughout the world.”
The Secretary of Commerce raised his brows. “Aren’t you,” he said, “being a little fantastic, Colonel Manning?”
“No, I’m not,” answered Manning shortly. “I’m being realistic. The key to this problem is aircraft. Without aircraft the dust is an inefficient weapon. The only way I see to gain time enough to deal with the whole problem is to ground all aircraft and put them out of operation. All aircraft, that is, not actually in the service of the United States Army. After that we can deal with complete world disarmament and permanent methods of control.”
“Really now,” replied the Secretary, “you are not proposing that commercial airlines be put out of operation. They are an essential part of world economy. It would be an intolerable nuisance.”
“Getting killed is an intolerable nuisance, too,” Manning answered stubbornly. “I do propose just that. All aircraft. All.“
The President had been listening without comment to the discussion. He now cut in. “How about aircraft on which some groups depend to stay alive, Colonel, such as the Alaskan lines?”
“If there are such, they must be operated by American Army pilots and crews. No exceptions.”
The Secretary of Commerce looked startled. “Am I to infer from that last remark that you intended this prohibition to apply to the United States as well as other nations?”
“Naturally.”
“But that’s impossible. It’s unconstitutional. It violates civil rights.”
“Killing a man violates his civil rights, too,” Manning answered stubbornly.
“You can’t do it. Any Federal Court in the country would enjoin you in five minutes.”
“It seems to me,” said Manning slowly, “that Andy Jackson gave us a good precedent for that one when he told John Marshall to go fly a kite.” He looked slowly around the table at faces that ranged from undecided to antagonistic. “The issue is sharp, gentlemen, and we might as well drag it out in the open. We can be dead men, with everything in due order, constitutional, and technically correct; or we can do what has to be done, stay alive, and try to straighten out the legal aspects later.” He shut up and waited.
The Secretary of Labor picked it up. “I don’t think the Colonel has any corner on realism. I think I see the problem, too, and I admit it is a serious one. The dust must never be used again. Had I known about it soon enough, it would never have been used on Berlin. And I agree that some sort of worldwide control is necessary. But where I differ with the Colonel is in the method. What he proposes is a military dictatorship imposed by force on the whole world. Admit it, Colonel. Isn’t that what you are proposing?”
Manning did not dodge it. “That is what I am proposing.”
“Thanks. Now we know where we stand. I, for one, do not regard democratic measures and constitutional procedure as of so little importance that I am willing to jettison them any time it becomes convenient. To me, democracy is more than a matter of expediency, it is a faith. Either it works, or I go under with it.”
“What do you propose?” asked the President.
“I propose that we treat this as an opportunity to create a worldwide democratic commonwealth! Let us use our present dominant position to issue a call to all nations to send representatives to a conference to form a world constitution.”
“League of Nations,” I heard someone mutter.
“No!” he answered the side remark. “Not a League of Nations. The old League was helpless because it had no real existence, no power. It was not implemented to enforce its decisions; it was just a debating society, a sham. This would be different for we would turn over the dust to it!“
Nobody spoke for some minutes. You could see them turning it over in their minds, doubtful, partially approving, intrigued but dubious.
“I’d like to answer that,” said Manning.
“Go ahead,” said the President.
“I will. I’m going to have to use some pretty plain language and I hope that Secretary Larner will do me the honor of believing that I speak so from sincerity and deep concern and not from personal pique.
“I think a world democracy would be a very fine thing and I ask that you believe me when I say I would willingly lay down my life to accomplish it. I also think it would be a very fine thing for the lion to lie down with the lamb, but I am reasonably certain that only the lion would get up. If we try to form an actual world democracy, we’ll be the lamb in the setup.
“There are a lot of good, kindly people who are internationalists these days. Nine out of ten of them are soft in the head and the tenth is ignorant. If we set up a worldwide democracy, what will the electorate be? Take a look at the facts: Four hundred million Chinese with no more concept of voting and citizen responsibility than a flea; three hundred million Hindus who aren’t much better indoctrinated; God knows how many in the Eurasian Union who believe in God knows what; the entire continent of Africa only semicivilized; eighty million Japanese who really believe that they are Heaven-ordained to rule; our Spanish-American friends who might trail along with us and might not, but who don’t understand the Bill of Rights the way we think of it; a quarter of a billion people of two dozen different nationalities in Europe, all with revenge and black hatred in their hearts.
“No, it won’t wash. It’s preposterous to talk about a world democracy for many years to come. If you turn the secret of the dust over to such a body, you will be arming the whole world to commit suicide.”
Larner answered at once. “I could resent some of your remarks, but I won’t. To put it bluntly, I consider the source. The trouble with you, Colonel Manning, is that you are a professional soldier and have no faith in people. Soldiers may be necessary, but the worst of them are martinets and the best are merely paternalistic.” There was quite a lot more of the same.
Manning stood it until his turn came again. “Maybe I am all those things, but you haven’t met my argument. What are you going to do about the hundreds of millions of people who have no experience in, nor love for, democracy? Now, perhaps, I don’t have the same concept of democracy as yourself, but I do know this: Out West there are a couple of hundred thousand people who sent me to Congress; I am not going to stand quietly by and let a course be followed which I think will result in their deaths or utter ruin.
“Here is the probable future, as I see it, potential in the smashing of the atom and the development of lethal artificial radioactives. Some power makes a supply of the dust. They’ll hit us first to try to knock us out and give them a free hand. New York and Washington overnight, then all of our industrial areas while we are still politically and economically disorganized. But our army would not be in those cities; we would have planes and a supply of dust somewhere where the first dusting wouldn’t touch them. Our boys would bravely and righteously proceed to poison their big cities. Back and forth it would go until the organization of each country had broken down so completely that they were no longer able to maintain a sufficiently high level of industrialization to service planes and manufacture dust. That presupposes starvation and plague in the process. You can fill in the details.
“The other nations would get in the game. It would be silly and suicidal, of course, but it doesn’t take brains to take a hand in this. All it takes is a very small group, hungry for power, a few airplanes and a supply of dust. It’s a vicious circle that cannot possibly bestopped until the entire planet has dropped to a level of economy too low to support the techniques necessary to maintain it. My best guess is that such a point would be reached when approximately three-quarters of the world’s population were dead of dust, disease, or hunger, and culture reduced to the peasant-and-village type.
“Where is your Constitution and your Bill of Rights if you let that happen?”
I’ve shortened it down, but that was the gist of it. I can’t hope to record every word of an argument that went on for days.
The Secretary of the Navy took a crack at him next. “Aren’t you getting a bit hysterical, Colonel? After all, the world has seen a lot of weapons which were going to make war an impossibility too horrible to contemplate. Poison gas, and tanks, and airplanes—even firearms, if I remember my history.”
Manning smiled wryly. “You’ve made a point, Mr. Secretary. ‘And when the wolf really came, the little boy shouted in vain.’ I imagine the Chamber of Commerce in Pompeii presented the same reasonable argument to any early vulcanologist so timid as to fear Vesuvius. I’ll try to justify my fears. The dust differs from every earlier weapon in its deadliness and ease of use, but most importantly in that we have developed no defense against it. For a number of fairly technical reasons, I don’t think we ever will, at least not this century.”
“Why not?”
“Because there is no way to counteract radioactivity short of putting a lead shield between yourself and it, an airtight lead shield. People might survive by living in sealed underground cities, but our characteristic American culture could not be maintained.”
“Colonel Manning,” suggested the Secretary of State, “I think you have overlooked the obvious alternative.”
“Have I?”
“Yes—to keep the dust as our own secret, go our own way, and let the rest of the world look out for itself. That is the only program that fits our traditions.” The Secretary of State was really a fine old gentleman, and not stupid, but he was slow to assimilate new ideas.
“Mr. Secretary,” said Manning respectfully, “I wish we could afford to mind our own business. I do wish we could. But it is the best opinion of all the experts that we can’t maintain control of this secret except by rigid policing. The Germans were close on our heels in nuclear research; it was sheer luck that we got there first. I ask you to imagine Germany a year hence—with a supply of dust.”
The Secretary did not answer, but I saw his lips form the word Berlin.
They came around. The President had deliberately let Manning bear the brunt of the argument, conserving his own stock of goodwill to coax the obdurate. He decided against putting it up to Congress; the dusters would have been overhead before each senator had finished his say. What he intended to do might be unconstitutional, but if he failed to act there might not be any Constitution shortly. There was precedent—the Emancipation Proclamation, the Monroe Doctrine, the Louisiana Purchase, suspension of habeas corpus in the War between the States, the Destroyer Deal.
On February 22nd the President declared a state of full emergency internally and sent his Peace Proclamation to the head of every sovereign state. Divested of its diplomatic surplusage, it said: The United States is prepared to defeat any power, or combination of powers, in jig time. Accordingly, we are outlawing war and are calling on every nation to disarm completely at once. In other words, “Throw down your guns, boys; we’ve got the drop on you!“
A supplement set forth the procedure: All aircraft capable of flying the Atlantic were to be delivered in one week’s time to a field, or rather a great stretch of prairie, just west of Fort Riley, Kansas. For lesser aircraft, a spot near Shanghai and a rendezvous in Wales were designated. Memoranda would be issued later with respect to other war equipment. Uranium and its ores were not mentioned; that would come later.
No excuses. Failure to disarm would be construed as an act of war against the United States.* * *
There were no cases of apoplexy in the Senate; why not, I don’t know.
There were only three powers to be seriously worried about, England, Japan, and the Eurasian Union. England had been forewarned, we had pulled her out of a war she was losing, and she—or rather her men in power—knew accurately what we could and would do.
Japan was another matter. They had not seen Berlin and they did not really believe it. Besides, they had been telling each other for so many years that they were unbeatable, they believed it. It does not do to get too tough with a Japanese too quickly, for they will die rather than lose face. The negotiations were conducted very quietly indeed, but our fleet was halfway from Pearl Harbor to Kobe, loaded with enough dust to sterilize their six biggest cities, before they were concluded. Do you know what did it? This never hit the newspapers but it was the wording of the pamphlets we proposed to scatter before dusting.
The Emperor was pleased to declare a New Order of Peace. The official version, built up for home consumption, made the whole matter one of collaboration between two great and friendly powers, with Japan taking the initiative.
The Eurasian Union was a puzzle. After Stalin’s unexpected death in 1941, no western nation knew very much about what went on in there. Our own diplomatic relations had atrophied through failure to replace men called home nearly four years before. Everybody knew, of course, that the new group in power called themselves Fifth Internationalists, but what that meant, aside from ceasing to display the pictures of Lenin and Stalin, nobody knew.
But they agreed to our terms and offered to cooperate in every way. They pointed out that the Union had never been warlike and had kept out of the recent world struggle. It was fitting that the two remaining great powers should use their greatness to insure a lasting peace.
I was delighted; I had been worried about the E.U.
They commenced delivery of some of their smaller planes to the receiving station near Shanghai at once. The reports on the number and quality of the planes seemed to indicate that they had stayed out of the war through necessity; the planes were mostly of German make and in poor condition, types that Germany had abandoned early in the war.
Manning went west to supervise certain details in connection with immobilizing the big planes, the transoceanic planes, which were to gather near Fort Riley. We planned to spray them with oil, then dust from a low altitude, as in crop dusting, with a low concentration of one-year dust. Then we could turn our backs on them and forget them, while attending to other matters.
But there were hazards. The dust must not be allowed to reach Kansas City, Lincoln, Wichita—any of the nearby cities. The smaller towns roundabout had been temporarily evacuated. Testing stations needed to be set up in all directions in order that accurate tab on the dust might be kept. Manning felt personally responsible to make sure that no bystander was poisoned.
We circled the receiving station before landing at Fort Riley. I could pick out the three landing fields which had hurriedly been graded. Their runways were white in the sun, the twenty-four-hour cement as yet undirtied. Around each of the landing fields were crowded dozens of parking fields, less perfectly graded. Tractors and bulldozers were still at work on some of them. In the easternmost fields, the German and British ships were already in place, jammed wing to body as tightly as planes on the flight deck of a carrier—save for a few that were still being towed into position, the tiny tractors looking from the air like ants dragging pieces of leaf many times larger than themselves.
Only three flying fortresses had arrived from the Eurasian Union. Their representatives had asked for a short delay in order that a supply of high-test aviation gasoline might be delivered to them. They claimed a shortage of fuel necessary to make the long flight over the Arctic safe. There was no way to check the claim and the delay was granted while a shipment was routed from England.
We were about to leave, Manning having satisfied himself as to safety precautions, when a dispatch came in announcing that a flight of E.U. bombers might be expected before the day was out. Manning wanted to see them arrive; we waited around for four hours. When it was finally reported that our escort of fighters had picked them up at the Canadian border, Manning appeared to have grown fidgety and stated that he would watch them from the air. We took off, gained altitude and waited.
There were nine of them in the flight, cruising in column of echelons and looking so huge that our little fighters were hardly noticeable. They circled the field and I was admiring the stately dignity of them when Manning’s pilot, Lieutenant Rafferty, exclaimed, “What the devil! They are preparing to land downwind!”
I still did not tumble, but Manning shouted to the copilot, “Get the field!”
He fiddled with his instruments and announced, “Got ’em, sir!”
“General alarm! Armor!”
We could not hear the sirens, naturally, but I could see the white plumes rise from the big steam whistle on the roof of the Administration Building—three long blasts, then three short ones. It seemed almost at the same time that the first cloud broke from the E.U. planes.
Instead of landing, they passed low over the receiving station, jampacked now with ships from all over the world. Each echelon picked one of three groups centered around the three landing fields and streamers of heavy brown smoke poured from the bellies of the E.U. ships. I saw a tiny black figure jump from a tractor and run toward the nearest building. Then the smoke screen obscured the field.
“Do you still have the field?” demanded Manning.
“Yes, sir.”
“Cross connect to the chief safety technician. Hurry!”
The copilot cut in the amplifier so that Manning could talk directly. “Saunders? This is Manning. How about it?”
“Radioactive, chief. Intensity seven point four.”
They had paralleled the Karst-Obre research.
Manning cut him off and demanded that the communication office at the field raise the Chief of Staff. There was nerve-stretching delay, for it had to be routed over land wire to Kansas City, and some chief operator had to be convinced that she should commandeer a trunk line that was in commercial use. But we got through at last and Manning made his report. “It stands to reason,” I heard him say, “that other flights are approaching the border by this time. New York, of course, and Washington. Probably Detroit and Chicago as well. No way of knowing.”
The Chief of Staff cut off abruptly, without comment. I knew that the U.S. air fleets, in a state of alert for weeks past, would have their orders in a few seconds, and would be on their way to hunt out and down the attackers, if possible before they could reach the cities.
I glanced back at the field. The formations were broken up. One of the E.U. bombers was down, crashed, half a mile beyond the station. While I watched, one of our midget dive bombers screamed down on a behemoth E.U. ship and unloaded his eggs. It was a center hit, but the American pilot had cut it too fine, could not pull out, and crashed before his victim.* * *
There is no point in rehashing the newspaper stories of the Four-Days War. The point is that we should have lost it, and we would have, had it not been for an unlikely combination of luck, foresight, and good management. Apparently, the nuclear physicists of the Eurasian Union were almost as far along as Ridpath’s crew when the destruction of Berlin gave them the tip they needed. But we had rushed them, forced them to move before they were ready, because of the deadline for disarmament set forth in our Peace Proclamation.
If the President had waited to fight it out with Congress before issuing the proclamation, there would not be any United States.
Manning never got credit for it, but it is evident to me that he anticipated the possibility of something like the Four-Days War and prepared for it in a dozen different devious ways. I don’t mean military preparation; the Army and the Navy saw to that. But it was no accident that Congress was adjourned at the time. I had something to do with the vote-swapping and compromising that led up to it, and I know.
But I put it to you—would he have maneuvered to get Congress out of Washington at a time when he feared that Washington might be attacked if he had had dictatorial ambitions?
Of course, it was the President who was back of the ten-day leaves that had been granted to most of the civil-service personnel in Washington and he himself must have made the decision to take a swing through the South at that time, but it must have been Manning who put the idea in his head. It is inconceivable that the President would have left Washington to escape personal danger.
And then, there was the plague scare. I don’t know how or when Manning could have started that—it certainly did not go through my notebook—but I simply do not believe that it was accidental that a completely unfounded rumor of bubonic plague caused New York City to be semideserted at the time the E.U. bombers struck.
At that, we lost over eight hundred thousand people in Manhattan alone.
Of course, the government was blamed for the lives that were lost and the papers were merciless in their criticism at the failure to anticipate and force an evacuation of all the major cities.
If Manning anticipated trouble, why did he not ask for evacuation?
Well, as I see it, for this reason:
A big city will not be, never has been, evacuated in response to rational argument. London never was evacuated on any major scale and we failed utterly in our attempt to force the evacuation of Berlin. The people of New York City had considered the danger of air raids since 1940 and were long since hardened to the thought.
But the fear of a nonexistent epidemic of plague caused the most nearly complete evacuation of a major city ever seen.
And don’t forget what we did to Vladivostok and Irkutsk and Moscow—those were innocent people, too. War isn’t pretty.
I said luck played a part. It was bad navigation that caused one of our ships to dust Ryazan instead of Moscow, but that mistake knocked out the laboratory and plant which produced the only supply of military radioactives in the Eurasian Union. Suppose the mistake had been the other way around—suppose that one of the E.U. ships in attacking Washington, D.C., by mistake had included Ridpath’s shop forty-five miles away in Maryland?
Congress reconvened at the temporary capital in St. Louis, and the American Pacification Expedition started the job of pulling the fangs of the Eurasian Union. It was not a military occupation in the usual sense; there were two simple objectives: to search out and dust all aircraft, aircraft plants, and fields, and to locate and dust radiation laboratories, uranium supplies, and lodes of carnotite and pitchblende. No attempt was made to interfere with, or to replace, civil government.
We used a two-year dust, which gave a breathing spell in which to consolidate our position. Liberal rewards were offered to informers, a technique which worked remarkably well not only in the E.U., but in most parts of the world.
The “weasel,” an instrument to smell out radiation, based on the electroscope-discharge principle and refined by Ridpath’s staff, greatly facilitated the work of locating uranium and uranium ores. A grid of weasels, properly spaced over a suspect area, could locate any important mass of uranium almost as handily as a direction-finder can spot a radio station.
But, notwithstanding the excellent work of General Bulfinch and the Pacification Expedition as a whole, it was the original mistake of dusting Ryazan that made the job possible of accomplishment.
Anyone interested in the details of the pacification work done in 1945-6 should see the “Proceedings of the American Foundation for Social Research” for a paper entitled A Study of the Execution of the American Peace Policy from February, 1945. The de facto solution of the problem of policing the world against war left the United States with the much greater problem of perfecting a policy that would insure that the deadly power of the dust would never fall into unfit hands.
The problem is as easy to state as the problem of squaring the circle and almost as impossible of accomplishment. Both Manning and the President believed that the United States must of necessity keep the power for the time being, until some permanent institution could be developed fit to retain it. The hazard was this: Foreign policy is lodged jointly in the hands of the President and the Congress. We were fortunate at the time in having a good President and an adequate Congress, but that was no guarantee for the future. We have had unfit Presidents and power-hungry Congresses—oh, yes! Read the history of the Mexican War.
We were about to hand over to future governments of the United States the power to turn the entire globe into an empire, our empire. And it was the sober opinion of the President that our characteristic and beloved democratic culture would not stand up under the temptation. Imperialism degrades both oppressor and oppressed.
The President was determined that our sudden power should be used for the absolute minimum of maintaining peace in the world—the simple purpose of outlawing war and nothing else. It must not be used to protect American investments abroad, to coerce trade agreements, for any purpose but the simple abolition of mass killing.
There is no science of sociology. Perhaps there will be, some day, when a rigorous physics gives a finished science of colloidal chemistry and that leads in turn to a complete knowledge of biology, and from there to a definitive psychology. After that we may begin to know something about sociology and politics. Sometime around the year 5000 A.D., maybe—if the human race does not commit suicide before then.
Until then, there is only horse sense and rule of thumb and observational knowledge of probabilities. Manning and the President played by ear.
The treaties with Great Britain, Germany and the Eurasian Union, whereby we assumed the responsibility for world peace and at the same time guaranteed the contracting nations against our own misuse of power, were rushed through in the period of relief and goodwill that immediately followed the termination of the Four-Days War. We followed the precedents established by the Panama Canal treaties, the Suez Canal agreements, and the Philippine Independence policy.
But the purpose underneath was to commit future governments of the United States to an irrevocable benevolent policy.
The act to implement the treaties by creating the Commission of World Safety followed soon after, and Colonel Manning became Mr. Commissioner Manning. Commissioners had a life tenure and the intention was to create a body with the integrity, permanence and freedom from outside pressure possessed by the Supreme Court of the United States. Since the treaties contemplated an eventual joint trust, commissioners need not be American citizens—and the oath they took was to preserve the peace of the world.
There was trouble getting the clause past the Congress! Every other similar oath had been to the Constitution of the United States.
Nevertheless the Commission was formed. It took charge of world aircraft, assumed jurisdiction over radioactives, natural and artificial, and commenced the long slow task of building up the Peace Patrol.
Manning envisioned a corps of world policemen, an aristocracy which, through selection and indoctrination, could be trusted with unlimited power over the life of every man, every woman, every child on the face of the globe. For the power would be unlimited; the precautions necessary to insure the unbeatable weapon from getting loose in the world again made it axiomatic that its custodians would wield power that is safe only in the hands of Deity. There would be no one to guard those selfsame guardians. Their own characters and the watch they kept on each other would be all that stood between the race and disaster.
For the first time in history, supreme political power was to be exerted with no possibility of checks and balances from the outside. Manning took up the task of perfecting it with a dragging subconscious conviction that it was too much for human nature.
The rest of the Commission was appointed slowly, the names being sent to the Senate after long joint consideration by the President and Manning. The director of the Red Cross, an obscure little professor of history from Switzerland, Dr. Igor Rimski who had developed the Karst-Obre technique independently and whom the A.P.F. had discovered in prison after the dusting of Moscow—those three were the only foreigners. The rest of the list is well known.
Ridpath and his staff were of necessity the original technical crew of the Commission; United States Army and Navy pilots its first patrolmen. Not all of the pilots available were needed; their records were searched, their habits and associates investigated, their mental processes and emotional attitudes examined by the best psychological research methods available—which weren’t good enough. Their final acceptance for the Patrol depended on two personal interviews, one with Manning, one with the President.
Manning told me that he depended more on the President’s feeling for character than he did on all the association and reaction tests the psychologists could think up. “It’s like the nose of a bloodhound,” he said. “In his forty years of practical politics he has seen more phonies than you and I will ever see and each one was trying to sell him something. He can tell one in the dark.”
The long-distance plan included the schools for the indoctrination of cadet patrolmen, schools that were to be open to youths of any race, color, or nationality, and from which they would go forth to guard the peace of every country but their own. To that country a man would never return during his service. They were to be a deliberately expatriated band of Janizaries, with an obligation only to the Commission and to the race, and welded together with a carefully nurtured esprit de corps.
It stood a chance of working. Had Manning been allowed twenty years without interruption, the original plan might have worked.* * *
The President’s running mate for reelection was the result of a political compromise. The candidate for Vice President was a confirmed isolationist who had opposed the Peace Commission from the first, but it was he or a party split in a year when the opposition was strong. The President sneaked back in but with a greatly weakened Congress; only his power of veto twice prevented the repeal of the Peace Act. The Vice President did nothing to help him, although he did not publicly lead the insurrection. Manning revised his plans to complete the essential program by the end of 1952, there being no way to predict the temper of the next administration.
We were both overworked and I was beginning to realize that my health was gone. The cause was not far to seek; a photographic film strapped next to my skin would cloud in twenty minutes. I was suffering from cumulative minimal radioactive poisoning. No well-defined cancer that could be operated on, but a systemic deterioration of function and tissue. There was no help for it, and there was work to be done. I’ve always attributed it mainly to the week I spent sitting on those canisters before the raid on Berlin.* * *
February 17, 1951. I missed the televue flash about the plane crash that killed the President because I was lying down in my apartment. Manning, by that time, was requiring me to rest every afternoon after lunch, though I was still on duty. I first heard about it from my secretary when I returned to my office, and at once hurried into Manning’s office.
There was a curious unreality to that meeting. It seemed to me that we had slipped back to that day when I returned from England, the day that Estelle Karst died. He looked up. “Hello, John,” he said.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Don’t take it so hard, chief,” was all I could think of to say.
Forty-eight hours later came the message from the newly sworn-in President for Manning to report to him. I took it in to him, an official despatch which I decoded. Manning read it, face impassive.
“Are you going, chief?” I asked.
“Eh? Why, certainly.”
I went back into my office, and got my topcoat, gloves, and briefcase.
Manning looked up when I came back in. “Never mind, John,” he said. “You’re not going.” I guess I must have looked stubborn, for he added, “You’re not to go because there is work to do here. Wait a minute.”
He went to his safe, twiddled the dials, opened it and removed a sealed envelope which he threw on the desk between us. “Here are your orders. Get busy.”
He went out as I was opening them. I read them through and got busy. There was little enough time.* * *
The new President received Manning standing and in the company of several of his bodyguards and intimates. Manning recognized the senator who had led the movement to use the Patrol to recover expropriated holdings in South America and Rhodesia, as well as the chairman of the committee on aviation with whom he had had several unsatisfactory conferences in an attempt to work out a modus operandi for reinstituting commercial airlines.
“You’re prompt, I see,” said the President. “Good.”
Manning bowed.
“We might as well come straight to the point,” the Chief Executive went on. “There are going to be some changes of policy in the administration. I want your resignation.”
“I am sorry to have to refuse, sir.”
“We’ll see about that. In the meantime, Colonel Manning, you are relieved from duty.”
“Mr. Commissioner Manning, if you please.”
The new President shrugged. “One or the other, as you please. You are relieved, either way.”
“I am sorry to disagree again. My appointment is for life.”
“That’s enough,” was the answer. “This is the United States of America. There can be no higher authority. You are under arrest.”
I can visualize Manning staring steadily at him for a long moment, then answering slowly, “You are physically able to arrest me, I will concede, but I advise you to wait a few minutes.” He stepped to the window. “Look up into the sky.”
Six bombers of the Peace Commission patrolled over the Capitol. “None of those pilots is American born,” Manning added slowly. “If you confine me, none of us here in this room will live out the day.”
There were incidents thereafter, such as the unfortunate affair at Fort Benning three days later, and the outbreak in the wing of the Patrol based in Lisbon and its resultant wholesale dismissals, but for practical purposes, that was all there was to the coup d’etat.
Manning was the undisputed military dictator of the world.
Whether or not any man as universally hated as Manning can perfect the Patrol he envisioned, make it self-perpetuating and trustworthy, I don’t know, and—because of that week of waiting in a buried English hangar—I won’t be here to find out. Manning’s heart disease makes the outcome even more uncertain—he may last another twenty years; he may keel over dead tomorrow—and there is no one to take his place. I’ve set this down partly to occupy the short time I have left and partly to show there is another side to any story, even world dominion.
Not that I would like the outcome, either way. If there is anything to this survival-after-death business, I am going to look up the man who invented the bow and arrow and take him apart with my bare hands. For myself, I can’t be happy in a world where any man, or group of men, has the power of death over you and me, our neighbors, every human, every animal, every living thing. I don’t like anyone to have that kind of power.
And neither does Manning.
The End
If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to check out similar posts in my Science Fiction stories Index here…
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
The Leader is suffering from a fatal illness. Samuel is a concentration camp detainee, is “chosen” as a donor, his healthy organ will be exchanged with Leader’s dying one in exchange for Samuel’s freedom. But there is a glitch. Dr Lans, the only surgeon capable of performing the surgery, is also in concentration camp. A necessary deal is negotiated…
SUCCESSFUL OPERATION
FOREWORDFor any wordsmith the most valuable word in the English language is that short, ugly, Anglo-Saxon monosyllable: No!!!It is one of the peculiarities in the attitude of the public toward the writing profession that a person who would never expect a free ride from a taxi driver, or free groceries from a market, or free gilkwoks from a gilkwok dealer, will without the slightest embarrassment ask a professional writer for free gifts of his stock in trade.This chutzpah is endemic in science fiction fans, acute in organized SF fans, and at its virulent worst in organized fans-who-publish-fan-magazines.The following story came into existence shortly after I sold my first story—and resulted from my having not yet learned to say No!
“How dare you make such a suggestion!”
The State Physician doggedly stuck by his position. “I would not make it, sire, if your life were not at stake. There is no other surgeon in the Fatherland who can transplant a pituitary gland but Doctor Lans.”
“You will operate!”
The medico shook his head. “You would die, Leader. My skill is not adequate.”
The Leader stormed about the apartment. He seemed about to give way to one of the girlish bursts of anger that even the inner state clique feared so much. Surprisingly he capitulated.
“Bring him here!” he ordered.* * *
Doctor Lans faced the Leader with inherent dignity, a dignity and presence that three years of “protective custody” had been unable to shake. The pallor and gauntness of the concentration camp lay upon him, but his race was used to oppression. “I see,” he said. “Yes, I see . . . I can perform that operation. What are your terms?”
“Terms?” The Leader was aghast. “Terms, you filthy swine? You are being given a chance to redeem in part the sins of your race!”
The surgeon raised his brows. “Do you not think that I know that you would not have sent for me had there been any other course available to you? Obviously, my services have become valuable.”
“You’ll do as you are told! You and your kind are lucky to be alive.”
“Nevertheless I shall not operate without my fee.”
“I said you are lucky to be alive—” The tone was an open threat.
Lans spread his hands, did not answer.
“Well—I am informed that you have a family . . .”
The surgeon moistened his lips. His Emma—they would hurt his Emma . . . and his little Rose. But he must be brave, as Emma would have him be. He was playing for high stakes—for all of them. “They cannot be worse off dead,” he answered firmly, “than they are now.”* * *
It was many hours before the Leader was convinced that Lans could not be budged. He should have known—the surgeon had learned fortitude at his mother’s breast.
“What is your fee?”
“A passport for myself and my family.”
“Good riddance!”
“My personal fortune restored to me—”
“Very well.”
“—to be paid in gold before I operate!”
The Leader started to object automatically, then checked himself. Let the presumptuous fool think so! It could be corrected after the operation.
“And the operation to take place in a hospital on foreign soil.”
“Preposterous!”
“I must insist.”
“You do not trust me?”
Lans stared straight back into his eyes without replying. The Leader struck him, hard, across the mouth. The surgeon made no effort to avoid the blow, but took it, with no change of expression. . . .
“You are willing to go through with it, Samuel?” The younger man looked at Doctor Lans without fear as he answered,
“Certainly, Doctor.”
“I can not guarantee that you will recover. The Leader’s pituitary gland is diseased; your younger body may or may not be able to stand up under it—that is the chance you take.”
“I know it—but I am out of the concentration camp!”
“Yes. Yes, that is true. And if you do recover, you are free. And I will attend you myself, until you are well enough to travel.”
Samuel smiled. “It will be a positive joy to be sick in a country where there are no concentration camps!”
“Very well, then. Let us commence.”
They returned to the silent, nervous group at the other end of the room. Grimly, the money was counted out, every penny that the famous surgeon had laid claim to before the Leader had decided that men of his religion had no need for money. Lans placed half of the gold in a money belt and strapped it around his waist. His wife concealed the other half somewhere about her ample person.* * *
It was an hour and twenty minutes later that Lans put down the last instrument, nodded to the surgeons assisting him, and commenced to strip off operating gloves. He took one last look at his two patients before he left the room. They were anonymous under the sterile gowns and dressings. Had he not known, he could not have told dictator from oppressed. Come to think about it, with the exchange of those two tiny glands there was something of the dictator in his victim, and something of the victim in the dictator.* * *
Doctor Lans returned to the hospital later in the day, after seeing his wife and daughter settled in a first class hotel. It was an extravagance, in view of his uncertain prospects as a refugee, but they had enjoyed no luxuries for years back there—he did not think of it as his home country—and it was justified this once.
He enquired at the office of the hospital for his second patient. The clerk looked puzzled. “But he is not here.”
“Not here?”
“Why, no. He was moved at the same time as His Excellency—back to your country.”
Lans did not argue. The trick was obvious; it was too late to do anything for poor Samuel. He thanked his God that he had had the foresight to place himself and his family beyond the reach of such brutal injustice before operating. He thanked the clerk and left.* * *
The Leader recovered consciousness at last. His brain was confused—then he recalled the events before he had gone to sleep. The operation!—it must be over! And he was alive! He had never admitted to anyone how terribly frightened he had been at the prospect. But he had lived—he had lived!
He groped around for the bell cord, and, failing to find it, gradually forced his eyes to focus on the room. What outrageous nonsense was this? This was no sort of a room for the Leader to convalesce in. He took in the dirty white-washed ceiling, and the bare wooden floor with distaste. And the bed! It was no more than a cot!
He shouted. Someone came in, a man wearing the uniform of a trooper in his favorite corps. He started to give him the tongue-lashing of his life, before having him arrested. But he was cut short.
“Cut out that racket, you unholy pig!”
At first he was too astounded to answer, then he shrieked, “Stand at attention when you address your Leader! Salute!”
The man looked dumbfounded, then guffawed. “Like this, maybe?” He stepped to the side of the cot, struck a pose with his right arm raised in salute. He carried a rubber truncheon in it. “Hail to the Leader!” he shouted, and brought his arm down smartly. The truncheon crashed into the Leader’s cheekbone.
Another trooper came in to see what the noise was while the first was still laughing at his witticism. “What’s up, Jon? Say, you’d better not handle that monkey too rough—he’s still carried on the hospital list.” He glanced casually at the Leader’s bloody face.
“Him? Didn’t you know?” He pulled him to one side and whispered.
The second’s eyes widened; he grinned. “So? They don’t want him to get well, eh? Well, I could use some exercise this morning—”
“Let’s get Fats,” the other suggested. “He always has such amusing ideas.”
“Good idea.” He stepped to the door, and bellowed, “Hey, Fats!”
They didn’t really start in on him until Fats was there to help.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are
reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly
impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal
library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come
and enjoy a read or two as well.
My Poetry
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
A mathematician discovers that his formulas predict that an important new power station poses an extremely grave risk to humanity, and he must convince others of the danger.
- William E. Emba
FOREWORDLIFE-LINE, MISFIT, LET THERE BE LIGHT, ELSEWHEN, PIED PIPER, IF THIS GOES ON—, REQUIEM, THE ROADS MUST ROLL, COVENTRY, BLOWUPS HAPPEN—for eleven months, mid March 1939 through mid February 1940, I wrote every day . . . and that ended my bondage; BLOWUPS HAPPEN paid off the last of that pesky mortgage—eight years ahead of time.BLOWUPS HAPPEN was the first of my stories to be published in hard covers, in Groff Conklin's first anthology, The Best of Science Fiction, 1946. In the meantime there had been World War II, Hiroshima, The Smyth Report—so I went over my 1940 manuscript most carefully, correcting some figures I had merely guessed at in early 1940.This week I have compared the two versions, 1940 and 1946, word by word—there isn't a dime's worth of difference between them . . . and I now see, as a result of the enormous increase in the art in 33 years, more errors in the '46 version than I spotted in the '40 version when I checked it in '46.I do not intend ever again to try to update a story to make it fit new art. Such updating can't save a poor story and isn't necessary for a good story. All of H. G. Wells' SF stories are hopelessly dated . . . and they remain the best, the most gripping science fiction stories to be found anywhere. My Beyond This Horizon (1941) states that H. sapiens has forty-eight chromosomes, a "fact" that "everybody knew" in 1941. Now "everybody knows" that the "correct" number is forty-six. I shan't change it.The version of "Blowups Happen" here following is exactly, word for word, the way it was first written in February 1940.
BLOWUPS HAPPEN
“Put down that wrench!”
The man addressed turned slowly around and faced the speaker. His expression was hidden by a grotesque helmet, part of a heavy, leaden armor which shielded his entire body, but the tone of voice in which he answered showed nervous exasperation.
“What the hell’s eating on you, Doc?” He made no move to replace the tool in question.
They faced each other like two helmeted, arrayed fencers, watching for an opening. The first speaker’s voice came from behind his mask a shade higher in key and more peremptory in tone. “You heard me, Harper. Put down that wrench at once, and come away from that ‘trigger.’ Erickson!”
A third armored figure came around the shield which separated the uranium bomb proper from the control room in which the first two stood. “Whatcha want, Doc?”
“Harper is relieved from watch. You take over as engineer-of-the-watch. Send for the standby engineer.”
“Very well.” His voice and manner were phlegmatic as he accepted the situation without comment. The atomic engineer whom he had just relieved glanced from one to the other, then carefully replaced the wrench in its rack.
“Just as you say, Dr. Silard—but send for your relief, too. I shall demand an immediate hearing!” Harper swept indignantly out, his lead-sheathed boots clumping on the floor plates.
Dr. Silard waited unhappily for the ensuing twenty minutes until his own relief arrived. Perhaps he had been hasty. Maybe he was wrong in thinking that Harper had at last broken under the strain of tending the most dangerous machine in the world—an atomic power plant. But if he had made a mistake, it had to be on the safe side—slips must not happen in this business; not when a slip might result in the atomic detonation of two and a half tons of uranium.
He tried to visualize what that would mean, and failed. He had been told that uranium was potentially forty million times as explosive as TNT. The figure was meaningless that way. He thought of it, instead, as a hundred million tons of high explosive, two hundred million aircraft bombs as big as the biggest ever used. It still did not mean anything. He had once seen such a bomb dropped, when he had been serving as a temperament analyst for army aircraft pilots. The bomb had left a hole big enough to hide an apartment house. He could not imagine the explosion of a thousand such bombs, much less a hundred million of them.
Perhaps these atomic engineers could. Perhaps, with their greater mathematical ability and closer comprehension of what actually went on inside the nuclear fission chamber—the “bomb”—they had some vivid glimpse of the mind-shattering horror locked up beyond that shield. If so, no wonder they tended to blow up—
He sighed. Erickson looked up from the linear resonant accelerator on which he had been making some adjustment. “What’s the trouble, Doc?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry I had to relieve Harper.”
Silard could feel the shrewd glance of the big Scandinavian. “Not getting the jitters yourself, are you, Doc? Sometimes you squirrel sleuths blow up, too—”
“Me? I don’t think so. I’m scared of that thing in there—I’d be crazy if I weren’t.”
“So am I,” Erickson told him soberly, and went back to his work.* * *
The accelerator’s snout disappeared in the shield between them and the bomb, where it fed a steady stream of terrifically speeded up subatomic bullets to the beryllium target located within the bomb itself. The tortured beryllium yielded up neutrons, which shot out in all directions through the uranium mass. Some of these neutrons struck uranium atoms squarely on their nuclei and split them in two. The fragments were new elements, barium, xenon, rubidium—depending on the proportions in which each atom split. The new elements were usually unstable isotopes and broke down into a dozen more elements by radioactive disintegration in a progressive chain reaction.
But these chain reactions were comparatively unimportant; it was the original splitting of the uranium nucleus, with the release of the awe-inspiring energy that bound it together—an incredible two hundred million electron-volts—that was important—and perilous.
For, while uranium isotope 235 may be split by bombarding it with neutrons from an outside source, the splitting itself gives up more neutrons which, in turn, may land in other uranium nuclei and split them. If conditions are favorable to a progressively increasing reaction of this sort, it may get out of hand, build up in an unmeasurable fraction of a microsecond into a complete atomic explosion—an explosion which would dwarf the eruption of Krakatoa to popgun size; an explosion so far beyond all human experience as to be as completely incomprehensible as the idea of personal death. It could be feared, but not understood.
But a self-perpetuating sequence of nuclear splitting just under the level of complete explosion was necessary to the operation of the power plant. To split the first uranium nucleus by bombarding it with neutrons from the beryllium target took more power than the death of the atom gave up. In order that the output of power from the system should exceed the power input in useful proportion it was imperative that each atom split by a neutron from the beryllium target should cause the splitting of many more.
It was equally imperative that this chain of reactions should always tend to dampen, to die out. It must not build up, or the entire mass would explode within a time interval too short to be measured by any means whatsoever.
Nor would there be anyone left to measure it.* * *
The atomic engineer on duty at the bomb could control this reaction by means of the “trigger,” a term the engineers used to include the linear resonant accelerator, the beryllium target, and the adjacent controls, instrument board, and power sources. That is to say, he could vary the bombardment on the beryllium target to increase or decrease the power output of the plant, and he could tell from his instruments that the internal reaction was dampened—or, rather, that it had been dampened the split second before. He could not possibly know what was actually happening now within the bomb—subatomic speeds are too great and the time intervals too small. He was like the bird that flew backward; he could see where he had been, but he never knew where he was going.
Nevertheless, it was his responsibility, and his alone, not only to maintain the bomb at a high input-output efficiency, but to see that the reaction never passed the critical point and progressed into mass explosion.
But that was impossible. He could not be sure; he could never be sure.
He could bring to the job all of the skill and learning of the finest technical education, and use it to reduce the hazard to the lowest mathematical probability, but the blind laws of chance which appear to rule in subatomic action might turn up a royal flush against him and defeat his most skillful play.
And each atomic engineer knew it, knew that he gambled not only with his own life, but with the lives of countless others, perhaps with the lives of every human being on the planet. Nobody knew quite what such an explosion would do. The most conservative estimate assumed that, in addition to destroying the plant and its personnel completely, it would tear a chunk out of the populous and heavily traveled Los Angeles-Oklahoma Road City a hundred miles to the north.
That was the official, optimistic viewpoint on which the plant had been authorized, and based on mathematics which predicted that a mass of uranium would itself be disrupted on a molar scale, and thereby rendered comparatively harmless, before progressive and accelerated atomic explosion could infect the entire mass.
The atomic engineers, by and large, did not place faith in the official theory. They judged theoretical mathematical prediction for what it was worth—precisely nothing, until confirmed by experiment.
But even from the official viewpoint, each atomic engineer while on watch carried not only his own life in his hands, but the lives of many others—how many, it was better not to think about. No pilot, no general, no surgeon ever carried such a daily, inescapable, ever-present weight of responsibility for the lives of other people as these men carried every time they went on watch, every time they touched a vernier screw or read a dial.
They were selected not alone for their intelligence and technical training, but quite as much for their characters and sense of social responsibility. Sensitive men were needed—men who could fully appreciate the importance of the charge intrusted to them; no other sort would do. But the burden of responsibility was too great to be borne indefinitely by a sensitive man.
It was, of necessity, a psychologically unstable condition. Insanity was an occupational disease.* * *
Dr. Cummings appeared, still buckling the straps of the armor worn to guard against stray radiation. “What’s up?” he asked Silard.
“I had to relieve Harper.”
“So I guessed. I met him coming up. He was sore as hell—just glared at me.”
“I know. He wants an immediate hearing. That’s why I had to send for you.”
Cummings grunted, then nodded toward the engineer, anonymous in all-inclosing armor. “Who’d I draw?”
“Erickson.”
“Good enough. Squareheads can’t go crazy—eh, Gus?”
Erickson looked up momentarily and answered, “That’s your problem,” and returned to his work.
Cummings turned back to Silard and commented: “Psychiatrists don’t seem very popular around here. O.K.—I relieve you, sir.”
“Very well, sir.”
Silard threaded his way through the zigzag in the tanks of water which surrounded the disintegration room. Once outside this outer shield, he divested himself of the cumbersome armor, disposed of it in the locker room provided, and hurried to a lift. He left the lift at the tube station, underground, and looked around for an unoccupied capsule. Finding one, he strapped himself in, sealed the gasketed door, and settled the back of his head into the rest against the expected surge of acceleration.
Five minutes later he knocked at the door of the office of the general superintendent, twenty miles away.
The power plant proper was located in a bowl of desert hills on the Arizona plateau. Everything not necessary to the immediate operation of the plant—administrative offices, television station and so forth—lay beyond the hills. The buildings housing these auxiliary functions were of the most durable construction technical ingenuity could devise. It was hoped that, if Der Tag ever came, occupants would stand approximately the chance of survival of a man going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
Silard knocked again. He was greeted by a male secretary. Steinke. Silard recalled reading his case history. Formerly one of the most brilliant of the young engineers, he had suffered a blanking out of the ability to handle mathematical operations. A plain case of fugue, but there had been nothing that the poor devil could do about it—he had been anxious enough with his conscious mind to stay on duty. He had been rehabilitated as an office worker.
Steinke ushered him into the superintendent’s private office. Harper was there before him, and returned his greeting with icy politeness. The superintendent was cordial, but Silard thought he looked tired, as if the twenty-four-hour-a-day strain was too much for him.
“Come in, Doctor, come in. Sit down. Now tell me about this. I’m a little surprised. I thought Harper was one of my steadiest men.”
“I don’t say he isn’t, sir.”
“Well?”
“He may be perfectly all right, but your instructions to me are not to take any chances.”
“Quite right.” The superintendent gave the engineer, silent and tense in his chair, a troubled glance, then returned his attention to Silard. “Suppose you tell me about it.”
Silard took a deep breath. “While on watch as psychological observer at the control station I noticed that the engineer of the watch seemed preoccupied and less responsive to stimuli than usual. During my off-watch observation of this case, over a period of the past several days, I have suspected an increasing lack of attention. For example, while playing contract bridge, he now occasionally asks for a review of the bidding, which is contrary to his former behavior pattern.
“Other similar data are available. To cut it short, at 3:11 today, while on watch, I saw Harper, with no apparent reasonable purpose in mind, pick up a wrench used only for operating the valves of the water shield and approach the trigger. Irelieved him of duty and sent him out of the control room.”
“Chief!” Harper calmed himself somewhat and continued: “If this witch doctor knew a wrench from an oscillator, he’d know what I was doing. The wrench was on the wrong rack. I noticed it, and picked it up to return it to its proper place. On the way, I stopped to check the readings!”
The superintendent turned inquiringly to Dr. Silard.
“That may be true. Granting that it is true,” answered the psychiatrist doggedly, “my diagnosis still stands. Your behavior pattern has altered; your present actions are unpredictable, and I can’t approve you for responsible work without a complete checkup.”
General Superintendent King drummed on the desk top and sighed. Then he spoke slowly to Harper: “Cal, you’re a good boy, and, believe me, I know how you feel. But there is no way to avoid it—you’ve got to go up for the psychometricals, and accept whatever disposition the board makes of you.” He paused, but Harper maintained an expressionless silence. “Tell you what, son—why don’t you take a few days leave? Then, when you come back, you can go up before the board, or transfer to another department away from the bomb, whichever you prefer.” He looked to Silard for approval, and received a nod.
But Harper was not mollified. “No, chief,” he protested. “It won’t do. Can’t you see what’s wrong? It’s this constant supervision. Somebody always watching the back of your neck, expecting you to go crazy. A man can’t even shave in private. We’re jumpy about the most innocent acts, for fear some head doctor, half batty himself, will see it and decide it’s a sign we’re slipping. Good grief, what do you expect?” His outburst having run its course, he subsided into a flippant cynicism that did not quite jell. “O.K.—never mind the straitjacket; I’ll go quietly. You’re a good Joe in spite of it, chief,” he added, “and I’m glad to have worked under you. Good-bye.”
King kept the pain in his eyes out of his voice. “Wait a minute, Cal—you’re not through here. Let’s forget about the vacation. I’m transferring you to the radiation laboratory. You belong in research, anyhow; I’d never have spared you from it to stand watches if I hadn’t been short on Number One men.
“As for the constant psychological observation, I hate it as much as you do. I don’t suppose you know that they watch me about twice as hard as they watch you duty engineers.” Harper showed his surprise, but Silard nodded in sober confirmation. “But we have to have this supervision. Do you remember Manning? No, he was before your time. We didn’t have psychological observers then. Manning was able and brilliant. Furthermore, he was always cheerful; nothing seemed to bother him.
“I was glad to have him on the bomb, for he was always alert, and never seemed nervous about working with it—in fact, he grew more buoyant and cheerful the longer he stood control watches. I should have known that was a very bad sign, but I didn’t, and there was no observer to tell me so.
“His technician had to slug him one night. He found him dismounting the safety interlocks on the trigger. Poor old Manning never pulled out of it—he’s been violently insane ever since. After Manning cracked up we worked out the present system of two qualified engineers and an observer for every watch. It seemed the only thing to do.”
“I suppose so, chief,” Harper mused, his face no longer sullen, but still unhappy. “It’s a hell of a situation just the same.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” King rose and put out his hand. “Cal, unless you’re dead set on leaving us, I’ll expect to see you at the radiation laboratory tomorrow. Another thing—I don’t often recommend this, but it might do you good to get drunk tonight.”* * *
King had signed to Silard to remain after the young man left. Once the door was closed he turned back to the psychiatrist. “There goes another one—and one of the best. Doctor, what am I going to do?”
Silard pulled at his cheek. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “The hell of it is, Harper’s absolutely right. It does increase the strain on them to know that they are being watched—and yet they have to be watched. Your psychiatric staff isn’t doing too well, either. It makes us nervous to be around the bomb—the more so because we don’t understand it. And it’s a strain on us to be hated and despised as we are. Scientific detachment is difficult under such conditions; I’m getting jumpy myself.”
King ceased pacing the floor and faced the doctor. “But there must be some solution—” he insisted.
Silard shook his head. “It’s beyond me, Superintendent. I see no solution from the standpoint of psychology.”
“No? Hm-m-m. Doctor, who is the top man in your field?”
“Eh?”
“Who is the recognized Number One man in handling this sort of thing?”
“Why, that’s hard to say. Naturally, there isn’t any one leading psychiatrist in the world; we specialize too much. I know what you mean, though. You don’t want the best industrial-temperament psychometrician; you want the best all-around man for psychoses nonlesional and situational. That would be Lentz.”
“Go on.”
“Well—he covers the whole field of environmental adjustment. He’s the man who correlated the theory of optimum tonicity with the relaxation technique that Korzybski had developed empirically. He actually worked under Korzybski himself, when he was a young student—it’s the only thing he’s vain about.”
“He did? Then he must be pretty old; Korzybski died in— What year did he die?”
“I started to say that you must know his work in symbology—theory of abstraction and calculus of statement, all that sort of thing—because of its applications to engineering and mathematical physics.”
“That Lentz—yes, of course. But I had never thought of him as a psychiatrist.”
“No, you wouldn’t, in your field. Nevertheless, we are inclined to credit him with having done as much to check and reduce the pandemic neuroses of the Crazy Years as any other man, and more than any man left alive.”
“Where is he?”
“Why, Chicago, I suppose. At the Institute.”
“Get him here.”
“Eh?”
“Get him down here. Get on that visiphone and locate him. Then have Steinke call the port of Chicago, and hire a stratocar to stand by for him. I want to see him as soon as possible—before the day is out.” King sat up in his chair with the air of a man who is once more master of himself and the situation. His spirit knew that warming replenishment that comes only with reaching a decision. The harassed expression was gone.
Silard looked dumbfounded. “But, Superintendent,” he expostulated, “You can’t ring for Dr. Lentz as if he were a junior clerk. He’s . . . he’s Lentz.“
“Certainly—that’s why I want him. But I’m not a neurotic clubwoman looking for sympathy, either. He’ll come. If necessary, turn on the heat from Washington. Have the White House call him. But get him here at once. Move!” King strode out of the office.* * *
When Erickson came off watch he inquired around and found that Harper had left for town. Accordingly, he dispensed with dinner at the base, shifted into “drinkin’ clothes,” and allowed himself to be dispatched via tube to Paradise.
Paradise, Arizona, was a hard little boom town, which owed its existence to the power plant. It was dedicated exclusively to the serious business of detaching the personnel of the plant from their inordinate salaries. In this worthy project they received much cooperation from the plant personnel themselves, each of whom was receiving from twice to ten times as much money each pay day as he had ever received in any other job, and none of whom was certain of living long enough to justify saving for old age. Besides, the company carried a sinking fund in Manhattan for their dependents; why be stingy?
It was said, with some truth, that any entertainment or luxury obtainable in New York City could be purchased in Paradise. The local chamber of commerce had appropriated the slogan of Reno, Nevada, “Biggest Little City in the World.” The Reno boosters retaliated by claiming that, while any town that close to the atomic power plant undeniably brought thoughts of death and the hereafter, Hell’s Gates would be a more appropriate name than Paradise.
Erickson started making the rounds. There were twenty-seven places licensed to sell liquor in the six blocks of the main street of Paradise. He expected to find Harper in one of them, and, knowing the man’s habits and tastes, he expected to find him in the first two or three he tried.
He was not mistaken. He found Harper sitting alone at a table in the rear of DeLancey’s Sans Souci Bar. DeLancey’s was a favorite of both of them. There was an old-fashioned comfort about its chrome-plated bar and red leather furniture that appealed to them more than did the spectacular fittings of the up-to-the-minute places. DeLancey was conservative; he stuck to indirect lighting and soft music; his hostesses were required to be fully clothed, even in the evening.
The fifth of Scotch in front of Harper was about two thirds full. Erickson shoved three fingers in front of Harper’s face and demanded, “Count!”
“Three,” announced Harper. “Sit down, Gus.”
“That’s correct,” Erickson agreed, sliding his big frame into a low-slung chair. “You’ll do—for now. What was the outcome?”
“Have a drink. Not,” he went on, “that this Scotch is any good. I think Lance has taken to watering it. I surrendered, horse and foot.”
“Lance wouldn’t do that—stick to that theory and you’ll sink in the sidewalk up to your knees. How come you capitulated? I thought you planned to beat ’em about the head and shoulders, at least.”
“I did,” mourned Harper, “but, cripes, Gus, the chief is right. If a brain mechanic says you’re punchy, he has got to back him up and take you off the bomb. The chief can’t afford to take a chance.”
“Yeah, the chief’s all right, but I can’t learn to love our dear psychiatrists. Tell you what—let’s find us one, and see if he can feel pain. I’ll hold him while you slug ‘im.”
“Oh, forget it, Gus. Have a drink.”
“A pious thought—but not Scotch. I’m going to have a martini; we ought to eat pretty soon.”
“I’ll have one, too.”
“Do you good.” Erickson lifted his blond head and bellowed, “Israfel!”
A large, black person appeared at his elbow. “Mistuh Erickson! Yes, suh!”
“Izzy, fetch two martinis. Make mine with Italian.” He turned back to Harper. “What are you going to do now, Cal?”
“Radiation laboratory.”
“Well, that’s not so bad. I’d like to have a go at the matter of rocket fuels myself. I’ve got some ideas.”
Harper looked mildly amused. “You mean atomic fuel for interplanetary flight? The problem’s pretty well exhausted. No, son, the stratosphere is the ceiling until we think up something better than rockets. Of course, you could mount the bomb in a ship, and figure out some jury rig to convert its radiant output into push, but where does that get you? One bomb, one ship—and twenty years of mining in Little America has only produced enough pitchblende to make one bomb. That’s disregarding the question of getting the company to lend you their one bomb for anything that doesn’t pay dividends.”
Erickson looked balky. “I don’t concede that you’ve covered all the alternatives. What have we got? The early rocket boys went right ahead trying to build better rockets, serene in the belief that, by the time they could build rockets good enough to fly to the Moon, a fuel would be perfected that would do the trick. And they did build ships that were good enough—you could take any ship that makes the antipodes run, and refit it for the Moon—if you had a fuel that was sufficiently concentrated to maintain the necessary push for the whole run. But they haven’t got it.
“And why not? Because we let ’em down, that’s why. Because they’re still depending on molecular energy, on chemical reactions, with atomic power sitting right here in our laps. It’s not their fault—old D. D. Harriman had Rockets Consolidated underwrite the whole first issue of Antarctic Pitchblende, and took a big slice of it himself, in the expectation that we would produce something usable in the way of a concentrated rocket fuel. Did we do it? Like hell! The company went hog-wild for immediate commercial exploitation, and there’s no fuel yet.”
“But you haven’t stated it properly,” Harper objected. “There are just two forms of atomic power available—radioactivity and atomic disintegration. The first is too slow; the energy is there, but you can’t wait years for it to come out—not in a rocketship. The second we can only manage in a large mass of uranium. There you are—stymied.”
Erickson’s Scandinavian stubbornness was just gathering for another try at the argument when the waiter arrived with the drinks. He set them down with a triumphant flourish. “There you are, suh!”
“Want to roll for them, Izzy?” Harper inquired.
“Don’ mind if I do.”
The Negro produced a leather dice cup, and Harper rolled. He selected his combinations with care and managed to get four aces and a jack in three rolls. Israfel took the cup. He rolled in the grand manner with a backward twist to his wrist. His score finished at five kings, and he courteously accepted the price of six drinks. Harper stirred the engraved cubes with his forefinger.
“Izzy,” he asked, “are these the same dice I rolled with?”
“Why, Mistuh Harper!” The Negro’s expression was pained.
“Skip it,” Harper conceded. “I should know better than to gamble with you. I haven’t won a roll from you in six weeks. What did you start to say, Gus?”
“I was just going to say that there ought to be a better way to get energy out of—”
But they were joined again, this time by something very seductive in an evening gown that appeared to have been sprayed on her lush figure. She was young, perhaps nineteen or twenty. “You boys lonely?” she asked as she flowed into a chair.
“Nice of you to ask, but we’re not,” Erickson denied with patient politeness. He jerked a thumb at a solitary figure seated across the room. “Go talk to Hannigan; he’s not busy.”
She followed his gesture with her eyes, and answered with faint scorn: “Him? He’s no use. He’s been like that for three weeks—hasn’t spoken to a soul. If you ask me, I’d say that he was cracking up.”
“That so?” he observed noncommittally. “Here”—he fished out a five-dollar bill and handed it to her—”buy yourself a drink. Maybe we’ll look you up later.”
“Thanks, boys.” The money disappeared under her clothing, and she stood up. “Just ask for Edith.”
“Hannigan does look bad,” Harper considered, noting the brooding stare and apathetic attitude, “and he has been awfully standoffish lately, for him. Do you suppose we’re obliged to report him?”
“Don’t let it worry you,” advised Erickson. “There’s a spotter on the job now. Look.” Harper followed his companion’s eyes and recognized Dr. Mott of the psychological staff. He was leaning against the far end of the bar, and nursing a tall glass, which gave him protective coloration. But his stance was such that his field of vision included not only Hannigan, but Erickson and Harper as well.
“Yeah, and he’s studying us as well,” Harper added. “Damn it to hell, why does it make my back hair rise just to lay eyes on one of them?”
The question was rhetorical; Erickson ignored it. “Let’s get out of here,” he suggested, “and have dinner somewhere else.”
“O.K.”
DeLancey himself waited on them as they left. “Going so soon, gentlemen?” he asked, in a voice that implied that their departure would leave him no reason to stay open. “Beautiful lobster thermidor tonight. If you do not like it, you need not pay.” He smiled brightly.
“Not sea food, Lance,” Harper told him, “not tonight. Tell me—why do you stick around here when you know that the bomb is bound to get you in the long run? Aren’t you afraid of it?”
The tavernkeeper’s eyebrows shot up. “Afraid of the bomb? But it is my friend!”
“Makes you money, eh?”
“Oh, I do not mean that.” He leaned toward them confidentially. “Five years ago I come here to make some money quickly for my family before my cancer of the stomach, it kills me. At the clinic, with the wonderful new radiants you gentlemen make with the aid of the bomb, I am cured—I live again. No, I am not afraid of the bomb, it is my good friend.”
“Suppose it blows up?”
“When the good Lord needs me, He will take me.” He crossed himself quickly.
As they turned away, Erickson commented in a low voice to Harper, “There’s your answer, Cal—if all us engineers had his faith, the bomb wouldn’t get us down.”
Harper was unconvinced. “I don’t know,” he mused. “I don’t think it’s faith; I think it’s lack of imagination—and knowledge.”* * *
Notwithstanding King’s confidence, Lentz did not show up until the next day. The superintendent was subconsciously a little surprised at his visitor’s appearance. He had pictured a master psychologist as wearing flowing hair, an imperial, and having piercing black eyes. But this man was not very tall, was heavy in his framework, and fat—almost gross. He might have been a butcher. Little, piggy, faded-blue eyes peered merrily out from beneath shaggy blond brows. There was no hair anywhere else on the enormous skull, and the apelike jaw was smooth and pink. He was dressed in mussed pajamas of unbleached linen. A long cigarette holder jutted permanently from one corner of a wide mouth, widened still more by a smile with suggested unmalicious amusement at the worst that life, or men, could do. He had gusto.
King found him remarkably easy to talk to.
At Lentz’s suggestion the superintendent went first into the history of the atomic power plant, how the fission of the uranium atom by Dr. Otto Hahn in December, 1938, had opened up the way to atomic power. The door was opened just a crack; the process to be self-perpetuating and commercially usable required an enormously greater mass of uranium than there was available in the entire civilized world at that time.
But the discovery, fifteen years later, of enormous deposits of pitchblende in the old rock underlying Little America removed that obstacle. The deposits were similar to those previously worked at Great Bear Lake in the arctic north of Canada, but so much more extensive that the eventual possibility of accumulating enough uranium to build an atomic power plant became evident.
The demand for commercially usable, cheap power had never been satiated. Even the Douglas-Martin sunpower screens, used to drive the roaring road cities of the period and for a myriad other industrial purposes, were not sufficient to fill the ever-growing demand. They had saved the country from impending famine of oil and coal, but their maximum output of approximately one horsepower per square yard of sun-illuminated surface put a definite limit to the power from that source available in any given geographical area.
Atomic power was needed—was demanded.
But theoretical atomic physics predicted that a uranium mass sufficiently large to assist in its own disintegration might assist too well—blow up instantaneously, with such force that it would probably wreck every man-made structure on the globe and conceivably destroy the entire human race as well. They dared not build the bomb, even though the uranium was available.
“It was Destry’s mechanics of infinitesimals that showed a way out of the dilemma,” King went on. “His equations appeared to predict that an atomic explosion, once started, would disrupt the molar mass inclosing it so rapidly that neutron loss through the outer surface of the fragments would dampen the progression of the atomic explosion to zero before complete explosion could be reached.
“For the mass we use in the bomb, his equations predict a possible force of explosion one seventh of one percent of the force of complete explosion. That alone, of course, would be incomprehensibly destructive—about the equivalent of a hundred and forty thousand tons of TNT—enough to wreck this end of the State. Personally, I’ve never been sure that is all that would happen.”
“Then why did you accept this job?” inquired Lentz.
King fiddled with items on his desk before replying. “I couldn’t turn it down, Doctor—I couldn’t. If I had refused, they would have gotten someone else—and it was an opportunity that comes to a physicist once in history.”
Lentz nodded. “And probably they would have gotten someone not as competent. I understand, Dr. King—you were compelled by the ‘truth-tropism’ of the scientist. He must go where the data is to be found, even if it kills him. But about this fellow Destry, I’ve never liked his mathematics; he postulates too much.”
King looked up in quick surprise, then recalled that this was the man who had refined and given rigor to the calculus of statement. “That’s just the hitch,” he agreed. “His work is brilliant, but I’ve never been sure that his predictions were worth the paper they were written on. Nor, apparently,” he added bitterly, “do my junior engineers.”
He told the psychiatrist of the difficulties they had had with personnel, of how the most carefully selected men would, sooner or later, crack under the strain. “At first I thought it might be some degenerating effect from the hard radiation that leaks out of the bomb, so we improved the screening and the personal armor. But it didn’t help. One young fellow who had joined us after the new screening was installed became violent at dinner one night, and insisted that a pork chop was about to explode. I hate to think of what might have happened if he had been on duty at the bomb when he blew up.”
The inauguration of the system of constant psychological observation had greatly reduced the probability of acute danger resulting from a watch engineer cracking up, but King was forced to admit that the system was not a success; there had actually been a marked increase in psychoneuroses, dating from that time.
“And that’s the picture, Dr. Lentz. It gets worse all the time. It’s getting me now. The strain is telling on me; I can’t sleep, and I don’t think my judgment is as good as it used to be—I have trouble making up my mind, of coming to a decision. Do you think you can do anything for us?”
But Lentz had no immediate relief for his anxiety. “Not so fast, superintendent,” he countered. “You have given me the background, but I have no real data as yet. I must look around for a while, smell out the situation for myself, talk to your engineers, perhaps have a few drinks with them, and get acquainted. That is possible, is it not? Then in a few days, maybe, we’ll know where we stand.”
King had no alternative but to agree.
“And it is well that your young men do not know what I am here for. Suppose I am your old friend, a visiting physicist, eh?”
“Why, yes—of course. I can see to it that the idea gets around. But say—” King was reminded again of something that had bothered him from the time Silard had first suggested Lentz’s name—”may I ask a personal question?”
The merry eyes were undisturbed.
“Go ahead.”
“I can’t help but be surprised that one man should attain eminence in two such widely differing fields as psychology and mathematics. And right now I’m perfectly convinced of your ability to pass yourself off as a physicist. I don’t understand it.”
The smile was more amused, without being in the least patronizing, nor offensive. “Same subject, symbology. You are a specialist; it would not necessarily come to your attention.”
“I still don’t follow you.”
“No? Man lives in a world of ideas. Any phenomenon is so complex that he cannot possibly grasp the whole of it. He abstracts certain characteristics of a given phenomenon as an idea, then represents that idea as a symbol, be it a word or a mathematical sign. Human reaction is almost entirely reaction to symbols, and only negligibly to phenomena. As a matter of fact,” he continued, removing the cigarette holder from his mouth and settling into his subject, “it can be demonstrated that the human mind can think only in terms of symbols.
“When we think, we let symbols operate on other symbols in certain, set fashions—rules of logic, or rules of mathematics. If the symbols have been abstracted so that they are structurally similar to the phenomena they stand for, and if the symbol operations are similar in structure and order to the operations of phenomena in the real world, we think sanely. If our logic-mathematics, or our word-symbols, have been poorly chosen, we do not think sanely.
“In mathematical physics you are concerned with making your symbology fit physical phenomena. In psychiatry I am concerned with precisely the same thing, except that I am more immediately concerned with the man who does the thinking than with the phenomena he is thinking about. But the same subject, always the same subject.”
“We’re not getting anyplace, . . . Gus.” Harper put down his slide rule and frowned.
“Seems like it, Cal,” Erickson grudgingly admitted. “Damn it, though—there ought to be some reasonable way of tackling the problem. What do we need? Some form of concentrated, controllable power for rocket fuel. What have we got? Power galore in the bomb. There must be some way to bottle that power, and serve it out when we need it—and the answer is someplace in one of the radioactive series. I know it.” He stared glumly around the laboratory as if expecting to find the answer written somewhere on the lead-sheathed walls.
“Don’t be so down in the mouth about it. You’ve got me convinced there is an answer; let’s figure out how to find it. In the first place the three natural radioactive series are out, aren’t they?”
“Yes—at least we had agreed that all that ground had been fully covered before.”
“O.K.; we have to assume that previous investigators have done what their notes show they have done—otherwise we might as well not believe anything, and start checking on everybody from Archimedes to date. Maybe that is indicated, but Methuselah himself couldn’t carry out such an assignment. What have we got left?”
“Artificial radioactives.”
“All right. Let’s set up a list of them, both those that have been made up to now, and those that might possibly be made in the future. Call that our group—or rather, field, if you want to be pedantic about definitions. There are a limited number of operations that can be performed on each member of the group, and on the members taken in combination. Set it up.”
Erickson did so, using the curious curlicues of the calculus of statement. Harper nodded. “All right—expand it.”
Erickson looked up after a few moments, and asked, “Cal, have you any idea how many terms there are in the expansion?”
“No—hundreds, maybe thousands, I suppose.”
“You’re conservative. It reaches four figures without considering possible new radioactives. We couldn’t finish such a research in a century.” He chucked his pencil down and looked morose.
Cal Harper looked at him curiously, but with sympathy. “Gus,” he said gently, “the bomb isn’t getting you, too, is it?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“I never saw you so willing to give up anything before. Naturally you and I will never finish any such job, but at the very worst we will have eliminated a lot of wrong answers for somebody else. Look at Edison—sixty years of experimenting, twenty hours a day, yet he never found out the one thing he was most interested in knowing. I guess if he could take it, we can.”
Erickson pulled out of his funk to some extent. “I suppose so,” he agreed. “Anyhow, maybe we could work out some techniques for carrying on a lot of experiments simultaneously.”
Harper slapped him on the shoulder. “That’s the ol’ fight. Besides—we may not need to finish the research, or anything like it, to find a satisfactory fuel. The way I see it, there are probably a dozen, maybe a hundred, right answers. We may run across one of them any day. Anyhow, since you’re willing to give me a hand with it in your off-watch time, I’m game to peck away at it till hell freezes.”* * *
Lentz puttered around the plant and the administration center for several days, until he was known to everyone by sight. He made himself pleasant and asked questions. He was soon regarded as a harmless nuisance, to be tolerated because he was a friend of the superintendent. He even poked his nose into the commercial power end of the plant, and had the mercury-steam-turbogenerator sequence explained to him in detail. This alone would have been sufficient to disarm any suspicion that he might be a psychiatrist, for the staff psychiatrists paid no attention to the hard-bitten technicians of the power-conversion unit. There was no need to; mental instability on their part could not affect the bomb, nor were they subject to the man-killing strain of social responsibility. Theirs was simply a job personally dangerous, a type of strain strong men have been inured to since the jungle.
In due course he got around to the unit of the radiation laboratory set aside for Calvin Harper’s use. He rang the bell and waited. Harper answered the door, his antiradiation helmet shoved back from his face like a grotesque sunbonnet. “What is it?” he asked. “Oh—it’s you, Dr. Lentz. Did you want to see me?”
“Why, yes and no,” the older man answered. “I was just looking around the experimental station, and wondered what you do in here. Will I be in the way?”
“Not at all. Come in. Gus!”
Erickson got up from where he had been fussing over the power leads to their trigger—a modified cyclotron rather than a resonant accelerator. “Hello.”
“Gus, this is Dr. Lentz—Gus Erickson.”
“We’ve met,” said Erickson, pulling off his gauntlet to shake hands. He had had a couple of drinks with Lentz in town and considered him a “nice old duck.” “You’re just between shows, but stick around and we’ll start another run—not that there is much to see.”
While Erickson continued with the setup, Harper conducted Lentz around the laboratory, explaining the line of research they were conducting, as happy as a father showing off twins. The psychiatrist listened with one ear and made appropriate comments while he studied the young scientist for signs of the instability he had noted to be recorded against him.
“You see,” Harper explained, oblivious to the interest in himself, “we are testing radioactive materials to see if we can produce disintegration of the sort that takes place in the bomb, but in a minute, almost microscopic, mass. If we are successful, we can use the power of the bomb to make a safe, convenient, atomic fuel for rockets.” He went on to explain their schedule of experimentation.
“I see,” Lentz observed politely. “What metal are you examining now?”
Harper told him. “But it’s not a case of examining one element—we’ve finished Isotope II with negative results. Our schedule calls next for running the same test on Isotope V. Like this.” He hauled out a lead capsule, and showed the label to Lentz, who saw that it was, indeed, marked with the symbol of the fifth isotope. He hurried away to the shield around the target of the cyclotron, left open by Erickson. Lentz saw that he had opened the capsule, and was performing some operation on it in a gingerly manner, having first lowered his helmet. Then he closed and clamped the target shield.
“O.K., Gus?” he called out. “Ready to roll?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Erickson assured him, coming around them. They crowded behind a thick metal shield that cut them off from direct sight of the setup.
“Will I need to put on armor?” inquired Lentz.
“No,” Erickson reassured him, “we wear it because we are around the stuff day in and day out. You just stay behind the shield and you’ll be all right. It’s lead—backed up by eight inches of case-hardened armor plate.”
Erickson glanced at Harper, who nodded, and fixed his eyes on a panel of instruments mounted behind the shield. Lentz saw Erickson press a push button at the top of the board, then heard a series of relays click on the far side of the shield. There was a short moment of silence.
The floor slapped his feet like some incredible bastinado. The concussion that beat on his ears was so intense that it paralyzed the auditory nerve almost before it could be recorded as sound. The air-conducted concussion wave flailed every inch of his body with a single, stinging, numbing blow. As he picked himself up, he found he was trembling uncontrollably and realized, for the first time, that he was getting old.
Harper was seated on the floor and had commenced to bleed from the nose. Erickson had gotten up; his cheek was cut. He touched a hand to the wound, then stood there, regarding the blood on his fingers with a puzzled expression on his face.
“Are you hurt?” Lentz inquired inanely. “What happened?”
Harper cut in. “Gus, we’ve done it! We’ve done it! Isotope V’s turned the trick!”
Erickson looked still more bemused. “Five?” he said stupidly. “But that wasn’t Five; that was Isotope II. I put it in myself.”
“You put it in? I put it in! It was Five, I tell you!”
They stood staring at each other, still confused by the explosion, and each a little annoyed at the bone-headed stupidity the other displayed in the face of the obvious. Lentz diffidently interceded.
“Wait a minute, boys,” he suggested. “Maybe there’s a reason—Gus, you placed a quantity of the second isotope in the receiver?”
“Why, yes, certainly. I wasn’t satisfied with the last run, and I wanted to check it.”
Lentz nodded. “It’s my fault, gentlemen,” he admitted ruefully. “I came in and disturbed your routine, and both of you charged the receiver. I know Harper did, for I saw him do it—with Isotope V. I’m sorry.”
Understanding broke over Harper’s face, and he slapped the older man on the shoulder. “Don’t be sorry,” he laughed; “you can come around to our lab and help us make mistakes any time you feel in the mood. Can’t he, Gus? This is the answer, Dr. Lentz; this is it!”
“But,” the psychiatrist pointed out, “you don’t know which isotope blew up.”
“Nor care,” Harper supplemented. “Maybe it was both, taken together. But we will know—this business is cracked now; we’ll soon have it open.” He gazed happily around at the wreckage.* * *
In spite of Superintendent King’s anxiety, Lentz refused to be hurried in passing judgment on the situation. Consequently, when he did present himself at King’s office, and announced that he was ready to report, King was pleasantly surprised as well as relieved. “Well, I’m delighted,” he said. “Sit down, Doctor, sit down. Have a cigar. What do we do about it?”
But Lentz stuck to his perennial cigarette and refused to be hurried. “I must have some information first. How important,” he demanded, “is the power from your plant?”
King understood the implication at once. “If you are thinking about shutting down the bomb for more than a limited period, it can’t be done.”
“Why not? If the figures supplied me are correct, your output is less than thirteen percent of the total power used in the country.”
“Yes, that is true, but you haven’t considered the items that go into making up the total. A lot of it is domestic power, which householders get from sunscreens located on their own roofs. Another big slice is power for the moving roadways—that’s sunpower again. The portion we provide here is the main power source for most of the heavy industries—steel, plastics, lithics, all kinds of manufacturing and processing. You might as well cut the heart out of a man—”
“But the food industry isn’t basically dependent on you?” Lentz persisted.
“No. Food isn’t basically a power industry—although we do supply a certain percentage of the power used in processing. I see your point, and will go on and concede that transportation—that is to say, distribution of food—could get along without us. But, good heavens, Doctor, you can’t stop atomic power without causing the biggest panic this country has ever seen. It’s the keystone of our whole industrial system.”
“The country has lived through panics before, and we got past the oil shortage safely.”
“Yes—because atomic power came along to take the place of oil. You don’t realize what this would mean, Doctor. It would be worse than a war; in a system like ours, one thing depends on another. If you cut off the heavy industries all at once, everything else stops, too.”
“Nevertheless, you had better dump the bomb.” The uranium in the bomb was molten, its temperature being greater than twenty-four hundred degrees centigrade. The bomb could be dumped into a group of small containers, when it was desired to shut it down. The mass in any one container was too small to maintain progressive atomic disintegration.
King glanced involuntarily at the glass-inclosed relay mounted on his office wall, by which he, as well as the engineer on duty, could dump the bomb, if need be. “But I couldn’t do that—or rather, if I did, the plant wouldn’t stay shut down. The Directors would simply replace me with someone who would operate the bomb.”
“You’re right, of course.” Lentz silently considered the situation for some time, then said, “Superintendent, will you order a car to fly me back to Chicago?”
“You’re going, Doctor?”
“Yes.” He took the cigarette holder from his face, and, for once, the smile of Olympian detachment was gone completely. His entire manner was sober, even tragic. “Short of shutting down the bomb, there is no solution to your problem—none whatsoever!
“I owe you a full explanation.” Lentz continued, at length. “You are confronted here with recurring instances of situational psychoneurosis. Roughly, the symptoms manifest themselves as anxiety neurosis or some form of hysteria. The partial amnesia of your secretary, Steinke, is a good example of the latter. He might be cured with shock technique, but it would hardly be a kindness, as he has achieved a stable adjustment which puts him beyond the reach of the strain he could not stand.
“That other young fellow, Harper, whose blowup was the immediate cause of your sending for me, is an anxiety case. When the cause of the anxiety was eliminated from his matrix, he at once regained full sanity. But keep a close watch on his friend, Erickson—
“However, it is the cause, and prevention, of situational psychoneurosis we are concerned with here, rather than the forms in which it is manifested. In plain language, psychoneurosis situational simply refers to the common fact that, if you put a man in a situation that worries him more than he can stand, in time he blows up, one way or another.
“That is precisely the situation here. You take sensitive, intelligent young men, impress them with the fact that a single slip on their part, or even some fortuitous circumstance beyond their control, will result in the death of God knows how many other people, and then expect them to remain sane. It’s ridiculous—impossible!”
“But, good heavens, Doctor, there must be some answer! There must!” He got up and paced around the room. Lentz noted, with pity, that King himself was riding the ragged edge of the very condition they were discussing.
“No,” he said slowly. “No. Let me explain. You don’t dare intrust the bomb to less sensitive, less socially conscious men. You might as well turn the controls over to a mindless idiot. And to psychoneurosis situational there are but two cures. The first obtains when the psychosis results from a misevaluation of environment. That cure calls for semantic readjustment. One assists the patient to evaluate correctly his environment. The worry disappears because there never was a real reason for worry in the situation itself, but simply in the wrong meaning the patient’s mind had assigned to it.
“The second case is when the patient has correctly evaluated the situation, and rightly finds in it cause for extreme worry. His worry is perfectly sane and proper, but he cannot stand up under it indefinitely; it drives him crazy. The only possible cure is to change the situation. I have stayed here long enough to assure myself that such is the condition here. Your engineers have correctly evaluated the public danger of this bomb, and it will, with dreadful certainty, drive all of you crazy!
“The only possible solution is to dump the bomb—and leave it dumped.”
King had continued his nervous pacing of the floor, as if the walls of the room itself were the cage of his dilemma. Now he stopped and appealed once more to the psychiatrist. “Isn’t there anything I can do?”
“Nothing to cure. To alleviate—well, possibly.”
“How?”
“Situational psychosis results from adrenaline exhaustion. When a man is placed under a nervous strain, his adrenal glands increase their secretion to help compensate for the strain. If the strain is too great and lasts too long, the adrenals aren’t equal to the task, and he cracks. That is what you have here. Adrenaline therapy might stave off a mental breakdown, but it most assuredly would hasten a physical breakdown. But that would be safer from a viewpoint of public welfare—even though it assumes that physicists are expendable!
“Another thing occurs to me: If you selected any new watch engineers from the membership of churches that practice the confessional, it would increase the length of their usefulness.”
King was plainly surprised. “I don’t follow you.”
“The patient unloads most of his worry on his confessor, who is not himself actually confronted by the situation, and can stand it. That is simply an ameliorative, however. I am convinced that, in this situation, eventual insanity is inevitable. But there is a lot of good sense in the confessional,” he added. “It fills a basic human need. I think that is why the early psychoanalysts were so surprisingly successful, for all their limited knowledge.” He fell silent for a while, then added, “If you will be so kind as to order a stratocab for me—”
“You’ve nothing more to suggest?”
“No. You had better turn your psychological staff loose on means of alleviation; they’re able men, all of them.”
King pressed a switch and spoke briefly to Steinke. Turning back to Lentz, he said, “You’ll wait here until your car is ready?”
Lentz judged correctly that King desired it and agreed. Presently the tube delivery on King’s desk went ping! The Superintendent removed a small white pasteboard, a calling card. He studied it with surprise and passed it over to Lentz. “I can’t imagine why he should be calling on me,” he observed, and added, “Would you like to meet him?”
Lentz read:
THOMAS P. HARRINGTON captain (mathematics) united states navy
director u.s. naval observatory
“But I do know him,” he said. “I’d be very pleased to see him.”
Harrington was a man with something on his mind. He seemed relieved when Steinke had finished ushering him in, and had returned to the outer office. He commenced to speak at once, turning to Lentz, who was nearer to him than King. “You’re King? . . . Why, Dr. Lentz! What are you doing here?”
“Visiting,” answered Lentz, accurately but incompletely, as he shook hands. “This is Superintendent King over here. Superintendent King—Captain Harrington.”
“How do you do, Captain—it’s a pleasure to have you here.”
“It’s an honor to be here, sir.”
“Sit down?”
“Thanks.” He accepted a chair and laid a briefcase on a corner of King’s desk. “Superintendent, you are entitled to an explanation as to why I have broken in on you like this—”
“Glad to have you.” In fact, the routine of formal politeness was an anodyne to King’s frayed nerves.
“That’s kind of you, but— That secretary chap, the one that brought me in here, would it be too much to ask you to tell him to forget my name? I know it seems strange—”
“Not at all.” King was mystified, but willing to grant any reasonable request of a distinguished colleague in science. He summoned Steinke to the interoffice visiphone and gave him his orders.
Lentz stood up and indicated that he was about to leave. He caught Harrington’s eye. “I think you want a private palaver, Captain.”
King looked from Harrington to Lentz and back to Harrington. The astronomer showed momentary indecision, then protested: “I have no objection at all myself; it’s up to Dr. King. As a matter of fact,” he added, “it might be a very good thing if you did sit in on it.”
“I don’t know what it is, Captain,” observed King, “that you want to see me about, but Dr. Lentz is already here in a confidential capacity.”
“Good! Then that’s settled. I’ll get right down to business. Dr. King, you know Destry’s mechanics of infinitesimals?”
“Naturally.” Lentz cocked a brow at King, who chose to ignore it.
“Yes, of course. Do you remember theorem six and the transformation between equations thirteen and fourteen?”
“I think so, but I’d want to see them.” King got up and went over to a bookcase. Harrington stayed him with a hand.
“Don’t bother. I have them here.” He hauled out a key, unlocked his briefcase, and drew out a large, much-thumbed, loose-leaf notebook. “Here. You, too, Dr. Lentz. Are you familiar with this development?”
Lentz nodded. “I’ve had occasion to look into them.”
“Good—I think it’s agreed that the step between thirteen and fourteen is the key to the whole matter. Now, the change from thirteen to fourteen looks perfectly valid—and would be, in some fields. But suppose we expand it to show every possible phase of the matter, every link in the chain of reasoning.”
He turned a page and showed them the same two equations broken down into nine intermediate equations. He placed a finger under an associated group of mathematical symbols. “Do you see that? Do you see what that implies?” He peered anxiously at their faces.
King studied it, his lips moving. “Yes . . . I believe I do see. Odd . . . I never looked at it just that way before—yet I’ve studied those equations until I’ve dreamed about them.” He turned to Lentz. “Do you agree, Doctor?”
Lentz nodded slowly. “I believe so. . . . Yes, I think I may say so.”
Harrington should have been pleased; he wasn’t. “I had hoped you could tell me I was wrong,” he said, almost petulantly, “but I’m afraid there is no further doubt about it. Dr. Destry included an assumption valid in molar physics, but for which we have absolutely no assurance in atomic physics. I suppose you realize what this means to you, Dr. King?”
King’s voice was dry whisper. “Yes,” he said, “yes— It means that if that bomb out there ever blows up, we must assume that it will go up all at once, rather than the way Destry predicted—and God help the human race!”
Captain Harrington cleared his throat to break the silence that followed. “Superintendent,” he said, “I would not have ventured to call had it been simply a matter of disagreement as to interpretation of theoretical predictions—”
“You have something more to go on?”
“Yes and no. Probably you gentlemen think of the Naval Observatory as being exclusively preoccupied with ephemerides and tide tables. In a way you would be right—but we still have some time to devote to research as long as it doesn’t cut into the appropriation. My special interest has always been lunar theory.
“I don’t mean lunar ballistics,” he continued. “I mean the much more interesting problem of its origin and history, the problem the younger Darwin struggled with, as well as my illustrious predecessor, Captain T. J. J. See. I think that it is obvious that any theory of lunar origin and history must take into account the surface features of the Moon—especially the mountains, the craters, that mark its face so prominently.”
He paused momentarily, and Superintendent King put in: “Just a minute, Captain—I may be stupid, or perhaps I missed something, but—is there a connection between what we were discussing before and lunar theory?”
“Bear with me for a few moments, Dr. King,” Harrington apologized. “There is a connection—at least, I’m afraid there is a connection—but I would rather present my points in their proper order before making my conclusions.” They granted him an alert silence; he went on:
“Although we are in the habit of referring to the ‘craters’ of the Moon, we know they are not volcanic craters. Superficially, they follow none of the rules of terrestrial volcanoes in appearance or distribution, but when Rutter came out in 1952 with his monograph on the dynamics of vulcanology, he proved rather conclusively that the lunar craters could not be caused by anything that we know as volcanic action.
“That left the bombardment theory as the simplest hypothesis. It looks good, on the face of it, and a few minutes spent throwing pebbles into a patch of mud will convince anyone that the lunar craters could have been formed by falling meteors.
“But there are difficulties. If the Moon was struck so repeatedly, why not the Earth? It hardly seems necessary to mention that the Earth’s atmosphere would be no protection against masses big enough to form craters like Endymion or Plato. And if they fell after the Moon was a dead world while the Earth was still young enough to change its face and erase the marks of bombardment, why did the meteors avoid so nearly completely the great dry basins we call lunar seas?
“I want to cut this short; you’ll find the data and the mathematical investigations from the data here in my notes. There is one other major objection to the meteor-bombardment theory: the great rays that spread from Tycho across almost the entire surface of the Moon. It makes the Moon look like a crystal ball that had been struck with a hammer, and impact from outside seems evident, but there are difficulties. The striking mass, our hypothetical meteor, must be small enough to have formed the crater of Tycho, but it must have the mass and speed to crack an entire planet.
“Work it out for yourself—you must either postulate a chunk out of the core of a dwarf star, or speeds such as we have never observed within the system. It’s conceivable but a farfetched explanation.”
He turned to King. “Doctor, does anything occur to you that might account for a phenomenon like Tycho?”
The Superintendent grasped the arms of his chair, then glanced at his palms. He fumbled for a handkerchief, and wiped them. “Go ahead,” he said, almost inaudibly.
“Very well then.” Harrington drew out of his briefcase a large photograph of the Moon—a beautiful full-Moon portrait made at Lick. “I want you to imagine the Moon as she might have been sometime in the past. The dark areas we call the ‘seas’ are actual oceans. It has an atmosphere, perhaps a heavier gas than oxygen and nitrogen, but an active gas, capable of supporting some conceivable form of life.
“For this is an inhabited planet, inhabited by intelligent beings, beings capable of discovering atomic power and exploiting it!”
He pointed out on the photograph, near the southern limb, the lime-white circle of Tycho, with its shining, incredible, thousand-mile-long rays spreading, thrusting, jutting out from it. “Here . . . here at Tycho was located their main power plant.” He moved his fingers to a point near the equator and somewhat east of meridian—the point where three great dark areas merged, Mare Nubium, Mare Imbrium, Oceanus Procellarum—and picked out two bright splotches surrounded, also, by rays, but shorter, less distinct, and wavy. “And here at Copernicus and at Kepler, on islands at the middle of a great ocean, were secondary power stations.”
He paused, and interpolated soberly: “Perhaps they knew the danger they ran, but wanted power so badly that they were willing to gamble the life of their race. Perhaps they were ignorant of the ruinous possibilities of their little machines, or perhaps their mathematicians assured them that it could not happen.
“But we will never know—no one can ever know. For it blew up and killed them—and it killed their planet.
“It whisked off the gassy envelope and blew it into outer space. It blasted great chunks off the planet’s crust. Perhaps some of that escaped completely, too, but all that did not reach the speed of escape fell back down in time and splashed great ring-shaped craters in the land.
“The oceans cushioned the shock; only the more massive fragments formed craters through the water. Perhaps some life still remained in those ocean depths. If so, it was doomed to die—for the water, unprotected by atmospheric pressure, could not remain liquid and must inevitably escape in time to outer space. Its life-blood drained away. The planet was dead—dead by suicide!”
He met the grave eyes of his two silent listeners with an expression almost of appeal. “Gentlemen . . . this is only a theory, I realize . . . only a theory, a dream, a nightmare . . . but it has kept me awake so many nights that I had to come tell you about it, and see if you saw it the same way I do. As for the mechanics of it, it’s all in there in my notes. You can check it—and I pray that you find some error! But it is the only lunar theory I have examined which included all of the known data and accounted for all of them.”
He appeared to have finished. Lentz spoke up. “Suppose, Captain, suppose we check your mathematics and find no flaw—what then?”
Harrington flung out his hands. “That’s what I came here to find out!”
Although Lentz had asked the question, Harrington directed the appeal to King. The Superintendent looked up; his eyes met the astronomer’s, wavered and dropped again. “There’s nothing to be done,” he said dully, “nothing at all.”
Harrington stared at him in open amazement. “But good God, man!” he burst out. “Don’t you see it? That bomb has got to be disassembled—at once!”
“Take it easy, Captain.” Lentz’s calm voice was a spray of cold water. “And don’t be too harsh on poor King—this worries him even more than it does you. What he means is this: We’re not faced with a problem in physics, but with a political and economic situation. Let’s put it this way: King can no more dump the bomb than a peasant with a vineyard on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius can abandon his holdings and pauperize his family simply because there will be an eruption some day.
“King doesn’t own that bomb out there; he’s only the custodian. If he dumps it against the wishes of the legal owners, they’ll simply oust him and put in someone more amenable. No, we have to convince the owners.”
“The President could do it,” suggested Harrington. “I could get to the President—”
“No doubt you could, through the Navy Department. And you might even convince him. But could he help much?”
“Why, of course he could. He’s the President!”
“Wait a minute. You’re Director of the Naval Observatory; suppose you took a sledge hammer and tried to smash the big telescope—how far would you get?”
“Not very far,” Harrington conceded. “We guard the big fellow pretty closely.”
“Nor can the President act in an arbitrary manner,” Lentz persisted. “He’s not an unlimited monarch. If he shuts down this plant without due process of law, the Federal courts will tie him in knots. I admit that Congress isn’t helpless but—would you like to try to give a congressional committee a course in the mechanics of infinitesimals?”
Harrington readily stipulated the point. “But there is another way,” he pointed out. “Congress is responsive to public opinion. What we need to do is to convince the public that the bomb is a menace to everybody. That could be done without ever trying to explain things in terms of higher mathematics.”
“Certainly it could,” Lentz agreed. “You could go on the air with it and scare everybody half to death. You could create the damnedest panic this slightly slug-nutty country has ever seen. No, thank you. I, for one, would rather have us all take the chance of being quietly killed than bring on a mass psychosis that would destroy the culture we are building up. I think one taste of the Crazy Years is enough.”
“Well, then, what do you suggest?”
Lentz considered shortly, then answered: “All I see is a forlorn hope. We’ve got to work on the Board of Directors and try to beat some sense into their heads.”
King, who had been following the discussion with attention in spite of his tired despondence, interjected a remark: “How would you go about that?”
“I don’t know,” Lentz admitted. “It will take some thinking. But it seems the most fruitful line of approach. If it doesn’t work, we can always fall back on Harrington’s notion of publicity—I don’t insist that the world commit suicide to satisfy my criteria of evaluation.”
Harrington glanced at his wristwatch—a bulky affair—and whistled. “Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “I forgot the time! I’m supposed officially to be at the Flagstaff Observatory.”
King had automatically noted the time shown by the Captain’s watch as it was displayed. “But it can’t be that late,” he had objected. Harrington looked puzzled, then laughed.
“It isn’t—not by two hours. We are in zone plus-seven; this shows zone plus-five—it’s radio-synchronized with the master clock at Washington.”
“Did you say radio-synchronized?”
“Yes. Clever, isn’t it?” He held it out for inspection. “I call it a telechronometer; it’s the only one of its sort to date. My nephew designed it for me. He’s a bright one, that boy. He’ll go far. That is”—his face clouded, as if the little interlude had only served to emphasize the tragedy that hung over them—”if any of us live that long!”
A signal light glowed at King’s desk, and Steinke’s face showed on the communicator screen. King answered him, then said, “Your car is ready, Dr. Lentz.”
“Let Captain Harrington have it.”
“Then you’re not going back to Chicago?”
“No. The situation has changed. If you want me, I’m stringing along.”* * *
The following Friday, Steinke ushered Lentz into King’s office. King looked almost happy as he shook hands. “When did you ground, Doctor? I didn’t expect you back for another hour or so.”
“Just now. I hired a cab instead of waiting for the shuttle.”
“Any luck?”
“None. The same answer they gave you: ‘The Company is assured by independent experts that Destry’s mechanics is valid, and sees no reason to encourage an hysterical attitude among its employees.'”
King tapped on his desk top, his eyes unfocused. Then, hitching himself around to face Lentz directly, he said, “Do you suppose the Chairman is right?”
“How?”
“Could the three of us—you, me and Harrington—have gone off the deep end—slipped mentally?”
No.
“You’re sure?”
“Certainly. I looked up some independent experts of my own, not retained by the Company, and had them check Harrington’s work. It checks.” Lentz purposely neglected to mention that he had done so partly because he was none too sure of King’s present mental stability.
King sat up briskly, reached out and stabbed a push button. “I am going to make one more try,” he explained, “to see if I can’t throw a scare into Dixon’s thick head. Steinke,” he said to the communicator, “get me Mr. Dixon on the screen.”
“Yes, sir.”
In about two minutes the visiphone screen came to life and showed the features of Chairman Dixon. He was transmitting, not from his office, but from the board room of the Company in Jersey City. “Yes?” he said. “What is it, Superintendent?” His manner was somehow both querulous and affable.
“Mr. Dixon,” King began, “I’ve called to try to impress on you the seriousness of the Company’s action. I stake my scientific reputation that Harrington has proved completely that—”
“Oh, that? Mr. King, I thought you understood that that was a closed matter.”
“But, Mr. Dixon—”
“Superintendent, please! If there were any possible legitimate cause to fear, do you think I would hesitate? I have children, you know, and grandchildren.”
“That is just why—”
“We try to conduct the affairs of the company with reasonable wisdom and in the public interest. But we have other responsibilities, too. There are hundreds of thousands of little stockholders who expect us to show a reasonable return on their investment. You must not expect us to jettison a billion-dollar corporation just because you’ve taken up astrology! Moon theory!” He sniffed.
“Very well, Mr. Chairman.” King’s tone was stiff.
“Don’t take it that way, Mr. King. I’m glad you called—the Board has just adjourned a special meeting. They have decided to accept you for retirement—with full pay, of course.”
“I did not apply for retirement!”
“I know, Mr. King, but the Board feels that—”
“I understand. Good-by!”
“Mr. King—”
“Good-by!” He switched him off, and turned to Lentz. “‘—with full pay,'” he quoted, “which I can enjoy in any way that I like for the rest of my life—just as happy as a man in the death house!”
“Exactly,” Lentz agreed. “Well, we’ve tried our way. I suppose we should call up Harrington now and let him try the political and publicity method.”
“I suppose so,” King seconded absentmindedly. “Will you be leaving for Chicago now?”
“No,” said Lentz. “No . . . I think I will catch the shuttle for Los Angeles and take the evening rocket for the antipodes.”
King looked surprised, but said nothing. Lentz answered the unspoken comment. “Perhaps some of us on the other side of the Earth will survive. I’ve done all that I can here. I would rather be a live sheepherder in Australia than a dead psychiatrist in Chicago.”
King nodded vigorously, “That shows horse sense. For two cents, I’d dump the bomb now and go with you.”
“Not horse sense, my friend—a horse will run back into a burning barn, which is exactly not what I plan to do. Why don’t you do it and come along? If you did, it would help Harrington to scare ’em to death.”
“I believe I will!”
Steinke’s face appeared again on the screen. “Harper and Erickson are here, chief.”
“I’m busy.
“They are pretty urgent about seeing you.”
“Oh . . . all right,” King said in a tired voice. “Show them in. It doesn’t matter.”
They breezed in, Harper in the van. He commenced talking at once, oblivious to the Superintendent’s morose preoccupation. “We’ve got it, chief, we’ve got it—and it all checks out to the umpteenth decimal!”
“You’ve got what? Speak English.”
Harper grinned. He was enjoying his moment of triumph, and was stretching it out to savor it. “Chief, do you remember a few weeks back when I asked for an additional allotment—a special one without specifying how I was going to spend it?”
“Yes. Come on—get to the point.”
“You kicked at first, but finally granted it. Remember? Well, we’ve got something to show for it, all tied up in pink ribbon. It’s the greatest advance in radioactivity since Hahn split the nucleus. Atomic fuel, chief, atomic fuel, safe, concentrated, and controllable. Suitable for rockets, for power plants, for any damn thing you care to use it for.”
King showed alert interest for the first time. “You mean a power source that doesn’t require the bomb?”
“The bomb? Oh, no. I didn’t say that. You use the bomb to make the fuel, then you use the fuel anywhere and anyhow you like, with something like ninety-two percent recovery of the energy of the bomb. But you could junk the mercury-steam sequence, if you wanted to.”
King’s first wild hope of a way out of his dilemma was dashed; he subsided. “Go ahead. Tell me about it.”
“Well—it’s a matter of artificial radioactives. Just before I asked for that special research allotment, Erickson and I—Dr. Lentz had a finger in it, too—found two isotopes of a radioactive that seemed to be mutually antagonistic. That is, when we goosed ’em in the presence of each other they gave up their latent energy all at once—blew all to hell. The important point is, we were using just a gnat’s whisker of mass of each—the reaction didn’t require a big mass like the bomb to maintain it.”
“I don’t see,” objected King, “how that could—”
“Neither do we, quite—but it works. We’ve kept it quiet until we were sure. We checked on what we had, and we found a dozen other fuels. Probably we’ll be able to tailormake fuels for any desired purpose. But here it is.” Harper handed King a bound sheaf of typewritten notes which he had been carrying under the arm. “That’s your copy. Look it over.”
King started to do so. Lentz joined him, after a look that was a silent request for permission, which Erickson had answered with his only verbal contribution, “Sure, Doc.”
As King read, the troubled feeling of an acutely harassed executive left him. His dominant personality took charge, that of the scientist. He enjoyed the controlled and cerebral ecstasy of the impersonal seeker for the elusive truth. The emotions felt in the throbbing thalamus were permitted only to form a sensuous obligato for the cold flame of cortical activity. For the time being, he was sane, more nearly completely sane than most men ever achieve at any time.
For a long period there was only an occasional grunt, the clatter of turned pages, a nod of approval. At last he put it down.
“It’s the stuff,” he said. “You’ve done it, boys. It’s great; I’m proud of you.”
Erickson glowed a bright pink and swallowed. Harper’s small, tense figure gave the ghost of a wriggle, reminiscent of a wire-haired terrier receiving approval. “That’s fine, chief. We’d rather hear you say that than get the Nobel Prize.”
“I think you’ll probably get it. However”—the proud light in his eyes died down—”I’m not going to take any action in this matter.”
“Why not, chief?” Harper’s tone was bewildered.
“I’m being retired. My successor will take over in the near future; this is too big a matter to start just before a change in administration.”
“You being retired! What the hell! Why?“
“About the same reason I took you off the bomb—at least, the Directors think so.”
“But that’s nonsense! You were right to take me off the bomb; I was getting jumpy. But you’re another matter—we all depend on you.”
“Thanks, Cal—but that’s how it is; there’s nothing to be done about it.” He turned to Lentz. “I think this is the last ironical touch needed to make the whole thing pure farce,” he observed bitterly. “This thing is big, bigger than we can guess at this stage—and I have to give it a miss.”
“Well,” Harper burst out, “I can think of something to do about it!” He strode over to King’s desk and snatched up the manuscript. “Either you superintend the exploitation or the company will damn well get along without our discovery!” Erickson concurred belligerently.
“Wait a minute.” Lentz had the floor. “Dr. Harper, have you already achieved a practical rocket fuel?”
“I said so. We’ve got it on hand now.”
“An escape-speed fuel?” They understood his verbal shorthand—a fuel that would lift a rocket free of the Earth’s gravitational pull.
“Sure. Why, you could take any of the Clipper rockets, refit them a trifle, and have breakfast on the Moon.”
“Very well. Bear with me—” He obtained a sheet of paper from King and commenced to write. They watched in mystified impatience. He continued briskly for some minutes, hesitating only momentarily. Presently he stopped and spun the paper over to King. “Solve it!” he demanded.
King studied the paper. Lentz had assigned symbols to a great number of factors, some social, some psychological, some physical, some economical. He had thrown them together into a structural relationship, using the symbols of calculus of statement. King understood the paramathematical operations indicated by the symbols, but he was not as used to them as he was to the symbols and operations of mathematical physics. He plowed through the equations, moving his lips slightly in unconscious subvocalization.
He accepted a pencil from Lentz and completed the solution. It required several more lines, a few more equations, before the elements canceled out, or rearranged themselves, into a definite answer.
He stared at this answer while puzzlement gave way to dawning comprehension and delight.
He looked up. “Erickson! Harper!” he rapped out. “We will take your new fuel, refit a large rocket, install the bomb in it, and throw it into an orbit around the Earth, far out in space. There we will use it to make more fuel, safe fuel, for use on Earth, with the danger from the bomb itself limited to the operators actually on watch!”
There was no applause. It was not that sort of an idea; their minds were still struggling with the complex implications.
“But, chief,” Harper finally managed, “how about your retirement? We’re still not going to stand for it.”
“Don’t worry,” King assured him. “It’s all in there, implicit in those equations, you two, me, Lentz, the Board of Directors—and just what we all have to do to accomplish it.”
“All except the matter of time,” Lentz cautioned.
“Eh?”
“You’ll note that elapsed time appears in your answer as an undetermined unknown.”
“Yes . . . yes, of course. That’s the chance we have to take. Let’s get busy!”* * *
Chairman Dixon called the Board of Directors to order. “This being a special meeting, we’ll dispense with minutes and reports,” he announced. “As set forth in the call we have agreed to give the retiring superintendent three hours of our time.”
“Mr. Chairman—”
“Yes, Mr. Thornton?”
“I thought we had settled that matter.”
“We have, Mr. Thornton, but in view of Superintendent King’s long and distinguished service, if he asks a hearing, we are honor bound to grant it. You have the floor, Dr. King.”
King got up and stated briefly, “Dr. Lentz will speak for me.” He sat down.
Lentz had to wait till coughing, throat clearing and scraping of chairs subsided. It was evident that the board resented the outsider.
Lentz ran quickly over the main points in the argument which contended that the bomb presented an intolerable danger anywhere on the face of the Earth. He moved on at once to the alternative proposal that the bomb should be located in a rocketship, an artificial moonlet flying in a free orbit around the Earth at a convenient distance—say, fifteen thousand miles—while secondary power stations on earth burned a safe fuel manufactured by the bomb.
He announced the discovery of the Harper-Erickson technique and dwelt on what it meant to them commercially. Each point was presented as persuasively as possible, with the full power of his engaging personality. Then he paused and waited for them to blow off steam.
They did. “Visionary—” “Unproved—” “No essential change in the situation—” The substance of it was that they were very happy to hear of the new fuel, but not particularly impressed by it. Perhaps in another twenty years, after it had been thoroughly tested and proved commercially, and provided enough uranium had been mined to build another bomb, they might consider setting up another power station outside the atmosphere. In the meantime there was no hurry.
Lentz patiently and politely dealt with their objections. He emphasized the increasing incidence of occupational psychoneurosis among the engineers and grave danger to everyone near the bomb even under the orthodox theory. He reminded them of their insurance and indemnity-bond costs, and of the “squeeze” they paid State politicians.
Then he changed his tone and let them have it directly and brutally. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we believe that we are fighting for our lives—our own lives, our families and every life on the globe. If you refuse this compromise, we will fight as fiercely and with as little regard for fair play as any cornered animal.” With that he made his first move in attack.
It was quite simple. He offered for their inspection the outline of a propaganda campaign on a national scale, such as any major advertising firm should carry out as matter of routine. It was complete to the last detail, television broadcasts, spot plugs, newspaper and magazine coverage and—most important—a supporting whispering campaign and a letters-to-Congress organization. Every businessman there knew from experience how such things worked.
But its object was to stir up fear of the bomb and to direct that fear, not into panic, but into rage against the Board of Directors personally, and into a demand that the government take action to have the bomb removed to outer space.
“This is blackmail! We’ll stop you!”
“I think not,” Lentz replied gently. “You may be able to keep us out of some of the newspapers, but you can’t stop the rest of it. You can’t even keep us off the air—ask the Federal Communications Commission.” It was true. Harrington had handled the political end and had performed his assignment well; the President was convinced.
Tempers were snapping on all sides; Dixon had to pound for order. “Dr. Lentz,” he said, his own temper under taut control, “you plan to make every one of us appear a blackhearted scoundrel with no other thought than personal profit, even at the expense of the lives of others. You know that is not true; this is a simple difference of opinion as to what is wise.”
“I did not say it was true,” Lentz admitted blandly, “but you will admit that I can convince the public that you are deliberate villains. As to it being a difference of opinion—you are none of you atomic physicists; you are not entitled to hold opinions in this matter.
“As a matter of fact,” he went on callously, “the only doubt in my mind is whether or not an enraged public will destroy your precious power plant before Congress has time to exercise eminent domain and take it away from you!”
Before they had time to think up arguments in answer and ways of circumventing him, before their hot indignation had cooled and set as stubborn resistance, he offered his gambit. He produced another layout for a propaganda campaign—an entirely different sort.
This time the Board of Directors was to be built up, not torn down. All of the same techniques were to be used; behind-the-scenes feature articles with plenty of human interest would describe the functions of the company, describe it as a great public trust, administered by patriotic, unselfish statesmen of the business world. At the proper point in the campaign, the Harper-Erickson fuel would be announced, not as a semi-accidental result of the initiative of two employees, but as the long-expected end product of years of systematic research conducted under a fixed policy growing naturally out of their humane determination to remove forever the menace of explosion from even the sparsely settled Arizona desert.
No mention was to be made of the danger of complete, planet-embracing catastrophe.
Lentz discussed it. He dwelt on the appreciation that would be due them from a grateful world. He invited them to make a noble sacrifice and, with subtle misdirection, tempted them to think of themselves as heroes. He deliberately played on one of the most deep-rooted of simian instincts, the desire for approval from one’s kind, deserved or not.
All the while he was playing for time, as he directed his attention from one hard case, one resistant mind, to another. He soothed and he tickled and he played on personal foibles. For the benefit of the timorous and the devoted family men, he again painted a picture of the suffering, death and destruction that might result from their well-meant reliance on the unproved and highly questionable predictions of Destry’s mathematics. Then he described in glowing detail a picture of a world free from worry but granted almost unlimited power, safe power from an invention which was theirs for this one small concession.
It worked. They did not reverse themselves all at once, but a committee was appointed to investigate the feasibility of the proposed spaceship power plant. By sheer brass Lentz suggested names for the committee and Dixon confirmed his nominations, not because he wished to, particularly, but because he was caught off guard and could not think of a reason to refuse without affronting the colleagues.
The impending retirement of King was not mentioned by either side. Privately, Lentz felt sure that it never would be mentioned.
It worked, but there was left much to do. For the first few days after the victory in committee, King felt much elated by the prospect of an early release from the soul-killing worry. He was buoyed up by pleasant demands of manifold new administrative duties. Harper and Erickson were detached to Goddard Field to collaborate with the rocket engineers there in design of firing chambers, nozzles, fuel stowage, fuel metering and the like. A schedule had to be worked out with the business office to permit as much power of the bomb as possible to be diverted to making atomic fuel, and a giant combustion chamber for atomic fuel had to be designed and ordered to replace the bomb itself during the interim between the time it was shut down on Earth and the later time when sufficient local, smaller plants could be built to carry the commercial load. He was busy.
When the first activity had died down and they were settled in a new routine, pending the shutting down of the bomb and its removal to outer space, King suffered an emotional reaction. There was, by then, nothing to do but wait, and tend the bomb, until the crew at Goddard Field smoothed out the bugs and produced a space-worthy rocketship.
They ran into difficulties, overcame them, and came across more difficulties. They had never used such high reaction velocities; it took many trials to find a nozzle shape that would give reasonably high efficiency. When that was solved, and success seemed in sight, the jets burned out on a time-trial ground test. They were stalemated for weeks over that hitch.
Back at the power plant Superintendent King could do nothing but chew his nails and wait. He had not even the release of running over to Goddard Field to watch the progress of the research, for, urgently as he desired to, he felt an even stronger, an overpowering compulsion to watch over the bomb lest it—heart-breakingly!—blow up at the last minute.
He took to hanging around the control room. He had to stop that; his unease communicated itself to his watch engineers; two of them cracked up in a single day—one of them on watch.
He must face the fact—there had been a grave upswing in psychoneurosis among his engineers since the period of watchful waiting had commenced. At first, they had tried to keep the essential facts of the plan a close secret, but it had leaked out, perhaps through some member of the investigating committee. He admitted to himself now that it had been a mistake ever to try to keep it secret—Lentz had advised against it, and the engineers not actually engaged in the changeover were bound to know that something was up.
He took all of the engineers into confidence at last, under oath of secrecy. That had helped for a week or more, a week in which they were all given a spiritual lift by the knowledge, as he had been. Then it had worn off, the reaction had set in, and psychological observers had started disqualifying engineers for duty almost daily. They were even reporting each other as mentally unstable with great frequency; he might even be faced with a shortage of psychiatrists if that kept up, he thought to himself with bitter amusement. His engineers were already standing four hours in every sixteen. If one more dropped out, he’d put himself on watch. That would be a relief, to tell himself the truth.
Somehow, some of the civilians around about and the nontechnical employees were catching on to the secret. That mustn’t go on—if it spread any farther there might be a nationwide panic. But how the hell could he stop it? He couldn’t.
He turned over in bed, rearranged his pillow, and tried once more to get to sleep. No soap. His head ached, his eyes were balls of pain, and his brain was a ceaseless grind of useless, repetitive activity, like a disk recording stuck in one groove.
God! This was unbearable! He wondered if he were cracking up—if he already had cracked up. This was worse, many times worse, than the old routine when he had simply acknowledged the danger and tried to forget it as much as possible. Not that the bomb was any different—it was this five-minutes-to-armistice feeling, this waiting for the curtain to go up, this race against time with nothing to do to help.
He sat up, switched on his bed lamp, and looked at the clock. Three thirty. Not so good. He got up, went into his bathroom, and dissolved a sleeping powder in a glass of whiskey and water, half and half. He gulped it down and went back to bed. Presently he dozed off.* * *
He was running, fleeing down a long corridor. At the end lay safety—he knew that, but he was so utterly exhausted that he doubted his ability to finish the race. The thing pursuing him was catching up; he forced his leaden, aching legs into greater activity. The thing behind him increased its pace, and actually touched him. His heart stopped, then pounded again. He became aware that he was screaming, shrieking in mortal terror.
But he had to reach the end of that corridor; more depended on it than just himself. He had to. He had to! He had to!
Then the sound hit him, and he realized that he had lost, realized it with utter despair and utter, bitter defeat. He had failed; the bomb had blown up.* * *
The sound was the alarm going off; it was seven o’clock. His pajamas were soaked, dripping with sweat, and his heart still pounded. Every ragged nerve throughout his body screamed for release. It would take more than a cold shower to cure this case of the shakes.
He got to the office before the janitor was out of it. He sat there, doing nothing, until Lentz walked in on him, two hours later. The psychiatrist came in just as he was taking two small tablets from a box in his desk.
“Easy . . . easy, old man,” Lentz said in a slow voice. “What have you there?” He came around and gently took possession of the box.
“Just a sedative.”
Lentz studied the inscription on the cover. “How many have you had today?”
“Just two, so far.”
“You don’t need a sedative; you need a walk in the fresh air. Come, take one with me.”
“You’re a fine one to talk—you’re smoking a cigarette that isn’t lighted!”
“Me? Why, so I am! We both need that walk. Come.”
Harper arrived less than ten minutes after they had left the office. Steinke was not in the outer office. He walked on through and pounded on the door of King’s private office, then waited with the man who accompanied him—a hard young chap with an easy confidence to his bearing. Steinke let them in.
Harper brushed on past him with a casual greeting, then checked himself when he saw that there was no one else inside.
“Where’s the chief?” he demanded.
“Gone out. Should be back soon.”
“I’ll wait. Oh—Steinke, this is Greene. Greene—Steinke.”
The two shook hands. “What brings you back, Cal?” Steinke asked, turning back to Harper.
“Well . . . I guess it’s all right to tell you—”
The communicator screen flashed into sudden activity, and cut him short. A face filled most of the frame. It was apparently too close to the pickup, as it was badly out of focus. “Superintendent!” it yelled in an agonized voice. “The bomb—”
A shadow flashed across the screen, they heard a dull smack, and the face slid out of the screen. As it fell it revealed the control room behind it. Someone was down on the floor plates, a nameless heap. Another figure ran across the field of pickup and disappeared.
Harper snapped into action first. “That was Silard!” he shouted, “In the control room! Come on, Steinke!” He was already in motion himself.
Steinke went dead-white, but hesitated only an unmeasurable instant. He pounded sharp on Harper’s heels. Greene followed without invitation, in a steady run that kept easy pace with them.
They had to wait for a capsule to unload at the tube station. Then all three of them tried to crowd into a two-passenger capsule. It refused to start, and moments were lost before Greene piled out and claimed another car.
The four-minute trip at heavy acceleration seemed an interminable crawl. Harper was convinced that the system had broken down, when the familiar click and sigh announced their arrival at the station under the bomb. They jammed each other trying to get out at the same time.
The lift was up; they did not wait for it. That was unwise; they gained no time by it, and arrived at the control level out of breath. Nevertheless, they speeded up when they reached the top, zigzagged frantically around the outer shield, and burst into the control room.
The limp figure was still on the floor, and another, also inert, was near it. The second’s helmet was missing.
The third figure was bending over the trigger. He looked up as they came in, and charged them. They hit him together, and all three went down. It was two to one, but they got in each other’s way. The man’s heavy armor protected him from the force of their blows. He fought with senseless, savage violence.
Harper felt a bright, sharp pain; his right arm went limp and useless. The armored figure was struggling free of them.
There was a shout from somewhere behind them, “Hold still!”
Harper saw a flash with the corner of one eye, a deafening crack hurried on top of it, and re-echoed painfully in the restricted space.
The armored figure dropped back to his knees, balanced there, and then fell heavily on his face. Greene stood in the entrance, a service pistol balanced in his hand.
Harper got up and went over to the trigger. He tried to reduce the dampening adjustment, but his right hand wouldn’t carry out his orders, and his left was too clumsy. “Steinke,” he called, “come here! Take over.”
Steinke hurried up, nodded as he glanced at the readings, and set busily to work.* * *
It was thus that King found them when he bolted in a very few minutes later.
“Harper!” he shouted, while his quick glance was still taking in the situation. “What’s happened?”
Harper told him briefly. He nodded. “I saw the tail end of the fight from my office—Steinke!” He seemed to grasp for the first time who was on the trigger. “He can’t manage the controls—” He hurried toward him.
Steinke looked up at his approach. “Chief!” he called out. “Chief! I’ve got my mathematics back!“
King looked bewildered, then nodded vaguely, and let him be. He turned back to Harper. “How does it happen you’re here?”
“Me? I’m here to report—we’ve done it, chief!”
“Eh?”
“We’ve finished; it’s all done. Erickson stayed behind to complete the power-plant installation on the big ship. I came over in the ship we’ll use to shuttle between Earth and the big ship, the power plant. Four minutes from Goddard Field to here in her. That’s the pilot over there.” He pointed to the door, where Greene’s solid form partially hid Lentz.
“Wait a minute. You say that everything is ready to install the bomb in the ship? You’re sure?”
“Positive. The big ship has already flown with our fuel—longer and faster than she will have to fly to reach station in her orbit; I was in it—out in space, chief! We’re all set, six ways from zero.”
King stared at the dumping switch, mounted behind glass at the top of the instrument board. “There’s fuel enough,” he said softly, as if he were alone and speaking only to himself; “there’s been fuel enough for weeks.”
He walked swiftly over to the switch, smashed the glass with his fist, and pulled it.
The room rumbled and shivered as two and a half tons of molten, massive metal, heavier than gold, coursed down channels, struck against baffles, split into a dozen streams, and plunged to rest in leaden receivers—to rest, safe and harmless, until it could be reassembled far out in space.
AFTERWORDDecember 1979, exactly 40 years after I researched BLOWUPS HAPPEN (Dec. '39): I had some doubt about republishing this because of the current ignorant fear of fission power, recently enhanced by the harmless flap at Three Mile Island. When I wrote this, there was not a full gram of purified U-235 on this planet, and no one knew its hazards in detail, most especially the mass and geometry and speed of assembly necessary to make "blowups happen." But we now know from long experience and endless tests that the "tons" used in this story could never be assembled—no explosion, melt-down possible, melt-down being the worst that can happen at a power plant; to cause U-235 to explode is very difficult and requires very different design. Yes, radiation is hazardous BUT—RADIATION EXPOSURE Half a mile from Three-Mile plantduring the flap 83 milliremsAt the power plant 1,100 milliremsDuring heart catheterization for angiogram 45,000 millirems—which I underwent 18 months ago. I feel fine.
The End
Fictional Story Related Index
This is an index of full text reprints of stories that I have
read that influenced me when I was young. They are rather difficult to
come by today, as where I live they are nearly impossible to find. Yes,
you can find them on the internet, behind paywalls. Ah, that’s why all
those software engineers in California make all that money. Well, here
they are FOR FREE. Enjoy reading them.
Movies that Inspired Me
Here are some movies that I consider noteworthy and worth a view. Enjoy.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are
reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly
impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal
library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come
and enjoy a read or two as well.
My Poetry
Art that Moves Me
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
This is the full text of the short story by Robert Heinlein called “Space Jockey”. It is presented here for everyone to read. At which I hope that you, the reader, would enjoy it as much as I have. It’s a bit of boyhood that still sticks the walls of my heart.
Heinlein at his best, imagining an interplanetary future (2009) with mechanical calculators, slide rulers and astrogation guided by the stars (that's what Shorty gives the pilot in that sheet of paper, the stars he needs to align the ship to for launching). He's both naive and accurate in some things.
- Space Jockey - Illustration by Fred Ludekens
Space Jockey
JUST as they were leaving the telephone called his name. “Don’t answer it,” she pleaded. “We’ll miss the curtain.”
“Who is it?” he called out. The viewplate lighted; he recognized Olga Pierce, and behind her the Colorado Springs office of Trans-Lunar Transit.
“Calling Mr. Pemberton. Calling—Oh, it’s you, Jake. You’re on. Flight 27, Supra-New York to Space Terminal. I’ll have a copter pick you up in twenty minutes.”
“How come?” he protested. “I’m fourth down on the call board.”
“You were fourth down. Now you are standby pilot to Hicks—and he just got a psycho down-check.”
“Hicks got psychoed? That’s silly!”
“Happens to the best, chum. Be ready. ‘Bye now.”
His wife was twisting sixteen dollars worth of lace handkerchief to a shapeless mass. “Jake, this is ridiculous. For three months I haven’t seen enough of you to know what you look like.
“Sorry, kid. Take Helen to the show.”
“Oh, Jake, I don’t care about the show; I wanted to get you where they couldn’t reach you for once.”
“They would have called me at the theater.”
“Oh, no! I wiped out the record you’d left.”
“Phyllis! Are you trying to get me fired?”
“Don’t look at me that way.” She waited, hoping that he would speak, regretting the side issue, and wondering how to tell him that her own fretfulness was caused, not by disappointment, but by gnawing worry for his safety every time he went out into space.
She went on desperately, “You don’t have to take this flight, darling; you’ve been on Earth less than the time limit. Please, Jake!”
He was peeling off his tux. “I’ve told you a thousand times: a pilot doesn’t get a regular run by playing space-lawyer with the rule book. Wiping out my follow-up message—why did you do it, Phyllis? Trying to ground me?”
“No, darling, but I thought just this once—”
“When they offer me a flight I take it.” He walked stiffly out of the room.
He came back ten minutes later, dressed for space and apparently in good humor; he was whistling: “—the caller called Casey at ha’ past four; he kissed his—” He broke off when he saw her face, and set his mouth, ”Where’s my coverall?”
“I’ll get it. Let me fix you something to eat.”
“You know I can’t take high acceleration on a full stomach. And why lose thirty bucks to lift another pound?”
Dressed as he was, in shorts, singlet, sandals, and pocket belt, he was already good for about minus-fifty pounds in weight bonus; she started to tell him the weight penalty on a sandwich and a cup of coffee did not matter to them, but it was just one more possible cause for misunderstanding.
Neither of them said much until the taxicab clumped on the roof. He kissed her goodbye and told her not to come outside. She obeyed—until she heard the helicopter take off. Then she climbed to the roof and watched it out of sight.
The traveling-public gripes at the lack of direct Earth-to-Moon service, but it takes three types of rocket ships and two space-station changes to make a fiddling quarter-million-mile jump for a good reason: Money.
The Commerce Commission has set the charges for the present three-stage lift from here to the Moon at thirty dollars a pound. Would direct service be cheaper?—a ship designed to blast off from Earth, make an airless landing on the Moon, return and make an atmosphere landing, would be so cluttered up with heavy special equipment used only once in the trip that it could not show a profit at a thousand dollars a pound! Imagine combining a ferry boat, a subway train, and an express elevator—
So Trans-Lunar uses rockets braced for catapulting, and winged for landing on return to Earth to make the terrific lift from Earth to our satellite station Supra-New York. The long middle lap, from there to where Space Terminal circles the Moon, calls for comfort-but no landing gear. The Flying Dutchman and the Philip Nolan never land; they were even assembled in space, and they resemble winged rockets like the Skysprite and the Firefly as little as a Pullman train resembles a parachute.
The Moonbat and the Gremlin are good only for the jump from Space Terminal down to Luna . . . no wings, cocoon-like acceleration-and-crash hammocks, fractional controls on their enormous jets.
The change-over points would not have to be more than air-conditioned tanks. Of course Space Terminal is quite a city, what with the Mars and Venus traffic, but even today Supra-New York is still rather primitive, hardly more than a fueling point and a restaurant-waiting room. It has only been the past five years that it has even been equipped to offer the comfort of one-gravity centrifuge service to passengers with queasy stomachs.
Pemberton weighed in at the spaceport office, then hurried over to where the Skysprite stood cradled in the catapult. He shucked off his coverall, shivered as he handed it to the gateman, and ducked inside. He went to his acceleration hammock and went to sleep; the lift to Supra-New York was not his worry—his job was deep space.
He woke at the surge of the catapult and the nerve-tingling rush up the face of Pikes Peak. When the Skysprite went into free flight, flung straight up above the Peak, Pemberton held his breath; if the rocket jets failed to fire, the ground-to-space pilot must try to wrestle her into a glide and bring her down, on her wings.
The rockets roared on time; Jake went back to sleep.
When the Skysprite locked in with Supra-New York. Pemberton went to the station’s stellar navigation room. He was pleased to find Shorty Weinstein, the computer, on duty. Jake trusted Shorty’s computations—a good thing when your ship, your passengers, and your own skin depend thereon. Pemberton had to be a better than average mathematician himself in order to be a pilot; his own limited talent made him appreciate the genius of those who computed the orbits.
“Hot Pilot Pemberton, the Scourge of the Spaceways—Hi!” Weinstein handed him a sheet of paper.
Jake looked at it, then looked amazed. “Hey, Shorty—you’ve made a mistake.”
“Huh? Impossible. Mabel can’t make mistakes.” Weinstein gestured at the giant astrogation computer filling the far wall.
“You made a mistake. You gave me an easy fix—’Vega, Antares, Regulus.’ You make things easy for the pilot and your guild’ll chuck you out.” Weinstein looked sheepish but pleased. “I see I don’t blast off for seventeen hours. I could have taken the morning freight.” Jake’s thoughts went back to Phyllis.
“UN canceled the morning trip.”
“Oh—” Jake shut up, for he knew Weinstein knew as little as he did. Perhaps the flight would have passed too close to an A-bomb rocket, circling the globe like a policeman. The General Staff of the Security Council did not give out information about the top secrets guarding the peace of the planet.
Pemberton shrugged. “Well, if I’m asleep, call me three hours minus.”
“Right. Your tape will be ready.”
While he slept, the Flying Dutchman nosed gently into her slip, sealed her airlocks to the Station, discharged passengers and freight from Luna City. When he woke, her holds were filling, her fuel replenished, and passengers boarding. He stopped by the post office radio desk, looking for a letter from Phyllis. Finding none, he told himself that she would have sent it to Terminal. He went on into the restaurant, bought the facsimile Herald-Tribune, and settled down grimly to enjoy the comics and his breakfast.
A man sat down opposite him and proceeded to plague him with silly questions about rocketry, topping it by misinterpreting the insignia embroidered on Pemberton’s singlet and miscalling him “Captain.” Jake hurried through breakfast to escape him, then picked up the tape from his automatic pilot, and went aboard the Flying Dutchman.
After reporting to the Captain he went to the control room, floating and pulling himself along by the handgrips. He buckled himself into the pilot’s chair and started his check off.
Captain Kelly drifted in and took the other chair as Pemberton was finishing his checking runs on the ballistic tracker. “Have a Camel, Jake.”
“I’ll take a rain check.” He continued; Kelly watched him with a slight frown. Like captains and pilots on Mark Twain’s Mississippi—and for the same reasons—a spaceship captain bosses his ship, his crew, his cargo, and his passengers, but the pilot is the final, legal, and unquestioned boss of how the ship is handled from blast-off to the end of the trip. A captain may turn down a given pilot-nothing more. Kelly fingered a slip of paper tucked in his pouch and turned over in his mind the words with which the Company psychiatrist on duty had handed it to him.
“I’ll giving this pilot clearance, Captain, but you need not accept it.”
“Pemberton’s a good man. What’s wrong?”
The psychiatrist thought over what he had observed while posing as a silly tourist bothering a stranger at breakfast. “He’s a little more anti-social than his past record shows. Something on his mind. Whatever it is, he can tolerate it for the present.
We’ll keep an eye on him.”
Kelly had answered, “Will you come along with him as pilot?”
“If you wish.”
“Don’t bother—I’ll take him. No need to lift a deadhead.”
Pemberton fed Weinstein’s tape into the robot-pilot, then turned to Kelly. “Control ready, sir.”
“Blast when ready, Pilot.” Kelly felt relieved when he heard himself make the irrevocable decision.
Pemberton signaled the Station to cast loose. The great ship was nudged out by an expanding pneumatic ram until she swam in space a thousand feet away, secured by a single line. He then turned the ship to its blast-off direction by causing a flywheel, mounted on gymbals at the ship’s center of gravity, to spin rapidly. The ship spun slowly in the opposite direction, by grace of Newton’s Third Law of Motion.
Guided by the tape, the robot-pilot tilted prisms of the pilot’s periscope so that Vega, Antares, and Regulus would shine as one image when the ship was headed right; Pemberton nursed the ship to that heading . . . fussily; a mistake of one minute of arc here meant two hundred miles at destination.
When the three images made a pinpoint, he stopped the flywheels and locked in the gyros. He then checked the heading of his ship by direct observation of each of the stars, just as a salt-water skipper uses a sextant, but with incomparably more accurate instruments. This told him nothing about the correctness of the course Weinstein had ordered—he had to take that as Gospel—but it assured him that the robot and its tape were behaving as planned. Satisfied, he cast off the last line.
Seven minutes to go—Pemberton flipped the switch permitting the robot-pilot to blast away when its clock told it to. He waited, hands poised over the manual controls, ready to take over if the robot failed, and felt the old, inescapable sick excitement building up inside him.
Even as adrenalin poured into him, stretching his time sense, throbbing in his ears, his mind kept turning back to Phyllis.
He admitted she had a kick coming—spacemen shouldn’t marry. Not that she’d starve if he messed up a landing, but a gal doesn’t want insurance; she wants a husband—minus six minutes.
If he got a regular run she could live in Space Terminal. No good-idle women at Space Terminal went bad. Oh, Phyllis wouldn’t become a tramp or a rum bum; she’d just go bats.
Five minutes more-he didn’t care much for Space Terminal himself. Nor for space! “The Romance of Interplanetary Travel”—it looked well in print, but he knew what it was: A job. Monotony. No scenery. Bursts of work, tedious waits. No home life.
Why didn’t he get an honest job and stay home nights?
He knew! Because he was a space jockey and too old to change.
What chance has a thirty-year-old married man, used to important money, to change his racket? (Four minutes.) He’d look good trying to sell helicopters on commission, now, wouldn’t he?
Maybe he could buy a piece of irrigated land and—Be your age, chum! You know as much about farming as a cow knows about cube root! No, he had made his bed when he picked rockets during his training hitch. If he had bucked for the electronics branch, or taken a GI scholarship—too late now. Straight from the service into Harriman’s Lunar Exploitations, hopping ore on Luna. That had torn it.
“How’s it going, Doc?” Kelly’s voice was edgy.
“Minus two minutes some seconds.” Damnation—Kelly knew better than to talk to the pilot on minus time.
He caught a last look through the periscope. Antares seemed to have drifted. He unclutched the gyro, tilted and spun the flywheel, braking it savagely to a stop a moment later. The image was again a pinpoint. He could not have explained what he did: it was virtuosity, exact juggling, beyond textbook and classroom.
Twenty seconds. . . .across the chronometer’s face beads of light trickled the seconds away while he tensed, ready to fire by hand, or even to disconnect and refuse the trip if his judgment told him to. A too-cautious decision might cause Lloyds’ to cancel his bond; a reckless decision could cost his license or even his life—and others.
But he was not thinking of underwriters and licenses, nor even of lives. In truth he was not thinking at all; he was feeling, feeling his ship, as if his nerve ends extended into every part of her. Five seconds . . . the safety disconnects clicked out. Four seconds . . . three seconds . . . two seconds . . . one?
He was stabbing at the band-fire button when the roar hit him.
Kelly relaxed to the pseudo-gravity of the blast and watched.
Pemberton was soberly busy, scanning dials, noting time, checking his progress by radar bounced off Supra-New York. Weinstein’s figures, robot-pilot, the ship itself, all were clicking together.
Minutes later, the critical instant neared when the robot should cut the jets. Pemberton poised a finger over the hand cut-off, while splitting his attention among radarscope, accelerometer, periscope, and chronometer. One instant they were roaring along on the jets; the next split second the ship was in free orbit, plunging silently toward the Moon. So perfectly matched were human and robot that Pemberton himself did not know which had cut the power.
He glanced again at the board, then unbuckled. “How about that cigarette, Captain? And you can let your passengers unstrap.”
No co-pilot is needed in space and most pilots would rather share a toothbrush than a control room. The pilot works about an hour at blast off, about the same before contact, and loafs during free flight, save for routine checks and corrections. Pemberton prepared to spend one hundred and four hours eating, reading, writing letters, and sleeping—especially sleeping.
When the alarm woke him, he checked the ship’s position, then wrote to his wife. “Phyllis my dear,” he began, “I don’t blame you for being upset at missing your night out. I was disappointed, too. But bear with me, darling, I should be on a regular run before long. In less than ten years I’ll be up for retirement and we’ll have a chance to catch up on bridge and golf and things like that. I know it’s pretty hard to—”
The voice circuit cut in. “Oh, Jake—put on your company face. I’m bringing a visitor to the control room.”
“No visitors in the control room, Captain.”
“Now, Jake. This lunkhead has a letter from Old Man Harriman himself. ‘Every possible courtesy—’ and so forth.”
Pemberton thought quickly. He could refuse-but there was no sense in offending the big boss. “Okay, Captain. Make it short.”
The visitor was a man, jovial, oversize—Jake figured him for an eighty pound weight penalty. Behind him a thirteen-year-old male counterpart came zipping through the door and lunged for the control console. Pemberton snagged him by the arm and forced himself to speak pleasantly. “Just hang on to that bracket, youngster. I don’t want you to bump your head.”
“Leggo me! Pop—make him let go.”
Kelly cut in. “I think he had best hang on, Judge.” “Umm, uh—very well. Do as the Captain says, Junior.” “Aw, gee, Pop!”
“Judge Schacht, this is First Pilot Pemberton,” Kelly said rapidly. “He’ll show you around.”
“Glad to know you, Pilot. Kind of you, and all that.”
“What would you like to see, Judge?” Jake said carefully. “Oh, this and that. It’s for the boy—his first trip. I’m an old
spacehound myself—probably more hours than half your crew.” He laughed. Pemberton did not.
“There’s not much to see in free flight.”
“Quite all right. We’ll just make ourselves at home—eh, Captain?”
“I wanna sit in the control seat,” Schacht Junior announced. Pemberton winced. Kelly said urgently, “Jake, would you mind outlining the control system for the boy? Then we’ll go.”
“He doesn’t have to show me anything. I know all about it.I’m a Junior Rocketeer of America—see my button?” The boy shoved himself toward the control desk.
Pemberton grabbed him, steered him into the pilot’s chair, and strapped him in. He then flipped the board’s disconnect.
“Whatcha doing?”
“I cut off power to the controls so I could explain them.”
“Aintcha gonna fire the jets?”
“No.” Jake started a rapid description of the use and purpose of each button, dial, switch, meter, gimmick, and scope.
Junior squirmed. “How about meteors?” he demanded. “Oh, that—maybe one collision in half a million Earth-Moon trips. Meteors are scarce.”
“So what? Say you hit the jackpot? You’re in the soup.”
“Not at all. The anti-collision radar guards all directions five hundred miles out. If anything holds a steady bearing for three seconds, a direct hook-up starts the jets. First a warning gong so that everybody can grab something solid, then one second later—Boom!—Weget out of there fast.”
“Sounds corny to me. Lookee, I’ll show you how Commodore
Cartwright did it in The Comet Busters—“
“Don’t touch those controls I”
“You don’t own this ship. My pop says—”
“Oh, Jake!” Hearing his name, Pemberton twisted, fish-like, to face Kelly.
“Jake, Judge Schacht would like to know—” From the corner of his eye Jake saw the boy reach for the board. He turned, started to shout—acceleration caught him, while the jets roared in his ear.
An old spacehand can usually recover, catlike, in an unexpected change from weightlessness to acceleration. But Jake had been grabbing for the boy, instead of for anchorage. He fell back and down, twisted to try to avoid Schacht, banged his head on the frame of the open air-tight door below, and fetched up on the next deck, out cold.
Kelly was shaking him. “You all right, Jake?”
He sat up. “Yeah. Sure.” He became aware of the thunder, the shivering deckplates. “The jets! Cut the powerl”
He shoved Kelly aside and swarmed up into the control room, jabbed at the cut-off button. In sudden ringing silence, they were again weightless.
Jake turned, unstrapped Schacht Junior, and hustled him to Kelly. “Captain, please remove this menace from my control room.”
“Leggo! Pop—he’s gonna hurt me!”
The elder Schacht bristled at once. “What’s the meaning of this? Let go of my son!”
“Your precious son cut in the jets.”
“Junior—did you do that?”
The boy shifted his eyes. “No, Pop. It … it was a meteor.”
Schacht looked puzzled. Pemberton snorted. “I had just told him how the radar-guard can blast to miss a meteor. He’s lying.”
Schacht ran through the process he called “making up his mind,” then answered, “Junior never lies. Shame on you, a grown man, to try to put the blame on a helpless boy. I shall report you, sir. Come, Junior.”
Jake grabbed his arm. “Captain, I want those controls photographed for fingerprints before this man leaves the room. It was not a meteor; the controls were dead, until this boy switched them on. Furthermore the anti-collision circuit sounds an alarm.”
Schacht looked wary. “This is ridiculous. I simply objected to the slur on my son’s character. No harm has been done.”
“No harm, eh? How about broken arms—or necks? And wasted fuel, with more to waste before we’re back in the groove. Do you know, Mister ‘Old Spacehound,’ just how precious a little fuel will be when we try to match orbits with Space Terminal—if we haven’t got it? We may have to dump cargo to save the ship, cargo at $60,000 a ton on freight charges alone. Finger prints will show the Commerce Commission whom to nick for it.”
When they were alone again Kelly asked anxiously, “You won’t really have to jettison? You’ve got a maneuvering reserve.”
“Maybe we can’t even get to Terminal. How long did she blast?”
Kelly scratched his head. “I was woozy myself.”
“We’ll open the accelerograph and take a look.”
Kelly brightened. “Oh, sure! If the brat didn’t waste too much, then we just swing ship and blast back the same length of time.”
Jake shook his head. “You forgot the changed mass-ratio.”
“Oh . . . oh, yes!” Kelly looked embarrassed. Mass-ratio . . . under power, the ship lost the weight of fuel burned. The thrust remained constant; the mass it pushed shrank. Getting back to proper position, course, and speed became a complicated problem in the calculus of ballistics. “But you can do it, can’t you?”
“I’ll have to. But I sure wish I had Weinstein here.” Kelly left to see about his passengers; Jake got to work. He checked his situation by astronomical observation and by radar. Radar gave
him all three factors quickly but with limited accuracy. Sights taken of Sun, Moon, and Earth gave him position, but told nothing of course and speed, at that time—nor could he afford to wait to take a second group of sights for the purpose.
Dead reckoning gave him an estimated situation, by adding Weinstein’s predictions to the calculated effect of young Schacht’s meddling. This checked fairly well with the radar and visual observations, but still he had no notion of whether or not he could get back in the groove and reach his destination; it was now necessary to calculate what it would take and whether or not the remaining fuel would be enough to brake his speed and match orbits.
In space, it does no good to reach your journey’s end if you flash on past at miles per second, or even crawling along at a few hundred miles per hour. To catch an egg on a plate—don’t bump!
He started doggedly to work to compute how to do it using the least fuel, but his little Marchant electronic calculator was no match for the tons of IBM computer at Supra-New York, nor was he Weinstein. Three hours later he had an answer of sorts. He called Kelly. “Captain? You can start by jettisoning Schacht & Son.”
“I’d like to. No way out, Jake?”
“I can’t promise to get your ship in safely without dumping. Better dump now, before we blast. It’s cheaper.”
Kelly hesitated; he would as cheerfully lose a leg. “Give me time to pick out what to dump.”
“Okay.” Pemberton returned sadly to his figures, hoping to find a saving mistake, then thought better of it. He called the radio room. “Get me Weinstein at Supra-New York.”
“Out of normal range.”
“I know that. This is the Pilot. Safety priority—urgent. Get a tight beam on them and nurse it.”
“Uh . . . aye aye, sir. I’ll try.”
Weinstein was doubtful. “Cripes, Jake, I can’t pilot you.” “Dammit, you can work problems for me!”
“What good is seven-place accuracy with bum data?”
“Sure, sure. But you know what instruments I’ve got; you know about how well I can handle them. Get me a better answer.”
“I’ll try.” Weinstein called back four hours later. “Jake? Here’s the dope: You planned to blast back to match your predicted speed, then made side corrections for position. Orthodox but uneconomical. Instead I had Mabel solve for it as one maneuver.”
“Good!”
“Not so fast. It saves fuel but not enough. You can’t possibly get back in your old groove and then match Terminal without dumping.”
Pemberton let it sink in, then said, “I’ll tell Kelly.”
”Wait a minute, Jake. Try this. Start from scratch.”
“Huh?”
“Treat it as a brand-new problem. Forget about the orbit on your tape. With your present course, speed, and position, compute the cheapest orbit to match with Terminal’s. Pick a new groove.”
Pemberton felt foolish. “I never thought of that.”
“Of course not. With the ship’s little one-lung calculator it’d take you three weeks to solve it. You set to record?”
“Sure.”
“Here’s your data.” Weinstein started calling it off.
When they had checked it, Jake said, “That’ll get me there?”
“Maybe. If the data you gave me is up to your limit of accuracy; if you can follow instructions as exactly as a robot, if you can blast off and make contact so precisely that you don’t need side corrections, then you might squeeze home. Maybe. Good luck, anyhow.” The wavering reception muffled their goodbyes,
Jake signaled Kelly. “Don’t jettison, Captain. Have your passengers strap down. Stand by to blast. Minus fourteen minutes.”
“Very well, Pilot.”
The new departure made and checked, he again had time to spare. He took out his unfinished letter, read it, then tore it up.
“Dearest Phyllis,” he started again, “I’ve been doing some hard thinking this trip and have decided that I’ve just been stubborn. What am I doing way out here? I like my home. I like to see my wife.
“Why should I risk my neck and your peace of mind to herd junk through the sky? Why hang around a telephone waiting to chaperon fatheads to the Moon-numbskulls who couldn’t pilot a rowboat and should have stayed at home in the first place?
“Money, of course. I’ve been afraid to risk a change. I won’t find another job that will pay half as well, but, if you are game, I’ll ground myself and we’ll start over. All my love, “Jake”
He put it away and went to sleep, to dream that an entire troop of Junior Rocketeers had been quartered in his control room.
The close-up view of the Moon is second only to the space-side view of the Earth as a tourist attraction; nevertheless Pemberton insisted that all passengers strap down during the swing around to Terminal. With precious little fuel for the matching maneuver, he refused to hobble his movements to please sightseers.
Around the bulge of the Moon, Terminal came into sight—by radar only, for the ship was tail foremost. After each short braking blast Pemberton caught a new radar fix, then compared his approach with a curve he had plotted from Weinstein’s figures—with one eye on the time, another on the ‘scope, a third on the plot, and a fourth on his fuel gages.
“Well, Jake?” Kelly fretted. “Do we make it?”
“How should I know? You be ready to dump.” They had agreed on liquid oxygen as the cargo to dump, since it could be let to boil out through the outer valves, without handling.
“Don’t say it, Jake.”
“Damn it—I won’t if I don’t have to.” He was fingering his controls ‘again; the blast chopped off his words. When it stopped, the radio maneuvering circuit was calling him.
“Flying Dutchman, Pilot speaking,” Jake shouted back.
“Terminal Control—Supro reports you short on fuel.”
“Right.”
“Don’t approach. Match speeds outside us. We’ll send a transfer ship to refuel you and pick up passengers.”
“I think I can make it.”
“Don’t try it. Wait for refueling.”
“Quit telling me how to pilot my ship!” Pemberton switched off the circuit, then stared at the board, whistling morosely. Kelly filled in the words in his mind: “Casey said to the fireman, ‘Boy, you better jump, cause two locomotives are agoing to bump!’
“You going in the slip anyhow, Jake?”
“Mmm—no, blast it. I can’t take a chance of caving in the side of Terminal, not with passengers aboard. But I’m not going to match speeds fifty miles outside and wait for a piggyback.”
He aimed for a near miss just outside Terminal’s orbit, conning by instinct, for Weinstein’s figures meant nothing by now. His aim was good; he did not have to waste his hoarded fuel on last minute side corrections to keep from hitting Terminal. When at last he was sure of sliding safely on past if unchecked, he braked once more. Then, as he started to cut off the power, the jets coughed, sputtered, and quit.
The Flying Dutchman floated in space, five hundred yards outside Terminal, speeds matched.
Jake switched on the radio. ”Terminal—stand by for my line. I’ll warp her in.”
He had filed his report, showered, and was headed for the post office to radiostat his letter, when the bullhorn summoned him. to the Commodore-Pilot’s office. Oh, oh, he told himself, Schacht has kicked the Brass—I wonder just how much stock that bliffy owns? And there’s that other matter—getting snotty with Control.
He reported stiffly. “First Pilot Pemberton, sir.”
Commodore Soames looked up. “Pemberton—oh, yes. You hold two ratings, space-to-space and airless-landing.”
Let’s not stall around, Jake told himself. Aloud he said, “I have no excuses for anything this last trip. If the Commodore does not approve the way I run my control room, he may have my resignation.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I, well—don’t you have a passenger complaint on me?” “Oh, that!” Soames brushed it aside. “Yes, he’s been here. But I have Kelly’s report, too—and your chief jetman’s, and a special from. Supra-New York. That was crack piloting, Pemberton.”
“You mean there’s no beef from the Company?”
“When have I failed to back up my pilots? You were perfectly right; I would have stuffed him out the air lock. Let’s get down to business: You’re on the space-to-space board, but I want to send a special to Luna City. Will you take it, as a favor to me?”
Pemberton hesitated; Soames went on, “That oxygen you saved is for the Cosmic Research Project. They blew the seals on the north tunnel and lost tons of the stuff. The work is stopped—about $130,000 a day in overhead, wages, and penalties. The Gremlin is here, but no pilot until the Moonbat gets in—except you. Well?”
“But I—look, Commodore, you can’t risk people’s necks on a jet landing of mine. I’m rusty; I need a refresher and a checkout.”
“No passengers, no crew, no captain—your neck alone.” “I’ll take her.”
Twenty-eight minutes later, with the ugly, powerful hull of the Gremlin around him, he blasted away. One strong shove to kill her orbital speed and let her fall toward the Moon, then no more worries until it came time to “ride ‘er down on her tail.”
He felt good—until he hauled out two letters, the one he had failed to send, and one from Phyllis, delivered at Terminal.
The letter from Phyllis was affectionate—and superficial. She did not mention his sudden departure; she ignored his profession completely. The letter was a model of correctness, but it worried him.
He tore up both letters and started another. It said, in part: “—never said so outright, but you resent my job.
"I have to work to support us. You've got a job, too. It's an old, old job that women have been doing a long time—crossing the plains in covered wagons, waiting for ships to come back from China, or waiting around a mine head after an explosion-kiss him goodbye with a smile, take care of him at home.
"You married a spaceman, so part of your job is to accept my job cheerfully. I think you can do it, when you realize it. I hope so, for the way things have been going won't do for either of us.
Believe me, I love you.
Jake"
He brooded on it until time to bend the ship down for his approach. From twenty miles altitude down to one mile he let the robot brake her, then shifted to manual while still falling slowly. A perfect airless-landing would be the reverse of the take-off of a war rocket-free fall, then one long blast of the jets, ending with the ship stopped dead as she touched the ground. In practice a pilot must feel his way down, not too slowly; a ship could bum all the fuel this side of Venus fighting gravity too long.
Forty seconds later, falling a little more than 140 miles per hour, he picked up in his periscopes the thousand-foot static towers. At 300 feet he blasted five gravities for more than a second, cut it, and caught her with a one-sixth gravity, Moon-normal blast. Slowly he eased this off, feeling happy.
The Gremlin hovered, her bright jet splashing the soil of the Moon, then settled with dignity to land without a jar.
The ground crew took over; a sealed runabout jeeped Pemberton to the tunnel entrance. Inside Luna City, he found himself paged before he finished filing his report. When he took the call, Soames smiled at him from the viewplate. “I saw that landing from the field pick-up, Pemberton. You don’t need a refresher course.”
Jake blushed. “Thank you, sir.”
“Unless you are dead set on space-to-space, I can use you on the regular Luna City run. Quarters here or Luna City? Want it?”
He heard himself saying, “Luna City. I’ll take it.”
He tore up his third letter as he walked into Luna City post office. At the telephone desk he spoke to a blonde in a blue moonsuit. “Get me Mrs. Jake Pemberton, Suburb six-four-oh-three, Dodge City, Kansas, please.”
She looked him over. “You pilots sure spend money.”
“Sometimes phone calls are cheap. Hurry it, will you?”
Phyllis was trying to phrase the letter she felt she should have written before. It was easier to say in writing that she was not complaining of loneliness nor lack of fun, but that she could not stand the strain of worrying about his safety. But then she found herself quite unable to state the logical conclusion. Was she prepared to face giving him up entirely if he would not give up space? She truly did not know . . . the phone call was a welcome interruption.
The viewplate stayed blank. “Long distance,” came a thin voice. ”Luna City calling.”
Fear jerked at her heart. “Phyllis Pemberton speaking.”
An interminable delay—she knew it took nearly three seconds for radio waves to make the Earth-Moon round trip, but she did not remember it and it would not have reassured her. All she could see was a broken home, herself a widow, and Jake, beloved Jake, dead in space.
“Mrs. Jake Pemberton?”
“Yes, yes! Go ahead.” Another wait—had she sent him away in a bad temper, reckless, his judgment affected? Had he died out there, remembering only that she fussed at him for leaving her to go to work? Had she failed him when he needed her? She knew that her Jake could not be tied to apron strings; men—grown-up men, not mammas’ boys—had to break away from mother’s apron strings. Then why had she tried to tie him to hers?—she had known better; her own mother had warned her not to try it.
She prayed.
Then another voice, one that weakened her knees with relief: “That you, honey?”
“Yes, darling, yes! What are you doing on the Moon?”
“It’s a long story. At a dollar a second it will keep. What I want to know is—are you willing to come to Luna City?”
It was Jake’s turn to suffer from the inevitable lag in reply.
He wondered if Phyllis were stalling, unable to make up her mind. At last he heard her say, “Of course, darling. When do I leave?”
“When—say, don’t you even want to know why?”
She started to say that it did not matter, then said, ”Yes, tell me.” The lag was still present but neither of them cared. He told her the news, then added, “Run over to the Springs and get Olga Pierce to straighten out the red tape for you. Need my help to pack?”
She thought rapidly. Had he meant to come back anyhow, he would not have asked. “No. I can manage.”
“Good girl. I’ll radiostat you a long letter about what to bring and so forth. I love you. ‘Bye now!”
“Oh, I love you, too. Goodbye, darling.”
Pemberton came out of the booth whistling. Good girl, Phyllis. Staunch. He wondered why he had ever doubted her.
The End
Movies that Inspired Me
Here are some movies that I consider noteworthy and worth a view. Enjoy.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are
reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly
impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal
library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come
and enjoy a read or two as well.
My Poetry
Art that Moves Me
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
While the Robert Heinlein story “Glory Road” describes how our galaxy actually works. This little gem of a story, kind of illustrates what it was for me in my role in MAJestic. Though, thankfully, it wasn’t anywhere as pathetically extreme as the poor SOB’s in this story. It was at times, almost as bad. Sigh.
JOB – A Comedy of Justice – Robert Heinlein
Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: Therefore despise not thou the chastening of
The Almighty. Job 5:17
Chapter 1
When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned.
Isaiah 43:2
JOB – A Comedy of Justice – Robert Heinlein
THE FIRE pit was about twenty-five feet long by ten feet wide, and perhaps two feet deep. The fire had been burning for hours. The bed of coals gave off a blast of heat almost unbearable even back where I was seated, fifteen feet from the side of the pit, in the second row of tourists.
I had given up my front-row seat to one of the ladies from the ship, delighted to accept the shielding offered by her well-fed carcass. I was tempted to move still farther back… but I did want to see the fire walkers close up. How often does one get to view a miracle?
‘It’s a hoax,’ the Well-Traveled Man said. ‘You’ll see.’
‘Not really a hoax, Gerald,’ the Authority-on-Everything denied. ‘Just somewhat less than we were led to expect. It won’t be the whole village – probably none of the hula dancers and certainly not those children. One or two of the young men, with calluses on their feet as thick as cowhide, and hopped up on opium or some native drug, will go down the pit at a dead run. The villagers will cheer and our kanaka friend there who is translating for us will strongly suggest that we should tip each of the fire walkers, over and above what we’ve paid for the luau and the dancing and this show.
‘Not a complete hoax,’ he went on. ‘The shore excursion brochure listed a “demonstration of fire walking”. That’s what we’ll get. Never mind the talk about a whole village of fire walkers. Not in the contract. ‘The Authority looked smug.
‘Mass hypnosis,’ the Professional Bore announced.
I was tempted to ask for an explanation of ‘mass hypnosis’- but nobody wanted to hear from me; I was junior – not necessarily in years but in the cruise ship Konge Knut. That’s how it is in cruise ships: Anyone who has been in the vessel since port of departure is senior to, anyone who joins the ship later. The Medes and the Persians laid down this law and nothing can change it. I had flown down in the Count Von Zeppelin, at Papeete I would fly home in the Admiral Moffett, so I was forever junior and should keep quiet while my betters pontificated’.
Cruise ships have the best food and, all too often, the worst conversation in the world. Despite this I was enjoying the islands; even the Mystic and the Amateur Astrologer and the Parlor Freudian and the Numerologist did not trouble me, as I did not listen.
‘They do it through the fourth dimension,’ the Mystic announced. ‘Isn’t that true, Gwendolyn!’
‘Quite true, dear,’ the Numerologist agreed. ‘Oh, here they come now! It will be an odd number, you’ll see.’
‘You’re so learned, dear.’
‘Humph,’ said the Skeptic.
The native who was assisting our ship’s excursion host raised his arms and spread his palms for silence. ‘Please, will you all listen! Mauruuru roa. Thank you very much. The high priest and priestess will now pray the Gods to make the fire safe for the villagers. I ask you to remember that this is a religious ceremony, very ancient; please behave as you would in your own church. Because -‘
An extremely old kanaka interrupted; he and the translator exchanged words in a language not known to me Polynesian, I assumed; it had the right liquid flow to it. The younger kanaka turned back to us.
‘The high priest tells me that some of the children are making their first walk through fire today, including that baby over there in her mother’s arms. He asks all of you to keep perfectly silent during the prayers, to insure the safety of the children. Let me add that I am a Catholic. At this point I always ask our Holy Mother Mary to watch over our children – and I ask all of you to pray for them in your own way. Or at least keep silent and think good thoughts for them. If the high priest is not satisfied that there is a reverent attitude, he won’t let the children enter the fire – I’ve even known him to cancel the entire ceremony.
‘There you have it, Gerald,’ said the Authority-on-Everything in a third-balcony whisper. ‘The build-up. Now the switch, and they’ll blame it on us.’ He snorted.
The Authority – his name was Cheevers – had been annoying me ever since I had joined the ship. I leaned forward and said quietly into his ear, ‘If those children walk through the fire, do you have the guts to do likewise?’
Let this be a lesson to you. Learn by my bad example. Never let an oaf cause you to lose your
judgement. Some seconds later I found that my challenge had been turned against me and. -somehow! – all three, the Authority, the Skeptic, and the Well-Traveled Man, had each bet me a hundred that I would not dare walk the fire pit, stipulating that the children walked first.
Then the translator was shushing us again and the priest and priestess stepped down into the fire pit and everybody kept very quiet and I suppose some of us prayed. I know I did. I found myself reciting what popped into my mind:
‘Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep-‘
Somehow it seemed appropriate.
The priest and the priestess did not walk through the fire; they did-something quietly more spectacular and (it seemed to me) far more dangerous. They simply stood in the fire pit, barefooted, and prayed for several minutes. I could see their lips move. Every so often the old priest sprinkled something into the pit. Whatever it was, as it struck the coals it burst into sparkles.
I tried to see what they were standing on, coals or rocks, but I could not tell… and could not guess which would be worse. Yet this old woman, skinny as gnawed bones, stood there quietly, face placid, and with no precautions other than having tucked up her lava-lava so that it was almost a diaper.
Apparently she fretted about burning her clothes but not about burning her legs.
Three men with poles had been straightening out the burning logs, making sure that the bed of the pit was a firm and fairly even footing for the fire walkers. I took a deep interest in this, as I expected to be walking in. that pit in a few minutes – if I didn’t cave in and forfeit the bet. It seemed to me that they were making it possible to walk the length of the fire pit on rocks rather than burning coals. I hoped so!
Then I wondered what difference it would make recalling sun-scorched sidewalks that had blistered my bare feet when I was a boy inKansas . That fire had to be at least seven hundred degrees; those rocks had been soaking in that fire for several hours. At such temperatures was there any real choice between frying pan and fire?
I Meanwhile the voice of reason was whispering in my ear that forfeiting three hundred was not much of
a price to pay to get out of this bind… or would I rather walk the rest of my life on two barbecued stumps?
Would it help if I took an aspirin?
The three men finished fiddling with the burning logs and went to the end of the pit at our left; the rest of the villagers gathered behind them – including those darned kids! What were their parents thinking about, letting them risk something like this? Why weren’t they in school where they belonged?
The three fire tenders led off, walking single file down the center of the fire, not hurrying, not dallying. The rest of the men of the village followed them, a* slow, steady procession. Then came the women, including the young mother with a baby on her hip.
When the blast of heat struck the infant, it started to cry. Without varying her steady pace, its mother swung it up and gave it suck; the baby shut up.
The children followed, from pubescent girls and adolescent boys down to the kindergarten level. Last was a little girl (nine? eight?) who was leading her round-eyed little, brother by, the hand. He seemed to be about four and was dressed only in his skin.
I looked at this kid and knew with mournful certainty that I was about to be served up rare; I could no longer back out. Once the baby boy stumbled; his sister kept him from falling. He went on then, short sturdy steps. At the far end someone reached down and lifted him out.
And it was my turn.
The translator said to me, ‘You understand that the Polynesia Tourist Bureau takes no responsibility for your safety? That fire can burn you, it can kill you. These people can walk it safely because they have faith.’
I assured him that I had faith, while wondering how I could be such a barefaced liar. I signed a release he presented.
All too soon I was standing at one end of the pit, with my trousers rolled up to my knees. My shoes and socks and hat and wallet were at the far end, waiting on a stool. That was my goal, my prize – if I didn’t make it, would they cast lots for them? Or would they ship them to my next of kin?
He was saying: ‘Go right down the middle. Don’t hurry but don’t stand still.’ The high priest spoke up; my mentor listened, then said, ‘He says not to run, even if your feet burn. Because you might stumble and fall down. Then you might never get up. He means you might die. I must add that you probably would not die – unless you breathed flame. But you would certainly be terribly burned. So don’t hurry and don’t fall down. Now see that flat rock under you? That’s your first step. Que le bon Dieu vous garde. Good luck.’
‘Thanks.’ I glanced over at the Authority-on-Everything, who was smiling ghoulishly, if ghouls smile. I gave him a mendaciously jaunty wave and stepped down.
I had taken three steps before I realized that I didn’t feel anything at all. Then I did feel something: scared. Scared silly and wishing I were in Peoria. Or even Philadelphia. Instead of alone in this vast smoldering waste. The far end of the pit was a city block away. Maybe farther. But I kept plodding toward it while hoping that this numb paralysis would not cause me to collapse before reaching it.
I felt smothered and discovered that I had been holding my breath. So I gasped – and regretted it. Over a fire pit that vast there is blistering gas and smoke and carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and something that may be Satan’s halitosis, but not enough oxygen to matter.’ I chopped off that gasp with my eyes watering and my throat raw and tried to estimate whether or not I could reach the end without breathing.
Heaven help me, I could not see the far end! The smoke had billowed up and my eyes would barely open and would not focus. So I pushed on, while trying to remember the formula by which one made a deathbed confession and then slid into Heaven on a technicality.
Maybe there wasn’t any such formula. My feet felt odd and my knees were becoming unglued…
‘Feeling better, Mr Graham?’
I was lying on grass and looking up into a friendly, brown face. ‘I guess so,’ I answered. ‘What
happened? Did I walk it?’
‘Certainly you walked it. Beautifully. But you fainted right at the end. We were standing by and grabbed you, hauled you out. But you tell me what happened. Did you get your lungs full of smoke?’
‘Maybe. Am I burned?’
‘No. Oh, you may form one blister on your right foot. But you held the thought perfectly. All but that faint, which must have been caused by smoke.’
‘I guess so.’ I sat up with his help. ‘Can you hand me my shoes and socks? Where is everybody?’
‘The bus left. The high priest took your pulse and checked your breathing but he wouldn’t let anyone disturb you. If you force a man to wake up when his spirit is still walking about, the spirit may not come back in. So he believes and no one dares argue with him.’
‘I won’t argue with him; I feel fine. Rested. But how do I get back to the ship?’ Five miles of tropical paradise would get tedious after the first mile. On foot. Especially as my feet seemed to have swelled a bit. For which they, had ample excuse.
‘The bus will come back to take the villagers to the boat that takes them back to the island they live on. It then could take you to your ship. But we can do better. My cousin has an automobile. He wil take you.’
‘Good. How much will he charge me?’ Taxis in Polynesia are always outrageous, especially when the drivers have you at their mercy, of which they have none. But it occurred to me that I could afford to be robbed as I was bound to show a profit on this jape. Three hundred minus one taxi fare. I picked up my hat. ‘Where’s my wallet?’
‘Your wallet?’
‘My billfold. I left it in my hat. Where is it? This isn’t funny; my money was in it. And my cards.’
‘Your money? Oh! Votre portefeuille. I am sorry; my English is not perfect. The officer from your ship, your excursion guide, took care of it.’
‘That was kind of him. But how am I to pay your cousin? I don’t have a franc on me.’
We got that straightened out. The ship’s excursion escort, realising that he would be leaving me strapped in rescuing my billfold, had prepaid my ride back to the ship. My kanaka friend took me to his cousin’s car and introduced me to his cousin – not too effectively, as the cousin’s English was limited to ‘Okay, Chief!’ and I never did get his name straight.
‘His automobile was a triumph of baling wire and faith. We went roaring back to the dock at full throttle, frightening chickens and easily outrunning baby goats. I did not pay much attention as I was bemused by something that had happened just before we left. The villagers were waiting for their bus to return; we walked right through them. Or started to. I got kissed. I got kissed by all of them. I had already seen the Polynesian habit of kissing where we would just shake hands, but this was the first time it had happened to me.
My friend explained it to me: ‘You walked through their fire, so you are an honorary member of their village. They want to kill a pig for you. Hold a feast in your honor.’
I tried to answer in kind while explaining that I had to return home across the great water but I would return someday, God willing. Eventually we got away.
But that was not what had me most bemused. Any unbiased judge would have to admit that I am reasonably sophisticated. I am aware that some places do not have America’s high moral standards and are careless about indecent exposure. I know that Polynesian women used to run around naked from the waist up until civilization came along – shucks, I read the National Geographic.
But I never expected to see it.
Before I made my fire walk the villagers were dressed just as you would expect: grass skirts but with the women’s bosoms covered.
But when they kissed me hello-goodbye they were not. Not covered, I mean. Just like the National Geographic.
Now I appreciate feminine beauty. Those delightful differences, seen under proper circumstances with the shades decently drawn, can be dazzling. But forty-odd (no, even) of them are intimidating. I saw more human feminine busts than I had ever seen before, total and cumulative, in my entire life. The Methodist Episcopal Society for Temperance and Morals would have been shocked right out of their wits.
With adequate warning I am sure that I could have enjoyed the experience. As it was, it was too new, too much, too fast. I could appreciate it only in retrospect.
Our tropical Rolls-Royce crunched to a stop with the aid of hand brake, foot brake, and first-gear compression; I looked up from bemused euphoria. My driver announced, ‘Okay, Chief!’
I said, ‘That’s not my ship.’
‘Okay, Chief?’
‘You’ve taken me to the wrong dock. Uh, it looks like the right dock but it’s the wrong ship.’ Of that I was certain. M.V. Konge Knut has white sides and superstructure and a rakish false funnel. This ship was mostly red with four tall black stacks. Steam, it had to be – not a motor vessel. As well as years out of date. ‘No. No!’
‘Okay, Chief. Votre vapeur! Voila!’
‘Non!’
‘Okay, Chief.’ He got out, came around and opened the door on the passenger Side, grabbed my arm,
and pulled.
I’m in fairly good shape, but his arm had been toughened by swimming, climbing for coconuts, hauling in fishnets, and pulling tourists who don’t want to go out of cars. I got out.
He jumped back in, called out, ‘Okay, Chief! Merci bien! Au ‘voir!’ and was gone.
I went, Hobson’s choice, up the gangway of the strange vessel to learn, if possible, what had become of the Konge Knut. As I stepped aboard, the petty officer on gangway watch saluted and said, ‘Afternoon, sir. Mr Graham, Mr Nielsen left a package for you. One moment -‘He lifted the lid of his watch desk, took out a large manila envelope. ‘Here you are, sir.’
The package had written on it: A. L. Graham, cabin C109. I opened it, found a well-worn wallet.
‘Is everything in order, Mr Graham?’
‘Yes, thank you. Will you tell Mr Nielsen that I received it? And give him my thanks.’
‘Certainly, sir.’
I noted that this was D deck, went up one flight to find cabin C109.
All was not quite in order. My name is not ‘Graham’.
Chapter 2
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
THANK HEAVEN ships use a consistent numbering system. Stateroom C109 was where it should be: on C deck, starboard side forward, between C107 and C111; I reached it without having to speak to anyone. I tried the door; it was locked – Mr Graham apparently believed the warnings pursers give about locking doors, especially in port.
The key, I thought glumly, is in Mr Graham’s pants pocket. But where is Mr Graham? About to catch me snooping at his door? Or is the trying my door while I am trying his door?
There is a small but not zero chance that a given key will fit a strange lock. I had in my own pocket my room key from the Konge Knut. I tried it.
Well, it was worth trying. I stood there, wondering whether to sneeze or drop dead, when I heard a sweet voice behind me:
‘Oh, Mr Graham!’
A young and pretty woman in a maid’s costume – Correction: stewardess’ uniform. She came bustling toward me, took a pass key that was chained to her belt, opened C109, while saying, ‘Margrethe asked me to watch for you. She told me that you had left your cabin key on your desk. She let it stay but told me to watch for you and let you in.’
‘That’s most kind, of you, Miss, uh-‘
‘I’m Astrid. I have the matching rooms on the port side, so Marga and I cover for each other. She’s gone ashore this afternoon.’ She held the door for me. ‘Will that be all, sir?’
I thanked her, she left. I latched and bolted the door, collapsed in a chair and gave way to the shakes.
Ten minutes later I stood up, went into the bathroom, put cold water on my face and eyes. I had not solved anything and had not wholly calmed down, but my nerves were no longer snapping like a flag in a high wind. I had been holding myself in ever since I had begun to suspect that something was seriously wrong, which was – when? When nothing seemed quite right at the fire pit? Later? Well, with utter certainty when I saw one 20,000-ton ship substituted for another.
My father used to tell me, ‘Alex, there is nothing wrong with being scared… as long as you don’t let it affect you until the danger is over. Being hysterical is okay, too… afterwards and in private. Tears are not unmanly… in the bathroom with the door locked. The difference between a coward and a brave man is mostly a matter of timing.’
I’m not the man my father was but I try to follow his advice. If you can learn not to jump when the firecracker goes off – or whatever the surprise is – you stand a good chance of being able to hang tight until the emergency is over.
This emergency was not over but I had benefited by the catharsis of a good case of shakes. Now I could take stock.
Hypotheses:
a) Something preposterous has happened to the world around me, or
b) Something preposterous has happened to Alex Hergensheimer’s mind; he should be locked up and sedated.
I could not think of a third hypothesis; those two seemed to cover all bases. The second hypothesis I need not waste time on. If, I were raising snakes in my hat, eventually other people would notice and come around with a straitjacket and put me in a nice padded room.
So let’s assume that I am sane (or nearly so; being a little bit crazy is helpful). If I am okay, then the world is .out of joint. Let’s take stock.
That wallet. Not mine. Most wallets are generally similar to each other and this one was much like mine. But carry a wallet for a few years and it fits you; it is distinctly yours. I had known at once that this one was not mine. But I did not want to say so to a ship’s petty officer who insisted on, ‘recognizing’ me as ‘Mr Graham’.
I took out Graham’s wallet and opened it.
Several hundred francs – count it later.
Eighty-five dollars in paper – legal tender of ‘The United States of North America’.
A driver’s license issued to A. L. Graham.
There were more items but I came across a window occupied by a typed notice, one that stopped me cold:
Anyone finding this wallet may keep any money in it as a reward if he will be so kind as to return the wallet to A. L. Graham, cabin C109, S.S. KONGE KNUT, Danish American Line, or to any purser or agent of the line. Thank you. A.L.G.
So now I knew what had happened to the Konge Knut; she had undergone a sea change.
Or had I? Was there truly a changed world and therefore a changed ship? Or were there two worlds and had I somehow walked through fire into the second one? Were there indeed two men and had they swapped destinies? Or had Alex Hergensheimer metamorphized into Alec Graham while M. V. Konge Knut changed into S. S. Konge Knut? (While the North American Union melted into the United States of North America?)
Good questions. I’m glad you brought them up. Now, class, are there any more questions
When I was in middle school there was a spate of magazines publishing fantastic, stories, not alone ghost stories but weird yarns of every sort. Magic ships plying the ether to, other stars. Strange inventions.
Trips to the centre of the earth. Other ‘dimensions’. Flying machines. Power from burning atoms. Monsters created in secret laboratories.
I used to buy them and hide them inside copies of Youth’s Companion and of Young Crusaders knowing instinctively that my parents would disapprove and confiscate. I loved them and so did my outlaw chum Bert.
It couldn’t last. First there was an editorial in Youth’s Companion: ‘Poison to the Soul – Stamp it Out!’ Then our pastor, Brother Draper, preached a sermon against such mind-corrupting trash, with comparisons to the evil effects of cigarettes and booze. Then our state outlawed such publications under the ‘standards of the community’ doctrine even before passage of the national law and the parallel executive order.
And a cache I had hidden ‘perfectly’ in our attic disappeared. Worse, the works of Mr H. G. Wells and
M. Jules Verne and some others were taken out of our public library.
You have to admire the motives of our spiritual leaders and elected officials in seeking to protect the minds of the young. As Brother Draper pointed out, there are enough exciting and adventurous stories in the Good Book to satisfy the needs of every boy and girl in the world; there was simply no need for profane literature. He was not urging censorship of books for adults, just for the impressionable young. If persons of mature years wanted to read such fantastic trash, suffer them to do so – although he, for one, could not see why any grown man would want to.
I guess I was one of the ‘impressionable young’ – I still miss them.
I remember particularly one by Mr Wells: Men Like Gods. These people were driving along in an automobile when an explosion happens and they find themselves in another world, much like their own but better. They meet the people who live there and there is explanation about parallel universes and the fourth dimension and such.
That was the first installment. The Protect-Our-Youth state law was passed right after that, so I never
saw the later installments.
One of my English professors who was bluntly opposed to censorship once said that Mr Wells had invented every one of the basic fantastic themes, and he cited this story as the origin of the
multiple-universes concept. I was intending to ask this prof if he knew where I could find a copy, but I put it off to the end of the term when I would be legally ‘of mature years’ – and waited too long; the academic senate committee on faith and morals voted against tenure for that professor, and he left abruptly without finishing the term.
Did something happen to me like that which Mr Wells described in Men Like Gods? Did Mr Wells have the holy gift of prophecy? For example, would men someday actually fly to the moon? Preposterous!
But was it more preposterous than what had happened to me?
As may be, here. I was in Konge Knut (even though she was not my, Konge Knut) and the sailing board at the gangway showed her getting underway at 6 p.m. It was already late afternoon and high time for me to decide.
What to do? I seemed to have mislaid my own ship, the Motor Vessel Konge Knut. But the crew (some of the crew) of the Steamship Konge Knut seemed ready to accept me as ‘Mr Graham’, passenger.
Stay aboard and try to brazen it out? What if Graham comes aboard (any minute now!) and demands to know what I am doing in his room?
Or go ashore (as I should) and go to the authorities with my problem?
Alex, the French colonial authorities will love you. No baggage, only the clothes on your back, no money, not a sou – no passport! Oh, they will love you so much they’ll give you room and board for the rest of your life … in an oubliette with a grill over the top.
There’s money in that wallet.
So? Ever heard of the Eighth Commandment? That’s his money.
But it stands to reason that he walked through the fire at the same time you did but on this side, this world or whatever – or his wallet would not have been waiting for you. Now he has your wallet. That’s logical.
Listen, my retarded friend, do you think logic has anything to do with the predicament we are in?
Well
Speak up!
No, not really. Then how about this? Sit tight in this room. If Graham shows up before, the ship sails, you get kicked off the ship, that’s sure. But you would be no worse off than you will be if you leave now. If he does not show up, then you take his place at least as far as Papeete. That’s a big city; your chances of coping with the situation are far better there. Consuls and such.
You talked me into it.
Passenger ships usually publish a daily newspaper for the passengers – just a single or double sheet filled with thrilling items such as ‘There will be a boat drill at ten o’clock this morning. All passengers are requested -‘ and ‘Yesterday’s mileage pool was won by Mrs Ephraim Glutz of Bethany, Iowa’ and, usually, a few news items picked up by the wireless operator. I looked around for the ship’s paper and for the ‘Welcome Aboard!’ This latter is a booklet (perhaps with another name) intended to make the passenger newly aboard sophisticated in the little world of the ship: names of the officers, times of meals, location of barber shop, laundry, dining room, gift shop (notions, magazines, toothpaste), and how to place a morning call, plan of the ship by decks, location of life preserver, how, to find your lifeboat station, where to get your table assignment-
‘Table assignment’! Ouch! A passenger who has been aboard even one day does not have to ask how to find his table in the dining room. It’s the little things that trip you. Well, I’d have to bull it through.
The welcome-aboard booklet was tucked into Graham’s desk. I thumbed through it, with a mental note to memorize all key facts before I left this room – if I was still aboard when the ship sailed – then put it aside, as I had found the ship’s newspaper:
The King’s Skald it was headed and Graham, bless him, had saved all of them from the day he had boarded the ship… at Portland, Oregon, as I deduced from the place and date line of the, earliest issue. That suggested that Graham was ticketed for the entire cruise, which could be important to me. I had expected to go back as I had arrived, by airship – but, even if the dirigible liner Admiral Moffett existed in this world or dimension or whatever, I no longer had a ticket for it and no money with which to buy one. What do these French colonials do to a tourist who has no money? Burn him at the stake? Or merely draw and quarter him? I did not want to find out. Graham’s roundtrip ticket (if he had one) might keep me from having to find out.
(If he didn’t show up in the next hour and have me kicked off the ship.)
I did not consider remaining in Polynesia. Being a penniless beachcomber on Bora-Bora or Moorea may have been practical a hundred years ago but today the only thing free in these islands is contagious disease.
It seemed likely that I would be just as broke and just as much a stranger in America but nevertheless I felt that I would be better off in my native land. Well, Graham’s native land.
I read some of the wireless news items but could not make sense of them, so I put them aside for later study. What little I had learned from them was not comforting. I had cherished deep down an illogical hope that this would turn out to be just a silly mixup that would soon be straightened out (don’t ask me how). But those news items ended all hoping.
I mean to say, what sort of world is it in which the ‘President’ of Germany visits London? In my world Kaiser Wilhelm IV rules the German Empire – A ‘president’ for Germany sounds as silly as a ‘king’ for America.
This might he a pleasant world… but it was not the world I was born into. Not by those weird news items.
As I put away. Graham’s file of The King’s Skald I noted on the top sheet today’s prescribed dress for
dinner: ‘Formal’.
I was not surprised; the Konge Knut in her other incarnation as a motor vessel was quite formal. If the ship was underway, black tie was expected. If you didn’t wear it, you were made to feel that you really ought to eat in your stateroom.
I don’t own a tuxedo; our church does not encourage vanities. I had compromised by wearing a blue serge suit at dinners underway, with a white shirt and a snap-on black bow tie. Nobody said anything. It did not matter, as I was below the salt anyhow, having come aboard at Papeete.
I decided to see if Mr Graham owned a dark suit. And a black tie.
Mr Graham owned lots of clothes, far more than I did. I tried on a sports jacket; it fit me well enough.. Trousers? Length seemed okay; I was not sure about the waistband – and too shy to try on a pair and thereby risk being caught by Graham with one leg in his trousers, What does one say? Hi, there! I was just waiting for you and thought I would pass the time by trying on your pants. Not convincing.
He had not one but two tuxedos, one in conventional black and the other in dark red – I had never heard of such frippery.
But I did not find a snap-on bow tie.
He had black bow ties, several. But I have never learned how to tie a bow tie.
I took a deep breath and thought about it.
There came a knock at the door. I didn’t jump out of my skin, just almost. ‘Who’s there!’ (Honest, Mr Graham, I was just waiting for you!) –
‘Stewardess, sir.’
‘Oh. Come in, come in!’
I heard her try her key, then I jumped to turn back the bolt. ‘Sorry. I had forgotten that I had used the dead bolt.
Do come in.’
Margrethe turned out to be about the age of Astrid, youngish, and even prettier, with flaxen hair and freckles across her nose. She spoke textbook-correct English with a charming lilt to it. She was carrying a short white jacket on a coat hanger. ‘Your mess jacket, sir. Karl says the other one will be ready tomorrow.’
‘Why, thank you, Margrethe! I had forgotten all about it.
I thought you might. So I came back aboard a little early – the laundry was just closing. I’m glad I did; it’s much too hot for you to wear black.’
‘You shouldn’t have come back early; you’re spoiling me.’
‘I like to take good care of my guests. As you know.’ She hung the jacket in the wardrobe, turned to leave. ‘I’ll be back to tie your tie. Six-thirty as usual, sir?’
‘Six-thirty is fine. What time is it now?’ (Tarnation, my watch was gone wherever Motor Vessel Konge Knut had vanished; I had not worn it ashore.)
‘Almost six o’clock.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ll lay out your clothes before I go; you don’t have much time.’
‘My dear girl! That’s no part of your duties.’
‘No, it’s my pleasure.’ She opened a drawer, took out a dress shirt, placed it on my/Graham’s bunk. ‘And you know why.’ With the quick efficiency of a person who knows exactly where everything is, she opened a ‘ small desk drawer that I had not touched, took out a leather case, from it laid out by the shirt a watch, a ring, and shirt studs, then inserted studs into the shirt, placed fresh underwear and black silk socks on the pillow, placed evening pumps by the chair with shoe horn tucked inside, took from the wardrobe that mess jacket, hung it and black dress trousers (braces attached) and dark red cummerbund on the front of the wardrobe. She glanced over and a fresh the layout, added a wing collar, a black tie, and a fresh handkerchief to the stack on the pillow – cast her eye over it again, placed the room key and the wallet by the ring and the watch – glanced again, nodded. ‘I must run or I’ll miss dinner. I’ll be back for the tie.’ And she was gone, not running but moving very fast.
Margrethe was so right. If she had not laid out everything, I would still be struggling to put myself together. That shirt alone would have stopped me; it was one of the dive-in-and-button-up-the-back sort. I had never worn one.
Thank heaven Graham used an ordinary brand of safety razor. By six-fifteen I had touched up my morning shave, showered (necessary!), and washed the smoke out of my hair.
His shoes fit me as if I had broken them in myself. His trousers were a bit tight in the waist – a Danish ship is no place to lose weight and I had been in the Motor Vessel Konge Knut for a fortnight. I was still struggling with that consarned backwards shirt when Margarethe let herself in with her pass key.
She came straight to me, said, ‘Hold still,’ and quickly buttoned the buttons I could not reach. Then she fitted that fiendish collar over its collar buttons, laid the tie around my neck. ‘Turn around, please.’
Tying a bow tie properly involves magic. She knew the spell.
She helped me with the cummerband, held my jacket for me, looked me over and announced, ‘You’ll do. And I’m proud of you; at dinner the girls were talking about you.’ I wish I had seen it. You are very brave.’
‘Not brave. Foolish. I talked when I should have kept still.’
‘Brave. I must go – I left Kristina guarding a cherry tart for me. But if I stay away too long someone will steal it.’
‘You run along. And thank you loads’. Hurry and save that tart.’
‘Aren’t you going to pay me?’
‘Oh. What payment would you like?’
‘Don’t tease me!’ She moved a few inches closer, turned her face up. I don’t know much about girls (who does?) but some signals are large print. I took her by her shoulders, kissed both cheeks, hesitated just long enough to be certain that she was neither displeased nor surprised, then placed one right in the middle’. Her lips were full and
warm.
‘Was that the payment you had in mind?’
‘Yes, of course. But you can kiss better than that. You know you can.’ She pouted her lower lip, then dropped her eyes.
‘Brace. yourself.’
Yes, I can kiss lots better than that. Or could by the time we had used up that kiss. By letting Margrethe lead it and heartily cooperating in whatever way she seemed to think a better kiss should go I learned more about kissing in the next two minutes than I had learned in my entire life up to then.
My ears roared.
For a moment after we broke she held still in my arms and looked up at me most soberly. ‘Alec,’ she said softly, ‘that’s the best you’ve ever kissed me. Goodness. Now I’m going to run before I make you late for dinner.’ She slipped out of my arms and left as she did everything, quickly.
I inspected myself in the mirror. No marks. A kiss that emphatic ought to leave marks.
What sort of person was this Graham? I could wear his clothes … but could I cope with his woman? Or was she his? Who knows? – I did not. Was he a lecher, a womanizer? Or was I butting in on a perfectly nice if somewhat indiscreet romance?
How do you walk back- through a fire pit?
And did I want to?
Go aft to the main companionway, then down two decks and go aft again – that’s what the ship’s plans in the booklet showed.
No problem. A man at the door of the dining saloon, dressed much as I was but with a menu under his arm, had to be the head waiter, the chief dining-room steward. He confirmed it with a big professional smile. ‘Good evening, Mr Graham.’
I paused. ‘Good evening. What’s this about a change in seating arrangements? Where am I to sit tonight?’ (If you grab the bull by the horns, you at least confuse him.)
‘It’s not a permanent change, sir. Tomorrow you will be back at table fourteen. But tonight the Captain has asked that you sit at his table. If you will follow me, sir.’
He led me to an oversize table amidships, started to seat me on the Captain’s right – and the Captain stood up and started to clap, the others at his table followed suit, and shortly everyone in the dining room (it seemed) was standing and clapping and some were cheering.
I learned two things at that dinner. First, it was clear that Graham had pulled the same silly stunt I had (but it still was not clear ‘Whether there was one of us or two of us – I tabled that question).
Second, but of major importance: Do not drink ice-cold Aalborg akvavit on an empty stomach, especially if you were brought up White Ribbon as I was.
Chapter 3
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging
Proverbs 20:l
I Am not blaming Captain Hansen. I have heard that Scandinavians put ethanol into their blood as antifreeze, against their long hard winters, and consequently cannot understand people who cannot take strong drink. Besides that, nobody held my arms, nobody held my nose, nobody forced spirits down my throat. I did it myself.
Our church doesn’t hold with the doctrine that the flesh is weak and therefore sin is humanly understandable and readily forgiven. Sin can be forgiven but just barely and you are surely going to catch it first. Sin should suffer.
I found out about some of that suffering. I’m told it is called a hangover.
That is what my drinking uncle called it. Uncle Ed maintained that no man can cope with temperance who has not had a full course of intemperance … otherwise when temptation came his way, he would not know how to handle it.
Maybe I proved Uncle Ed’s point. He was considered a bad influence around our house and, if he had not been Mother’s brother, Dad would not have allowed him, in the house. As it was, he was never pressed to stay longer and was not urged to hurry back.
Before I even sat down at the table, the Captain offered me a glass of akvavit. The glasses used for this are not large; they are quite small – and that is the deceptive part of the danger.
The Captain had a glass like it in his hand. He looked me in the eye and said, ‘To our hero! Skaal!’ – threw his head back and tossed it down.
There were echoes of ‘Skaal!’ all around the table and everyone seemed to gulp it down just like the Captain.
So I did. I could say that being guest of honor laid certain obligations on me -‘When in Rome’ and all that. But the truth is I did not have the requisite strength of character to refuse. I told myself, ‘One tiny glass can’t hurt,’ and gulped it down.
No trouble. It went down smoothly. One pleasant ice-cold swallow, then a spicy aftertaste with a hint of licorice. I did not know what I was drinking but I was not sure that it was alcoholic. It seemed not to be.
We sat down and somebody put food in front of me and the Captain’s steward poured another glass of schnapps for me. I was about to start nibbling the food, Danish hors d’oeuvres and delicious – smorgasbord tidbits – when someone put a hand on my shoulder.
I looked up. The Well-Traveled Man –
With him were the Authority and the Skeptic.
Not the same names. Whoever (Whatever?) was playing games with my life had not gone that far. ‘Gerald Fortescue’ was now ‘Jeremy Forsyth’, for example. But despite slight differences I had no trouble recognizing each of them and their new names were close enough to show that someone, or something, was continuing the joke.
(Then why wasn’t my new name something like ‘Hergensheimer’? ‘Hergensheimer’ has dignity about it, a rolling grandeur. Graham is a so-so name.)
‘Alec,’ Mr Forsyth said, ‘we misjudged you. Duncan and I and Pete are happy to admit it. Here’s the three thousand we owe you, and -‘He hauled his right hand out from behind his back, held up a large bottle. ‘- the best champagne in the ship as a mark of our esteem.’
‘Steward!’ said the Captain.
Shortly, the -wine steward was going around, filling glasses at our table. But before that, I found myself again standing up, making Skaal! in akvavit three times, once to each of the losers, while clutching three thousand dollars States of North America dollars). I did not have, lime then to wonder why three hundred had changed to three thousand – besides, it was not as odd as what had happened to the Konge Knut. Both of her. And my wonder circuits were overloaded anyhow.
Captain Hansen told his waitress to place chairs at the table for Forsyth and company, but all three insisted that their wives and table mates expected them to return. Nor was there room. Not that it would have mattered to Captain Hansen. He, is a Viking, half again as big as a house; hand him a hammer and he would be mistaken for Thor – he has muscles where other men don’t even have places. It is very hard to argue with him.
But he jovially agreed to compromise. They could go back to their tables and finish their dinners but first they must join him and me in pledging Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, guardian angels of our shipmate Alec. In fact the whole table must join in. ‘Steward!’
So we said, ‘Skaal!’ three more times, while bouncing Danish antifreeze off our tonsils.
Have you kept count? That’s seven, I think. You can stop counting, as that is where I lost track. I was beginning to feel a return of the numbness I had felt halfway through the fire pit.
The wine steward had completed pouring champagne, having renewed his supply at a gesture from the Captain. Then it was time to toast me again, and I returned ‘ the compliment to the three losers, then we all toasted Captain Hansen, and then we toasted the good ship
Konge Knut.
The Captain toasted the United States and the whole room stood and drank with him, so I felt it incumbent to answer by toasting the Danish Queen, and that got me toasted again and the Captain demanded a speech from, me. ‘Tell us how it feels to be in the fiery furnace!’
I tried to refuse and there were shouts of ‘Speech! Speech!’ from all around me.
I stood up with some difficulty, tried to remember the speech I had made at the last foreign missions fund-raising dinner. It evaded me. Finally I said, ‘Aw, shucks, it wasn’t anything. Just put your ear to the ground and your shoulder to the wheel, and your eyes on the stars and you can do it too. Thank you, thank you all and next, time you must come to my house.’
They cheered and we skaaled again, I forget why, and the lady on the Captain’s left got up and came around and kissed me, whereupon all the ladies at the Captain’s table clustered around and kissed me. That seemed to inspire the other ladies in the room, for there was a steady procession coming up to claim a buss from me, and usually kissing the Captain while they were about it, or perhaps the other way around.
During this parade someone removed a steak from in front of me, one I had had plans for. I didn’t miss it too much, because that endless orgy of osculation had me bewildered, plus bemusement much like that caused by the female villagers of the fire walk.
Much of this bemusement started when I first walked into the dining room. Let me put it this way: My fellow passengers, female, really should have been in the National Geographic.
Yes. Like that. Well, maybe not quite, but what they did wear made them look nakeder than those friendly villagers. I’m not going to describe those, ‘formal evening dresses’ because I’m not sure I could – and I am sure I shouldn’t. But none of them covered more than twenty percent of what ladies usually keep covered at fancy evening affairs in the world I grew up in. Above the waist I mean. Their skirts, long, some clear to the, floor, were nevertheless cut or slit in most startling ways.
Some of the ladies had tops to their dresses that covered everything … but the material was transparent as glass. Or almost.
And some of the youngest ladies, girls really, actually, did belong in the National Geographic, just like my villagers. Somehow, these younger ladies did not seem quite as immodest as their elders.
I had noticed this display almost the instant I walked in. But, I tried not to stare and the Captain and others kept me so busy at first that I really did not have time to sneak glances at the incredible exposure.
But, look – when a lady comes up and puts her arms around you and insists on kissing you, it is difficult not to notice that she isn’t wearing enough to ward off pneumonia. Or other chest complaints.
But I kept a tight rein on myself despite increasing dizziness and numbness.
Even bare skin did not startle me as much as bare words – language I had never heard in public in my life and extremely seldom even in private among men only. ‘Men’, I said, as gentlemen don’t talk that way even with no ladies’ present – in the world I knew.
The most* shocking thing that ever happened to me in my boyhood was one day crossing the town square, noticing a crowd on the penance side of the courthouse, joining it to see who was catching it and why… and finding my Scoutmaster in the stocks. I almost fainted.
His offence was profane language, so the sign on his chest told us. The accuser was his own wife; he did not dispute it and had thrown himself on the mercy of the court – the judge was Deacon Brumby, who didn’t know the word.
Mr Kirk, my Scoutmaster, left town two weeks later and nobody ever saw him again – being exposed, in the stocks was likely to have that effect on a man. I don’t know what the bad language was that Mr Kirk had used, but it couldn’t have been too bad, as all Deacon Brumby could give him was one
dawn-to-dusk.
That night at the Captain’s table in the K6nge Knut I heard a sweet lady of the favorite-grandmother sort address her husband in a pattern of forbidden words involving blasphemy and certain criminal sensual acts. Had she spoken that way in public in my home town she would have received maximum exposure in stocks followed by being ridden out of town. (Our town did not use tar and feathers; that was regarded as brutal.)
Yet this dear lady in the ship was not even chided. Her husband simply- smiled and told her that she worried too much.
Between shocking speech, incredible immodest exposure, and effects of two sorts of strange and deceptive potions lavishly administered, I was utterly confused. A stranger in a strange land, I was overcome by customs new and shocking. But through it all I clung to the conviction that I must appear to be sophisticated, at home, unsurprised. I must not let anyone suspect that I was not Alec Graham,
shipmate, but instead Alexander Hergensheimer, total stranger… or something terrible might happen.
Of course I was wrong; something terrible had already happened. I was indeed a total stranger in an utterly strange and confusing land… but I do not think, in retrospect, that I would have made my condition worse had I simply blurted out my predicament.
I would not have been believed.
How else? I had trouble believing it myself.
Captain Hansen, a hearty no-nonsense man, would have bellowed with laughter at my ‘joke’ and insisted on another toast. Had I persisted in my ‘delusion’ he would have had the ship’s doctor talk to me.
Still, I got through that amazing evening easier by holding tight to the notion that I must concentrate on acting the part of Alec Graham while never letting anyone suspect that I was a changeling, a cuckoo’s egg.
There had just been placed in front of me a slice of princess cake, a beautiful multilayered confection I recalled from the other Konge Knut, and a small cup of coffee, when the Captain stood up. ‘Come, Alec! We go to the lounge now; the show is ready to start – but they can’t start till I get there. So come on! You don’t want all that sweet stuff; it’s not good for you. You can have coffee in the lounge. But before that we have some man’s drinks, henh? Not these joke drinks. You like Russian vodka?’
He linked his arm in mine. I discovered that I was going to the lounge. Volition did not enter into it.
That lounge show was much the mixture I had found earlier in M. V. Konge Knut – a magician who did improbable things but not as improbable as what I had done (or been done to?), a standup comedian who should have sat down, a pretty girl who sang, and dancers. The major differences were two I had already been exposed to: bare skin and bare words, and by then I was so numb from earlier shock and akvavit that these additional proofs of a different world had minimal effect.
The girl who sang just barely had clothes on and the lyrics of her songs would have caused her trouble even in the underworld of Newark, New Jersey. Or so I think; I have no direct experience with that
notorious sink of iniquity. I paid more attention to her appearance, since here I need not avert my eyes; one is expected to stare at performers.
If one admits for the sake of argument that customs in dress can be wildly different without destroying the fabric of society (a possibility. I do not concede but will stipulate), then it helps, I think, if the person exhibiting this difference is young and healthy and comely.
The singer was young and healthy and comely. I felt a twinge of regret when she left the spotlight
The major event was a troupe of Tahitian dancers, and I was truly not surprised that they were costumed bare to the waist save for flowers or shell beads – by then I would have been surprised had they been otherwise. What was still surprising (although I suppose it should not have been) was the subsequent behaviour of my fellow passengers.
First the troupe, eight girls, two men, danced for us, much the same dancing that had preceded the fire walk today, much the same as I had seen when a troupe had come aboard M.V. Konge Knut in Papeete. Perhaps you know that the hula of Tahiti differs from the slow and graceful hula of the Kingdom of Hawaii by being at a much faster beat and is much more energetic. I’m no expert on the arts of the dance but at least I have seen both styles of hula in the lands where each was native.
I prefer the Hawaiian hula, which I had seen when the Count von Zeppelin had stopped at Hilo for a day on her way to Papeete. The Tahitian hula strikes me as an athletic accomplishment rather than an art form. But its very energy and speed make it still more startling in the dress or undress these native girls wore.
There was more to come. After a long dance sequence, which included paired dancing between girls and each of the two young men – in which they did things that would have been astonishing even among barnyard fowl (I kept expecting Captain Hansen to put a stop to it) – the ship’s master of ceremonies or cruise director stepped forward.
‘Ladeez and gentlemen,’ he announced, ‘and the rest of you intoxicated persons of irregular birth -‘ (I am forced to amend his language.) ‘Most of you setters and even a few pointers have made good use of the four days our’ dancers have been with us to add the Tahitian hula to your repertoire. Shortly you’ll be given a chance to demonst rate what you’ve learned and to receive diplomas as authentic Papeete papayas. But what you don’t know is that others in the good ole knutty Knut have been practicing, too. Maestro, strike up the band!’
Out from behind the lounge stage danced a dozen more hula dancers. But these girls were not Polynesian; these girls were Caucasian. They were dressed authentically, grass skirts and necklaces, a flower in the hair, nothing else. But instead of warm brown, their skins were white; most of them were blondes, two were redheads.
It makes a difference. By then I was ready to concede’ that Polynesian women were correctly and even modestly dressed in their native costume -. other places, other customs. Was not Mother Eve modest in her simplicity before the Fall?
I But white women are grossly out of place in South Seas garb.
However, this did not keep me from watching the dancing. I was amazed to see that these girls danced that fast and complex dance as well (to my untutored eye) as did the island girls. I remarked on it to the Captain. ‘They learned to dance that precisely in only four days?’
He snorted. ‘They practice every cruise, those who ship with us before. All have practiced at least since San Diego.’
At that point I recognized one of the dancers – Astrid, the sweet young woman who had let me into ‘my’ stateroom – and I then understood why they had had time and incentive to practice together: These girls were ship’s crew. I looked at her – stared, in fact – with more interest. She caught my eye and smiled.
Like a dolt, a bumpkin, instead of smiling back I looked away and blushed, and tried to cover my embarrassment by taking a big sip of the drink I found in my hand.
One of the kanaka dancers whirled out in front of the white girls and called one of them out for a pair dance. Heaven save me, it was Margrethe!
I choked up and could not breathe. She was the most blindingly beautiful sight I had ever seen in all my life.
‘Behold, thou art fair, my, love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from Mount Gilead.
‘Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies.
‘Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. ‘Thou art all fair, MY love; there is no spot in thee.’
Chapter 4
Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
Job 5:6-7
I SLOWLY became aware of myself and wished I had not; a most terrible nightmare was chasing me. I jammed my eyes shut against the light and tried to go back to sleep.
Native drums were beating in my head; I tried to shut them out by covering my ears.
They got louder.
I gave up, opened my eyes and lifted my head. A mistake – my stomach flipfiopped and my ears shook. My eyes would not track and those infernal drums were tearing my skull apart.
I finally got my eyes to track, although the focus was fuzzy. I looked around, found that I was in a strange room, lying on top of a bed and only half dressed.
That began to bring it back to me. A party aboard ship. Spirits. Lots of spirits. Noise. Nakedness. The
Captain in a grass skirt, dancing heartily, and the orchestra keeping step with him. Some of the lady passengers wearing grass skirts and some wearing even less. Rattle of bamboo, boom of drums.
Drums –
Those weren’t drums in my head; that was the booming of the worst headache of my life. Why in Ned did I let them –
Never mind ‘them’. You did it yourself, chum.
Yes, but –
‘Yes, but.’ Always ‘Yes, but.’ All your life it’s been ‘Yes, but.’ When are you going to straighten up and take full responsibility for your life and all that happens to you?
Yes, but this isn’t my fault. I’m not A. L. Graham. That isn’t my name. This isn’t my ship.
It isn’t? You’re not?
Of course not –
I sat up to Shake off this bad dream. Sitting up was a mistake; my head did not fall off but a stabbing pain at the base of my neck added itself to the throbbing inside my skull. I was wearing black dress trousers and apparently nothing else and I was in a strange room that was rolling slowly.
Graham’s trousers. Graham’s room. And that long, slow roll was that of a ship with no stabilizers.
Not a dream. Or if it is, I can’t shake myself out of it. My teeth itched, my feet didn’t fit. Dried sweat all over me except where I was clammy. My armpits – Don’t even think about armpits!
My mouth needed to have lye dumped into it.
I remembered everything now. Or almost. The fire pit. Villagers. Chickens scurrying out of the way. The ship that wasn’t my ship – but was. Margrethe –
Margrethe!
‘Thy two breasts are like two roes – thou art all fair, my love!’
Margrethe among the dancers, her bosom as bare as her feet. Margrethe dancing with that villainous kanaka, and shaking her –
No wonder I got drunk!
Stow it, chum! You were drunk before that. All you’ve got against that native lad is that it was he instead of you. You wanted to dance with her yourself. Only you can’t dance.
Dancing is a snare of Satan.
And don’t you wish you knew how!
‘- like two roes’! Yes I do!
I heard a light tap at the door, then a rattle of keys. Margrethe stuck her head in. ‘Awake? Good.’ She came in, carrying a tray, closed the door, came to me. ‘Drink this.’
‘What is it?’
‘Tomato juice, mostly. Don’t argue – drink it!’
‘I don’t think I can.’
‘Yes, you can. You must. Do it.’
I sniffed it, then I took a small sip. To my amazement it did not nauseate me. So I drank some more. After one minor quiver it went down smoothly and lay quietly inside me. Margrethe produced two pills. ‘Take these. Wash them down with the rest of the tomato juice.’
‘I never take medicine.’
She sighed, and said something I did not understand. Not English. Not quite. ‘What did you say?’
‘Just something my grandmother used to say when grandfather argued with her. Mr Graham, take those pills. They are just aspirin and you need them. If you won’t cooperate, I’ll stop trying to help you. I’ll – I’ll swap you to Astrid, that’s what I’ll do.’
‘Don’t do that.’
‘I will if you keep objecting. Astrid would swap, I know she would. She likes you – she told me you were watching her dance last night.’
I accepted the pills, washed them down with the rest of the tomato juice – ice-cold and very comforting. ‘I did until I spotted you. Then I watched you.’
She smiled for the first time. ‘Yes? Did you like it?’
‘You were beautiful.’ (And your dance was obscene. Your immodest dress and your behaviour shocked me out of a year’s growth. I hated it – and I wish I could see it all over again this very instant!) ‘You are very graceful.’
The smile grew dimples. ‘I had hoped that you would like it, sir.’
‘I did. Now stop threatening me with Astrid.’
‘All right. As long as you behave. Now get up and into the shower. First very hot, then very cold. Like a sauna.’
She waited. ‘Up, ‘ I said. I’m not leaving until that shower is running and steam is pouring out.’
‘I’ll shower. After you leave.’
‘And you’ll run it lukewarm, I know. Get up, get those trousers off, get into that shower. While you’re showering, I’ll fetch your breakfast tray. There is just enough time before they shut down the galley to set up for lunch… so quit wasting time. Please!’
‘Oh, I can’t eat breakfast! Not today. No. ‘Food – what a disgusting thought.
‘You must eat. You drank too much last night, you know you did. If you don’t eat, you will feel bad all day. Mr Graham, I’ve finished making up for all my other guests, so I’m off watch now. I’m fetching your tray, then I’m going to stay and see that you eat it.’ She looked at me. ‘I should have taken your trousers off when I put you to bed. But you were too heavy.’
‘You put me to bed?’
‘Ori helped me. The boy I danced with.’ My face must have given me away, for she added hastily, ‘Oh, I didn’t let him come into your room, sir. I undressed you myself. But I did have to have help to get you up the stairs.’
‘I wasn’t criticizing.’ (Did you go back to the party then? Was he there? Did you dance with him again?
-`jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire -‘ I have no right.) ‘I thank you both. I must have been a beastly nuisance.’
‘Well… brave men often drink too much, after danger is over. But it’s not good for you.’
‘No, it’s not.’ I got up off the bed, went into the bathroom, said, ‘I’ll turn it up hot. Promise.’ I closed the door and bolted it, finished undressing. (So I got so stinking, rubber-limp drunk that a native boy had to help get me to bed. Alex, you’re a disgusting mess! And you haven’t any right to be jealous over a nice girl. You don’t own her, her behavior is not wrong by the standards of this place – wherever this place is
and all she’s done is mother you and, take care of you. That does not give you a claim on her.)
I did turn it up hot, though it durn near kilt poor old Alex. But I left it hot until the nerve ends seemed cauterized – then suddenly switched it to cold, and screamed.
I let it stay cold until it no longer felt cold, then shut.It off and -dried down, having opened the door to let out the moisture-charged air. I stepped out into the room… and suddenly realized that I felt wonderful.
No headache. No feeling that the world is ending at noon. No stomach queasies. Just hunger. Alex, you must never get drunk again… but if you do, you must do exactly what Margrethe tells you to. You’ve got a smart head on her shoulders, boy – appreciate it.
I started to whistle and opened Graham’s wardrobe.
I heard a key in the door, hastily grabbed his bathrobe, managed to cover up before she got the door open. She was slow about it, being hampered by a heavy tray. When I realized this I held the door for her. She put down the tray, then arranged dishes and food on my desk.
‘You were right about the sauna-type shower,’ I told her. ‘It was just what the doctor ordered. Or the nurse, I should say.’
‘I know, it’s what my grandmother used to do for my grandfather.’
‘A smart woman. My, this smells good!’ (Scrambled eggs, bacon, lavish amounts of Danish pastry, milk, coffee – a side dish of cheeses, fladbrod, and thin curls of ham, some tropic fruit I can’t name.) ‘What was that your grandmother used to say when your grandfather argued?’
‘Oh, she was sometimes impatient.’
‘And you never are. Tell me.’
‘Well – She used to say that God created men to test the souls of women.’
‘She may have a point. Do you agree with her?’
Her smile produced dimples. ‘I think they have other uses as well.’
Margrethe tidied my room and cleaned my bath (okay, okay, Graham’s room, Graham’s bath – satisfied?) while I ate. She laid out a pair of slacks, a sport shirt in an island print, and sandals for me, then removed the tray and dishes while leaving coffee and the remaining fruit. I thanked her as she left, wondered if I should offer ‘payment’ and wondered, too, if she performed such valet services for other passengers. It seemed unlikely. I found I could not ask.
I bolted the door after her and proceeded to search. Graham’s room.
I was wearing his clothes, sleeping in his bed, answering to his name – and now I must decide whether or not I would go whole hawg and be ‘A. L. Graham’… or should I go to some authority (American consul? If not, whom?), admit the impersonation, and ask.for help?
Events were crowding me. Today’s King Skald showed that S.S. Konge Knut was scheduled to dock at Papeete at 3 p.m. and sail for MazatIdn, Mexico, at 6 p.m. The purser notified all passengers wishing
to change francs into dollars that a representative of the Bank of Papeete would be in the ship’s square facing the purser’s office from docking until fifteen minutes before sailing. The purser again wished to notify passengers that shipboard indebtedness such as bar and shop bills could be settled only in dollars, Danish crowns, or by means of validated letters of credit.
All very reasonable. And troubling. I had expected the, ship to stop at Papeete for twenty-four hours at the very least. Docking for only three hours seemed preposterous – why, they would hardly finish tying up before it would be time, to start singling up for sailing! Didn’t they have to pay rent for twenty-four hours if they docked at all?
Then I reminded myself that managing the ship was not my business. Perhaps the Captain was taking advantage of a few hours between departure of one ship and arrival of another. Or there might be six other reasons. The only thing I should worry about was what I could accomplish between three and six, and’ what I must accomplish between now and three.
Forty minutes of intense searching turned up the following:
Clothes, all sorts – no problem other than about five pounds at my waistline.
Money – the francs in his billfold (must change them) and the eighty-five dollars there; three thousand dollars loose in the desk drawer that held the little case for Graham’s watch, ring, shirt studs, etc. Since the watch and jewelry had been returned to this case, I assumed, conclusively that Margrethe had conserved for me the proceeds of that bet that I (or Graham) had won from Forsyth and Jeeves and Henshaw. It is said that the Lord looks out for fools and drunkards; if so, in my case He operated through Margrethe.
Various impedimenta of no significance to my immediate problem – books, souvenirs, toothpaste, etc.
No passport.
When a first search failed to turn up Graham’s passport, I went back and searched again. this time checking the pockets of all clothes hanging in his wardrobe as well as rechecking with care all the usual places and some unusual places that might hide a booklet the size of a passport.
No passport.
Some tourists are meticulous about keeping their passports on their persons whenever leaving a ship. I prefer not to carry my passport when I can avoid it because losing a passport is a sticky mess. I had not carried mine the day before … so now mine was gone where the woodbine twineth, gone to Fiddler’s Green, gone where Motor Vessel Konge Knut had gone. And where was that I had not had time to think about that yet; I was too busy coping with a strange new world.
If Graham had carried his passport yesterday, then it too was gone to Fiddler’s Green through a crack in the fourth dimension. It was beginning to look that way.
While I fumed, someone slipped an envelope under the stateroom door.
I picked it up and opened it. Inside was the purser’s billing for ‘my’ (Graham’s) bills aboard ship. Was Graham scheduled to leave the ship at Papeete? Oh, no! If he was, I might be marooned in the islands indefinitely.
No, maybe not. This appeared to be a routine end-of-amonth billing.
The size of Graham’s bar bill shocked me… until I noticed some individual items. Then I was still more shocked but for another reason. When a Coca-Cola costs two dollars it does not mean that a Coke is bigger; it means that the dollar is smaller.
I now knew why a three-hundred-dollar bet on. uh, the other side turned out to be three thousand dollars on this side.
If I was going to have to live in this world, I was going to have to readjust my thinking about all prices. Treat dollars as I would a foreign currency and convert all prices in my head until I got used to them. For example, if these shipboard prices were representative, then a first-class dinner, steak or prime rib, in a first-class restaurant, let’s say the main dining room of a hotel such as the Brown Palace or the Mark Hopkins – such a dinner could easily cost ten dollars. Whew!
With cocktails before dinner and wine with it, the tab might reach fifteen dollars! A week’s wages. Thank heaven I don’t drink!
You don’t what?
Look – last night was a very special occasion.
So? So it was, because you lose your virginity only once. Once gone, it’s gone forever. What was that you were drinking just before the lights went out? A Danish zombie? Wouldn’t you like one of those about now? Just to readjust your stability?
I’ll never touch one again!
See you later, chum.
Just one more chance but a good one – I hoped. The small case that Graham used for jewelry and such had in it a key, plain save for the number eighty-two stamped on its side. If fate was smiling, that was a – key to a lockbox in the purser’s office.
(And if fate was sneering at me today, it was a key to a lockbox in a bank somewhere in the forty-six states, a bank I would never see. But let’s not borrow trouble; I have all I need
I went down one deck and aft. ‘Good morning, Purser.’
‘Ah, Mr Graham! A fine party, was it not?’
‘It certainly was. One more like that and I’m a corpse.’
‘Oh, come now, That from a man who walks through fire. You seemed to enjoy it – and I know I did.
What can we do for you, sir?’
I brought out the key I had found. ‘Do I have the right key? Or does this one belong to my bank? I can never remember.’
The purser took it. ‘That’s one of ours. Poul! Take this and get Mr Graham’s box. Mr Graham, do you want to come around behind and sit at a table?’
‘Yes, thank you. Uh, do you have a sack or something that would hold the contents of a box that size? I would take it back to my desk for paper work.’
‘”A sac” – Mmm… I could get one from the gift shop. But – How long do you think this desk work will take you? Can you finish it by noon?’
‘Oh, certainly.’
‘Then take the box itself back to your stateroom. There is a rule against it but I made the rule so we can risk breaking it. But try to be back by noon. We close from noon to thirteen – union rules – and if I have to sit here by myself with all my clerks gone to lunch, you’ll have to buy me a drink.’
‘I’ll buy you one anyhow.’
‘We’ll roll for it. Here you are. Don’t take it through any fires.’
Right on top was Graham’s passport. A tight lump in my chest eased. I know of no more lost feeling than being outside the Union without a passport … even though it’s not truly the Union. I opened it, looked at the picture embossed inside. Do I look like that? I went into the bathroom, compared the face in the mirror’ with the face in the passport.
Near enough, I guess. No one expects much of a passport picture. I tried holding the photograph up to the mirror. Suddenly it was a good resemblance. Chum, your face is lopsided… and so is yours, Mr
Graham.
Brother, if I’m going to have to assume your identity permanently – and it looks more and more as if I have no choice – it’s a relief to know that we look so much alike. Fingerprints? We’ll cope with that when we have to. Seems the U.S. of N.A. doesn’t use fingerprints on passports; that’s some help. Occupation: Executive. Executive of what? A funeral parlor? Or a worldwide chain of hotels? Maybe this is not going to be difficult but merely impossible.
Address: Care of O’Hara, Rigsbee, Crumpacker, and Rigsbee, Attys at Law, Suite 7000, Smith Building, Dallas. Oh, just dandy. Merely a mail drop. No business address, no home address, no business. Why, you phony, I’d love to poke you in the snoot!
(He can’t be too repulsive; Margrethe thinks well of him. Well, yes – but he should keep his hands off Margrethe; he’s taking advantage of her. Unfair. Who is taking advantage of her? Watch it, boy, you’ll get a split personality.)
An envelope under the passport contained the passenger’s file copy of his ticket – and it was indeed round trip, Portland to Portland. Twin, unless you show up before 6 p.m., I’ve got a trip home. Maybe you can use my ticket in the Admiral Moffett. I wish you luck.
There were some minor items but the bulk of the metal box was occupied by ten sealed fat envelopes, business size. I opened one.
It contained thousand-dollar bills, one hundred of them.
I made a fast check with the other nine. All alike. One million dollars in cash.
Chapter 5
The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.
Proverbs 28:1
BARELY BREATHING, I used gummed tape I found in Graham’s desk to seal the envelopes. I put everything back but the passport, placed it with that three thousand that I thought of as ‘mine’ in the little drawer of the desk, then took the box back to the purser’~ office, carrying it carefully.
Someone else was at the front desk but the purser was in sight in his inner office; I caught his eye.
‘Hi,’ he called out. ‘Back so soon?’ He came out.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘For once, everything tallied.’ I passed the box to him.
‘I’d like to hire you for this office. Here, nothing ever tallies. At least not earlier than midnight. Let, s go find that drink. I need one.’
‘So do I! Let’s.’
The purser led me aft to an outdoor bar I had not noticed on the ship’s plan. The deck above us ended and the deck we were on, D deck, continued on out as a weather deck, bright teak planks pleasant to walk on. The break on C deck formed an overhang; under it was this outdoor spread canvas. At right angles to the bar were long tables offering a lavish buffet lunch; passengers were queued up for it. Farther aft was the ship’s swimming pool; I could hear splashing, squeals, and yells.
He led me on aft to a small table occupied by two junior officers. We stopped there. ‘You two. Jump overboard.’
‘Right away, Purser.’ They stood up, picked up their beer glasses, and moved farther aft. One of them grinned at me and nodded, as if we knew each other, so I nodded and said, U.’
This table was partly shaded by awning. The purser said to me, ‘Do you want to sit in the sun and watch the girls, or sit in the shade and relax?’
‘Either way. Sit where you wish; I’ll take the other chair.’
‘Um. Let’s move this table a little and both sit in the shade. There, that does it.’ He sat down facing forward; perforce I sat facing the swimming pool – and confirmed something I thought I had seen at first glance: This swimming pool did not require anything as redundant as swim suits.
I should have inferred it by logic had I thought about it – but I had not. The last time I had seen it – swimming without suits – I had been about twelve and it had been strictly a male privilege for boys that age or younger.
‘I said, “What will you drink, Mr Graham’
‘Oh! Sorry, I wasn’t listening.’
‘I know. You were looking. What will it be?’
‘Uh… a Danish zombie.’
He blinked at me. ‘You don’t want that at this time of day; that’s a skull splitter. Mmm – ‘He waggled his fingers at someone behind me. ‘Sweetheart, come here.’
I looked up as the summoned waitress approached. I looked and then looked twice. I had seen her last through an alcoholic haze the night before, one of two redheads in the hula chorus line.
‘Tell Hans I want two silver fizzes. What’s your name, dear?’
‘Mr Henderson, you pretend just one more time that you don’t know my name and I’ll pour your drink right on your bald spot.’
‘Yes, dear. Now hurry up. Get those fat legs moving.’
She snorted and glided away on limbs that were slender and graceful. The purser added, ‘A fine girl, that. Her parents live just across from me in Odense; I’ve known her since she was a baby. A smart girl, too. Bodel is studying to be a veterinary surgeon, one more year to go.’
‘Really? How does she do this and go to school, too?’
‘Most of our girls are at university. Some take a summer off, some take a term off – go to sea, have some fun, save up money for next term. In hiring I give preference to girls who are working their way through university; they are more dependable – and they know more languages. Take your room stewardess. Astrid?’
‘No. Margrethe.’
‘Oh, yes, you are in one-oh-nine; Astrid has portside forward on your deck, Margrethe is on your side. Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson. Schoolteacher. English language and history. But knows four more languages not counting Scandinavian languages – and has certificates for two of them. On one-year leave from H. C. Andersen Middle School. I’m betting she won’t go back.’
‘Eh? Why?’
‘She’ll marry-a rich American. Are you rich?’
‘Me’? Do I look rich?’ (Could he possibly know what is in that lockbox? Dear God, what does one do with a million dollars that isn’t yours? I can’t just throw it overboard. Why would Graham be traveling with that much in cash? I could think of several reasons, all bad. Any one of them could get me in more trouble than I had ever seen.)
‘Rich Americans never look it; they practice not looking rich. North Americans ‘ I mean; South Americans are another fish entirely. Gertrude, thank you. You are a good girl.’
‘You want this drink on your bald spot?’
‘You want me to throw you into the pool with your clothes on? Behave yourself, dear, or I’ll tell your mother. Put them down and give me the chit.’
‘No chit; Hans wanted to buy a drink for Mr Graham. So he decided to include you, this once.’
‘You tell him that’s the way the bar loses money. Tell him I take it out of his wages.’
That’s how I happened to drink two silver fizzes instead of one… and was well on my way toward a disaster such as the night before, when Mr Henderson decided that we must eat. I wanted a third fizz. The first two had enabled me to quit worrying over that crazy box full of money while enhancing my appreciation of the poolside floor show. I was discovering that a lifetime of conditioning could wash away in only twenty-four hours. There was nothing sinful about looking at feminine loveliness unadorned. It was as sweetly innocent as looking at flowers or kittens – but far more fun.
In the meantime I wanted another drink.
Mr Henderson vetoed it, called Bodel over, spoke to her rapidly in Danish. She left, returned a few minutes later carrying a loaded tray – smorgasbord, hot meat balls, sweet pastry shells stuffed with ice cream, strong coffee, all in large quantities.
Twenty-five minutes later I still appreciated the teenagers at the pool, but I was no longer on my way to another alcoholic catastrophe. I had sobered up so much that I now realized that I not only could not solve my problems through spirits but must shun alcohol until I did solve them – as I did not know how to handle strong drink. Uncle Ed was right; vice required training and long practice otherwise for pragmatic reasons virtue should rule even when moral instruction has ceased to bind.
My morals certainly had ceased to bind – or I could not have sat there with a glass of Devil’s brew in my
hand while I stared at naked female flesh.
I found that I had not even a twinge of conscience over anything. My only regret involved the sad knowledge that I could not handle the amount of alcohol I would have enjoyed. ‘Easy is the descent into Hell.’
Mr Henderson stood up. ‘We tie up in less than two hours and I have some figures to fudge before the agent comes aboard. Thanks for a nice time.’
‘Thank you, sir! Tusind tak! Is that how you say it?’
He smiled and left. I sat there for a bit and thought. Two hours till we docked, three hours in port – what could I do with the opportunities?
Go to the American consul? Tell him what? Dear Mr Consul, I am not he whom I am presumed to be and I just happened to find this million dollars – Ridiculous!
Say nothing to anyone, grab that million, go ashore and catch the next airship for Patagonia?
Impossible. My morals had slipped – apparently they were never very strong. But I III had this prejudice against stealing. It’s not only wrong; it’s undignified.
Bad enough that I’m wearing his clothes.
Take the three thousand that is ‘rightfully’ yours, go’ ashore, wait for the ship to sail, then get back to America as best you can?
Stupid ideal. You would wind up in a tropical jail and your silly gesture would not do Graham any good. It’s Hobson’s choice again, you knothead; you must stay aboard and wait for Graham to show up. He won’t, but there might be a wireless message or something. Bite your nails until the ship sails. When it does, thank God for a trip home to God’s country. While Graham does the same for his ticket home in
the Admiral Moffett. I wonder how he liked being named Hergensheimer? Better than I like ‘Graham’ I’ll bet. A proud name, Hergensheimer.
I got up, ducked around to the far side, and went up two decks to the library, found it unoccupied save for a woman, working on a crossword puzzle. Neither of us wanted to be disturbed, which made us good company. Most of the bookcases were locked, the librarian not being present, but there was a battered encyclopedia – just what I needed as a start.
Two hours later I was startled by a blast indicating that we had a line to the dock; we had arrived. I was loaded with strange history and stranger ideas and none of it digested. To start with, in this world William Jennings Bryan was never president; in I896 McKinley had been elected in his place, had served two terms and had been followed by someone named Roosevelt.
I recognised none of the twentieth-century presidents.
Instead of more than a century of peace under our traditional neutrality, the United States had repeatedly been involved in foreign wars: I899, I9I2-I7, I932 (With Japan!), I950-52, I980-84, and so on right up to the current year – or current when this encyclopedia was published; King’s Skald did not report a war now going on.
Behind the glass of one of the locked cases I spotted several history books. If I was still in the ship three hours from now, I must plan on reading every history book in the ship’s library during the long passage to America.
But names of presidents and dates of wars were not my most urgent need; these are not daily concerns. What I urgently needed to know, lest ignorance cause me anything from needless embarrassment to catastrophe, was the differences between my world and this world in how people lived, talked, behaved, ate, drank, played, prayed, and loved. While I was learning, I must be careful to talk as little as possible and to listen as much as possible.
I once had a neighbour whose knowledge of history seemed limited to two dates, I492 and I776, and even with those two he was mixed up as to what events each marked. His ignorance in other fields was just as profound; nevertheless he earned an excellent living as a paving contractor.
‘It does not require a broad education to function as a social and economic animal… as long as you
know when to rub blue mud into your bellybutton. But a mistake in local customs can get you lynched.
I wondered how Graham was doing? It occurred to me that his situation was far more. dangerous than mine… if I assumed (as apparently I must) that he and I had simply swapped places. It seemed that my background could make me appear eccentric here – but his background could get Graham into serious trouble in my world. A casual remark, an innocent act, could land him in the stocks. Or worse.
But he might find his worst trouble through attempting to fit himself fully into my role – if indeed he tried. Let me put it this way: On her birthday after we had been married a year I gave Abigail a fancy edition of The Taming of the Shrew. She never suspected that I had been making a statement; her conviction of her own righteousness did not embrace the possibility that in my heart I equated her with Kate. If Graham assumed my role as her husband, the relationship was bound to be interesting for each of them.
I would not knowingly wish Abigail on anyone. Since I had not been consulted, I did not cry crocodile tears.
(What would it be to bed with a woman who did not always refer to marital relations as ‘family duties’?)
Here I have in front of me a twenty-volume encyclopedia, millions of words packed with all the major facts of this world – facts I urgently need. What can I squeeze out of it quickly? Where to start? I don’t want Greek art, or Egyptian history, or geology – but what do I want?
Well, what did you first notice about this world? This ship itself. Its old-fashioned appearance compared with the sleek lines of the M.V. Konge Knut. Then, once you were aboard, the lack of a telephone in your-Graham’s stateroom. The lack of passenger elevators. Little things that gave it an air of the luxury of grandfather’s day.
So let’s see the article on ‘Ships’ – volume eighteen.
Yes, sir! Three pages of pictures … and they all have that Mauve-Decade look. S.S. Britannia, biggest and fastest North Atlantic liner, 2000 passengers, only sixteen knots! And looks it.
Let’s try the general article on ‘Transportation’
Well, well! We aren’t too surprised, are we? No mention of airships. But let’s check the index volume – Airship, nothing; dirigible, zero; aeronautics – see ‘Balloon’.
Ah, yes, a good article on free ballooning, with the Montgolfiers and the other daring pioneers – even Salomon Andrée’s brave and tragic attack on the North Pole. But either Count von Zeppelin never lived, or he never turned his attention to aeronautics.
Possibly, after his service in the Civil War, he returned to Germany and there never found the atmosphere receptive to the idea of air travel that he enjoyed in Ohio in my world. As may be, this world does not have air travel. Alex, if you have to live here, how would you like to ‘invent’ the airship? Be a pioneer, and tycoon, and get rich and famous?
What makes you think you could?
Why, I made my first airship flight when I was only twelve years old! I know all about them; I could draw plans for one right now –
You could? Draw me production drawings for a lightweight diesel, not over one pound per horsepower. Specify the alloys used, give the heat treatments, show work diagrams for the actual operating cycles, specify fuels, state procurement sources, specify lubricants
All those things can be worked out!
Yes, but can you do it? Even knowing that it can be done? Remember why you dropped out of engineering school and decided you had a call for the ministry? Comparative religion, homiletics, higher criticism, apologetics, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, all require scholarship… but the slipstick subjects require brains.
So I’m stupid, am I?
Would you have walked through that fire pit if you had brains enough to come in out of the rain?
Why didn’t you stop me?
Stop you? When did you ever listen to me? Quit evading what was your final mark in thermodynamics?
All right! Assume that I can’t do it myself –
Big of you.
Lay off, will you? Knowing that something can be done is two thirds of the battle. I could be director of research and guide the efforts of some really sharp young engineers. They supply the brains; I supply the unique memory of what a dirigible balloon looks like and how it works. Okay?
That’s the proper division of labor: You supply memory, they supply brains. Yes, that could work. But not quickly, not cheaply. How are you going to finance it?
Uh, sell shares?
Remember the summer you sold vacuum cleaners?
Well… there’s that million dollars.
Naughty, naughty!
‘Mr Graham?’
I looked up from my great plans to find a yeoman from the purser’s office looking at me. ‘Yes?’
She handed me an envelope. ‘From Mr Henderson, sir. He said you would probably have an answer.’
‘Thank you.’ The note read: ‘Dear Mr Graham: There are three men down here in the square who claim to have an appointment with you. I don’t like their looks or the way they talk – and this port has some very strange customers. If you are not expecting them or don’t wish to see them, tell my messenger that she could not find you. Then I’ll tell them that you’ve gone ashore. A.P.H.’
I remained balanced between curiosity and caution for some long, uncomfortable moments. They did not want to see me; they wanted to see Graham… and whatever it was they wanted of Graham, I could not satisfy their want.
You know what they want!
‘So I suspect. But, even if they have a chit signed by Saint Peter, I can’t turn over to them – or to anyone
that silly million dollars. You know that.
Certainly I know that. I wanted to be sure that you knew it. All right, since there are no circumstances under which you will turn over to a trio of strangers the contents of Graham’s lockbox, then why see them?
Because I’ve got to know! Now shut up. I said to the yeoman, ‘Please tell Mr Henderson that I will be right down. And thank you for your trouble.’
‘My pleasure, sir. Uh, Mr Graham. … I saw you walk the fire. You were wonderful!’
‘I was out of my silly mind. Thanks anyhow.’
I stopped at the top of the companionway and sized up the three men waiting for me. They looked as if they had been type-cast for menace: one oversize job about six feet eight with the hands, feet, jaw, and ears of glandular giantism; one sissy type about one quarter the size of the big man; one nothing type with dead eyes. Muscles, brain, and gun – or was it my jumpy imagination?
A smart person would go quietly back up and hide.
I’m not smart.
Chapter 6
Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.
Isaiah 22:13
I WALKED down the stairs, not looking at the three, and went directly to the desk of the purser’s office. Mr Henderson was there, spoke quietly as I reached the counter. ‘Those three over there. Do you know them?’
‘No, I don’t know them. I’ll see what they want. But keep an eye on us, will you, please?’
‘Right!’
I turned and started to walk past that lovable trio. The smart boy said sharply, ‘Graham! Stop there! Where you going?’
I kept moving and snapped, ‘Shut up, you idiot! Are you trying to blow it?’ Muscles stepped into my path and hung over me like a tall building. The gun stepped in behind me. In a fake prison-yard style, from the side of my mouth, I said, ‘Quit making a scene and get these apes off the ship! You and I must talk.’
‘Certainly we talk. Ici! Now. Here.’
‘You utter fool,’ I answered softly and glanced nervously up, to left and right. ‘Not here. Cows. Bugs. Come with me. But have Mutt and Jeff wait on the dock.’
Non!’
‘God save us! Listen carefully.’ I whispered, ‘You ‘are going to tell these animals to leave the ship and wait at the foot of the gangway. Then you and I are going to walk out on the weather deck where we can talk without being overheard. Otherwise we do nothing! – and I report to Number-One that you blew the deal. Understand? Right now! Or go back and tell them the deal is off.’
He hesitated, then spoke rapidly in French that I could not follow, my French being mostly of the La plume de ma tante sort. The gorilla seemed to hesitate but the gun type shrugged and started toward the gangway door. I said to the little wart, ‘Come on! Don’t waste time; the ship is about to sail!’ I headed aft without looking to see whether or not he was following. I set a brisk pace that forced him to follow or lose me. I was as much taller than he as that ape was taller than I; he had to trot to stay at my heels.
I kept right on going aft and outside, onto the weather deck, past the open bar and the tables, clear to the swimming pool.
It was, as I expected, unoccupied, the ship being in port. There was the usual sign up, CLOSED WHILE SHIP IS IN PORT, and a nominal barrier around it of a single strand of rope, but the pool was still filled. He followed me; I held up a hand. ‘Stop right there.’ He stopped.
‘Now we can talk,’ I said. ‘Explain yourself, and you’d better make it good! What do you mean, calling attention to yourself by bringing that muscle aboard? And a Danish ship at that! Mr B. is going to be very, very angry with you. What’s your name?’
‘Never mind my name. Where’s the package?’
‘What package?’
He started to sputter; I interrupted. ‘Cut the nonsense; I’m not impressed. This ship is getting ready to sail; you have only minutes to tell me exactly what you want and to convince me that you should get it. Keep throwing your weight around and you’ll find yourself going back to your boss and telling him you failed. So speak up! What do you want?’
‘The package!’
I sighed. ‘My old and stupid, you are stuck in a rut. We’ve been over that. What sort of a package? What’s in it?’
He hesitated. ‘Money.’
‘Interesting. How much money?’
This time he hesitated twice as long, so again I interrupted. ‘If you don’t know how much money, I’ll give you a couple of francs for beer and send you on your way. Is that what you want? Two francs?’
A man that skinny shouldn’t have such high blood pressure. He managed to say, ‘American dollars. One million.’
I laughed in his face. ‘What makes you think I’ve got that much? And if I had, why should I give it to you? How do I know you are supposed to get it?’
‘You crazy, man? You know who am I. ‘
‘Prove it. Your eyes are funny and your voice sounds different. I think you’re a ringer.
‘”Ringer”?’
‘A fake, a phony! An impostor.’
He answered angrily – French, I suppose. I am sure it was not complimentary. I dug into my memory, repeated carefully and with feeling the remark that a lady had made last night which had caused her husband to say that she worried too much. It was not appropriate but I intended simply to anger him.
Apparently I succeeded. He raised a hand, I grabbed his wrist, tripped myself, fell backwards into the pool, pulling him with me. As we fell I shouted, ‘Help!’
We splashed. I got a firm grip on him, pulled myself up as I shoved him under again. ‘Help! He’s drowning me!’
Down we went again, struggling with each other. I yelled for help each time my head was above water. Just as help came I went limp and let go.
I stayed limp until they started to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. At that point I snorted and opened my eyes’. ‘Where am I?
Someone said, ‘He’s coming around. He’s okay.’
I looked around. I was flat on my back alongside the pool. Someone had done a professional job of pulling me out with a dip-and-jerk; my left arm felt almost dislocated. Aside from that I was okay. ‘Where is he? The man who pushed me in.’
‘He got away.’
I recognized the voice, turned my head. My friend Mr Henderson, the purser.
‘He did?’
That ended it. My rat-faced caller had scrambled out as I was being fished out and had streaked off the ship. By the time they had finished reviving me, Nasty and his bodyguards were long gone.
Mr Henderson had me lie still until the ship’s, doctor arrived. He put a stethoscope on me and announced that I was okay. I told a couple of small, fibs, some near truths, and an evasion. By then the gangway had been removed and shortly a loud blast announced that we had left the dock.
I did not find it necessary to tell anyone that I had played water polo in school.
The next many days were very sweet, in the fashion that grapes grow sweetest on the slopes of a live volcano.
I managed to get acquainted (reacquainted?) with my table mates without, apparently, anyone noticing that I was a stranger. I picked up names just by waiting until someone else spoke to someone by name – remembered I the name and used it later. Everyone was pleasant to me – I not only was not ‘below the salt’, since the record showed that I had been aboard the full trip, but also I was at least a celebrity if not a hero for having walked through the fire.
I did not use the swimming pool. I was not sure what swimming Graham had done, if any, and, having been ‘rescued’, I did not want to exhibit a degree of skill inconsistent with that ‘rescue’. Besides, while I grew accustomed to (and even appreciative of) a degree of nudity shocking in my former life, I. did not feel that I could manage with aplomb being naked in company.
Since there was nothing I could do about it, I put the mystery of Nastyface and his bodyguards out of my mind.
The same I was true of the all-embracing mystery of who I am and how I got here – nothing I could do about it, so don’t worry about it. On reflection. I realized that I was in exactly the same predicament as every other human being alive: We don’t know who we are, or where we came from, or why we are here. My dilemma was merely fresher, not different.
One thing (possibly the only thing) I learned in seminary was to face calmly the ancient mystery of life,
untroubled by my inability to solve it. Honest priests and preachers are denied the comforts of religion; instead they must live with the austere rewards of philosophy. I never became much of a metaphysician but I did learn not to worry about that which I could not solve.
I spent much time in the library or reading in deck chairs, and each day I learned more about and felt more at home in this world. Happy, golden days slipped past like a dream of childhood.
And every day there was Margrethe.
I felt like a boy undergoing his first attack of puppy love.
It was a strange romance. We could not speak of love. Or I could not, and she did not. Every day she was my servant (shared with her other passenger guests)… and my ‘mother’ (shared with others? I did not. think so… but I did not know). The ‘relationship was close but not intimate. Then each day, for a few moments while I ‘paid’ her for tying my bow tie, she was my wonderfully sweet and utterly passionate darling.
But only then.
At other times I was ‘Mr Graham’ to her and she called me ‘sir’ – warmly friendly but not intimate. She was willing to chat, standing up and with the door open; she often had ship’s gossip to share with me. But her manner was always that of the perfect servant. Correction: the perfect crew member assigned to personal service. Each day I learned a little more about her. I found no fault in her.
For me the day started with my first sight of her – usually on my way to breakfast when I would meet her in the passageway or spot her through an open door of a room she was making up… just ‘Good morning, Margrethe’ and ‘Good morning, Mr Graham,’ but the sun did not rise until that moment.
I would see her from time to time during the day, peaking each day with that golden ritual after she tied my tie.
Then I would see her briefly after dinner. Immediately after dinner each evening I would return to my room for a few minutes to refresh myself before the evening’s activities – lounge show, concert, games, or
perhaps just a return to the’ library. At that hour Margrethe would be somewhere in the starboard forward passageway of C deck, opening beds, tidying baths, and so forth -making her guests’ staterooms inviting for the night. Again I would say hello, then wait in my room (whether she had yet reached it or not) because she would come in shortly, either to open my bed or simply to inquire, ‘Will you need anything more this evening, sir?’
And I would. always smile and answer, ‘I don’t need a thing, Margreth. Thankyou.’ Whereupon she would bid me good night and wish me sound sleep. That ended my day no matter what else I did before retiring.
Of course I was tempted – daily! – to answer, ‘You know what I need!’ I could not. Imprimis: I was a married man. True, my wife was lost somewhere in another world (or I was). But from holy matrimony there is no release this side of the grave. Item: Her love affair (if such it was) was with Graham, whom I was impersonating. I could not refuse that evening kiss I’m not that angelically perfect!) but in fairness to my beloved I could not go beyond it. Item: An honorable man must not offer less than matrimony to the object of his love . . . and that I was both legally and morally unable to offer.
So those golden days were bittersweet. Each day brought one nearer the inescapable time when I must leave Margrethe, almost certainly never to see her again.
I was not free even to tell her what that loss would mean to me.
Nor was my love for her so selfless that I hoped the Separation would not grieve her. Meanly,
self-centered as an adolescent, I hoped that she would miss me as dreadfully as I was going to miss her. Childish puppy love certainly! I offer in extenuation the fact that I had known only the ‘love’ of a woman who loved Jesus so much that she had no real affection for any flesh-and-blood creature.
Never marry a woman who prays too much.
We were ten days out from Papeete with Mexico almost over the skyline when this precarious idyll ended. For several days Margrethe had seemed more withdrawn- each day. I could not tax her with it as there was nothing I could, put my finger on and certainly nothing of which I could complain. But it reached crisis that evening when she tied my tie.
As usual I smiled and thanked her and kissed her.
Then I stopped with her still in my arms and said’ ‘What’s wrong? I know you can kiss better than that. Is my breath bad?’
She answered levelly, ‘Mr Graham, I think we had better stop this.’
‘So it’s “Mr Graham”, is it? Margrethe, what have I done?’
‘You’ve done nothing!’
‘Then – My dear, you’re crying!’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to.’
I took my handkerchief, blotted her tears, and said gently, ‘I have never intended to hurt you. You must tell me what’s wrong so that I can change it.’
‘If you don’t know, sir, I don’t see how I can explain it.
Won’t you try? Please!’ (Could it be one of those cyclic emotional disturbances women are heir to?)
‘Uh… Mr Graham, I knew it could not last beyond the end of the voyage – and believe me, I did not count on any more. I suppose it means more to me than it did to you. But I never thought that you would simply end it, with no explanation, sooner than we must.’
‘Margrethe… I do not understand.’
‘But you do know!’
‘But I don’t know.’
‘You must know. It’s been eleven days. Each night I’ve asked you and each night you’ve turned me down. Mr Graham, aren’t you ever again going to ask me to come back later?’
‘Oh. So that’s what you meant! Margrethe -‘
‘Yes, sir?’
‘I’m not “Mr Graham”.’ ‘Sir?’ ‘My name is “Hergensheimer”. It has been exactly eleven days since I saw you for the first time in my life. I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry. But that is the truth.’
Chapter 7
Now therefore be content, look upon me; for it is evident unto you if I lie.
Job 6:28
MARGRETHE is both a warm comfort and a civilized adult. Never once did she gasp, or expostulate, or say, ‘Oh, no or ‘I can’t believe it!’ At my first statement she held very still, waited, then said quietly, ‘I do not understand.’
‘I don’t understand it either,’ I told her. ‘Something happened when I walked through that fire pit. The world changed. This ship – ‘I pounded the bulkhead beside us. ‘- is not the ship I was in before. And people call me “Graham”… when I know that my name is Alexander Hergensheimer. But it’s not just me and this ship; it’s the whole world. Different history. Different countries. No airships here.’
‘Alec, what is an airship?’
‘Uh, up in the air, like a balloon. It is a balloon, in a way. But it goes very fast, over a hundred knots.’
She considered it soberly. ‘I think that I would find that frightening.’
I ‘Not at all; it’s the best way to travel. I flew down here in one, the Count von Zeppelin of North American Airlines. But this world doesn’t have airships. That was the point that finally convinced me that this really is a different world – and not just some complicated hoax that someone had played on me. Air travel is so major a part of the economy of the world I knew that it changes everything else not to have it. Take – Look, do you believe me?
She answered slowly and carefully, ‘I believe that you are telling the truth as you see it. But the truth I see is very different.’
‘I know and that’s what makes it so hard. I – See here, if you don’t hurry, you’re going to miss dinner, right?’
‘It does not matter.’
‘Yes, it does; you must not miss meals just because I made a stupid mistake and hurt your feelings. And if I don’t show up, Inga will send somebody up to find out whether I’m ill or asleep or whatever; I’ve seen her do it with others at my table. Margrethe – my very dear! – I’ve wanted to tell you. I’ve waited to tell you. I’ve needed to tell you. And now I can and I must. But I can’t do it in five minutes standing up. After you turn down beds tonight can you take time to listen to me?’
‘Alec, I will always take all the time for you that you need.’
‘All right. You go down and eat, and I’ll go down and touch base at least – get Inga off my neck – and I’ll meet you here after you turn down beds. All right?’
She looked thoughtful. ‘All right. Alec – Will you kiss me again.’
That’s how I knew she believed me. Or wanted to believe me. I quit worrying. I even ate a good dinner, although I hurried.
She was waiting for me when I returned, and stood up as I came in. I took her in my arms, pecked her on the nose, picked her up by her elbows and sat her on my bunk; then I sat down in the only chair. ‘Dear one, do you think I’m crazy.
‘Alec, I don’t know what to tink.’ (Yes, she said ‘tink’. Once in a long while, under stress of emotion, Margrethe would lose the use of the theta sound. Otherwise her English accent was far better than my tall-corn accent, harsh as a rusty saw.)
‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘I had the same problem. Only two ways to look at it. Either something incredible did happen when I walked through the fire, something that changed my whole world. Or I’m as crazy I as a pet ‘coon. I’ve spent days checking the facts… and the world has changed. Not just airships. Kaiser Wilhelm the Fourth is missing and some silly president named “Schmidt is in his place. Things like that.’
‘I would not call Herr Schmidt “silly”. He is quite a good president as German presidents go.’
‘That’s my point, dear. To me, any German president looks silly, as Germany is – in my world – one of the last western monarchies effectively unlimited. Even the Tsar is not as powerful.’
‘And that has to be my point, too, Alec. There is no Kaiser and there is no Tsar. The Grand Duke of Muscovy is a constitutional monarch and no longer claims to be suzerain over other Slavic states.’
‘Margrethe, we’re both saying the same thing. The world I grew up in is gone. I’m having to learn about a different world. Not a totally different world. Geography does not seem to have changed, and not all of history. The two worlds seem to be the same almost up to the beginning of the twentieth century. Call it eighteen-ninety. About a hundred years back something strange happened and the two worlds split apart… and about twelve days ago something equally strange happened to me and I got bounced into this world.’ I smiled at her. ‘But I’m not sorry. Do you know why? Because you are in this world.’.
‘Thank you. It is important to me that you are in it, too.’
‘Then you do believe me. Just as I have been forced to believe it. So much so that I’ve quit worrying about it. Just one thing really bothers me – What became of Alec Graham? Is he filling my place in my world? Or what?’
She did not answer at once, and when she did, the answer did not seem responsive. ‘Alec, will you please take down your trousers?’
‘What did you say, Margrethe?’
‘Please. I am not making a joke and I am not trying to entice you. I must see something. Please lower your trousers.’
I don’t see – All right.’ I shut up and did as she asked not easy in evening dress. I had to take off my mess jacket, then my cummerbund, before I was peeled enough to let me slide the braces off my shoulders.
Then, reluctantly, I started unbuttoning my fly. (Another shortcoming of this retarded world – no zippers. I did not appreciate zippers until I no longer had them.)
I took a deep breath, then lowered my trousers a few inches. ‘Is that enough?’
‘A little more, please – and will you please turn your back to me?’
I did as she asked. Then I felt her hands, gentle and not invasive, at my right rear. She lifted a shirttail and pulled down the top of my underwear pants on the right.
A moment later she restored both garments. ‘That’s enough. Thank you.’
I tucked in my shirttails and buttoned up my fly, reshouldered, the braces and reached for the cummerbund. She said, ‘Just a moment, Alec.’
‘EM I thought you were through.’
‘I am. But there is no need to get back into those formal clothes; let me get out casual trousers for you. And shirt. Unless you are going back to the lounge?’
‘No. Not if you will stay.’
‘I will stay; we must talk.’ Quickly she took out casual trousers and a sports shirt for me, laid them on the bed. ‘Excuse me, please.’ She went into the bath.
I don’t know whether she needed to use it or not, but she knew that I could change more comfortably in the stateroom than in that cramped shipboard bathroom.
I changed and felt better. A cummerbund and a boiled shirt are better than a straitjacket but not much. She came out, at once hung up the clothes I had taken off, all but the shirt and collar. She removed studs and collar buttons from these, put them away, and put shirt and collar into my laundry bag. I wondered what Abigail would think if she – could see these wifely attentions. Abigail did not believe in spoiling me – and did not.
‘What waz that all about Margrethe?’
‘I had to see something. Alec, you were wondering what had become of Alec Graham. I now know the answer.’
‘Yes?’
‘He’s right here. You are he.’
At last I said, ‘That, just from looking at a few square inches on my behind? What did you find, Margrethe? The strawberry mark that identifies the missing heir?’
‘No, Alec. Your “Southern Cross”.’
‘My what?’
‘Please, Alec. I had hoped that it would restore your, memory. I saw it the first night we -‘ She hesitated, then looked me square in the eye.’- made love. You turned on the light, then turned over on your belly to see what time it was. That was when I noticed the moles on your right buttock cheek. I commented on the pattern. they made, and we joked about it. You said that it was your Southern Cross and it let you know which end was up. ‘
Margrethe turned slightly pink but continued to look me firmly in the eye. ‘And I showed you some moles on my body. Alec, I am sorry that you do not remember it but please believe me: By then we were well enough acquainted that we could be playful about such things without my being forward or rude.’
‘Margrethe, I don’t think you could ever be forward or rude. But you’re putting too much importance on a chance arrangement of moles. I’ve got moles all over me; it doesn’t surprise me that some of them, back where I can’t see easily, are arranged in a cross shape. Or that Graham` had some that were somewhat similar.’
‘Not “similar”. Exactly the same.’
‘Well – There is a much better way to check. In the desk there is my wallet. Graham’s wallet, actually. Driver’s license. His. His thumbprint on it. I haven’t checked it because I have never had the slightest doubt that he was Graham and that I am Hergensheimer and that we are not the same man. But we can check. Get it out, dear. Check it yourself. I’ll put a thumbprint on the mirror in the bath. Compare them. Then you will know.’
‘Alec, I do know. You are the one who doesn’t believe it; you check it.’
‘Well -‘ Margrethe’s counterproposal was reasonable; I agreed to it.
I got out Graham’s driver’s license, then placed a print on the bath mirror by first rubbing my thumb over my nose for the nose’s natural oil, so much greater than that of the pad of the thumb. I found that I could not see the pattern on the glass too well, so I shook a little talcum onto my palm, blew it toward the mirror.
Worse. The powder that detectives use must be much finer than shaving talcum. Or perhaps I don’t know how to use it. I placed another print without powder, looked at both prints, at my right thumb, at the print on the driver’s license, then checked to see that the license did indeed designate print of right thumb. It did. ‘Margrethe! Will you come look, please?’
She joined me in the bath. ‘Look at this,’ I said. ‘Look at all four – my thumb and three prints. The pattern in all four is basically an arch – but that simply trims it down to half the thumbprints in the world. I’ll bet you even money that your own thumbprints have an arch pattern. Honest, can you tell whether or not the thumbprint on the card–was made by this thumb? Or by my left thumb; they might have made a mistake.’
‘I cannot tell, Alec. I have no skill in this.’
‘Well – I don’t think even an expert could tell in this light. We’ll have to put it off till morning; we need bright sunlight out on deck. We also need glossy white paper, stamp-pad ink, and a magnifying glass … and I’ll bet Mr Henderson will have all three. Will tomorrow do?’
‘Certainly. This test is not for me, Alec; I already know in my heart. And by seeing your “Southern Cross”. Something has happened to your memory but you are still you… and someday we will find your memory again.’
‘It’s not that easy, dear. I know that I am not Graham.
Margrethe, do you have any idea what business he was in? Or why he was on this trip?’
‘Must I say “him”? I did not ask your business, Alec. And you never, offered to tell me.’
‘Yes, I think you must say “him”, at least until we check that thumbprint. Was he married?’
‘Again, he did not say and I did not ask.’
‘But you implied – No, you flatly stated that you had “made love” with this man whom you believe to be me, and that you have been in bed with him.’
‘Alec, are you reproaching me?’
‘Oh, no, no, no!’ (But I was, and she knew it.) ‘Whom you go to bed with is your business. But I must tell you that I am married.’
She shut her face against me. ‘Alec, I did not try to seduce you into marriage.’
‘Graham, you mean. I was not there.’
‘Very well. Graham. I did not entrap Alec Graham. For our mutual happiness we made love. Matrimony was not mentioned by either of us.’
‘Look, I’m sorry I mentioned the matter! It seemed to have some bearing on the mystery; that’s all. Margrethe, will you believe that, I would rather strike off my arm – or pluck out my eye and cast it from me – than hurt you, ever, in any way?’
‘Thank you, Alec. I believe you.’
‘All that Jesus ever said was: “Go, and sin no more.’ Surely you do not think I would ever set myself up as more severely judgmental than was Jesus? But I was not judging you; I was seeking information about Graham. His business, in particular. Uh, did you ever suspect that he might be engaged in something illegal?’
She gave a ghost of a smile. ‘Had I ever suspected anything of the sort, my loyalty to him is such that I would never express such suspicion. Since you insist that you are not he, then there it must stand.’
‘Touch~!’ I grinned sheepishly. Could I tell her about the lockbox? Yes, I must. I had to be frank with her and had to persuade her that she was not being disloyal to Graham/me were she to be equally frank. ‘Margrethe, I was not asking idly and I was not prying where I had no business to pry. I have still more, trouble and I need your advice.’
Her turn to be startled. ‘Alec… I do not often give advice. I do not like to.’
‘May I tell you my trouble? You need not advise me… but perhaps you may be able to analyze it for me.’ I told her quickly about that truly damning million dollars. ‘Margrethe, can you think of any legitimate reason why an honest man would be carrying a million dollars in cash? Travelers checks, letters of credit, drafts for transferring monies, even bearer bonds – But cash? In that amount? I say that it is psychologically as unbelievable as what happened to me in the fire pit is physically unbelievable. Can you see any other way to look at it? For what honest reason would a man carry that much cash on a trip like this?’
‘I will not pass judgment.’
‘I do not ask you to judge; I ask you to stretch your imagination and tell me why a man would carry with him a million dollars in cash. Can you think of a reason? One as farfetched as you like… but a reason.’
‘There could be many reasons.’
‘Can you think of one?’
I waited; she remained silent. I sighed and said, ‘I can’t think of one, either. Plenty of criminal reasons, of course, as so-called “hot money” almost always moves as cash. This is so common that most governments – all governments, I believe – assume that any large amount of cash being moved other than by a bank or by a government is indeed crime money until proved otherwise. Or counterfeit money, a still more depressing idea. The advice I need is this: Margrethe, what should I do with it? It’s not mine; I can’t take it off the ship. For the same reason I can’t abandon it. I can’t even throw it overboard. What can I do with it?’
My question was not rhetorical; I had to find an answer that would not cause me to wind up in jail for something Graham had done. So far, the only answer I could think of was to go to the only authority in the ship, the Captain, tell him all my troubles and ask him to take custody of that awkward million dollars.
Ridiculous. That would just give me a fresh set of bad answers, depending on whether or not the Captain believed me and on whether or not the Captain himself .was honest – and possibly on other variables. But I could not see any outcome from telling the Captain that would not end in my being locked up, either in jail or in a mental hospital.
The simplest way to resolve the situation would be to throw the pesky stuff overboard!
I had moral objections to that. I’ve broken some of the Commandments and bent some others, but being financially honest has never been a problem to me. Granted, lately my moral fiber did not seem to be as strong as I had thought, but nevertheless I was not tempted to
steal that million even to jettison it.
But there was a stronger objection: Do you know anyone who, having a million dollars in his hands, could bring himself to destroy it?
Maybe you do. I don’t. In a pinch I might turn it over to the Captain but I would not destroy it.
Smuggle it ashore? Alex, if you ever take it out of that lockbox, you have stolen it. Will you destroy your self-respect for a million dollars? For ten million? For five dollars?
‘Well, Margrethe?’
‘Alec, it seems to me that the solution is evident.’
‘Eh?’
‘But you have been trying to solve your problems in the wrong order. First you must regain your memory. Then you will know why you are carrying that money. It will turn out to be for some innocent and logical purpose.’ She smiled. ‘I know you better than you know yourself. You are a good man, Alec; you are not a criminal.’
I felt a mixture of exasperation at her and of pride in what she thought of me – but more exasperation than pride. ‘Confound it, dear, I have not lost my memory. I am not Alec Graham; I am. Alexander Hergensheimer, and that’s been my name all my life and my memory is sharp. Want to know the name of my second-grade teacher? Miss Andrews. Or how I happened to have my first airship ride when I was twelve? For I do indeed come from a world in which airships ply every ocean and even over the North Pole, and Germany is a monarchy and the North American Union has enjoyed a century of peace and prosperity and this ship we are in tonight would be considered so out of date and so miserably equipped and slow that no one would sail in it. I asked for help; I did not ask for a psychiatric opinion. If you think I’m crazy, say so… and we’ll drop the subject.’
‘I did not mean to anger you.’
‘My dear! You did not anger me; I simply unloaded on you some of my worry and frustration – and I should not have done so. I’m sorry. But I do have real problems and they are not solved by telling me that my memory is at fault. If it were my memory, saying so would solve nothing., my problems would still be there. But I should not have snapped at you. – Margrethe, you are all I have … in a strange and sometimes frightening world. I’m sorry.’
She slid down off my bunk. ‘Nothing to be sorry about, dear Alec. But there is no point in further discussion tonight. Tomorrow – Tomorrow we will test that thumbprint carefully, in bright sunlight. Then you will see, and it could have an immediate effect on your memory.
‘Or it could have an immediate effect on your stubbornness, best of girls.’
She smiled. ‘We will see. Tomorrow. Now I think I must go to bed. We have reached the point where we are each repeating the same arguments… and upsetting each other. I don’t want that, Alec. That is not good.’
She turned and headed for the door, not even offering herself for a goodnight kiss.
Margrethe!’
‘Yes, Alec?’
‘Come back and kiss me.’
‘Should I, Alec? You, a married man.’
‘Uh – Well, for heaven’s sake, a kiss isn’t the same as adultery.’
She shook her head sadly. ‘There are kisses and kisses, Alec. I would not kiss the way we have kissed unless I was happily willing to go on from there and make love. To me that would be a happy and innocent thing.. . but to you it would be adultery. You pointed out what the Christ said to the woman taken in adultery. I have not sinned… and I will not cause you to sin.’ Again she turned to leave.
‘Margrethe!’
‘Yes, Alec?.
‘You asked me if I intended ever again to ask you to come back later. I ask you now. Tonight. Will you come back later?’
‘Sin, Alec. For you it. would be sin… and that would make it sin for me, knowing how you feel about it.’
‘”Sin.” I’m not sure what sin is… I do know I need you… and I think you need me.’
‘Goodnight, Alec.’ She left quickly.
After a long while I brushed my teeth and washed my face, then decided that another shower might help. I took it lukewarm and it seemed to calm me a little. But when I went to bed, I lay awake, doing something I call thinking but probably is not.
I reviewed in my mind all the many major mistakes I have made in my life, one after another, dusting them off and bringing them up sharp in my head, right to the silly, awkward, inept, self-righteous, asinine fool I had made of myself tonight, and, in so doing, how I had wounded and humiliated the best and sweetest woman I have ever known.
I ‘can keep myself uselessly occupied with selfflagellation for an entire night when my latest attack of foot-in-mouth disease is severe. This current one bid fair to keep me staring at the ceiling for days.
Some long time later, after midnight and more, I was awakened by the sound of a key in the door. I fumbled for the bunk light switch, found it just as she dropped her robe and got into bed with me. I switched off the light.
She was warm and smooth and trembling and crying. I held her gently and tried to soothe her. She did not speak and neither did I. There had been too many words earlier and most of them had been mine. Now was a time simply to cuddle and hold and speak without words.
At last her trembling slowed, then stopped. Her breathing became even. Then she sighed and said very softly, ‘I could not stay away.’
‘Margrethe. I love you.’
‘Oh! I love you so much it hurts in my heart.’
I think we were both asleep when the collision happened. I had not intended to sleep but for the first time since the fire walk I was relaxed and untroubled; I dropped off.
First came this incredible jar that almost knocked us out of my bunk, then a grinding, crunching noise at earsplitting level. I got the bunk light on – and the skin of the ship at the foot of the bunk was bending inward.
The general alarm sounded, adding to the already deafening noise. The steel side of the ship buckled, then ruptured as something dirty white and cold pushed into the hole. As the light went out.
I got out of that bunk any which way, dragging Margrethe with me. The ship rolled heavily to port, causing us to slide down into the angle of the deck and the inboard bulkhead. I slammed against the door-handle, grabbed at it, and hung on with my right hand while I held Margrethe to me with my left
arm. The ship rolled back to starboard, and wind and water poured in through the hole – we heard it and felt it, could not see it. The ship recovered, then rolled again to starboard – and I lost my grip on the door handle.
I have to reconstruct what happened next – pitch dark, mind you, and a bedlam of sound. We were falling – I never let go of her – and then we were in water.
Apparently when the ship rolled back to starboard, we were tossed out through the hole. But that is, just reconstruction; all I actually know is that we fell, together, into water, went down rather deep.
We came up and I had Margrethe under my left arm, almost in a proper lifesaver carry. j grabbed a look as I gulped air, then we went under again. The ship was right alongside us and moving. There was cold wind and rumbling noise; something high and dark was on the side away from the ship. But it was the ship that scared me – or rather its propeller, its screw. Stateroom CI09 was far forward – but if I didn’t get us well away from the ship almost at once, Margrethe and I were going to be chewed into hamburger by the screw. I hung onto her and stroked hard away from the ship, kicking strongly – and exulted as I felt us getting away from the hazard of the ship… and banged my head something brutal against blackness.
Chapter 8
So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging.
Jonah 1: 15
I WAS comfortable and did not want to wake up. But a slight throb in my head was annoying me and, willy-nilly, I did wake. I shook my head to get rid of that throb and got a snootful of water. I snorted it out.
‘Alec?’ Her voice was nearby.
I was on my back in blood-warm water, salt water by the taste, with blackness all around me – about as near to a return to the womb as can be accomplished this side of death. Or was this death? ‘Margrethe?’
‘Oh! Oh, Alec, I am so relieved! You have been asleep a long time. How do you feel?’
I checked around, counted this and that, twitched that and this, found that I. was floating on my back between Margrethe’s limbs, she being also on her back with my head in her hands, in one of the standard Red-Cross life-saving positions. She was using slow frog kicks, not so much moving us as keeping us afloat. ‘I’m all right. I think. How about you?’
‘I’m just fine, dearest! – now that you’re awake.’
‘What happened?’
‘You bumped your head against the berg.’
‘Berg
‘The ice mountain. Iceberg.’
(Iceberg? I tried to remember what had happened.) ‘What iceberg?’
‘The one that wrecked the ship.’
Some of it came tumbling back, but it still did not make an understandable picture. A giant crash as if the ship had hit a reef, then we were dumped into water. A struggle to get clear – I did bump my head. ‘Margrethe, we’re in the tropics, as far south as Hawaii. How can there be icebergs?’
‘I don’t know, Alec.’
‘But-‘ I started to say ‘impossible,’ then decided that, from me, that word was silly. ‘This water is too warm for icebergs. Look, you can quit working so hard; in salt water I float as easily as Ivory soap.’
‘All right. But do let me hold you. I almost lost you once in this darkness; I’m frightened that it might happen again. When we fell in, the water was cold. Now it’s warm; so we must not be near the berg.’
‘Hang onto me, sure; I don’t want to lose you, either.’ Yes, the water had been cold when we fell into it; I remembered. Or cold compared with a nice warm cuddle in bed. And a cold wind. ‘What happened to the iceberg?’.
‘Alec, I don’t know. We fell into the water together. You grabbed me and got us away from the ship; I’m sure that saved us. But it was dark as December night and blowing hard and in the blackness you ran your head into the ice.
‘That is when I almost lost you. It knocked you out, dear, and you let go of me. I went under and gulped water and came up and spat it out and couldn’t find you.
‘Alec, I have never been so frightened in all my life. You weren’t anywhere. I couldn’t see you; I reached out, all sides, and could not touch you; I called out, you did not answer.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I should not have panicked. But I thought you had drowned. Or were drowning and I was not stopping it. But in paddling around my hand struck you, and then I grabbed you and everything was all right – until you didn’t answer. But I checked and found that your heart was steady and strong, so everything was all right after all, and I took you in the back carry so that I could hold your face out of water. After a long time you woke, up – and now everything is truly all right.’
‘You didn’t panic; I’d be dead if you had. Not many people could do what-you did.’
‘Oh, it’s not so uncommon; I was a guard at a beach north of K0benhavrt two summers – on Fridays I gave lessons. Lots of boys and girls learned.’
‘Keeping your head in a crunch and doing it in pitch darkness isn’t learned from lessons; don’t be so modest. What about the ship? And the iceberg?’
‘Alec, again I don’t know. By the time I found you and made sure that you were all right and then got you into towing position – by the time I had time to look around, it was like this. Nothing. Just blackness.’
‘I wonder if she sank? That was one big wallop she took! No explosion? You didn’t hear anything?’
‘I didn’t hear an explosion. Just wind and the collision sounds you must have heard, then some shouts after we were in the water. If she sank, I did not see it, but – Alec, for the past half hour, about, I’ve been swimming with my head pushed against a pillow or a pad or a mattress. Does that mean the ship sank?
Flotsam in the water?’
‘Not necessarily but it’s not encouraging. Why have you been keeping your head against it?’
‘Because we may need it. If it is one of the deck cushions or sunbathing mats from the pool, then it’s stuffed with kapok and is an emergency lifesaver.’
‘That’s what I meant. If it’s a flotation cushion, why are you just keeping your head against it? Why aren’t you on it, up out of the water?’
‘Because I could not do that without letting go of you.’
‘Oh. Margrethe, when we get out of this, will you kindly give me a swift kick? Well, I’m awake now; let’s find out what you’ve found. By Braille.’
‘All right. But I don’t want to let go of you when I can’t see you. I
‘Honey, I’m at least as anxious not to lose track of you. Okay, like this: You hang onto me with one hand; reach behind you with the other. Get a good grip on this cushion or whatever it is. I turn over and hang onto you and track you up to the hand you are using to grip the pillow thing. Then we’ll see -we’ll both feel what we have and decide how we can use it.’
It was not just a pillow, or even a bench cushion; it was (by the feel of it) a large sunbathing pad, at least six feet wide and somewhat longer than that – big enough for two people, or three if they were well acquainted. Almost as good as finding a lifeboat! Better – this flotation pad included Margrethe. I was minded of a profane poem passed around privately at seminary: ‘A jug ‘of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou
‘
Getting up onto a mat that is limp as an angleworm on a night as black as the inside of a pile of coal is not merely difficult; it is impossible. We accomplished the impossible by my hanging on to it with both hands while Margrethe slowly slithered up over me. Then she gave me a hand while I inched up and onto it.
Then I leaned on one elbow and fell off and got lost. I followed Margrethe’s voice and bumped into the pad, and again got slowly and cautiously aboard.
We found that the most practical way to make best use of the space and buoyancy offered by the mat was to lie on our backs, side by side, starfished like that Leonardo da Vinci drawing, in order to spread ourselves as widely as possible over the support.
I said, ‘You all right, hon?’
‘Just fine!’
‘Need anything?’
‘Not anything we have here. I’m comfortable, and relaxed – and you are here.’
‘Me, too. But what would you have if you could have -anything you want?’
‘Well … a hot fudge sundae.’
I considered it. ‘No. A chocolate sundae with marshmallow syrup, and a cherry on top. And a cup of coffee.’
‘A cup of chocolate. But make mine hot fudge. It’s a taste I acquired in America. We Danes do lots of good things with ice cream, but putting a hot sauce on an ice-cold dish never occurred to us. A hot fudge sundae. Better make that a double.’
‘All right. I’ll pay for a double if that’s what you want. I’m a dead game sport, I am – and you saved my life.’
Her inboard hand patted mine. ‘Alec, you’re fun – and I’m happy. Do you think we’re going to get out of this alive?’
‘I don’t know, hon. The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive. But I promise you this: I’m going to do my best to get you that hot fudge sundae.’
We both woke up when it got light. Yes, I slept and I know Margrethe did, too, as I woke a little before she did, listened to her soft snores, and kept quiet until I saw her eyes open. I had not expected to be able to sleep but I am not surprised (now) that we did – perfect bed, perfect silence, perfect temperature, both of us very tired … and absolutely nothing to worry about that was worth worrying about because there was nothing, nothing whatever, to do about our problems earlier than daylight. I think I fell asleep thinking: Yes, Margrethe was right; a hot fudge sundae was a better choice than a chocolate marshmallow sundae. I know I dreamt about such a sundae – a quasinightmare in which I would dip into it, a big bite… lift the spoon to my mouth, and find it empty. I think that woke me.
She turned her head toward me, smiled and looked about sixteen and utterly heavenly. (like two young roes that are twins. Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.) ‘Good morning, beautiful.’
She giggled. ‘Good morning, Prince Charming. Did you sleep well?’
‘Matter of fact, Margrethe, I haven’t slept so well in a month. Odd. All I want now is breakfast in bed.’
“Right away, sir. I’ll hurry!’
‘Go along with you. I should not have mentioned food. I’ll settle for a kiss. Think we can manage a kiss without falling into the water?’
‘Yes. But let’s be careful. Just turn your face this way; don’t roll over.’
It was a kiss mostly symbolic rather than one of Margrethe’s all-out specials. We were both quite careful not to disturb the precarious stability of our make-do life raft. We were worried about something more important than being dumped into the ocean – at least I was.
I decided to broach it, take it out where we could worry about it together. ‘Margrethe, by the map just
outside the dining room we should have the coast of Mexico near Mazatlán just east of us. What time did the ship sink? If it sank. I mean, what time was the collision?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Nor do I. After midnight, I’m sure of that. The Konge ‘Knut was scheduled to arrive at eight a.m. So that coast* line could be over a hundred miles east of us. Or it could be almost on top of us. Mountains over there, we may be able to see them when this overcast clears away. As it did yesterday, so it probably will today. Sweetheart, how are you on long-distance swimming? If we can see mountains, do you want to try for it?’
She was slow in answering. ‘Alec, if you wish, we will try it.’
‘That wasn’t quite what I asked.’
‘That is true. In warm sea water I think I can swim as long as necessary. I did once swim the Great Belt, in water colder than this. But, Alec, in the Belt are no sharks. Here there are sharks. I have seen.’
I let out a sigh. ‘I’m glad you said it; I didn’t want to have to say it. Hon, I think we must stay right here and hold still. Not call attention to ourselves. I can skip breakfast – especially a shark’s breakfast.’
‘One does not starve quickly.’
‘We won’t starve. If you had your druthers, which would you pick? Starvation? Or death by sunburn? Sharks? Or dying of thirst? In all the lifeboat and Robinson Crusoe stories I’ve ever read our hero had something to work with. I don’t have even a toothpick. Correction: I have you; that changes the odds. Margrethe, what do you think we ought to do?’
‘I think we will be picked up.’
I thought so, too, but for a reason I did not want to discuss with Margrethe. ‘I’m glad to hear you say
that. But-why do you think so?’
‘Alec, have you been to Mazatlán before?’
‘No.
‘It is an important fishing port, both commercial fishing and sport fishing. Since dawn hundreds of boats have put out to sea. The largest and fastest go many kilometers out. If we wait, they will find us.’
‘May find us, you mean. There is a lot of ocean out here. But you’re right; swimming for it is suicide; our best bet is to stay here and hold tight.’
‘They will be looking for us, Alec.’
‘They will? Why?’
‘If Konge Knut did not sink, then the Captain knows when and where we were lost overboard; when he reaches port – about now – he will ask for a daylight search. But if she did sink, then they will be scouring the whole area for survivors.’
‘Sounds logical.’ (I had another idea, not at all logical.)
‘Our problem is to stay alive till they find us, avoiding sharks and thirst and sunburn as best we can – and all of that means holding still. Quite still and all the time. Except that I think we should turn over now and then, after the sun is out, to spread the burn.’
‘And pray for cloudy weather. Yes, all of that. And maybe we should not talk. Not get quite so thirsty
She kept silent so long that I thought she had started the discipline I had suggested. Then she said,
‘Beloved, we may not live.’
‘I know.’
‘If we are to die, I would choose to hear your voice, and I would not wish to be deprived of telling. you that I love you – now that I may! – in a futile attempt to live a few. minutes longer.’
‘Yes, my sweetheart. Yes.’
Despite that decision we talked very little. For me it was enough to touch her hand; it appeared to be enough for -her, too.
A long time later – three hours at a guess – I heard Margrethe gasp.
‘Trouble?’
‘Alec! Look there!’ She pointed. I looked.
It should have been my turn to gasp, but I was somewhat braced for it: high up, a cruciform shape, somewhat like a bird gliding, but much larger and clearly artificial. A flying machine
I knew that flying machines were impossible; in engineering school I had studied Professor Simon Newcomb’s well-known mathematical proof that the efforts of Professor Langley and others to build an aerodyne capable of carrying a man were doomed, useless, because scale theory proved that no such contraption large enough to carry a man could carry a heat-energy plant large enough to lift it off the ground – much less a passenger.
That was science’s final word on a folly and it put a stop to wasting public monies on a will-o’-the-wisp. Research and development money went into airships, where it belonged, with enormous success.
However, in the past few days I had gained a new angle on the idea of ‘impossible’. When a veritable flying machine showed up in our sky, I was not greatly surprised.
I think Margrethe held her breath until it passed over us and was far toward the horizon. I started to, then forced myself to breathe calmly – it was such a beautiful thing, silvery and sleek and fast. I could not judge its size, but if those dark spots in its side were windows, then it was enormous.
I could not see what pushed it along.
‘Alec… is that an airship?’
‘No. At least it is not what I meant when I told you about airships. This I would call a “flying machine “.’That’s all I can say; I’ve never seen one before. But I can tell you -one thing, now – something very important.’
‘Yes?’
‘We are not going to die… and I now know why the ship was sunk.’
‘Why, Alec?’
‘To keep me from checking a thumbprint.’
Chapter 9
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink:I was a stranger, and ye took me in.
Matthew 25:35
‘OR, TO put it more nearly exactly, the iceberg was there and the collision took place to keep me from checking my thumbprint against the thumbprint on Graham’s driver’s license. The ship may not have sunk; that may not have been necessary to the scheme.’
Margrethe did not say anything.
So I added gently, ‘Go ahead, dear; say it. Get it off your chest; I won’t mind. I’m crazy. Paranoid.’
‘Alec, I did not say that. I did not think it. I would not.’
‘No, you did not say it. But this time my aberration cannot be explained away as “loss of memory”. That is, if we saw the same thing. What did you see?’
‘I saw something strange in the sky. I heard it, too. You told me that it was a flying machine.’
‘Well, I think that is what it should be called – but you can call it a, uh, a “gumpersaggle” for all of me. Something new and strange. What is this gumpersaggle? Describe it.’
‘It was something moving in the sky. It came from back that way, then passed almost over us, and disappeared there.’ (She pointed, a direction I had decided, was north.) ‘It was shaped something like a cross, a crucifix. The crosspiece had bumps on it, four I think. The front end had eyes like a whale and the back end had flukes like a whale. A whale with wings – t hat’s what it looked like, Alec; a whale flying through the sky!’
‘You thought it was alive?’
‘Uh, I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t know what to think.’
‘I don’t think it was alive; I think it was a machine. A flying machine. A boat with wings on it. But, either way – a machine or a flying whale – have you- ever in your life seen anything like it?’
‘Alec, it was so strange that I have trouble believing that I saw it.’
‘I know. But you saw it first and pointed it out to me so I didn’t trick you into thinking that you saw it.’
‘ You wouldn’t do that.’
‘No, I would not. But I’m glad you saw it first, dearest girl; that means it’s real – not something dreamed up in my fevered brain. That thing did not come from the world you are used to… and I can promise you that it is not one of the airships I talked about; it is not from the world I grew up in. So we’re now in still a third world.’ I sighed. ‘The first time it took a twenty-thousand-ton ocean liner to prove to me that I had changed worlds. This time just one sight of something that simply could not exist in my world is all I need to know that they are at it again. They shifted worlds when I was knocked out – I think that’s when they did it. As may be, I think they did it to keep me from checking that thumbprint. Paranoia. The delusion that the whole world is a conspiracy. Only it’s not a delusion.’
I watched her eyes. ‘Well?’
‘Alec … could it possibly be that both of us imagined it? Delirious, perhaps? We’ve both had a rough experience – you hit your head; I may have hit mine when the iceberg struck.’
‘Margrethe, we would not each have the same delirium dream. If you wake up and find that I’m gone, that could be your answer. But I’m not gone; I’m right here. Besides, you would still have to account for an iceberg as far south as we are. Paranoia is a simpler explanation. But the conspiracy is aimed at me; you just had the misfortune to be caught in it. I’m sorry.’ (I wasn’t really sorry. A raft in the middle of the ocean is no- place to be alone. But with Margrethe it was ‘paradise enow.’)
‘I still think that sharing the same dream is – Alec, there it comes again!’ She pointed.
I didn’t see anything at first, then I did: A dot that grew into a cruciform shape, a shape that I now identified as ‘flying machine’. I watched it grow.
‘Margrethe, it must have turned around. Maybe it saw us. Or they saw us. Or he saw us. Whatever.’
‘Perhaps.’
As it came closer I saw that it was going to pass to our right rather than overhead. Margrethe said suddenly, ‘It’s not the same. one.’
‘And it’s not a flying whale – unless flying whales hereabouts have wide red stripes down their sides.’
‘It’s not a whale. I mean “it’s not alive”. You are right,
Alec; it is a machine. Dear, do you really think it has people inside it? That scares me.’
‘I think I would be more scared if it did not have people inside it.’ (I remembered a fantastic story translated from the German about a world peopled by nothing but automatic machines – not a pleasant story.) ‘Actually, it’s good news. We both know now that our seeing the first one was not a dream, not an illusion. That nails down the fact that we are in another world. Therefore we are going to be rescued.’
She said hesitantly, ‘I don’t quite follow that.’
‘That’s because you are still trying to avoid calling me paranoid – and thank you, dear, but my being paranoid is the simplest hypothesis. If the joker pulling the strings had intended to kill me, the easy time to do it would have been with the iceberg. Or earlier, with the fire pit. But he ‘s not out to kill me, at least not now. He’s playing with me, cat and mouse. So I’ll be rescued. So will you, because we’re together.
You were with me when the iceberg hit – your bad luck. You’re still with me now, so you’ll be rescued,your good luck. Don’t fight it, dear. I’ve had some days to get used to it, and I find that it is all right once you relax. Paranoia is the only rational approach to a conspiracy world.’
‘But, Alec, the world ought not to he that way,’
‘There is no “ought” to it, my love. The essence of philosophy is to accept the universe as it-is, rather than ,try to force it into some preconceived shape.’ I added, ‘Wups! Don’t roll off. You don’t want to be a snack for a shark just after we’ve had proof that we are going to be picked up!’
For the next hour or so nothing happened – unless you count sighting two regal sailfish. The overcast burned away and I began to be anxious for an early rescue; I figured they owed me that much! Not let me get a third-degree sunburn. Margrethe might be able to take a bit more sun than I; she was blonde but she was tanned a warm toast color all over – lovely! But I was raw frog-belly white except for my face and hands – a full day of tropic sun could put me into hospital. Or worse.
The eastern horizon now seemed to show a gray unevenness that could be mountains – or so I kept telling myself, although there isn’t much you can see when your viewpoint is about seven inches above water line. If those were indeed mountains or hills, then land was not many miles away. Boats from Mazatlán should be in sight any time now… if Mazatlán was still there in this world. If –
Then another flying machine showed up.
It was only vaguely like the other two. They had been flying parallel to the coast; the first from the south, the second from the north. This machine came out from the direction of the coast, flying mostly ‘West, although it zigzagged.
It passed north of us, then turned back and circled around us. It came low enough that I could see that it did indeed have men in it, two I thought.
Its shape is hard to explain. Imagine first a giant box kite, about forty feet long, four feet wide, and about three feet between two kite surfaces.
Imagine this box kite placed at right angles to a boat shape, somewhat, like an Esquimau’s kayak but larger, much larger – about as large as the box kite.
Underneath all this are two more kayak shapes, smaller, parallel to the main shape.
At one end of this shape is an engine (as I saw later) and at the front end of that is an air propeller, like a ship’s water propeller -and this I saw later, also. When I first saw this unbelievable structure, the air screw was turning so extremely fast that one simply could not see it. But one could hear it! The noise made by this contraption was deafening and never stopped.
The machine turned toward us and tilted down so that it headed straight toward us – like nothing so much as a pelican gliding down to scoop up fish.
With us the fish. It was frightening. To me, at least; Margrethe never let out a peep. But she did squeeze my fingers very hard. The mere fact that we were not fish and that a machine could not eat us and would not want to did not make this dive at us less terrifying.
Despite my fright (or because of it) I now saw that this construction was at least twice as big as I had estimated when I saw it high in the sky. It had two teamsters operating it, seated side by side behind a window in the front end. The driving engine turned out to be two, mounted between the box-kite wings, one on the right of the teamsters’ position, one on the left.
At the very last instant the machine lifted like a horse taking a hurdle, and barely missed us. The blast of win ‘ d it created almost knocked us off our raft and the blast of sound caused my ears to ring.
It went a little higher, curved back toward us, glided again but not quite toward us. The lower twin kayak shapes touched the water, creating a brave comet’s tail of spume – and the thing slowed and stopped and stayed there, on the water, and did not sink!
Now the air screws moved very slowly and I saw them for the first time … and admired the engineering ingenuity that had gone into them. Not as efficient, I suspected, as the ducted air screws used in our dirigible airships, but an elegant solution to a problem in a place where ducting would be difficult or perhaps impossible.
But those infernally noisy driving engines! How any engineer could accept that, I could not see. As one of my professors said (back before thermodynamics convinced me that I had a call for the ministry), noise is always a byproduct of inefficiency. A correctly designed engine is as silent as the grave.
The machine turned and came at us again, moving very slowly. Its teamsters handled it so that it missed us by a few feet and almost stopped. One of the two, inside it crawled out of the carriage space behind the window and was clinging by his left hand to one of the stanchions that held the two box-kite wings apart. His other hand held a coiled line.
As the flying machine passed us, he cast the line toward us. I snatched at it, got a hand on it, and did not myself go into the water because Margrethe snatched at me.
I handed the line to Margrethe. ‘Let him pull you in. I’ll slide into the water and be right behind you.’
‘No!’
‘What do you mean, “No”? This is no time to argue. Do it!’
‘Alec, be quiet! He’s trying to tell us something.’
I shut up, more than a little offended. Margrethe listened. (No point in my listening; my Spanish is limited to ‘Gracias’ and ‘Por favor’. Instead I read the lettering on the side of the machine: EL GUARDA COSTAS REAL DEMEXICO.)
‘Alec, he is warning us to be very careful. Sharks.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Yes. We are to stay where we are. He will pull gently on this rope. I think he means to get us into his machine without us going into the water.’
‘A man after my own heart!’
We tried it; it did not work. A breeze had sprung up; it had much more effect on the flying machine than it had on us – that water-soaked sunbathing pad was practically nailed down, no sail area at all. Instead of being able to ,pull us to the flying machine, the man on the other end of the line was forced to let out more line to keep from pulling us off into the water.
He called out something; Margrethe answered. They shouted back and forth. She turned to me. ‘He says to let loose the rope. They will go out and come back, this time directly at us, but slowly. As they come closest, we are to try to scramble up into the aeroplano. The machine.’
‘All right.’
The machine left us, went out oil the water and curved back. While waiting, we were not bored; we had the dorsal fin of a huge shark to entertain us. It did not attack; apparently it had not made up its mind (what mind?) that we were good to eat. I suppose it saw only the underside of the kapok pad.
The flying machine headed directly toward us on the’ water, looking like some monstrous dragonfly skimming the surface. I said, ‘Darling, as it gets closest, you dive for the stanchion closest to you and I’ll push you up. Then I’ll come up behind you.’
‘No, Alec.’
‘What do you mean, “No”?’ I was vexed. Margrethe was such a good comrade – then suddenly so stubborn. At the wrong time.
‘You can’t push me; you have no foundation to push from. And you can’t stand up; you can’t even sit up. Uh, you scramble to the right; I’ll scramble to the left. If either of us misses, then back onto the pad – fast! The aeroplano will come around again.’
‘But
‘That’s how he said to do it.’
There was no time left; the machine was almost on top of us. The ‘legs’ or stanchions joining the lower twin shapes to the body of the machine bridged the pad, one just missing me and the other just missing Margrethe. ‘Now!’ she cried. I lunged toward my side, got a hand on a stanchion.
And almost jerked my right arm out by the roots but I kept on moving, monkey fashion – got both hands on that undercarriage got a foot up on a horizontal kayak shape, turned my head.
Saw a hand reaching down to Margrethe – she climbed and was lifted onto the kite wing above, and disappeared. I turned to climb up my side – and suddenly levitated up and onto the wing. I do not ordinarily levitate but this time I had incentive: a dirty white fin too big for any decent fish, cutting the water right toward my foot.
I found myself alongside the little carriage house from which the teamsters directed ‘their strange craft. The second man (not the one who had climbed out to help) stuck his head out a window, grinned at me, reached back and opened a little door. I crawled inside, head first. Margrethe was already there.
The space had four seats, two in front where the teamsters sat, and two behind where we were.
The teamster on my side looked around and said something, and continued – I noticed! – to look at Margrethe. Certainly she was naked, but that was not her fault, and a gentleman would not stare.
‘He says,’ Margrethe explained, ‘that we must fasten our belts. I think he means this.’ She held up a buckle on the end of a belt, the other end being secured to the frame of the carriage.
I discovered that I was sitting on a similar buckle, which was digging a hole into my sunburned backside. I hadn’t noticed it up to then, too many other things demanding attention. (Why didn’t he keep his eyes to himself! I felt myself ready to shout at him. That he had, at great peril to himself, just saved her life and mine did not that moment occur to me; I was simply growing furious that he would take such advantage of a helpless lady.)
I turned my attention to that pesky belt and tried to ignore it. He spoke to the other man beside him,
who responded enthusiastically. Margrethe interrupted the discussion. ‘What are they saying?’ I demanded.
‘The poor man is about to give me the shirt off his back. I am protesting… but I’m not protesting so hard as to put a stop to it. It’s very gallant of them, dear, and, while I’m not foolish about it, I do feel more at ease among strangers with some sort of clothing.’ She listened, and added, ‘They’re arguing as to which one has the privilege.’
I shut up. In my mind I apologized to them. I’ll bet even the Pope in Rome has sneaked a quick look a time or two in his life.
The one on the right apparently won the argument. He squirmed around in his seat – he could not stand up – and got his shirt off, turned and passed it back to Margrethe. ‘Señorita. Por favor.’ He added other remarks but they were beyond my knowledge.
Margrethe replied with dignity and grace, and chatted with them as she wiggled into his shirt. It covered her mostly. She turned to me. ‘Dear, the commander is Teniente Anibal Sanz Garcia and his assistant is Sargento Roberto Dominguez Jones, both of the Royal Mexican Coast Guard. Both the Lieutenant and the Sergeant wanted to give me a shirt, but the Sergeant won a finger-guessing game, so I have his shirt.’
‘It’s mighty generous of him. Ask them if there is anything at all in the machine that I can wear.’
‘I’ll try.’ She spoke several phrases; I heard my name. Then she shifted back to English. ‘Gentlemen, I have the honor to present my husband, Sefior Alexandro Graham Hergensheimer.’ She shifted back to Spanish.
Shortly she was answered. ‘The Lieutenant is devastated to admit that they have nothing to offer you. But he promises on his mother’s honor that something will be found for you just as quickly as we reach Mazatlán and the Coast Guard headquarters there. Now he urges both of us to fasten our belts. tightly as we are about to fly.. Alec, I’m scared!’
‘Don’t be. I’ll hold your hand.’
Sergeant Dominguez turned around again, held up a canteen. ‘Agua?’
‘Goodness, yes!’ agreed Margrethe. ‘Sí sí sí!’
Water has never tasted so good.
The Lieutenant. looked around when we returned the canteen, gave a bigsmile and a thumbs-up sign old as the Colosseum, and did something that speeded up his driving engines. They had been turning over very slowly; now -they speeded up to a horrible racket. The machine turned as he headed it straight into the wind. The wind had been freshening all morning; now it showed little curls of white on the tops of the wavelets. He speeded his engines still more, to an unbelievable violence, and we went bouncing over the water, shaking everything.
Then we started hitting about every tenth wave with incredible force. I don’t know why we weren’t wrecked.
Suddenly we were twenty feet off the water; the bumping stopped. The vibration and the noise continued. We climbed at a sharp angle – and turned and started down again, and I almost-not-quite threw up that welcome drink of water.
The ocean was right in front of us, a solid wall. The Lieutenant turned his head and shouted something.
I wanted to tell him to keep his eyes on the road! – but I did not. ‘What does he say?’
‘He says to look where he points. He’ll point us right at it. EI tiburón blanco grande – the great white shark that almost got us.’
(I could have done without it.) Sure enough, right in the middle of this wall of water was a gray ghost with a fin cutting the water. Just when I knew that we were going to splash right down on top of it, the wall tilted away from us, my buttocks were forced down hard against the seat, my ears roared, and I again missed throwing up on our host only by iron will.
The machine leveled off and suddenly the ride was almost comfortable, aside from the racket and the vibration.
Airships are ever so much nicer.
The rugged hills behind the shoreline, so hard to see from our raft, were clearly in sight once we were in the air, and so was the shore – a series of beautiful beaches and a town where we were headed. The Sergeant looked around, pointed down a I t the town, and spoke. ‘What did he say?’
‘Sergeant Roberto says that we are home just in time for lunch. Almuerzo, he said, but notes that it’s breakfast – desayuno – for us.’
My stomach suddenly decided to stay awhile. ‘I don’t care what he calls it. Tell him not to bother to cook the horse; I’ll eat it raw.’
Margrethe translated; both our hosts laughed, then the Lieutenant proceeded to swoop down and place ‘his machine on the water while looking back over his shoulder to talk to Margrethe – who continued to smile while she drove her nails through the palm of my right hand.
We got down. No one was killed. But airships are much better.
Lunch! Everything was coming up roses.
Chapter 10
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground
-Genesis 3:19
A HALF hour after the flying machine splashed down in the harbor of Mazatlán Margrethe and I were seated with Sergeant Dominguez in the enlisted men’s mess of the Coast Guard. We were late for the midday meal but we were served. And I was clothed. Some at least – a pair of dungaree trousers. But the difference between bare naked and a pair of pants is far greater than the difference between cheap work trousers and the finest-ermine. Try it and you’ll see.
A small boat had come out to the flying machine’s mooring; then I had to walk across the dock where we had landed and into the headquarters building, there to wait until these pants could be found for me – with strangers staring at me the whole time, some of them women. I know now how it feels to be exposed in stocks. Dreadful! I haven’t been so embarrassed since an unfortunate accident in Sunday school when I was five.
But now it was done with and there was food and drink in front of us and, for the time being, I was abundantly happy. The food was not what I was used to. Who said that hunger was the best sauce? Whoever he was, he was right; our lunch was delicious. Thin cornmeal pancakes soaked with gravy fried beans, a scorching hot stew, a bowl of little yellow tomatoes, and coffee strong, black, and bitter – what more could a man want? No gourmet ever savored a meal as much as I enjoyed that one.
(At first I had been a bit miffed that we ate in the enlisted men’s mess rather than going with Lieutenant Sanz to wherever the officers ate. Much later I had it pointed out to me that I suffered from a very common civilian syndrome, i.e., a civilian with no military experience unconsciously equates his social position with that of officers, never with that of enlisted men. On examination this notion is obviously ridiculous – but it is almost universal. Oh, perhaps not universal but it obtains throughout America… where every man is ‘as, good as anyone else and better than most’.)
Sergeant Dominguez now had his shirt back. While pants were being found for me, a woman – a charwoman, I believe; the Mexican Coast Guard did not seem to have female ratings – a woman at headquarters had been sent to fetch something for Margrethe, and that something turned out to be a blouse and a full skirt, each of cotton and in bright colors. A simple and obviously cheap costume but Margrethe looked beautiful in it.
As yet, neither of us had shoes. No matter – the weather was warm and dry; shoes could wait. We were fed, we were dressed, we were safe – and all with a warm hospitality that caused me to feel that Mexicans were the finest people on earth.
After my second cup of coffee I said, ‘Sweetheart, how do we excuse ourselves and leave without being
rude? I think we should find the American consul as early as possible.’
‘We have to go back to the headquarters building.’
‘More red tape?’
‘I suppose you could call it that. I think they want to question us in more detail as to how we came to be where we were found. One must admit that our story is odd.’
‘I suppose so.’ Our initial interview with the Commandant had been less than satisfactory. Had I been alone I think he simply would have called me a liar… but it is difficult for a male man bursting with masculine ego to talk that way to Margrethe.
The trouble was the good ship Konge Knut.
She had not sunk, she had not come into port – she had never existed.
I was only moderately surprised. Had she turned into a full-rigged ship or a quinquereme, I would not have been surprised. But I had expected some sort of vessel of that same name – I thought the rules required it. But now it was becoming clear that I did not understand the rules. If there were any.
Margrethe had pointed out to me a confirming factor: This Mazatlán was not the town she had visited before. This one was much smaller and was not a tourist town indeed the long dock where the Konge Knut should have tied up did not exist in this world. I think that this convinced her quite as much as the flying machines in proving to her that my ‘paranoia’ was in fact the least hypothesis. She had been here before; that dock was big and solid; it was gone. It shook her.
The Commandant had not been impressed. He spent more time questioning Lieutenant Sanz than he spent questioning us. He did not seem pleased with Sanz.
There was another factor that I did not understand at the time and have never fully understood. Sanz’s
boss was ‘Captain’ (or ‘Capitán’); the Commandant also was ‘Captain’. But they were not the same rank.
The Coast Guard used navy ranks. However, that small part of it that operated flying machines used army ranks. I think this trivial difference had an historical origin. As may be, there was friction at the interface; the four-stripes or seagoing Captain was not disposed to accept as gospel anything reported by a flying-machine officer.
Lieutenant Sanz had fetched in, two naked survivors with a preposterous story; the four-striper seemed inclined to blame Sanz himself for the unbelievable aspects of our story.
Sanz was not intimidated. I think he had no real respect for an officer who had never been higher off the water than a crow’s nest. (Having ridden in his death trap, I understood why he was not inclined to genuflect to a sea-level type. Even among dirigible balloon pilots I have encountered this tendency to divide the world into those who fly and those who do not)
After a bit, finding himself unable to shake Sanz, unable to shake Margrethe, and unable to communicate with me except through Margrethe, the Commandant shrugged and gave instructions that resulted in us all going to lunch. I thought that ended it. But now we were going back for more, whatever it was.
Our second session with the Commandant was short. He told us that we would see the immigration judge at four that afternoon – the court with that jurisdiction; there was no separate immigration court. In the meantime here was a list of what we owed – arrange payment with the judge.
Margrethe looked startled as she accepted a piece of paper from him; I demanded to know what he had said.
She translated; I looked at that billing.
More than eight thousand pesos!
It did not take a deep knowledge of Spanish to read that bill; almost all the words were cognates. ‘Tres horas’ is three hours, and we were charged for three hours’ use of I aeroplano’- a word I had heard earlier from Margrethe; it meant their flying machine. We were charged also for the time of Lieutenant
Sanz and Sergeant Dominguez. Plus a ‘multiplying factor that I decided must mean applied overhead, or near enough.
And there was fuel for the aeroplano, and service for it.
‘Trousers’ are ‘pantalones’- and here was a bill for the pair I was wearing.
A ‘faldo’ was a skirt and a ‘camisa’ was a blouse – and Margrethe’s outfit was decidedly not cheap.
One item surprised me not by its price but by being included; I had thought we were guests: two lunches, each at twelve pesos.
There was even a separate charge for the Commandant’s time.
I started to ask how much eight thousand pesos came to in dollars – then shut up, realizing that I had not the slightest idea of the buying power of a dollar in this new world we had been dumped into.
Margrethe discussed the billing with Lieutenant Sartz, who looked embarrassed. There was much expostulation and waving of hands. She listened, then told me, ‘Alec, it isn’t Anibal’s idea and it is not even the fault of the Commandant. The tariffs on these services – rescue at sea, use of the aeroplano, and so forth – are set from el Distrito Real, the Royal District – that’s the same as Mexico City, I believe.
Lieutenant Sanz tells me that there is an economy drive on at the top level, with great pressure on everyone to make all public services self-supporting. He says that, if the Commandant did not charge us for our rescue and the Inspector Royal ever found out about it, it would be deducted from the Commandant’s pay. Plus whatever punitive measures a royal commission found appropriate. And Anibal wants you to know that he is devastated at this embarrassing situation. If he owned the aeroplano himself, we would simply be his guests. He will always look on you as his brother and me as his sister.’
‘Tell him I feel the same way about him and please make it at least as flowery as he made it.’
‘I will. And Roberto wants to be included.’
‘And the same goes for the Sergeant. But find out where and how to get to the American consul. We’ve got troubles.’
Lieutenant Anibal Sanz was told to see to it that we appeared in court at four o’clock; with that we were dismissed. Sanz delegated Sergeant Roberto to escort us to the consul and back, expressed regret that his duty status kept him from escorting us personally – clicked his heels, bowed over Margrethe’s hand, and, kissed it. He got a lot of mileage out of that simple gesture; I could see that Margrethe was pleased. But they don’t teach that grace in Kansas. My loss.
Mazatlán is on a peninsula; the Coast Guard station is on the south shore not far from the lighthouse (tallest in the world -impressive!); the American consulate is about a mile away across town at the north shore, straight down Avenida Miguel Alemán its entire length – a pleasant walk, graced about halfway by a lovely fountain.
But Margrethe and I were barefooted.
Sergeant Dominguez did not suggest a taxi – and I could not.
At first being barefooted did not seem important. There were other bare feet on that boulevard and by no means all of them on children. (Nor did I have the only bare chest.) As a youngster I had regarded bare feet as a luxury, a privilege. I went barefooted all summer and put on shoes most reluctantly when school opened.
After the first block I was wondering why, as a kid, I had always looked forward to going barefooted. Shortly thereafter I asked Margrethe to ask Sergeant Roberto, please, to slow down and let me pick my way for maximum shade; this pesky sidewalk is frying my feet!
(Margrethe had not complained and did not – and I was a bit vexed with her that she had not. I benefited constantly from Margrethe’s angelic fortitude—and found it hard to live up to.)
From there on I gave my full attention to pampering my poor, abused, tender pink feet. I felt sorry for myself and wondered why I had ever left God’s country.
‘I wept that I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.’ I don’t know who said that first, but it is part of our cultural heritage and should be.
It happened to me.
Not quite halfway, where Miguel Alemán crosses Calle Aquiles Serdan at the fountain, we encountered a street beggar. He looked up at us and grinned, held up a handful of pencils -‘looked up’ because he was riding a little wheeled dolly; he had no feet.
Sergeant Roberto called him by name and flipped him a coin; the beggar caught it in his teeth, flipped it into his pocket, called out, ‘Gracias!’- and turned his attention to me.
I said quickly, ‘Margrethe, will you please explain to him that I have no money whatever.’
‘Yes, Alec.’ She squatted down, spoke with him eye to Eye. Then she straightened up. ‘Pepe says, to tell you, that’s all right; he’ll catch you someday when you are rich.’
‘Please tell him that I will be back. I promise.’
She did so. Pepe grinned at me, threw Margrethe a kiss, and saluted the Sergeant and me. We went on.
And I stopped being so finicky careful to coddle my feet. Pepe had forced me to reassess my situation. Ever since I had learned that the Mexican government did not regard rescuing me as a privilege but expected me to pay for it, I had been feeling sorry for myself, abused, put upon. I had been muttering to myself that my compatriots who complained that all Mexicans were bloodsuckers, living on gringo tourists, were dead right! Not Roberto and the Lieutenant, of course – but the others. Lazy parasites, all of them! with their hands out for the Yankee dollar.
Like Pepe.
I reviewed in my mind all the Mexicans I had met that day, each one I could remember, and asked forgiveness for my snide thoughts. Mexicans were simply fellow travelers on that long journey from dark to eternal darkness. Some carried their burdens well, some did not. And some carried very heavy burdens with gallantry and grace. Like Pepe.
Yesterday I had been living in luxury; today I was broke and in debt. But I have my health, I have my brain, I have my two hands – and I have Margrethe. My burdens were light; I should carry them joyfully. Thank you, Pepe!
The door of the consulate had a small American flag over it and the Great Seal in bronze on it. I pulled the bell wire beside it.
After a considerable wait the door opened a crack and a female voice told us to go away (I needed no translation; her meaning was clear). The door started to close. Sergeant Roberto whistled loudly and called out. The crack widened; a dialogue ensued. Margrethe said, ‘He’s telling her to tell Don Ambrosio that two American citizens are here who must see him at once because they must appear in court at four this afternoon.’
Again we waited. After about twenty minutes the maid let us in and ushered us into a dark office. The consul came in Y fixed my eye with his, and demanded to know how I dared to interrupt his siesta?
Then he caught sight of Margrethe and slowed down. To her it was: ‘How can I serve you? In the meantime will you honor my poor house by accepting a glass of wine? Or a cup of coffee?’
Barefooted and in a garish dress, Margrethe was a lady – I was riffraff. Don’t ask me why this was so; it just was. The effect was most marked with men. But it worked with women, too. Try to rationalize it and you find yourself using words like ‘royal’, ‘noble’, ‘gentry’, and ‘to the manner born’ – all involving concepts anathema to the American democratic ideal. Whether this proves something about Margrethe or something about the democratic ideal I will leave as an exercise for the student.
Don Ambrosio was a pompous zero but nevertheless he was a relief because he spoke American – real American, not English; he had been born in Brownsville, Texas. I feel certain that the backs of his parents were wet. He had parlayed a talent for politics among his fellow Chicanos into a cushy sinecure, telling gringo travelers in the land of Montezuma why they could not have what they desperately needed.
Which he eventually told us.
I let Margrethe do most of the talking because she was obviously so much more successful at it than I was. She called us ‘Mr and Mrs Graham’ – we had agreed on that name during the walk here. When we were rescued, she had used ‘Grahain Hergensheimer’ and had explained to me later that this let me choose: I could select ‘Hergensheimer’ simply by asserting that the listener’s memory had had a minor bobble; the name had been offered as ‘Hergensheimer Graham. No? Well, then I must have miscalled it – sorry.
I let it stay ‘Graham Hergensheimer’ and thereby used the name ‘Graham’ in order to keep things simple; to her I had always been ‘Graham’ and I had been using the name myself for almost two weeks. Before I got out of the consulate I had told a dozen more lies, trying to keep our story believable. I did not want unnecessary complication; ‘Mr and Mrs Alec Graham’ was easiest.
(Minor theological note: Many people seem to believe that the Ten Commandments forbid lying. Not at all! The prohibition is against bearing false witness against your neighbor – a specific, limited, and despicable sort of lie. But there is no Biblical rule forbidding simple untruth. Many theologians believe that no human social organization could stand up under the strain of absolute honesty. If you think their misgivings are unfounded, try telling your friends the ungarnished truth about what you think of their offspring – if you dare risk it.)
After endless repetitions (in which the Konge Knut shrank and became our private cruiser) Don Ambrosio said to me, ‘It’s no use, Mr Graham. I cannot issue you even a temporary document to substitute for your lost passport because you have offered me not one shred of proof that you are an American citizen.’
I answered, ‘Don Ambrosio, I am astonished. I know that Mrs Graham has a slight accent; we told you that she was born in Denmark. But do you honestly think that anyone not born amidst the tall corn could possibly have my accent?’
He gave a most Latin. shrug. ‘I’m not an expert in midwest accents. To my ear you could have been born to one of the harsher British accents, then have gone on the stage – and everybody knows that a competent actor can acquire the accent for any role. The People’s Republic of England goes to any length these days to plant their sleepers in the States; you might be from Lincoln, England, rather than from somewhere near Lincoln, Nebraska.’
‘Do you really believe that?’
‘What I believe is not the question. The fact is that I will not sign a piece of paper saying that you are an
American citizen when I don’t know that you are. I’m sorry. Is there anything more that I can do for you?’
(How can you do ‘more’ for me when you haven’t done anything yet?) ‘Possibly you can advise us.’
‘Possibly. I am not a lawyer.’
I offered him our copy of the billing against us, explained it. ‘Is this in order and are these charges appropriate?’
He looked it over. ‘These charges are certainly legal both by their laws and ours. Appropriate? Didn’t you tell me that they saved your lives?’
‘No question about it. Oh, there’s an outside chance that a fishing boat might have picked us up if the Coast Guard had not found us. But the Coast Guard did find us and did save us.’
‘Is your life – your two lives – worth less than eight thousand pesos? Mine is worth considerably more, I assure you.’
‘It isn’t that, sir. We have no money, not a cent. It all went down with the boat.’
‘So send for money. You can have it sent care of the consulate. I’ll go that far.’
‘Thank you. It will take time. In the meantime how can I get them off my neck? I was told that this judge will want cash and immediately.’
‘Oh, it’s not that bad. It’s true that they don’t permit bankruptcy the way we do, and they do have a rather old-fashioned debtors-prison law. But they don’t use it just the threat of it. Instead the court will see that you get a job that will let you settle your indebtedness. Don Clemente is a humane judge; he will take care of you.’
Aside from the flowery nonsense directed at Margrethe, that ended it. We picked up Sergeant Roberto, who had been enjoying backstairs hospitality from the maid and the cook, and headed for the courthouse.
Don Clemente (Judge Ibafiez) was as pleasant as Don Ambrosio had said he would be. Since we informed the clerk at once that we stipulated the debt but did not have the cash to pay it, there was no trial. We were simply seated in the uncrowded courtroom and told to wait while the judge disposed of cases on his docket. He handled several quickly. Some were minor offenses drawing fines; some were debt cases; some were hearings for later trial. I could not tell much about what was going on and whispering was frowned on, so Margrethe could not tell me much. But he was certainly no hanging judge.
The cases at hand were finished; at a word from the clerk we went out back with the ‘miscreants’ – peasants, mostly – who owed fines or debts. We found ourselves lined up on a low platform, facing a group of men. Margrethe asked what this was – and was answered, ‘La subasta.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked her.
‘Alec, I’m not sure. It’s not a word I know.’
Settlements were made quickly on the others; I gathered that most of them had been there before. Then there was just one man left of the group off the platform, just us on the platform. The man remaining looked sleekly prosperous. He smiled and spoke to me. Margrethe answered.
‘What is he saying?’ I asked.
‘He asked you if you can wash dishes. I told him that you do not speak Spanish.’
‘Tell him that of course I can wash dishes. But that’s hardly a job I want.’
Five minutes later our debt had been paid, in cash, to the clerk of the court, and we had acquired a patrón, Sehor Jaime Valera Guzman. He paid sixty pesos a day for Margrethe, thirty for me, plus our found. Court costs were twenty-five hundred pesos, plus fees for two non-resident work permits, plus war-tax stamps. The clerk figured our total indebtedness, then divided it out for us: In only a hundred and twenty-one days – four months – our obligation to our patr6n would be discharged. Unless, of course, we spent some money during that time.
He also directed us to our patrón’s place of business, Restaurante Pancho. Villa. Our patrón had already left in his private car. Patrones ride; peones walk.
Chapter 11
And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.
Genesis 29:20
SOMETIMES, WHILE washing dishes, I would amuse myself by calculating how high a stack of dishes I had washed since going to work for our patrón, Don Jaime. The ordinary plate used in Pancho Villa café stacked twenty plates to a foot. I arbitrarily decided that a cup and saucer, or two glasses, would count as one plate, since these items did not stack well. And so forth.
The great Mazatlán lighthouse is five hundred and fifteen feet tall, only forty feet shorter than the Washington Monument. I remember the day I completed my first ‘lighthouse stack’. I had told Margrethe earlier that week that I was approaching my goal and expected to reach it by Thursday or early Friday.
And did so, Thursday evening – and left the scullery, stood in the door between the kitchen and the dining room, caught Margrethe’s eye, raised my hands high and shook hands with myself like a pugilist.
Margrethe stopped what she was doing – taking orders from a family party – and applauded. This caused her to have to explain to her guests what was going on, and that resulted in her stopping by the scullery a few minutes later to pass to me a ten-peso note, a congratulatory gift from the father of that family. I asked her to thank him for me, and please tell him that I had just started my second lighthouse stack, which I was dedicating to him and his family.
Which in turn resulted in Señora Valera sending her husband, Don Jaime, to find out why Margrethe was wasting time and making a scene instead of paying attention to her work… which resulted in Don Jaime inquiring how much the diners had tipped me and then matching it.
The Señora had no reason to complain; Margrethe was not only her best waitress; she was her only bilingual waitress. The day we started to work for Sr y Sra Valera a sign painter was called in to paint a conspicuous sign: ENGLIS SPOKE HERE. Thereafter, in addition to being available for any
English-speaking guests, Margrethe prepared menus in English (and the prices on the menus in English were about forty percent higher than the prices on the all-Spanish menus).
Don Jaime was not a bad boss. He was cheerful and, on the whole, kindly to his employees. When we had been there about a month he told me that he would not have bid in my debt had it not been that the judge would not permit my contract to be separated from Margrethe’s contract, we being a married couple (else I could have found myself a field hand able to see my wife only on rare occasions – as Don Ambrosio had told me, Don Clemente was a humane judge).
I told him that I was happy that the package included me but it simply showed his good judgment to want to hire Margrethe.
He agreed that that was true. He had attended the Wednesday labor auctions several weeks on end in search of a bilingual woman or girl who could be trained as a waitress, then had bid me in as well to obtain Margrethe – but he wished to tell me that he had not regretted it as he had never seen the scullery so clean, the dishes so immaculate, the silverware so shiny.
I assured him that it was my happy privilege to help uphold the honor and prestige of Restaurante Pancho Villa and its distinguished patrón, el Don Jaime.
In fact it would have been difficult for me not to improve that scullery. When I took over, I thought at first that the floor was dirt. And so it was – you could have planted potatoes! – but under the filth, about a
half inch down, was sound concrete. I cleaned and then kept it clean – my feet were still bare. Then I demanded roach powder.
Each morning I killed roaches and cleaned the floor. Each evening, just before quitting for the day, I sprinkled roach powder. It is impossible (I think) to conquer roaches, but it is possible to fight them to a draw, force them back and maintain a holding action.
As to the quality of my dishwashing, it could not be otherwise; my mother had a severe dirt phobia and, because of my placement in a large family, I washed or wiped dishes under her eye from age seven through thirteen (at which time I graduated through taking on a newspaper route that left me no time for dishwashing).
But just because I did it well, do not think I was enamored of dishwashing. It had bored me as a child; it bored me as a man.
Then why did I do it? Why didn’t I run away?
Isn’t that evident? Dishwashing kept me with Margrethe. Running away might be feasible for some debtors – I don’t think much effort went into trying to track down and bring back debtors who disappeared some dark night – but running away was not feasible for a married couple, one of whom was a conspicuous blonde in a country in which any blonde, is always conspicuous and the other was a man who could not speak Spanish.
While we both worked hard – eleven to eleven each day except Tuesday, with a nominal two hours off for siesta and a half hour each for lunch and dinner – we had the other twelve hours each day to ourselves, plus all day ‘Tuesday.
Niagara Falls never supplied a finer honeymoon. We had a tiny attic room at the back of the restaurant building. It was hot but we weren’t there much in the heat of the day – by eleven at night it was comfortable no matter how hot the day had been. In Mazatlán most residents of our social class (zero!) did not have inside plumbing. But we worked and lived in a restaurant building; there was a flush toilet we shared with other employees during working hours and shared with no one the other twelve hours of each day. (There was also a Maw Jones out back, which I sometimes used during working hours – I don’t think Margrethe ever used it.)
We had the use of a shower on the ground floor, -back to back with the employees’ toilet, and the needs of the scullery were such that the building had a large water heater. Señora Valera scolded us regularly for using too much hot water (‘Gas costs money!’); we listened in silence and went right on using whatever amount of hot water we needed.
Our patrón’s contract with the state required him to supply us with food and shelter (and clothing, under the law, but I did not learn this until too late to matter), which is why we slept there, and of course we ate there – not the chef’s specialties, but quite good food.
‘Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.’ We had only ourselves; it was enough.
Margrethe, because she sometimes received tips, especially from gringos, was slowly accumulating cash money. We spent as little of this as possible – she bought shoes for each of us -and she saved against the day when we would be free of our peonage and able to go north. I had no illusions that the nation north of us was the land of my birth… but it was this world’s analog of it; English was spoken there and I was sure that its culture would have to be closer to what we had been used to.
Tips to Margrethe brought us into friction with Señora Valera the very first week. While Don Jaime was legally our patrõn, she owned the restaurant – or so we were told by Amanda the cook. Jaime Valera had once been head-waiter there and had married the owner’s daughter. This made him permanent maitre d’hotel. When his father-in-law died, he became the owner in the eyes of the public. But his wife retained the purse strings and presided over the cash register.
(Perhaps I should add that he was ‘Don Jaime’ to us because he was our patrón; he was not a Don to the public.
The honorific ‘Don’ will not translate into English, but owning a restaurant does not make a man a Don – but, for example, being a judge does.)
The first time Margrethe was seen to receive a tip, the Señora told her to turn it over – at the end of each week she would receive her percentage.
Margrethe came straight to me in the scullery. ‘Alec, what shall I do? Tips were my main income in the Konge Knut and no one ever asked me to share them. Can she do this to me?’
I told her not to turn her tips over to the Señora but to tell her that we would discuss it with her at the end of the day.
There is one advantage to being a peón: You don’t get fired over a disagreement with your boss. Certainly we could be fired… but that would simply lose the Valeras some ten thousand pesos they had invested in us.
By the end of the day I knew exactly what to say and how to say it – how Margrethe must say it, as it was another month before I soaked up enough Spanish to maintain a minimum conversation:
‘Sir and Madam, we do not understand this ruling about gifts to me. We want to see the judge and ask him what our contract requires.’
As I had suspected, they were not willing to see the judge about it. They were legally entitled to Margrethe’s service but they had no claim on money given to her by a third party.
This did not end it. Señora Valera was so angry at being balked by a mere waitress that she had a sign posted: NO PROPINAS – NO TIPS, and the same notice was placed in the menus.
Peónes can’t strike. But there were five other waitresses, two of them Amanda’s daughters. The day Sefiora Valera ordered no tipping she found that she had just one waitress (Margrethe) and no one in the kitchen. She gave up. But I am sure she never forgave us.
Don Jaime treated us as employees; his wife treated us as slaves. Despite that old cliché about ‘wage, slaves’, there is a world of difference. Since we both tried hard to be faithful employees while paying off our debt but flatly refused to be slaves, we were bound to tangle with Señora Valera.
Shortly after the disagreement over tips Margrethe became convinced that the Señora was snooping in our bedroom. If true, there was no way to stop her; there was no lock for the door and she could enter our room without fear of being caught any day while we were working.
I gave some thought to boobytraps until Margrethe vetoed the idea. She simply thereafter kept her mo hey on her person. But it was a measure of what we thought of our ‘patroness’ that Margrethe considered it necessary to lake precautions against her stealing from us.
We did not let Señora Valera spoil our happiness. And we did not let our dubious status as a ‘married’ couple spoil our somewhat irregular honeymoon. Oh, I would have spoiled it because I always have had this unholy itch to analyze matters I really do not know how to analyze. But Margrethe is much more practical than I am and simply did not permit it. I tried to rationalize our relationship to her by pointing out that polygamy was not forbidden by Holy Writ but solely by modern law and custom – and she chopped me off briskly by saying that she had no interest in how many wives or concubines King Solomon had and did not regard him or any Old Testament character as a model for her own behavior. If I did not want to live with her, speak up! Say so!
I shut up. Some problems are best let be, not chewed over with words. This modern compulsion to ‘talk it out’ is a mistake at least as often as it is a solution.
But her disdain for Biblical authority concerning the legality of one man having two wives was so sharp that I asked her about it later – not about polygamy; I stayed away from that touchy subject; I asked her how she felt about the authority of Holy Writ in general. I explained that the church I was brought up in believed in strict interpretation -‘A whole Bible, not a Bible full of holes’ – Scripture was the literal word of God… but that I knew that other churches felt that the spirit rather than the letter ruled… some being so liberal that they hardly bothered with the Bible. Yet all of them called themselves Christian.
‘Margrethe my love, as deputy executive secretary of Churches United for Decency I was in daily contact with members of every Protestant sect in the country and in liaison association with many Roman Catholic clerics on matters where we could join in a united front. I learned that my own church did not have a monopoly on virtue. A man could be awfully mixed up in religious fundamentals and still be a fine citizen and a devout Christian.’
I chuckled as I recalled something and went on, ‘Or to put it in reverse, one of my Catholic friends, Father Mahaffey, told me that even I could squeeze into Heaven, because the Good. Lord in His infinite wisdom made allowances for the ignorance and wrongheadedness of Protestants.’
This conversation took place on a Tuesday, our day off, the one day a week the restaurant did not open, and in consequence we were on top of el Cerro de la Neveria Icebox Hill, but it sounds better in Spanish
and just finishing a picnic lunch. This hill was downtown, close to Pancho Villa café, but was a bucolic oasis; the citizens had followed the Spanish habit of turning hills into parks rather than building on them. A happy place –
‘My dear, I would never try to proselytize you into my church. But I do want to know as much about you as possible. I find that I don’t know much about churches in Denmark. Mostly Lutheran, I think – but does Denmark have its own established state church like some other European nations? Either way, which church is yours, and is it strict interpretationist or liberal – and again, either way, how do you feel about it? And remember what Father Mahaffey said – I agree with him. I don’t think that my church has the only door into Heaven.’
I was lying stretched out; Margrethe was seated with her knees drawn up and holding them and was faced west, staring out to sea. This placed her with her face turned away from me. She did not answer my query. Presently I said gently, ‘My dear, did you hear me?’
‘I heard you.’
Again I waited, then added, ‘If I have been prying where I should not pry, I’m sorry and I withdraw the question.’
‘No. I knew that I would have to answer it some day. Alec, I am not a Christian.’ She let go her knees, swung around, and looked me in the eye. ‘You can have a divorce as simply as we married, just by telling me so. I won’t fight it; I will go quietly away. But, Alec, when you told me that you loved me, then later when you told me that we were married in the eyes of God, you did not ask me my religion.’
‘Margrethe.’
‘Yes, Alec?’
‘First, wash out your mouth. Then ask my pardon.’
‘There may be enough wine left in the bottle to rinse out my mouth. But I cannot ask pardon for not telling you this. I would have answered truthfully at any time. You did not ask.’
‘Wash out your mouth for talking about divorce. Ask my pardon for daring to think that I would ever divorce you under any circumstances whatever. If you are ever naughty enough, I may beat you. But I would never put you away. For richer, for poorer, in sickness and heath, now and forever. Woman, I love you! Get that through your head.’
Suddenly she was in my arms, weeping for only the second time, and I was doing the only thing possible, namely, kissing her.
I heard a cheer behind me and turned my head. We had had the top of the hill to ourselves, it being a work day for most people. But I found that we had an audience of two streetwise urchins, so young that sex was unclear. Catching my eye, one of them cheered again, then made loud kissing noises.
‘Beat it!’ I called out. ‘Scram! Vaya con Dios! Is that what I wanted to say, Marga?’
She spoke to them and they did go away, after more high giggles. I needed the interruption. I had said to Margrethe what had to be said because she needed immediate reassurance after her silly, gallant speech. But nevertheless I was shaken to my depths.
I started to speak, then decided that I had said enough for one day. But Margrethe said nothing, too; the silence grew painful. I felt that matters could not be left so, balanced uncertainly on edge. ‘What is your faith, dear one? Judaism? I do remember now that there are Jews in Denmark. Not all Danes are Lutheran.’
‘Some Jews, yes. But barely one in a thousand. No, Alec. Uh – There are older Gods.’
‘Older than Jehovah? Impossible.’
Margrethe said nothing – characteristically. If she disagreed, she usually said nothing. She seemed to have no interest in winning arguments, in which she must differ from 99 percent of the human race… many of whom appear willing to suffer any disaster rather than lose an argument.
So I found myself having to conduct both sides to keep the argument from dying through lack of nourishment. ‘I retract that. I should not have said, “Impossible.” I was speaking from the accepted
chronology as given by Bishop Ussher. If one accepts his dating, then the world was created five thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight years ago this coming October. Of course that dating is not itself a matter of Holy Writ; Hales arrived at a different figure, uh, seven thousand four hundred and five, I think – I do better when I write figures down. And other scholars get slightly different answers.
‘But they all agree that some four or five thousand years before Christ occurred the unique event, Creation. At that point Jehovah created the world and, in so doing, created time. Time cannot exist alone. As a corollary, nothing and no one and no god can be older than Jehovah, since Jehovah created time. You see?’
‘I wish I’d kept quiet.’
‘My dear! I am simply trying to have an intellectual discussion; I did not and do not and never do and never will intend to hurt you. I said that was the case by the orthodox way of dating. Clearly you are using another way. Will you explain it to me? – and not jump all over poor old Alex every time he opens his mouth? I was schooled as a minister in a church that emphasizes preaching; discussion comes as naturally to me as swimming does to fish. But now you preach and I’ll listen. Tell me about these older gods.’
‘You know of them. The oldest and greatest we celebrate tomorrow; the middle day of each week is his.’
‘Today is Tuesday, tomorrow – Wednesday! Wotan! He is your God?’
‘Odin. “Wotan” is a German distortion of Old Norse. Father Odin and his two brothers created the world. In the beginning there was void, nothing – then the rest of it reads much like Genesis, even to Adam and Eve – but called Askr and Embla rather than Adam and Eve.’
‘Perhaps it is Genesis, Margrethe.’
‘What do you mean, Alec?’
‘The Bible is the Word of God, in particular the English translation known as the King James version
because every word of that translation was sustained by prayer and the best efforts of the world’s greatest scholars – any difference in opinion was taken directly to the Lord in prayer. So the King James Bible is the Word of God.
‘But nowhere is it written that this can be the only Word of God. A sacred writing of another race at another time in another language can also be inspired history… if it is compatible with the Bible. And that is what you have just described, is it not?’
‘Ah, just on Creation and on Adam and Eve, Alec. The chronology does not match at all. You said that the world was created about six thousand years ago?’
‘About. Hales makes it longer. The Bible does not give dates; dating is a modern invention.’
‘Even that longer time – Hales? – is much too short. A hundred thousand years would be more like it.’
I started to expostulate – after all, some things are just too much to be swallowed – then remembered that I had warned myself not to say anything that could cause Margrethe to shut up. ‘Go on, dear. Do your religious writings tell what happened during all those millennia?’
‘Almost all of it happened before writing was invented. Some was preserved in epic poems sung by skalds. But even that did not start until men learned to live in tribes and Odin taught them to sing. The longest period was ruled by the frost giants before mankind was more than wild animals, hunted for sport. But the real difference in the chronology is this, Alec. The Bible runs from Creation to Judgment Day, then Millennium – the Kingdom on Earth – then the War in Heaven and the end of the world. After that is the Heavenly City and Eternity – time has stopped. Is that correct?’
‘Well, yes. A professional eschatologist would find that overly simplified but you have correctly described the main outlines. The details are given in Revelations – the Revelation of Saint John the Divine, I should say. Many prophets have witnessed the final things but Saint John is the only one with the complete story… because Christ Himself delivered the Revelation to John to stop the elect from being deceived by false prophets. Creation, the Fall from Grace, the long centuries of struggle and trial, then the final battle, followed by Judgment and the Kingdom. What does your faith say, my love?’
‘The final battle we call Ragnarok rather than Armageddon -‘
‘I can’t see that terminology matters.’
‘Please, dear. The name does not matter but what happens does. In your Judgment Day the goats are separated from the sheep. The saved go to eternal bliss; the damned go to eternal punishment. Correct?’
‘Correct – while noting for purposes of scientific accuracy that some authorities assert that, while bliss is eternal, God so loves, the world that even the damned may eventually be saved; no soul is utterly beyond redemption. Other theologians regard this as heresy – but it appeals to me; I have never liked the idea of eternal damnation. I’m a sentimentalist, my dear.’
‘I know you are, Alec, and I love you for it. You should find the old religion appealing… as it does not have eternal damnation.’
‘It does not?’
‘No. At Ragnarok the world as we know it will be destroyed. But that is not the end. After a long time, a time of healing, a new universe will be created, one better and cleaner and free from the evils of this world. It too will last for countless millennia… until again the forces of evil and cold contend against the forces of goodness and light… and again there is a time of rest, followed by a new creation and another chance for men. Nothing is ever finished, nothing is ever perfect, but over and over again the race of men gets another chance to do better than last time, ever and again without end.’
‘And this you believe, Margrethe?’
‘I find it easier to believe than the smugness of the saved and the desperate plight of the damned in the Christian faith. Jehovah is said to be all powerful. If this is true, then the poor damned souls in Hell are there because Jehovah planned it that way in every minute detail. Is this not so?’
I hesitated. The logical reconciliation of Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnibenevolence is the thorniest problem in theology, one causing even Jesuits to break their teeth. ‘Margrethe, some of the mysteries of the Almighty are not easily explained. We mortals must accept Our Father’s benevolent intention toward us, whether or not we understand His works.’
‘ Must a baby understand God’s benevolent intention when his brains are dashed out against a rock? Does he then go straight to Hell, praising the Lord for His infinite Wisdom and Goodness?’
‘Margrethe! What in the world are you talking about?’
I am talking about places in the Old Testament in which Jehovah gives direct orders to kill babies, sometimes ordering that they be killed by dashing them against rocks. See that Psalm that starts “By the rivers of Babylon -” And see the word of the Lord Jehovah in Hosea: “their infants shall be dashed in – pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.” And there is the case of Elisha and the bears.
Alec, do you believe in your heart that your. God caused bears to tear up little children merely because they made fun of an old man’s bald head?’ She waited.
And I waited. Presently she said, ‘Is that story of she bears and the forty-two children the literal Word of God?’
‘Certainly it’s the Word of God! But I don’t pretend to understand it fully. Margrethe, if you want detailed explanations of everything the Lord has done, pray to Him for enlightenment. But don’t crowd me about it.’
‘I did not intend to crowd you, Alec. I’m sorry.’
‘No need to be. I’ve never understood about those bears but I don’t let it shake my faith. Perhaps it’s a parable. But look, dear, doesn’t your Father Odin have a pretty bloody history Himself?’
‘Not on the same scale. Jehovah destroyed city after city, every man, woman, and child, down to the youngest baby. Odin killed only in combat against opponents his own size. But, most important difference of all, Father Odin is not all powerful and does not claim to be all wise.’
(A theology that avoids the thorniest problem – But how can you call Him ‘God’ if He is not omnipotent?)
She went on, ‘Alec my only love, I don’t want to attack your faith. I don’t enjoy it and never intended to
and hope that nothing like it will ever happen again. But you did ask me point blank whether or not I accepted the authority of “Holy Writ – by which you mean your Bible. I must answer just as point blank. I do not. The Jehovah or Yahweh of the Old Testament seems to me to be a sadistic, bloodthirsty, genocidal villain. I cannot understand how He can be identified with the gentle Christ of the New Testament. Even through a mystic Trinity.’
I started to answer but she hurried on. ‘Dear heart, before we leave this subject I must tell you something I have been thinking about. Does your religion offer an explanation of the weird thing that has happened to us? Once to me, twice to you – this changed world?’
(It had been endlessly on my mind, too!) ‘No. I must Confess it. I wish I had a Bible to search an explanation. But I have been searching in my mind. I haven’t been able to find anything that should have prepared me for this.’ I sighed. ‘It’s a bleak feeling. But -‘ I smiled at her.’ ‘Divine Providence placed you with me. No land is strange to me that has Margrethe in it.’
‘Dear Alec: I asked because the old religion does offer an explanation.’
‘What?’
‘Not a cheerful one. At the beginning of this cycle Loki was overcome – do you know Loki?’
‘Some. The mischief maker.’
‘”Mischie” is too mild a word; he works evil. For thousands of years he has been a prisoner, chained to a great rock. Alec, the end of every cycle in the story of man begins the same way. Loki manages to escape his bonds… and chaos results.’
She looked at me with great sadness. ‘Alec, I am sorry… but I do believe that Loki is loose. The signs show it. Now anything can happen. We enter the Twilight of the Gods. Ragnarok comes. Our world ends.’
Chapter 12
And in the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand:
and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of Heaven.
Revelation 11:13
I WASHED another lighthouse stack of dishes while I pondered the things Margrethe had said to me that beautiful afternoon on Icebox Hill – but I never again mentioned the subject to Margrethe. And she did not speak of it to me; as Margrethe never argued about anything if she could reasonably keep silent.
Did I believe her theory about Loki and Ragnarok? Of course not! Oh, I had no objection to calling Armageddon by the name ‘Ragnarok’. Jesus or Joshua or Jesu; Mary or Miriam or Maryam or Maria, Jehovah or Yahweh – any verbal symbol will do as long as speaker and listener agree on meaning. But Loki? Ask me to believe that a mythical demigod of an ignorant, barbarian race has wrought changes in the whole universe? Now, really!
I am a modern man, with an open mind – but not so empty that the wind blows through it. Somewhere in Holy Writ lay a rational explanation for the upsets that had happened to us. I need not look to ghost stories of long-dead pagans for explanations.
I missed not having a Bible at hand. Oh, no doubt there were Catholic Bibles at the basilica three blocks away… in Latin or in Spanish. I wanted the King James version. Again no doubt there were copies of it somewhere in this city – but I did not know where. For the first time in my Life I envied the perfect memory of Preachin’ (Rev Paul Balonius) who tramped up and down the central states the middle of last century, preaching the Word without carrying the Book with him. Brother Paul was reputed to be able to quote from memory any verse cited by book, chapter, and number of verse, or, conversely, correctly place by book, chapter, and number any verse read to him.
I was born too late to meet Preachin’ Paul, so I never saw him do this – but perfect memory is a special gift God bestows not too infrequently; I have no reason to doubt that Brother Paul had it. Paul died
suddenly, somewhat mysteriously, and possibly sinfully – in the words of my mission studies professor, one should exercise great prudence in praying alone with a married woman.
I don’t have Paul’s gift. I can quote the first few chapters of Genesis and several of the Psalms and the Christmas story according to Luke, and some other passages. But for today’s problem I needed to study in exact detail all the prophets, especially the prophecy known as the Revelation of Saint John the Divine.
Was Armageddon approaching? Was the Second Coming at hand? Would I myself still be alive in the flesh when the great Trump sounds?
A thrilling thought, and not one to be discarded too quickly. Many millions will be alive on that great day; that mighty host could include Alexander Hergensheimer. Would I hear His Shout and see the dead rise up and then myself ‘be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air’ and then ever be with the Lord, as promised? The most thrilling passage in the Great Book!
Not that I had any assurance that I myself would be among those saved on that great day, even if I lived in the flesh to that day. Being an ordained minister of the Gospel does not necessarily improve one’s chances. Clergymen are aware of this cold truth (if they are honest with themselves) but laymen sometimes think that men of the cloth have an inside track.
Not true! For a clergyman, there are no excuses. He can never claim that ‘he didn’t know it was loaded’, or cite youth and inexperience as a reason to ask for mercy, or claim ignorance of the law, or any of the other many excuses by which a layman might show a touch less than moral perfection but still be saved.
Knowing this, I was forced to admit that my own record lately did not suggest that I was among the saved. Certainly, I was born again. Some people seem to think that this is a permanent condition, like a college degree. Brother, don’t count on it! I was only too aware that I had racked up quite a number of sins lately: Sinful pride. Intemperance. Greed. Lechery. Adultery. Doubt. And others.
Worse yet, I felt no contrition for the very worst of these.
If the record did not show that Margrethe was saved and listed for Heaven, then I had no interest in going there myself. God help me, that was the truth.
I worried about Margrethe’s immortal soul.
She could not claim the second chance of all pre-Christian Era souls. She had been born into the Lutheran Church, not my church but ancestor to my church, ancestor to Al Protestant churches, the first fruit of the Diet of Worms. (When I was a lad in Sunday school, ‘Diet of Worms’ inspired mind pictures quite foreign to theology!)
The only way Margrethe could be saved would be by renouncing her heresy and seeking to be born again. But she must do this herself; I could not do it for her.
The most. I could possibly do would be to urge her to seek salvation. But I would have to do it most carefully. One does not persuade a butterfly to light on one’s hand by brandishing a sword. Margrethe was not a heathen ignorant of Christ and needing only to be instructed. No, she had been born into Christianity and had rejected it, eyes open. She could cite Scripture as readily as I could at some time she had studied the Book most diligently, far more than most laymen. When and why I never asked, but I think it must have been at the time when she began to contemplate leaving the Christian faith. Margrethe was so serious and so good that I felt certain that she would never take such a drastic step without long, hard study.
How urgent was the problem of Margrethe? Did I have thirty years or ser to learn her mind and feel out the best approach? Or was Armageddon so close upon us that even a day’s delay could doom her for eternity?
The pagan Ragnarok and the Christian Armageddon have this in common: The final battle will be preceded by great signs and portents. Were we experiencing such omens? Margrethe thought so. Myself, I found the idea that this world changing presaged Armageddon more attractive than the alternative, i.e., paranoia on my part. Could a ship be wrecked and a world changed just to keep me from checking a thumbprint? I had thought so at the time but – oh, come now, Alex, you are not that important.
(Or was I?)
I have never been a Millenarianist. I am aware how often the number one thousand appears in the Bible, especially in prophecy – but I have never believed that the Almighty was constrained to work in even millennia – or any other numbering patterns – just to please numerologists.
On the other hand I know that many thousands of sensible and devout people place enormous importance on the forthcoming end of the Second Millennium, with Judgment Day and Armageddon and all that must follow – expected at that time. They find their proofs in the Bible and claim confirmation in the lines in the Great Pyramid and in a variety of Apocrypha.
But they differ among themselves as to the end of the millennium. 2000 AD? Or 2001 AD? Or is the correct dating 3 pm Jerusalem local time April 7, 2030 AD? If indeed scholars have the time and date of the Crucifixion – and the earthquake at the moment of His death – correctly figured against mundane time reckoning. Or should it be Good Friday 2030 AD as calculated by the lunar calendar? This is no trivial matter in view of what we are attempting to date.
But, if we take the birth of Christ rather than the date of the Crucifixion as the starting point from which to count, the millennia, it is evident at once that neither the naive date of 2000 AD nor the slightly less naive date of 2001 can be the bimillenarian date because Jesus was born in Bethlehem on Christmas Day year 5 BC.
Every educated person knows this and almost no one ever thinks about it.
How could the greatest event in all history, the birth of our Lord Incarnate, have been misdated by five years? Incredible!
Very easily. A sixth-century monk made a mistake in arithmetic. Our present dating (‘Anno Domini) was not used until centuries after Christ was born. Anyone who has ever tried to decipher on a cornerstone a date written in Roman numerals can sympathize with the error of Brother Dionysius Exiguus. In the sixth century there were so few who could read at all that the error went undetected for many years – and by then it was too late to change all the records. So we have the ludicrous situation that Christ was born five years before Christ was born – an Irishism that can be resolved only by noting that one clause refers to fact and the other clause refers to a false-to-fact calendar.
For two thousand years the good monk’s error was of little importance. But now it becomes of supreme importance. If the Millenarianists are correct, the end of the world can be expected Christmas Day this year.
Please note that I did not say ‘December 25th’. The day and month of Christ’s birth are unknown. Matthew notes that Herod was king; Luke states that Augustus was Caesar and that Cyrenius was governor of Syria, and we all know that Joseph and Mary had traveled from Nazareth – to Bethlehem to be counted and taxed.
There are no other data, neither of Holy Writ nor of Roman civil records.
So there you have it. By Millenarianist theory, the Final Judgment can be expected about thirty-five years from now… or later this afternoon!
Were it not for Margrethe this uncertainty would not keep me awake nights. But how can I sleep if my beloved is in immediate danger of being cast down into the Bottomless Pit, there to suffer throughout eternity?
What would you do?
Envision me standing barefooted on a greasy floor’, washing dishes to pay off my indenture, while thinking deep thoughts of last and first things. A laughable sight! But dishwashing does not occupy all the mind; I was better off with hard bread for the mind to chew on.
Sometimes I contrasted my sorry state with what I had so recently been, while wondering if I would ever find my way back through the maze into the place I had built for myself.
Would I want to go back? Abigail was there – and, while polygamy was acceptable in the Old Testament, it was not accepted in the forty-six states. That had been settled once and for all when the Union Army’s artillery had destroyed the temple of the antichrist in Salt Lake City and the Army had supervised the breaking up and diaspora of those immoral ‘families’.
Giving up Margrethe for Abigail would be far too high a price to pay to resume the position of power and importance I had until recently held. Yet I had enjoyed my work and the deep satisfaction over worthwhile accomplishment that went with it. We had achieved our best year since the foundation was formed – I refer to the non-profit corporation, Churches United for Decency. ‘Non-profit’ does not mean that such an organization cannot pay appropriate salaries and even bonuses, and I had been taking a well-earned vacation after the best fund-raising year of our history – primarily my accomplishment because, as deputy director, my first duty was to see that our coffers were kept filled.
But I took even greater satisfaction in our labors in the vineyards, as fund raising means nothing if our
programs of spiritual welfare do not meet their goals.
The past ‘year’ had seen the following positive accomplishments:
a) A federal law making abortion a capital offense;
b) A federal law making the manufacture, sale, possession, importation, transportation, and/or use of any contraceptive drug or device a felony carrying a mandatory prison sentence of not less than a year and a day but not more than twenty years for each offense – and eliminating the hypocritical subterfuge of ‘For Prevention of Disease Only’;
c) A federal law that, while it did not abolish gambling, did make the control and licensing of it a federal jurisdiction. One step at a time – having built. this foundation we could tackle those twin pits, Nevada and New Jersey, piece by piece. Divide and conquer!
d) A Supreme Court decision in which we had appeared as amicus curiae under which community standards of the typical or median-population community applied to all cities of each state (Tomkins v. Allied News Distributors);
e) Real progress in our drive to get tobacco defined as a prescription drug through the tactical device of separating snuff and chewing tobacco from the problem by inaugurating the definition ‘substances intended for burning and inhaling’;
f) Progress at our annual national prayer meeting on several subjects in which I was interested. One was the matter of how to remove the tax-free status of any private school not affiliated with a Christian sect. Policy on this was not yet complete because of the thorny matter of Roman Catholic schools. Should our umbrella cover them? Or was it time to strike? Whether the Catholics were allies or enemies was always a deep problem to those of us out on the firing line.
At least as difficult was the Jewish problem – was a humane solution possible? If not, then what? Should we grasp the nettle? This was debated only in camera.
Another matter was a pet project of my own: the frustrating of astronomers. Few laymen realize what
mischief astronomers are up to. I first noticed it when I was still in engineering school and took a course in descriptive astronomy under the requirements for breadth in each student’s program. Give an astronomer a bigger telescope and turn him loose, leave him unsupervised, and the first -thing he does is to come down with pestiferous, half-baked guesses denying the ancient truths of Genesis.
There is only one way to deal with this sort of nonsense: Hit them in the pocketbook! Redefine ‘educational’ to exclude those colossal white elephants, astronomical observatories. Make the Naval Observatory the only one tax free, reduce its staff, and limit their activity to matters clearly related to navigation. (Some of the most blasphemous and subversive theories have come from tenured civil servants there who don’t have enough legitimate Work to keep them busy.)
Self-styled ‘scientists’ are usually up to no good, but astronomers are the worst of the lot.
Another matter that comes up regularly at each annual’ prayer meeting I did not favor spending time or money on: ‘Votes for Women’. These hysterical females styling themselves ‘suffragettes’ are not a threat, can never win, and it just makes them feel self-important to pay attention to them. They should not be jailed and should not be displayed in stocks – never let them be martyrs! Ignore them.
There were other interesting and worthwhile goals that I kept off the agenda and did not suffer to be brought up from the floor in the sessions I moderated, but instead carried them on my ‘Maybe next year’ list:
Separate schools for boys and girls.
Restoring the death penalty for witchcraft and satanism.
The Alaska option for the Negro problem.
Federal control of prostitution.
Homosexuals – what’s the answer? Punishment? Surgery? Other?
There are endless good causes commending themselves to guardians of the public morals – the question is always how to pick and choose to the greater glory of God.
But all of these issues, fascinating as they are, I might never again pursue. A sculleryman who is just learning the local language (ungrammatically, I feel sure!) is not able to be a political force. So I did not worry about such matters and concentrated on my real problems: Margrethe’s heresy and more immediate but less important, getting legally free of peonage and going north.
We had served more than one hundred days when I asked Don Jaime to help me work out the exact date when we would have discharged the terms of our debt contract – a polite way of saying: Dear Boss, come the day, we are going to leave here like a scared rabbit. Plan on it.
I had figured on a total obligated time of one hundred and twenty-one days… and Don Jaime shocked me almost out of my Spanish by getting a result of one hundred and fifty-eight days.
More than six weeks to go when I figured that we would be free next week!
I protested, pointing out that our total obligation as listed by the court, divided by the auction value placed on our services (pesos sixty for Margrethe, half that for me, for each day), gave one hundred and twenty-one days… of which we had served one hundred fifteen.
Not a hundred and fifteen – ninety-nine – he handed me a calendar and invited me to count. It was at that point that I discovered that our lovely Tuesdays did not reduce our committed time. Or so said our patrón.
‘And besides that, Alexandro,’ he added, ‘you have failed to figure the interest on the unpaid balance; you haven’t multiplied by the inflation factor; you haven’t allowed for taxes, or even your contribution for Our Lady of Sorrows. If you fall ill, I should support you, eh?’
(Well, yes. While I had not thought about it, I did think a patrón had that duty toward his peones.) ‘Don Jaime, the day you bid in our debts, the clerk of the court figured the, contract for me. He told me our obligation was one hundred and twenty-one days. He told me!’
‘Then go talk to the clerk of the court about it.’ Don Jaime turned his back on me.
That chilled me. Don Jaime seemed as willing for me to take it up with the referee authority as he had been unwilling to discuss Margrethe’s tips with the court. To me this meant that he had handled enough of these debt contracts to be certain how they worked and thus had no fear that the judge or his clerk might rule against him.
I was not able to speak with Margrethe about it in private until that night. ‘Marga, how could I be so mistaken about this? I thought the clerk worked it out for us before he had us countersign the assignment of debt. One hundred and twenty-one days. Right?’
She did not answer me at once. I persisted, ‘Isn’t that what you told me?’
‘Alec, despite the fact that I now usually think in English – or in Spanish, lately – when I must do arithmetic, I work it in Danish. The Danish word for sixty is ‘tres’- and that
is also the Spanish word for three. Do you see how easily I could get mixed up? I don’t know now whether I said to you, “Ciento y veintiuno” or “Ciento y sesentiuno” – because I remember numbers in Danish, not in English, not in Spanish. I thought you did the division yourself.’
‘Oh, I did. Certainly the clerk didn’t say, “A hundred and twenty-one.” He didn’t use any English, that I recall. And at that time I did not know any Spanish. Señor Muñoz explained it to you and you translated for me and later I did the arithmetic again and it seemed to confirm what he had said. Or you had said. Oh, shucks, I don’t know!’
‘Then why don’t we forget it until we can ask Señor Muñoz?’
‘Marga, doesn’t it upset you to find that we are going to, have to slave away in this dump an extra five weeks?’
‘Yes, but not very much. Alec, I’ve always had to work. Working aboard ship was harder work than teaching school – but I got to travel and see strange places. Waiting tables here is a little harder than cleaning rooms in the Konge Knut – but I have you with me here and that more than makes up for it. I want to go with you to your homeland… but it’s not my homeland, so I’m not as eager to leave here as
you are. To me, today, where you are is my homeland.’
‘Darling, you are so logical and reasonable and civilized that you sometimes drive me right straight up the wall.’
‘Alec, I don’t mean to do that. I just want us to stop worrying about it until we can see Señor Muñoz. But right this minute I want to rub your back until you relax.’
‘Madame, you’ve convinced me! But only if I have the privilege of rubbing your poor tired feet before you rub my back.’
We did both. ‘Ah, wilderness were paradise enow!’
Beggars can’t be choosy. I got up early the next morning, saw the clerk’s runner, was told that I could not see the clerk until court adjourned for the day, so I made a semi-appointment for close-of-court on Tuesday – ‘semi’ in that we were committed to show up; Señor Muñoz was not. (But would be there, Deus volent.)
So on Tuesday we went on our picnic outing as usual, as we could not see Señor Muñoz earlier than about 4 pm. But we were Sunday-go-to-meeting rather than dressed for a picnic – meaning that we both wore our shoes, both had had baths that morning, and I had shaved, and I wore my best clothes, handed down from Don Jaime but clean and fresh, rather than the tired Coast Guard work pants I wore in the scullery. Margrethe wore the colorful outfit she had acquired our first day in Mazatlán.
Then we both endeavored not to get too sweaty or dusty. Why we thought it mattered I cannot say. But somehow each of us felt that propriety called for one’s best appearance in visiting a court.
As usual we walked over to the fountain to-see our friend Pepe before swinging back to climb our hill. He greeted us in the intimate mode of friends and we exchanged graceful amenities of the sort that fit so well in Spanish and are almost never encountered in English. Our weekly visit with Pepe had become an important part of our social life. We knew more about him now – from Amanda, not from him – and I respected him more than ever.
Pepe had not been born without legs (as I had once thought); he had formerly been a teamster, driving lorries over the mountains to Durango and beyond. Then there had been an accident and Pepe had been pinned under his rig for two days before he was rescued. He was brought in to Our Lady of Sorrows apparently DOA.
Pepe was tougher than that. Four months later he was released from hospital; someone passed the hat to buy him his little cart; he received his mendicant’s license, and he took up his pitch by the fountain – friend to streetwalkers, friend to Dons, and a merry grin for the worst that fate could hand him.
When, after a decent interval for, conversation and inquiries as to health and welfare and that of mutual acquaintances, we turned to leave, I offered our friend a one-peso note.
He handed it back. ‘Twenty-five centavos, my friend. Do you not have change? Or did you wish me to make change?’
‘Pepe our friend, it was our intention and our wish that you keep this trivial gift.’
‘No no no. From tourists I take their teeth and ask for more. From you, my friend, twenty-five centavos.’
I did not argue. In Mexico a man has his dignity, or he is dead.
El Cerro de la Nevería is one hundred meters high; we climbed it very slowly, with me hanging back because I wanted to be certain not to place any strain on Margrethe. From signs I was almost certain that she was in a family way. But she had not seen fit to discuss it with me and of course I could not raise the subject if she did not.
We found our favorite place, where we enjoyed shade from a small tree but nevertheless had a full view all around, three hundred and sixty degrees – northwest into the Gulf of California’, west into the ` Pacific and what might or might not be clouds on the horizon capping a peak at the tip of Baja California two hundred miles away, southwest along our own peninsula to Cerro Vigia (Lookout Hill) with beautiful Playa de las 0las Altas between us and Cerro Vigía, then beyond it Cerro Creston, the site of the giant lighthouse, the ‘Faro’ itself commanding the tip of the peninsula – south right across town to the Coast Guard landing. On the east and north-east were the mountains that concealed Durango a hundred and fifty miles away… but today the air was so clear that it felt as if we could reach out and touch those
peaks.
Mazatlán was spread out below like a toy village. Even the basilica looked like an architect’s scale model from up’ here, rather than a most imposing church – for the umpteenth time I wondered how the Catholics, with their (usually) poverty-stricken congregations, could build such fine churches while their Protestant opposite numbers had such a time raising the mortgages on more modest structures.
Look, Alec!’ said Margrethe. ‘Anibal and Roberto have their new aeroplano!’ She pointed.
Sure enough, there were now two aeroplanos at the Coast Guard mooring. One was the grotesque giant dragonfly that had rescued us; the new one was quite different. At first I thought it had sunk at its moorings; the floats on which the older craft landed on the water were missing from this structure.
Then I realized that this new craft was literally a flying boat. The body of the aeroplano itself was a float, or a boat – a watertight structure. The propelling engines of this craft were mounted above the wings.
I was not sure that I trusted these radical changes. The homely certainties of the craft we had ridden in were more to my taste.
‘Alec, let’s go call on them next Tuesday.’
‘All right.’
‘Do you suppose that Anibal would possibly offer us a ride in his new aeroplano?’
‘Not if the Commandant knows about it.’ I did not say that the newfangled rig did not look safe to me; Margrethe was always fearless. ‘But we’ll call on them and ask to see it. Lieutenant Anibal will like that. Roberto, too. Let’s eat.’
‘Piggy piggy,’ she answered,’ and spread out a servilleta, started covering it with food from a basket I had carried. Tuesdays gave Margrethe an opportunity to vary Amanda’s excellent Mexican cooking with
her own Danish and international cooking. Today she had elected to make Danish open-face sandwiches so much enjoyed by all Danes – and by anyone else who has ever had a chance to enjoy them. Amanda allowed Margrethe to do what she liked in the kitchen, and Señora Valera did not interfere – she never came into the kitchen, under some armed truce arrived at before we joined the staff. Amanda was a woman of firm character.
Today’s sandwiches featured heavily the tender, tasty shrimp for which Mazatlán is famous, but the shrimp were just a starter. I remember ham, turkey, crumbled crisp bacon, mayonnaise, three sorts – of cheese, several sorts of pickle, little peppers, unidentified fish, thin slices of beef, fresh tomato, tomato paste, three sorts of lettuce, what I think was deep-fried eggplant. But thank goodness it is not necessary to understand food in order to enjoy it Margrethe placed it in front of me; I happily chomped away, whether I knew what I was eating or not.
An hour later I was belching and pretending not to. ‘Margrethe, have I told you today that I love you?’
‘Yes, but not lately.’
‘I do. You are not only beautiful, fair to see and of gainly proportions, you are also a fine cook.’
‘Thank you, sir. I
‘Do you wish to be admired for your intellectual excellence as well?’
‘Not necessarily. No.’
‘As you wish. If you change your mind, let me know. Quit fiddling with the remnants; I’ll tidy up later. Lie down here beside me and explain to me why you continue to live with me. It can’t be for my cooking. Is it because I am the best dishwasher on the west coast of Mexico?’
‘Yes.’ She went right on tidying things, did not stop until our picnic site was perfectly back in order, with all that was left back in the basket, ready to be returned to Amanda.
Then she lay down beside me, slid her arm under my neck – then raised her head. ‘What’s that?’
‘What’s -‘ Then I heard it. A distant rumble increasing in volume, like a freight train coming ’round the bend. But the nearest railway, the line north to Chihuahua and south to Guadalajara, was distant, beyond the peninsula of Mazatlán.
The rumble grew louder; the ground started to sway. Margrethe sat up. ‘Alec, I’m frightened.’
‘Don’t be afraid, dear; I’m here.’ I reached up and pulled her down to me, held her tight while the solid ground bounced up and down under us and the roaring rumble increased to unbelievable volume.
If you’ve ever been in an earthquake, even a small one, you know what we were feeling better than my words can say. If you have never been in one, you won’t believe me and the more accurately I describe it, the more certain you are not to believe me.
The worst part about a quake is that there is nothing solid to cling to anywhere… but the most startling thing is the noise, the infernal racket of every sort – the crash of rock grinding together under you, the ripping, rending sounds of buildings being torn apart, the screams of the frightened, the cries of the hurt and the lost, the howling and wailing of animals caught by disaster beyond their comprehension.
And none of it will stop.
This, went on for an endless time – then the main earthquake hit us and the city fell down.
I could hear it. The noise that could not increase suddenly doubled. I managed to get up on one elbow and look. The dome of the basilica broke like a soap bubble. ‘Oh, Marga, look! No, don’t – this is terrible.’
She half sat up, said nothing and her face was blank. I kept my arm around her and looked down the peninsula past Cerro Vigla and at the lighthouse.
It was leaning.
While I watched it broke about halfway up, then slowly and with dignity collapsed to the ground.
Past the city I caught sight of the moored aeroplanos of the Coast Guard. They were dancing around in a frenzy; the new one dipped one wing; the water caught it – then I lost sight of it as a cloud rose up from the city, a cloud of dust from thousands and thousands of tons of shattered masonry.
I looked for the restaurant, and found it: EL RESTAURANTE PANCHO VILLA. Then while I watched, the wall on which the sign was painted crumpled and fell into the street. Dust rose up and concealed where it had been.
‘Margrethe! It’s gone. The restaurant. El Pancho Villa.’ I pointed.
‘I don’t see anything.’
‘It’s gone, I tell you. Destroyed. Oh, thank the Lord that Amanda and the girls were not there today!’
‘Yes. Alec, won’t it ever stop?’
Suddenly it did stop, – much more suddenly than it started. Miraculously the dust was gone; there was no racket, no screams of the hurt and dying, no howls of animals.
The lighthouse was back where it belonged.
I looked to the left of it, checking on the moored aeroplanos -nothing. Not even the driven piles to which they should be tied. I looked back at the city – all serene. The basilica was unhurt, beautiful. I looked for the Pancho Villa sign.
I could not find it. There was a building on what seemed the proper corner, but its shape was not quite right and it had different windows. ‘Marg – Where’s the restaurant?’
‘I don’t know. Alec, what is happening?’
‘They’re at it again,’ I said bitterly. ‘The world changers.
The earthquake is over but this is not the same city we were in. It looks a lot like it but it’s not the same.’
I was only half right. Before we could make up our minds to start down the hill, the rumble started up again. Then the swaying… then the greatly increased noise and violent movement of the land, and this city was destroyed. Again I saw our towering lighthouse crack and fall. Again the church fell in on itself.
Again the dust clouds rose and with it the screams and howls.
I raised my clenched fist and shook it at the sky. ‘God damn it! Stop! Twice is too much.’
I was not blasted.
Chapter 13
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of the spirit.
Ecclesiastes 1:14
I AM going to skip over the next three days, for there was nothing good about them. ‘There was blood in the streets and dust.’ Survivors, those of us who were not hurt, not prostrate with grief, not dazed or hysterical beyond action – few of us, in short – worked at the rubble here and there trying to find living creatures under the bricks and stones and plaster. But how much can you do with your naked fingers
against endless tons of rock?
And how much can you do when you do dig down and discover that you were too late, that indeed it was ~too late before you started? We heard this mewling, something like a kitten, so we dug most carefully, trying not to put any pressure on whatever was underneath, trying not to let the stones we shifted dislodge anything that would cause more grief underneath – and found the source. An infant, freshly dead. Pelvis broken, one side of its head bashed. ‘Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.’ I turned my head away and threw up. Never will I read Psalm 137 again.
That night we spent on the lower slopes of Icebox Hill. When the sun went down, we perforce stopped trying. Not only did the darkness make it impossible to work but there was looting going on. I had a deep conviction that any looter was a potential rapist and murderer. I was prepared to die for Margrethe should it become necessary – but I had no wish to die gallantly but futilely, in a confrontation that could have been avoided.
Early the following afternoon the Mexican Army arrived. We had accomplished nothing useful in the meantime more of the same picking away at rubble. Never mind what we found. The soldiers put a stop even to that; all civilians were herded back up the peninsula, away from the ruined city, to the railroad station across the river. There we waited – new widows, husbands freshly bereaved, lost children, injured on make-do stretchers, walking wounded, some with no marks on them but with empty eyes and no speech. Margrethe and, I were of the lucky ones; we were merely hungry, thirsty, dirty, and covered with bruises from head to foot from lying on the ground during the earthquake. Correction: during two earthquakes.
Had anyone else experienced two earthquakes?
I hesitated to ask. I seemed to be the unique observer to this world-changing – save that, twice, Margrethe had come with me because I was holding her at the instant. Were there other victims around? Had there been others in Konge Knut who had kept their mouths shut about it as carefully as I had?
How do you ask? Excuse me, amigo, but is this the same city it was yesterday?
When we had waited at the railroad station about two hours an army water cart came through a tin cup of water to each refugee and. a soldier with a bayonet to enforce order in the queues.
Just before sundown the cart came back with more water and with loaves of bread; Margrethe and I were rationed a quarter of a loaf between us. A train backed into the station about then and the army people started loading it even as supplies were being unloaded. Marga and I were lucky; we were
pushed into a passenger car – most rode in freight cars.
The train started north. We weren’t asked whether or not we wanted to go north; we weren’t asked for money For fares; all of Mazatlán was being evacuated. Until Its water system could be restored, Mazatlán belonged to the rats and the dead.
No point in describing the journey. The train moved; we endured. The railway line leaves the coast at Guaymas and goes straight north across Sonora to Arizona – beautiful country but we were in no shape to appreciate it. We slept as much as we could and pretended to sleep the rest of the time. Every time the train stopped, some left it unless the police herded them back on. By the time we reached Nogales, Sonora, the train was less than half full; the rest seemed headed for Nogales, Arizona, and of course we were.
We reached the international gate early afternoon three days after the quake.
We were herded into a detention building just over the line, and a man in a uniform made a speech in Spanish: ‘Welcome, amigos! The United States is happy to help its neighbors in their time of trial and the US Immigration Service has streamlined its procedures so that we can take care of all of you quickly.
First we must ask you all to go through delousing. Then you’ll be issued green cards outside of quota so that you can work at any job anywhere in the States. But you will find labor agents to help you as you leave the compound. And a soup kitchen! If you are hungry, stop and have your first meal here as guests of Uncle Sam. Welcome to los Estados Unidos!”
Several people had questions to ask but Margrethe and I headed for the door that led to the delousing setup. I resented the name assigned to this sanitary routine – a requirement that you take delousing is a way of saying that you are lousy. Dirty and mussed we certainly were, and I had a three-day beard. But lousy?
Well, perhaps we were. After a day of picking through the ruins and two days crowded in with other unwashed in a railroad car that was not too clean when we boarded it, could I honestly assert that I was completely free of vermin?
Delousing wasn’t too bad. It was mostly a supervised shower bath with exhortations in Spanish to scrub the hairy places throughly with a medicated 9oft soap. In the meantime my clothes went through some sort of sterilization or fumigation -autoclave, I think – then I had to wait, bare naked, for twenty minutes to reclaim them, while I grew more and more angry with each passing minute.
But once I was dressed again, I got over my anger, realizing that no one was intentionally pushing me around; it was simply that any improvised procedure for handling crowds of people in an emergency is almost certain to be destructive of human dignity. (The Mexican refugees seemed to find it offensive; I heard mutterings.)
Then again I had to wait, for Margrethe.
She came out the exit door from the distaff side, caught my eye, and smiled, and suddenly everything was all right. How could she come out of a delousing chamber-and look as if she had just stepped out of a bandbox?
She came up to me and said, ‘Did I keep you waiting, dear? I’m sorry. There was an ironing board in there and I seized the chance to touch up my dress. It looked a sorry sight when it came out of the washer.’
‘I didn’t mind waiting,’ I fibbed. ‘You’re beautiful.’ (No fib!) ‘Shall we go to dinner? Soup kitchen dinner, I’m afraid.’
‘Isn’t there some paper work we have to go through?’
‘Oh. I think we can hit the soup kitchen first. We don’t want green cards; they are for Mexican nationals. Instead I must explain about our lost passports.’ I had worked this* out in my head and had explained it to Margrethe on the train. This is what I would say had happened to us: We were tourists, staying in Hotel de las, Olas Altas on the beach. When the earthquake hit, we were on the beach. So we lost our clothes, our money, our passports, everything, as our hotel had been destroyed. We were lucky to be alive, and the clothes we were wearing. had been given to us by Mexican Red Cross.
This story had two advantages: Hotel de las Olas Altas had indeed been destroyed, and the rest of the story had no easy way to be checked.
I found that we had to go through the green-card queue in order to reach the soup kitchen. Eventually we got as far as the table. A man there shoved a file card in front of me, saying in Spanish: ‘Print your name, last name first. List your address. If -it was destroyed in the quake, say so, and give some other
address – cous * in, father, priest, somebody whose home was not destroyed.’
I started my spiel. The functionary looked up and said, ‘Amigo, you’re holding up the line.’
‘But,’ I said, ‘I don’t need a green card. I don’t want a green card. I’m an American citizen returning from abroad and I’m trying to explain why I don’t have my passport. And the same for my wife,’
He drummed on the table. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘your accent says that you’re native American. But I can’t do anything about your lost passport and I’ve got three hundred and fifty refugees still to process, and another trainload just pulling in. I won’t get to bed before two. Why don’t you do us both a favor and accept a green card? It won’t poison you and it’ll get you in. Tomorrow you can fight with the State Department about your passport – but not with me. Okay?’
I’m stupid but not stubborn. ‘Okay.’ For my Mexican accommodation address I listed Don Jaime; I figured he owed me that much. His address had the advantage of being in another universe.
The soup kitchen was what you would expect from a charity operation. But it was gringo cooking, the first I had had in months – and we were hungry. The Stark’s Delicious apple I had for dessert was indeed delicious. It was still short of sundown when _we were out on the streets of Nogales – free, bathed, fed, and inside the United States legally or almost. We were at least a thousand percent better off than those two naked survivors who had been picked up out of the ocean seventeen weeks ago.
But we were still orphans of fate, no money at all, no place to rest, no clothes but those we were wearing, and my three-day beard and the shape my clothes were in after going through an autoclave or whatever made me look like a skid row derelict.
The no-money situation was particularly annoying because we did have money, Margrethe’s hoarded tips. But the paper money said ‘Reino’ where it should have read ‘Republica’ and the coins did not have the right faces. Some of the coins may have contained enough silver to have some minor intrinsic value. But, if so, there was no easy way to cash it in at once. And any attempt to spend any of this money would simply get us into major trouble.
How much had we lost? There are no interuniversal exchange rates. One might make a guess in terms of equivalent purchasing power – so many dozens of eggs, or so many kilos of sugar. But why bother?
Whatever it was, we had lost lit.
This paralleled a futility I had run into in Mazatlán. I had attempted, while lord of the scullery, to write to
a) Alexander Hergensheimer’s boss, the Reverend Dr Dandy Danny Dover, DD, director of Churches United for Decency, and b) Alec Graham’s lawyers in Dallas.
Neither letter was answered; neither came back. Which was what I had expected, as neither Alec nor Alexander came from a world having flying machines, aeroplanos.
I would try both again – but with small hope; I already knew that this world would feel strange both to Graham and to Hergensheimer. How? Nothing that I had noticed until we reached Nogales. But here, in that detention hall, was (hold tight to your chair) television. A handsome big box with a window in one side, and in that window living pictures of people… and sounds coming out of it of those selfsame people talking.
Either you have this invention and are used to it and take it for granted, or you live in. a world that does not have it – and you don’t believe me. Learn from me, as I have been forced to believe unbelievable things. There is such an invention; there is a world where it is as common as bicycles, and its name is television – or sometimes tee-vee or telly or video or even ‘idiot box’ – and if you were to hear some of the purposes for which this great wonder is used, you would understand the last tag.
If you ever find yourself flat broke in a strange city and no one to turn to and you do not want to turn yourself in at a police station and don’t want to be mugged, there is just one best answer for emergency help. You will usually find it in the city’s tenderloin, near skid row:
The Salvation Army.
Once I laid hands on a telephone book it took me no time at all to get the address of the Salvation Army mission (although it did take me a bit of time to recognize a telephone when I saw one – warning to interworld travelers: Minor changes can be even more confusing than major changes).
Twenty minutes and one wrong turn later Margrethe and I were at the mission. Outside on the sidewalk four of them – French horn, big drum, two tambourines – were gathering a crowd. They were working on ‘Rock of Ages’ and doing well, but they needed a baritone and I was tempted to join them.
But a couple of store fronts before we reached the mission Margrethe stopped and plucked at my sleeve. ‘Alec… must we do this?’
‘Eh? What’s the trouble, dear? I thought we had agreed.’
‘No, sir. You simply told me.’
‘Mmm – Perhaps I did. You don’t want to go to the Salvation Army?’
She took a deep breath and sighed it out. ‘Alec… I have not been inside a church since – since I left the Lutheran Church. To go to one now – I think it would be sinful.’
(Dear Lord, what can I do with this child? She is apostate not because she is heathen… but because her rules are even more strict than Yours. Guidance, please – and do hurry it up!) ‘Sweetheart, if it feels sinful to you, we won’t do it. But tell me what we are to do now; I’ve run out of ideas.’
‘Ah – Alec, are there not other institutions to which a person in distress may turn?’
‘Oh, certainly. In a city this size the Roman Catholic Church is bound to have more than one refuge. And there will be other Protestant ones. Probably a Jewish one. And -‘
‘I meant, “Not connected with a church”.’
‘Ah, so. Margrethe, we both know that this is not really my home country; you probably know as much about how it works as I do. There may be refuges for the homeless here that are totally unconnected with a church. I’m not sure, as churches tend to monopolize the field – nobody else wants it. If it were early in the day instead of getting dark, I would try to find something called united charities or community chest or the equivalent, and look over the menu; there might be something. But now – Finding a policeman and asking for help is the only other thing I can think of this time of day… and I can tell you ahead of time what a cop in this part of town would do if you told him you have nowhere to sleep. He would point you toward the mission right there. Old Sal.’
‘In Kobenhavrt – or Stockholm or Oslo – I would go straight to the main police station. You just ask for a place to sleep; they give it to you.’
‘I have to point out that this is not Denmark or Sweden or Norway. Here they might let us stay – by locking me in the drunk tank and locking you up in the holding pen for prostitutes. Then tomorrow morning we might or might not be charged with vagrancy. I don’t know.’
‘Is America really so’ evil?’
‘I don’t know, dear – this isn’t my America. But. I don’t want to find out the hard way. Sweetheart… if I worked for whatever they give us, could we spend a night with the Salvation Army without your feeling sinful about it?’
She considered it solemnly – Margrethe’s greatest lack was a total absence of sense of humor. Good nature – loads. A child’ delight in play, yes. Sense of humor? ‘Life is real and life is earnest -‘
‘Alec, if that can be arranged, I would not feel wrong in entering. I will work, too.’
‘Not necessary, dear; it will be my profession that is involved. When they finish feeding the derelicts tonight, there will be a high stack of dirty dishes I and you are looking at the heavyweight champion dishwasher in all of Mexico and los Estados Unidos.’
So I washed dishes. I also helped spread out hymnbooks and set up the evening services. And I borrowed a safety razor and a blade from Brother Eddie McCaw, the adjutant. I told him how we happened to be there – vacationing on the Mexican Riviera, sunbathing on the beach when the big one hit
all the string of lies I had prepared for the Immigration Service and hadn’t been able to use. ‘Lost it, all. Cash, travelers checks, passports, clothes, ticket home, the works. But just the same, we were lucky.
We’re alive.’
‘The Lord had His arms around you. You tell me that you are born again?’
‘Years back.’
‘It will do our lost sheep good to rub shoulders with you. When it comes time for witnessing, will you tell them all about it? You’re the first eyewitness. Oh, we felt it here but it just rattled the dishes.’
‘Glad to.’
Good. Let me get you that razor.’
So I witnessed and gave them a truthful and horrendous description of the quake, but not as horrid as it really was – I never want to see another rat – or another dead baby – and I thanked the Lord publicly that Margrethe and I had not been hurt and found that it was the most sincere prayer I had said in years.
The Reverend Eddie asked that roomful of odorous outcasts to join him in a prayer of thanks that Brother and Sister Graham had been spared, and he made it a good rousing prayer that covered everything from Jonah to the hundredth sheep, and drew shouts of ‘Amen!’ from around the room. One old wino came forward and said that he had at last seen God’s grace and God’s mercy and he was now ready to give his life to Christ.
Brother Eddie prayed over him, and invited others to come forward and two more did – a natural evangelist, he saw in our story a theme for his night’s sermon and used it, hanging it on Luke fifteen, ten, and Matthew six, nineteen. I don’t know that he had prepared from those two verses – probably not, as any preacher worth his salt can preach endlessly from either one of them. Either way, he could think on his feet and he made good use of our unplanned presence.
He was pleased with us, and I am sure that is why he told me, as we were cleaning up for the night, after the supper that followed the service, that while of course they didn’t have separate rooms for married couples – they didn’t often get married couples – still, it looked like Sister Graham would be the only one in the sisters’ dormitory tonight, so why didn’t I doss down in there instead of in the men’s ~ dormitory? No double bed, just stacked bunks – sorry! But at least we could be in the same room.
I thanked him and we happily went to bed. Two people can share a very narrow bed if they really want to sleep together.
The next morning Margrethe cooked breakfast for the derelicts. She went into the kitchen and volunteered and soon was, doing it all as the regular cook did not cook breakfast; it was the job of whoever had the duty. Breakfast did not require a graduate chef – oatmeal porridge, bread, margarine, little valencia oranges (culls?), coffee. I left her there to wash dishes and to wait until I came back.
I went out and found a job.
I knew, from listening to wireless (called ‘radio’ here) while washing the dishes the night before, that there was unemployment in the United States-, enough to be a political and social problem.
There is always work in the Southwest for agricultural labor but I had dodged that sort of Work yesterday. I’m not too proud for that work; I had followed the harvest for several years from the time I was big enough to handle a pitchfork. But I could not take Margrethe into the fields.
I did not expect to find a job as a clergyman; I hadn’t even told Brother Eddie that I was ordained. There is always an unemployment problem for preachers. Oh, there are always empty pulpits, true – but ones in which a church mouse would starve.
But I had a second profession.
Dishwasher.
No matter how many people are out of work, there are always dishwashing jobs going begging. Yesterday, in walking from the border gate to the Salvation Army mission, I had noticed three restaurants with ‘Dishwasher Wanted’ signs in their windows – noticed them because I had had plenty of time on the long ride from Mazatlán to admit to myself that I had no other salable skill.
No salable skill. I was not ordained in this world; I would not be ordained in this world as I could not show graduation from seminary or divinity school – or even the backing of a primitive sect that takes no mind of schools but depends on inspiration by the Holy Ghost.
I was certainly not an engineer.
I could not get a job teaching even those subjects I knew *Well because I no longer could show any formal preparation – I couldn’t even show that I had graduated from middle school!
In general I was no salesman. True, I had shown an unexpected talent for the complex skills that make up a professional money-raiser… but here I had no record, no reputation. I might someday do this again – but we needed cash today.
What did that leave? I had looked at the help-wanted ads in a copy of the Nogales Times someone had left in the mission. I, was, not a lax accountant. I was not any sort of a mechanic. I did not know what a software designer was but I was not one, nor was I a ‘computer’ anything. I was not a nurse or any sort of health care professional.
I could go on indefinitely listing the things I was not, and could not learn overnight. But that is pointless. What I could do, What would feed Margrethe and me while we sized up this new world and learned the angles, was what I had been forced to do as a peón.
A competent and reliable dishwasher never starves. (He’s more likely to die of boredom.)
The first place did not smell good and its kitchen looked dirty; I did not linger. The second place was a major-chain hotel, with several people in the scullery. The boss looked me over and said, ‘This is a Chicano job; you wouldn’t be happy here.’ I tried to argue; he shut me off.
I But the third was okay, a restaurant only a little bigger than the Pancho Villa, with a clean kitchen and a manager no more than normally jaundiced.
He warned me, ‘This job pays minimum wage and there are no raises. One meal a day on the house. I catch you sneaking anything, even a toothpick, and out you go that instant – no second chance. You work the hours I set and I change ’em to suit me. Right now I need you for noon to four, six to ten, five days a week. Or you can work six days but no overtime scale for it. Overtime scale if I require you to work more than eight hours in one day, or more than forty-eight hours in one week.’
‘Okay.’
‘All right, let’s see your Social Security card.’
I handed him my green card.
He handed it-back. ‘You expect me to pay you twelve dollars and a half an hour on the basis of a green card? You’re no Chicano. You trying to get me in trouble with the government? Where did you get that card?’
So I gave him the song and dance I had prepared for the Immigration Service. ‘Lost everything. I can’t even phone and tell somebody to send me money; I have to get home first before I can shake any assets loose.’
‘You could get public assistance.’
‘Mister, I’m too stinkin’ proud.’ (I don’t know how and I can’t prove I’m me. Just don’t quiz me and let me wash dishes.)
Glad to hear it. “Stinking proud”, I mean. This country could use more like you. Go over to the Social Security office and get them to issue you a new one. They will, even if you can’t recall the number of your old one. Then come back here and go to work. Mmm – I’ll start you on payroll right now. But you must come back and put in a full day to collect.’
‘More than fair. Where is the Social Security office?’
So I went to the Federal Building and told my lies over again, embroidering only as necessary. The serious young lady who issued the card insisted on giving me a lecture on Social Security and how it worked, a lecture she had apparently memorized. I’ll bet- you she never had a ‘client’ (that’s what she called me) who listened so carefully. It was all new to me.
I gave the name ‘Alec L. Graham.’ This was not a conscious decision. I had been using that name for
weeks, answered with it by reflex – then was not in a good position to say, ‘Sorry, Miss, my name is actually Hergensheimer.’
I started work. During my four-to-six break I went back to the mission – and learned that Margrethe had a job, too.
It was temporary, three weeks – but three weeks at just the right time. The mission cook had not had a vacation in over a year and wanted to go to Flagstaff to visit her daughter, who had just had a baby. So Margrethe had her job for the time being – and her bedroom, also for the time being.
So Brother and Sister Graham were in awfully good shape – for the time being.
Chapter 14
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Ecclesiastes 9:11
PRAY TELL me why there is not a dishwashing school of philosophy? The conditions would seem ideal for indulging in the dear delights of attempting to unscrew the inscrutable. The work keeps the body busy while demanding almost nothing of the brain. I had eight hours every day in which to try to find answers to questions.
What questions? All questions. Five months earlier I had been a prosperous and respected professional in the most respected of professions, in a world I understood thoroughly – or so I thought. Today I was sure of nothing and had nothing.
Correction – I had Margrethe. Wealth enough for any man, I would not trade her for all the riches of Cathay. But even Margrethe represented a solemn contract I could not yet fulfill. In the eyes of the Lord I had taken her to wife… but I was not supporting her.
Yes, I had a job – but in truth she was supporting herself. When Mr Cowgirl hired me, I had not been daunted by ‘minimum wage and no raises’. Twelve dollars and fifty cents per hour struck me as a dazzling sum – why, many a married man in Wichita (my Wichita, in another universe) supported a family on twelve and a half dollars per week.
What I did not realize was that here $12.50 Would not buy a tuna sandwich in that same restaurant – not a fancy restaurant, either; cheap, in fact. I would have had less trouble adjusting to the economy in this strange-but-familiar world if its money had been described in unfamiliar terms – shillings, shekels, soles, anything but dollars. I had been brought up to think of a dollar as a substantial piece of wealth; the idea that a hundred dollars a day was a poverty-level minimum wage was not one I could grasp easily.
Twelve-fifty an hour, a hundred dollars a day, five hundred a week, twenty-six thousand dollars a year Poverty level? Listen carefully. In the world in which I grew up, that was riches beyond dreams of avarice.
Getting used to price and wage levels in dollars that weren’t really dollars was simply the most ubiquitous aspect of a strange economy; the main problem was how to cope, how to stay afloat, how to make a living for me and my wife (and our children, with one expected all too soon if I had guessed right) in a world in which I had no diplomas, no training, no friends, no references, no track record of any sort.
Alex, what in God’s truth are you good for?… other than dishwashing!
I could easily wash a lighthouse stack of dishes while worrying that problem alone. It had to be solved. Today I washed dishes cheerfully… but soon I must do better for my beloved. Minimum wage was not enough.
Now at last we come to the prime question: Dear Lord God Jehovah, what mean these signs and portents Thou has placed on me Thy servant?
There comes a time when a faithful worshiper must get up off his knees and deal with his Lord God in blunt and practical terms. Lord, tell me what to believe! Are these the deceitful great signs and wonders of which You warned, sent by antichrist to seduce the very elect?
Or are these true signs of the final days? Will we hear Your Shout?
Or am I as mad “as ‘:Nebudhadnezzar and all of these appearances merely vapors in my disordered mind?
If one of these be true, then the other two are false. How am I to choose? Lord God of Hosts, how have I offended Thee?
In walking back to the mission one night I saw a sign that could be construed as a direct answer to my prayers: MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE. The sign was carried by a man and with him was a small child handing out leaflets.
I contrived not to accept one. I had seen that sign many times throughout my life, but I had long tended to avoid Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are so stiff-necked and stubborn that it is impossible to work with them, whereas Churches United for Decency is necessarily an ecumenical association. In fund raising and in political action one must (while of course. shunning heresy) avoid arguments on fiddling points of doctrine. Word-splitting theologians are the death of efficient organization. How can you include a sect in practical labor in the vineyards of the Lord if that sect asserts that they alone know the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth and all who disagree are heretics, destined for the fires of Hell?
Impossible. So we left them out of C.U.D.
Still – Perhaps this time they were right.
Which brings me to the most urgent of all questions: How to lead Margrethe back to the Lord before the Trump and the Shout.
But ‘how’ depends on ‘when’. Premillenarian theologians differ greatly among themselves as to the date of the Last Trump.
I rely on the scientific method. On any disputed point there is always one sure answer: Look it up in the Book. And so I did, now that I was living at the Salvation Army mission and could borrow a copy of the Holy Bible. I looked it up again and again and again… and learned why premillenarians differed so on their dates.
The Bible is the literal Word of God; let there be no mistake about that. But nowhere did the Lord promise us that it would be easy to read.
Again and again Our Lord and His incarnation as the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, promises His disciples that their generation (i.e., first century AD) will see His return. Elsewhere, and again many times, He promises that He will return after a thousand years have passed… or is it two thousand years… or is it some other period, after the Gospel has been preached to all mankind in every country?
Which is true?
All are true, if you read them- right. Jesus did indeed return in the generation of His twelve disciples; He did so at the first Easter, His resurrection. That was His first return, the utterly necessary one, the one that proved to all that He was indeed the Son of God and God Himself. He returned again after a thousand years and, in His infinite mercy, ruled that His children be given yet another grant of grace, a further period of trial, rather than let sinners be consigned forthwith to the fiery depths of Hell. His Mercy is infinite.
These dates are hard to read, and understandably so, as it was never His intention to encourage sinners to go on sinning because the day of reckoning had been postponed,. What is precise, exact, and unmistakable, repeated again and again, is that He expects every one of His children to live every day, every hour, every heart beat, as if this one were the last. When is the end of this age? When is the Shout and the Trump? When is* the Day of Judgment? Now! You will be given no warning whatever. No time for deathbed contrition. You must live in a state of grace… or, when the instant comes, you will be cast down into the Lake of Fire, there to burn in agony throughout all eternity.
So reads the Word of God.
And to me, so sounds the voice of doom. I had no period of grace in which to lead Margrethe back into the fold… as the Shout may come this very day.
What to do? What to do?
For mortal man, with any problem too great, there is only one thing to do: Take it to the Lord in prayer.
And so I did, again and again and again. Prayer is always answered. But it is necessary to recognize the answer… and it may not be the answer you want.
In the meantime one must render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Of course I elected to work six days a week rather than five ($31,200 a year!) – as I needed every shekel I could garner. Margrethe needed everything! and so did I. Especially we needed shoes. The shoes we had been wearing when disaster struck in Mazatlán had been quite good shoes – for peasants in Mazatlán. But they had been worn during two days of digging through rubble after the quake, then had been worn continuously since then; they were ready for the trash bin. So we needed shoes, at least two pairs each, one pair for work, one for Sunday-go-to-meeting.
And many other things. I don’t know what all a woman needs, but it is more complex than what a man needs. I had to put money into Margrethe’s hands and encourage her to buy what she needed. I could pig it with nothing more than shoes and a pair of dungarees (to spare my one good outfit) – although I did buy a razor, and got a haircut at a barber’s college near the mission, one where a haircut was only two dollars if one was willing to accept the greenest apprentice, and I was. Margrethe looked at it and said gently that she thought she could do as well herself, and save us that two dollars. Later she took scissors and straightened out what that untalented apprentice had done, to me… and thereafter I never again spent money on barbers.
I But saving two dollars did not offset a greater damage. I had honestly thought, when Mr Cowgirl hired me, that I was going to be paid a hundred dollars every day I worked.
He didn’t pay me that much and he didn’t cheat me. Let me explain.
I finished that first day of work tired but happy. Happier than I had been since the earthquake struck, I mean happiness is relative. I stopped at the cashier-s stand where Mr Cowgirl was working on his accounts, Ron’s Grill having closed for the day. He looked up. ‘How did it go, Alec?’
‘Just fine, sir.’
‘Luke tells me that you are doing okay.’ Luke was a giant blackamoor, head cook and my nominal boss. In fact he had not supervised me other than to show me where things were and make sure that I knew what to do.
‘That’s pleasant to hear. Luke’s a good cook.’ That one-meal-a-day bonus over minimum wage I had eaten at four o’clock as breakfast was ancient history by then. Luke had explained to me that the help could order anything on the menu but steaks or chops, and that today I could have all the seconds I wanted if I chose either the stew or the meat loaf.
I chose the meat loaf because his kitchen smelled and looked clean. You can tell far more about a cook by his meat loaf than you can from the way he grills a steak. I took seconds on the meat loaf – with no catsup.
Luke was generous in the slab of cherry pie he cut for me, then he added a scoop of vanilla ice cream… which I did not rate, as it was an either/or, not both.
‘Luke seldom says a good word about white boys,’ my employer went on, ‘and never about a Chicano. So you must be doing okay.’
‘I hope so.’ I was growing a mite impatient. We are all the Lord’s children but it was the first time in my life that a blackamoor’s opinion of my work had mattered. I simply wanted to be paid so that I could hurry home to Margrethe – to the Salvation Army mission, that is.
Mr Cowgirl folded his hands and twiddled his thumbs. ‘You want to be paid, don’t you?’
I controlled my annoyance. ‘Yes, sir.’
-‘Alec, with dishwashers I prefer to pay by the week.’
I. felt dismay ‘ and I am sure my face showed it.
‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ he added. ‘You’re an. hourly-rate employee, so you are paid at the end of each day if that’s what you choose.’
‘Then I do choose. I need the money.’
‘Let me finish. The reason I prefer to pay dishwashers weekly instead of daily is that, all too often, if I hire one and pay him at the end of the day, he goes straight out and buys a jug of muscatel, then doesn’t show up for a couple of days.’ When he does, he wants his job back. Angry at me. Ready to complain to the Labor Board. Funny part about it is that I may even be able to give him his job back – for another one-day shot at it -because the bum I’ve hired in his place has gone and done the same thing.
‘This isn’t likely to happen with Chicanos as they usually want to save money to send back to Mexico. But I’ve yet to see the Chicano who could handle the scullery to suit Luke … and I need Luke more than I need a particular dishwasher. Negras -Luke can usually tell me whether a spade is going to work out, and the good ones are better than a white boy any time. But the good ones are always trying to improve themselves… and if I don’t promote them to pantry boy or assistant cook or whatever, soon they go across the street to somebody who will. So it’s always a problem. If I can get a week’s work out of a dishwasher, I figure I’ve won. If I get two weeks, I’m jubilant. Once I got a full month. But that’s once in a lifetime.’
‘You’re going to get three full weeks out of me,’ I said. ‘Now can I have my pay?’
‘Don’t rush me. If you elect to be paid once a week, I go for a dollar more on your hourly rate. That’s forty, dollars more at the end of the week. What do you say?’
(No, that’s forty-eight more per week, I told myself. Almost $34,000 per year just for washing dishes.
Whew!) ‘That’s forty-eight dollars more each week,’ I answered. ‘Not forty. As I’m going for that six-days-a-week option. I do need the money.’
‘Okay, Then I pay you once a week.’
‘Just a moment. Can’t we start it tomorrow? I need some cash today. My wife and I haven’t anything, anything at all. I’ve got the clothes I’m standing in, nothing else. The same for my wife. I can sweat it out a
few more days. But there are things a woman just has to have.’
He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. But you don’t get the dollar-an-hour bonus for today’s work. And if you are one minute late tomorrow, I’ll assume you’re sleeping it off and I put the sign back in the window.’
‘I’m no wino, Mr Cowgirl.’
‘We’ll see.’ He turned to his bookkeeping machine and did something to its keyboard. I don’t know what because I never understood it. It was an arithmetic machine but nothing like a Babbage Numerator. It had keys on it somewhat like a typewriting machine. But- there was a window above that where numbers and letters appeared by some sort of magic.
The machine whirred and tinkled and he reached into it and brought out a card, handed it -to me. ‘There you are.’
I took it and examined it, and again felt dismay.
It was a piece of pasteboard about three inches wide and seven long, with numerous little holes punched in it and with printing on it that stated that it was a draft on Nogales Commercial and Savings Bank by which Ron’s Grill directed them to pay to Alec L. Graham – No, not one hundred dollars.
Fifty-one dollars and twenty-seven cents.
‘Something wrong?’ he asked.
‘Uh, I had expected twelve-fifty an hour.’
‘That’s what I paid you. Eight hours at minimum wage. You can check the deductions yourself. That’s not my arithmetic; this is an IBM 1990 and it’s instructed by IBM software, Paymaster Plus … and IBM has a standing offer of ten thousand dollars to any employee who can show that this model IBM and this mark of their software fouled up a pay check. Look at it. Gross pay, one hundred dollars. Deductions all
listed. Add ‘ ’em up. Subtract them. Check your answer against IBM’s answer. But don’t blame me. I didn’t write those laws – and I like them even less than you do. Do you realize that almost every dishwasher that comes in here, whether wetback or citizen, wants me to pay him in cash and forget the deductions? Do you know what the fine is if they catch me doing it just once? What happens if they catch me a second time? Don’t look sour at me – go talk to the government.’
‘I just don’t understand it. It’s new to me, all of it. Can you tell me what these deductions mean? This one that says “Admin”, for example.’
‘That stands for “administration fee” but don’t ask me why you have to pay it, as I am the one who has to do the bookkeeping and I certainly don’t get paid to do it.’
I tried to check the other deductions against the fine-print explanations. ‘SocSec’ turned out to be ‘Social Security’. The young lady had explained that to me this morning… but I had told her at the time that, while it was certainly an excellent idea, I felt that I would have to wait until later before subscribing to it; I could not afford it just yet. ‘MedIns’ and ‘HospIns’ and DentIns’ were simple enough but I could not afford them now, either. But what was ‘PL217′? The fine print simply referred to a date and page in TubReg’.
What about ‘DepEduc’ and ‘UNESCO’?
And what in the world was ‘Income Tax’?
‘I still don’t understand it. It’s all new to me.’
‘Alec, you’re not the only one who doesn’t understand it. But why do you say it is new to you? It has been going on all your life … and your daddy’s -and youi ,grand-daddy’s, at least.’
‘I’m sorry. What is “Income Tax”?’
He blinked at me. ‘Are you sure you don’t need to see a shrink?’
‘What is a “shrink”?’
He sighed. ‘Now I need to see one. Look, Alec. Just take it. Discuss the deductions with the government, not with me. You sound sincere, so maybe you were hit on the head when you got caught in the Mazatlán quake. I just want to go home and take a Miltown. So take it, please.’
‘All right. I guess. But I don’t know anyone who would cash this for me.’
‘No problem. Endorse it back to me and I’ll pay you, cash. But keep the stub, as the IRS will insist on seeing all your deductions stubs before paying you back any overpayment.’
I didn’t understand that, either, but I kept the stub.
Despite the shock of learning that almost half my pay was gone before I touched it, we were better off each day, as, between us, Margrethe and I had over four hundred dollars a week that did not have to be spent just to stay alive but could be converted into clothing and other necessities. Theoretically she was being paid the same wages as had been the cook she replaced, or twenty-two dollars an hour for twenty-four hours a week, or $528/week.
In fact she had the same sort of deductions I had, which paused her net pay to come to just under
$290/week. Again theoretically. But $54/week was checked off for lodging fair. enough, I decided, when I found out what rooming houses were charging. More than fair, in fact. Then we were assessed
$I05/week for meals. Brother McCaw at first had put us down for $I40/week for meals and had offered to show by his books that Mrs Owens, the regular cook, had always paid, by checkoff, $I0 each day for her meals… so the two of us should be assessed $I40/week.
I agreed that that was fair (having seen the prices on the menu at Ron’s Grill) – fair in theory. But I was going to have my heaviest meal of the day where I worked. We compromised on ten a day for Marga, half that for me.
So Margrethe wound up with a hundred and. thirty-one a week out of a gross- of five hundred and twenty-eight.
If she could collect it. Like most churches, the Salvation Army lives from hand to mouth… and sometimes the hand doesn’t quite reach the mouth.
Nevertheless we were well off and better off each week. At the end of the first week we bought new shoes for Margrethe, first quality and quite smart, for only $279.90, on sale at J. C. Penney’s, marked down from $350.
Of course she fussed at getting new shoes for her before buying shoes for me. I pointed out that we still had over a hundred dollars toward shoes for me – next week – and would she please hold it for us so that I would not be tempted to spend it. Solemnly she agreed.
So the following Monday we got shoes for me even cheaper – Army surplus, good, stout comfortable shoes that would outlast anything bought from a regular shoe store. (I would worry about dress shoes for me after I had other matters under control. There is nothing like being barefoot broke to adjust one’s mundane values.) Then we went to the Goodwill retail store and bought a dress and a summer suit for her, and dungaree pants for me.
Margrethe wanted to get more clothes for me – we still had almost sixty dollars. I objected.
‘Why not, Alec? You need clothes every bit as badly as I do… yet we have spent almost all that you have saved on me. It’s not fair.’
I answered, ‘We’ve spent it where it was needed. Next week, if Mrs Owens comes back on time, you’ll be out of a job and we’ll have to move. I think we. should move on. So let’s save what we can for bus fare.’
‘Move on where, dear?’
‘To Kansas. This is a world strange to each of us. Yet it is familiar, too – same language, same geography, some of the same history. Here I’m just a dish washer, not earning enough to support you. But I have a strong feeling that Kansas – Kansas in this world – will be so much like the Kansas I was born in that I’ll be able to cope better.’
‘Whither thou goest, beloved.’
The mission was almost a mile from Ron’s Grill; instead of trying to go ‘home’ at my four-to-six break, I usually spent my free time, after eating, at the downtown branch library getting myself oriented. That, and newspapers that customers sometimes left in the restaurant, constituted my principal means of reeducation.
In this world Mr William Jennings Bryan had indeed been President and his benign influence had’ kept us out of the Great European War. He then had offered his services for a negotiated peace. The Treaty of Philadelphia had more or less restored Europe to what it had been before 1913.
I didn’t recognize any of the Presidents after Bryan, either from my own world or from Margrethe’s world. Then I became utterly bemused when I first ran across the name of the current President: His Most Christian Majesty, John Edward the Second, Hereditary President of the United States and Canada, Duke of Hyannisport, Comte de Quebec, Defender of the Faith, Protector of the Poor, Marshal in Chief of the Peace Force.
I looked at a picture of him, laying a cornerstone in Alberta. He was tall and broad-shouldered and blandly handsome and was wearing a fancy uniform with enough medals on his chest to ward off pneumonia. I studied his face and asked myself, ‘Would you buy a used car from this man?’
But the more I thought about it, the more logical it seemed. Americans, all during their two and a quarter centuries as a separate nation, had missed the royalty they had shucked off. They slobbered over European royalty whenever they got the chance. Their wealthiest citizens married their daughters to royalty whenever possible, even to Georgian princes – a ‘prince’ in Georgia being a farmer with the biggest manure pile in the neighborhood.
I did not know where they had hired this royal dude. Perhaps they had sent to Estoril for him, or even had him shipped in from the Balkans. As one of my history profs had pointed out, there are always
out-of-work royalty around, looking for jobs. When a man is out of, work, he can’t be fussy, as I knew too well. Laying cornerstones is probably no more boring than washing dishes. But the hours are longer. I think. I’ve never been a king. I’m not sure that I would take a job in the kinging business if it were offered to me; there are obvious drawbacks and not just the long hours.
On the other hand –
Refusing a crown that you know will never be offered to you is sour grapes, by definition. I searched my heart and concluded that-I probably would be able to persuade myself that it was a sacrifice I should
make for my fellow men. I would pray over it until I was convinced that the Lord wanted me to accept this burden.
Truly I am not being cynical. I know how frail men can be in persuading themselves that the Lord wants them to do something they wanted to do all along – and I am no better than my brethren in this.
But the thing that stonkered me was the idea of Canada united with us. Most Americans do not know why Canadians dislike us (I do not), but they do. The idea that Canadians would ever vote to unite with us boggles the mind.
I went to the library desk and asked for a recent general history of the United States. I had just started to study it when I noted by the wall clock that it was almost four o’clock… so I had to check it back in and hustle to get back to my scullery on time. I did not have library loan privileges as I could not as yet afford the deposit required of nonresidents.
More important than the political changes were technical and cultural changes. I realized almost at once that this world was more advanced in physical science and. technology than my own. In fact I realized it almost as quickly as I saw a ‘television’ display device.
I never did understand how televising takes place. I tried to learn about it in the public library and at once bumped into a subject called ‘electronics’. (Not ‘electrics’ but ‘electronics’.) So I tried to study up about electronics and encountered the most amazing mathematical gibberish. Not since thermodynamics had caused me to decide that I had a call for the ministry have I seen such confusing and turgid equations. I don’t think Rolla Tech could ever cope with such amphigory – at least not Rolla Tech when I was an undergraduate there.
But the superior technology of this world was evident, in many more things than television. Consider ‘traffic lights’. No doubt you have seen cities so choked with traffic that it is almost impossible to cross major streets other than through intervention by police officers. Also’ no doubt you have sometimes been annoyed when a policeman charged with controlling traffic has stopped the flow in your direction to accommodate some very important person from city hall, or such.
Can you imagine a situation in which traffic could be controlled in greater volume with no police officers whatever at hand – just an impersonal colored light?
Believe me, that is exactly what they had in Nogales.
Here is how it works:
At every busy intersection you place a minimum of twelve lights, four groups of three, a group facing each of the cardinal directions and so screened that each group can be seen only from its direction. Each group has one red light, one green light, one amber light. These lights are served by electrical power and each shines brightly enough to be seen at a distance of a mile, more or less, even in bright sunlight. These are not arc lights; these are very powerful Edison lamps – this is important because these lights must be turned on and off every few moments and must function without fail hours on end, even days on end, twenty-four hours a day.
These lights are placed up high on telegraph poles, or suspended over intersections, so that they may be seen by teamsters or drivers or cyclists from a distance. When the green lights shine, let us say, north and south, the red lights shine east and west – traffic may flow north and south, while east and west traffic is required to stand and wait exactly as if a police officer had blown his whistle and held up his hands, motioning traffic to move north and south while restraining traffic from moving east and west.
Is that clear? The lights replace the policeman’s hand signals.
The amber lights replace the policeman’s whistle; they warn of an imminent change in the situation.
But what is the advantage? – since someone, presumably a policeman, must switch the lights on and off, as needed. Simply this: The switching is done automatically from a distance (even miles!) at a central switchboard.
There are many other marvels about this system, such as electrical counting devices to decide how long each light burns for best handling of the traffic, special lights for controlling left turns or to accommodate people on foot… but the truly great marvel is this: People obey these lights.
Think about it. With no policemen anywhere around people obey these blind and dumb bits of machinery as. if they were policemen.
Are people here so sheeplike and peaceful that they can be controlled this easily? No. I wondered about it and found some statistics in the library. This world has a higher rate of violent crime than does the world in which I was born. Caused by these strange lights? I don’t think so. I think that the people here, although disposed to violence against each other, accept obeying traffic lights as a logical thing to do.
Perhaps.
As may be, it is passing strange.
Another conspicuous difference in technology lies in air traffic. Not the decent, cleanly, safe, and silent dirigible airships of my home world – No, no! These are more like the aeroplanos of the Mexicano world in which Margrethe and I sweated out our indentures before the great quake that destroyed Mazatlán.
But they are so much bigger, faster, noisier and fly so much higher than the aeroplanos we knew that they are almost another breed – or are indeed another breed, perhaps, as they are called ‘jet planes’. Can you imagine a vehicle that flies eight miles above the ground? Can you imagine a giant car that moves, faster than sound? Can you imagine a screaming whine, so loud that it makes your teeth ache?
They call this ‘progress’. I long for the comfort and graciousness of LTA Count von Zeppelin. Because you can ‘ t get away from these behemoths. Several times a day one of these things goes screaming over the mission, fairly low down, as it approaches a grounding, at the flying field north of the city. The noise bothers me and makes Margrethe very nervous.
Still most of the enhancements in technology really are progress – better plumbing, better lighting indoors and out, better roads, better buildings, many sorts of machinery that make human labor less onerous and more productive. I am never one of those back-to-nature freaks who sneer at engineering; I have more reason than most people to respect engineering. Most people who sneer at technology would starve to- death if the engineering infrastructure were removed.
We had been in Nogales just short of three weeks when I was able to carry out a plan that I had dreamed of for nearly five months… and had actively plotted since our arrival in Nogales (but had to delay until I could afford it). – I picked Monday to carry it out, that being my day off. I told Margrethe to dress up in her new clothes as I was taking my best girl out for a treat, and I dressed up, too – my one suit, my new shoes, and a clean shirt… and shaved and bathed and nails clean and trimmed.
It was a lovely day, sunny and not too hot. We both felt cheerful because, first, Mrs Owens had written to Brother McCaw saying that she was staying on another week if she could be spared, and second, we now had enough money for bus fares for both of us to Wichita, Kansas, although just barely – but the word from Mrs Owens meant that could squirrel away another four hundred dollars for eating money on the way and still arrive not quite broke.
I took Margrethe to a place I had spotted the day I looked for a job as a dishwasher – a nice little place outside the tenderloin, an old-fashioned ice cream parlor.
We stopped outside it. ‘Best girl, see this place? Do you remember a conversation we had when we were floating on the broad Pacific on a sunbathing mat and not really expecting to live much longer? – at least I was not.’
‘Beloved, how could I forget?’
‘I asked you what you would have if you could have anything in the world that you wanted. Do you remember I what you answered?’
‘Of course I do! It was a hot fudge sundae.’
‘Right! Today is your unbirthday, dear. You are about to have that hot fudge sundae.’
‘Oh, Alec!’
‘Don’t blubber. Can’t stand a woman who cries. Or you can have a chocolate malt. Or a sawdust sundae. Whatever your heart desires. But I did, make sure that this place always has hot fudge sundaes before I brought you here.’
‘We can’t afford it. We should save for the trip.’
‘We can afford it. A hot fudge sundae is five dollars. Two for ten dollars. And I’m going to be a dead game sport and tip the waitress a dollar. Man does not live by bread alone. Nor does woman, Woman. Come along!’
We were shown to a table by a pretty waitress (but not as pretty as my bride). I seated Margrethe with
her back to the street, holding the chair for her, and then sat down opposite her. ‘I’m Tammy,’ the waitress said as she offered us a menu. ‘What would you folks like this lovely day?’
‘We won’t need the menu,’ I said. ‘Two hot fudge sundaes, please.’
Tammy looked thoughtful. ‘All right, if you don’t mind waiting a few minutes. We may have to make up the hot sauce.’
‘A few minutes, who cares? We’ve waited much longer than that.’
She smiled and went away. I looked at Marga. ‘We’ve waited much longer. Haven’t we?’
‘Alec, you’re a sentimentalist and that’s part of why I love you.’
‘I’m a sentimental slob and right now I’m slavering at the thought of hot fudge sundae. But I wanted you to see this place for another reason, too. Marga, how would you like to run such a place as this? Us, that is. Together. You’d be boss, I’d be dishwasher, janitor, handyman, bouncer, and whatever was needed.’
She looked very thoughtful. ‘You are serious?’
‘Quite. Of course we couldn’t go into business for ourselves right away; we will have to save some money first. But not much, the way I plan it. A dinky little place, but bright and cheerful – after I paint it. A soda fountain, plus a very limited Menu. Hot dogs. Hamburgers. Danish open-face sandwiches.
Nothing else. Soup, maybe. But canned soups are no problem and not much inventory.’
Margrethe looked shocked. ‘Not canned soups. I can serve a real soup… cheaper and better than anything out of a tin.’
‘I defer to your professional judgment, Ma’am. Kansas has half a dozen little college towns; any of them would welcome such a place. Maybe we pick a shop already existing, a mom-and-pop place – work for them a year, then buy them out. Change the name to The Hot Fudge Sundae. Or maybe Marga’s
Sandwiches.’
‘The Hot Fudge Sundae. Alec, do you really think we can do this?’
I leaned toward her and took her hand. ‘I’m sure we can, darling. And without working ourselves to death, too.’ I moved my head. ‘That traffic light is staring me right in the eye.’
‘I know. I can see it reflected in your eye every time it changes. Want to swap seats? It won’t bother me.’
‘It doesn’t bother me. It just has a somewhat hypnotic effect.’ I looked down at. the table, looked back at the light. ‘Hey, it’s gone out.’
Margrethe twisted her neck to look. ‘I don’t see it. Where?’
‘Uh… pesky thing has disappeared. Looks like.’
I heard a male voice at my elbow. ‘What’ll it be for you two? Beer or wine; we’re not licensed for the hard stuff.’
I looked around, saw a waiter. ‘Where’s Tammy?’
‘Who’s Tammy?’
I took a deep breath, tried to slow my heart, then said, ‘Sorry, brother; I shouldn’t have come in here. I find I’ve left my wallet at home.’ I stood up. ‘Come, dear.’
Wide-eyed and silent, Margrethe came with me. As we walked out, I looked around, noting changes. I suppose it was a decent enough place, as beer joints go. But it was not our cheerful ice cream parlor.
And not our world.
Chapter 15
Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
Proverbs 27:1
OUTSIDE, WITHOUT planning it, I headed us toward the Salvation Army mission. Margrethe kept quiet and held tight to my arm. I should have been frightened; instead I was boiling angry. Presently I muttered, ‘Damn them! Damn them!’
‘Damn who, Alec?’
‘I don’t know. That’s the worst of it. Whoever is doing this to us. Your friend Loki, maybe.’
‘He is not my friend, any more than Satan is your friend. I dread and fear what Loki is doing to our world.’
‘I’m not afraid, I’m angry. Loki or Satan or whoever, this last is too much. No sense to it. Why couldn’t they wait thirty minutes? That hot fudge sundae was practically under our noses – and they snatched it away! Marga, that’s not right, that’s not fair! That’s sheer, unadulterated cruelty. Senseless. On a par with pulling wings off flies. I despise them. Whoever.’
Instead of continuing with useless talk about matters we could not settle, Margrethe said, ‘Dear, where are we going?’
‘Eh?’ I stopped short. ‘Why, to the mission, I suppose.’
‘Is this the right way?’
‘Why, yes, cert -‘ I paused to look around. ‘I don’t know.’ I had been walking automatically, my attention fully on my anger. Now I found that I was unsure of any landmarks. ‘I guess I’m lost.’
‘I know I am.’
It took us another half hour to get straightened out. The neighborhood was vaguely familiar but nothing was quite right. I found the block where Ron’s Grill should be, could not find Ron’s Grill. Eventually a policeman directed us to the mission… which was now in a different building. To my surprise, Brother McCaw was there. But he did not recognize us, and his name was now McNabb. We left, as gracefully as possible. Not very, that is.
I walked us back the way we had come – slowly, as I wasn’t going anywhere. ‘Marga, we’re right back where we were three weeks ago. Better shoes, that’s all. A pocket full of money – but money we can’t spend, as it is certain to be funny money here… good for a quiet rest behind bars if I tried to pass any of it.’
‘You’re probably right, dear one.’
‘There is a bank on that corner just ahead. Instead of trying to spend any of it, I could walk in and simply ask whether or not it was worth anything.’
‘There couldn’t be any harm in that. Could there?’
‘There shouldn’t be. But our friend Loki could have another practical joke up his sleeve. Uh, we’ve got to know. Here – you take everything but one bill. If they arrest me, you pretend not to know me.’
‘No!’
‘What do you mean, “No”? There is no point in both of us being in jail.’
She looked stubborn and said nothing. How can you argue with a woman who wont talk? I sighed. ‘Look, dear, the only other thing I can think of is to look for another job washing dishes. Maybe Brother McNabb will let us sleep in the mission tonight.’
‘I’ll look for a job, too. I can wash dishes. Or cook. Or something.’
‘We’ll see. Come inside with me, Marga; we’ll go to jail together. But I think I’ve figured out how to handle this without going to jail.’ I took out one treasury note, crumpled it, and tore one corner. Then we went into the bank together, me holding it in my hand as if I had just picked it up. I did not go to a teller’s window; instead I went to that railing behind which bark officials sit at their desks.
I leaned on the railing and spoke to the man nearest to it; his desk sign marked him as assistant manager. ‘Excuse me, sir! Can you answer a question for me?’
He looked annoyed but his reply did not show it. ‘I’ll try. What’s on your mind?’
‘Is this really money? Or is it stage money, or something?’
He looked at it, then looked more closely. ‘Interesting. Where did you get this?”
‘My wife found it on a sidewalk. Is it money?’
‘Of course it’s not money. Whoever heard of a twenty-dollar note? Stage money, probably Or an advertising promotion.’
‘Then it’s not worth anything?’
‘It’s worth the paper it’s printed on, that’s all. I doubt that it could even be called counterfeit, since there has been no effort to make it look like the real thing. Still, the Treasury inspectors will want to see it.’
‘All right. Can you take care of it?’
‘Yes. But they’ll want to talk to you, I’m sure. Let’s get your name and address. And your wife’s, of course, since she found it.’
‘Okay. I want a receipt for it.’ I gave our names as ‘Mr and Mrs Alexander Hergensheimer’ and gave the address – but not the name – of Ron’s Grill. Then I solemnly accepted a receipt.
Once outside on the sidewalk I said, ‘Well, we’re no worse off than we thought we were. Time for me to look for some dirty dishes.’
‘Alec -‘
‘Yes, beloved?’
‘We were going to Kansas.’
‘So we were. But our bus-fare money is not worth the paper it is printed on. I’ll have to earn some more. I can. I did it once, I can do it again.’
‘Alec. Let us now go to Kansas.’
A half hour later we were walking north on the highway Tucson. Whenever anyone passed us, I signalled our hope of being picked up.
It took us three hitches simply to reach Tucson. At Tucson it would have made equal sense to head east toward El Paso, Texas, as to continue on Route 89, as 89 swings west before it goes north to Phoenix. It was settled for us by the chance that the first lift we were able to beg out of Tucson was with a teamster who was taking a load north.
This ride we were able to pick up at a truckers’ stop at the intersection of 89 and 80, and I am forced to admit that the teamster listened to our plea because Margrethe is the beauty she is – had I been alone I might still be standing there. I might as well say right now that this whole trip depended throughout on Margrethe’s beauty and womanly charm quite as much as it depended on my willingness to do any honest work whatever, no matter how menial, dirty, or difficult.
I found this fact unpleasant to face. I held dark thoughts of Potiphar’s wife and of the story of Susanna and the Elders. I found myself being vexed with Margrethe when her only offense lay in being her usual gracious, warm, and friendly self. I came close to telling her not to smile at strangers and to keep her eyes to herself.
That temptation hit me sharpest that first day at sundown when this same trucker stopped at a roadside oasis centered around a restaurant and a fueling facility. ‘I’m going to have a couple of beers and a sirloin steak,’ he announced. ‘How about you, Maggie baby? Could you use a rare steak? This is the place where they just chase the cow through the kitchen.’
She smiled at, him. ‘Thank you, Steve. But, I’m not hungry.’
My darling was telling an untruth. She knew it, I knew it – and I felt sure that Steve knew it. Our last meal had been breakfast at the mission, eleven hours and a universe ago. I had tried to wash dishes for a meal at the truckers’ stop outside Tucson, but had been dismissed rather abruptly. So we had had nothing all day but water from a public drinking faucet.
‘Don’t try to kid your grandmother, Maggie. We’ve been on the road four hours. You’re hungry.’
I spoke up quickly to keep Margrethe from persisting in an untruth – told, I felt certain, on my behalf. ‘What she means, Steve, is that she doesn’t accept dinner invitations from other men. She expects me to provide her dinner.’ I added, ‘But I thank you on her behalf and we both thank you for the ride. It’s been most pleasant.’
We were still seated in the cab of his truck, Margrethe in the middle. He leaned forward and looked around her. ‘Alec, you, think I’m trying to get into Maggie’s pants, don’t you?’
I answered stiffly that I did not think anything of the sort while thinking privately that that was exactly what I thought he had been trying to accomplish all along… and I resented not only his unchivalrous overtures but also the gross language he had just used. But I had learned the hard way that rules of polite speech in the world in which I had grown up were not necessarily rules in another universe
‘Oh, yes, you do think so. I wasn’t born yesterday and a lot of my life has been spent on the road, getting my illusions knocked out. You think I’m trying to lay your woman because every stud who comes along tries to put the make on her. But let me clue you in, son. I don’t knock when there’s nobody at home. And I can always tell. Maggie ain’t having any. I checked that out hours ago. And ‘congratulations; a faithful woman is good to find. Isn’t that true?’
‘Yes, certainly,’ I agreed grudgingly.
‘So get your feathers down’. You’re about to take your wife to dinner. You’ve already said thank you to me for the ride but why don’t you really thank me by inviting me to dinner? – so I won’t have to eat alone.’
I hope that I did not look dismayed and that my instant of hesitation was not noticeable. ‘Certainly, Steve. We owe you that for your kindness. Uh, will you excuse me while I make some arrangements?’ I started to get out of the cab.
‘Alec, you don’t lie any better than Maggie does.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You think I’m blind? You’re broke. Or, if you aren´t absolutely stony, you are so near flat you can’t afford to buy me a sirloin steak. Or even the blueplate special.’
‘That is true,’ I answered with – I hope – dignity. ‘The arrangements I must make are with the restaurant manager. I hope to exchange dishwashing for the price of three dinners.’
‘I thought so. If you were just ordinary broke, you’d be riding Greyhound and you’d have some baggage. If you were broke but not yet hungry broke, you’d hitchhike to save your money for eating but you would have some sort of baggage. A kiester each, or at least a bindle. But you’ve got no baggage… and you’re both wearing suits – in the desert, for God’s sake! The signs all spell disaster.’
I remained mute.
‘Now look,’ he went on. ‘Possibly the owner of this joint would let you wash dishes. More likely he’s got three wetbacks pearl-diving this very minute and has turned down at least three more already today; this is on the main north-south route of turistas coming through holes in the Fence. In any case I can’t wait while you wash dishes; I’ve got to herd this rig a lot of miles yet tonight. So I’ll make you a deal. You take me to dinner but I lend you the money.’
‘I’m a poor risk.’
‘Nope, you’re a good risk. What the bankers call a character loan, the very best risk there is. Sometime, this coming year, or maybe twenty years from now, you’ll run across another young couple, broke and hungry. You’ll buy them dinner on the same, terms. That pays me back. Then when they do the same, down the line, that pays you back. Get it?’
‘I’ll pay you back sevenfold!’
“Once is enough. After that you do it for your own pleasure. Come on, let’s eat.’
Rimrock Restop restaurant was robust rather than fancy – about on a par with Ron’s Grill in another world. It had both counter and tables. Steve led us to a table and shortly a fairly young and rather pretty waitress came over.
‘Howdy, Steve! Long time.’
Hi, Babe! How’d the rabbit test come out?’
‘The rabbit died. How about your blood test?’ She smiled at me and at Margrethe. ‘Hi, folks! What’ll you have?’
I had had time to glance at the menu, first down the right-hand side, of course – and was shocked at the prices. Shocked to find them back on the scale of the world I knew best, I mean. Hamburgers for a dime, coffee at five cents, table d’hôte dinners at seventy-five to ninety cents -these prices I understood.
I looked at it and said, ‘May I have a cheese superburger, medium well?’
‘Sure thing, Ace. How about you, dear?’
Margrethe took the same, but medium rare.
‘Steve?’ the waitress inquired.
That’ll be three beers – Coors – and three sirloin steaks, one rare, one medium rare, one medium. With the usual garbage. Baked potato, fried promises, whatever. The usual limp salad. Hot rolls. All the usual. Dessert later. Coffee.’
‘Gotcha.’
‘Wantcha to meet my friends. Maggie, this is Hazel. That’s Alec, her husband.’
‘You lucky man! Hi, Maggie; glad to know you. Sorry to see you in such company, though. Has Steve tried to sell you anything?’
‘No,’
‘Good. Don’t buy anything, don’t sign anything, don’t bet with him. And be glad you’re safely married; he’s got wives in three states.’
‘Four,’ Steve corrected.
‘Four now? Congratulations. Ladies’ restroom is through the kitchen, Maggie; men go around behind.’ She left moving fast, with a swish of her skirt.
‘That’s a fine broad,’ Steve said. ‘You know what they say about waitresses, especially in truckers’ joints. Well, Hazel is probably the only hash-slinger on this highway who ain’t sellin’ it. Come on, Alec.’ He got up and led me outdoors and around to the men’s room. I followed him. By the time I understood what he had said, it was too late to resent his talking that way in a lady’s presence. Then I was forced to admit that Margrethe had not resented it had simply treated it as information. As praise of Hazel, in fact. I think my greatest trouble with all these worrisome world changes had to do, not with economics, not with social behavior, not with technology, but simply with language, and the mores and taboos thereto.
Beer was waiting for us when we returned, and so was Margrethe, looking cool and refreshed.
Steve toasted us. ‘Skoal!’
We echoed ‘Skaal!’ and I took a sip and then a lot more – just what I needed after a long day on a desert highway. My moral downfall in S.S. Konge Knut had included getting reacquainted with beer, something I had not touched since my days as an engineering student, and very little then – no money for vices. This was excellent beer, it seemed to me, but not as good as the Danish Tuborg served in the ship. Did you know that there is not one word against beer in the Bible? In fact the word ‘beer’ in the Bible means ‘fountain’- or ‘well’.
The steaks were delicious.’
Under the mellowing influence of beer and good food I found myself trying to explain to Steve how we happened to be down on our luck and accepting the charity of strangers… without actually saying anything. Presently Margrethe said to me, ‘Alec. Tell him.’
‘You think I should?’
‘I think Steve is entitled to know. And I trust him.’
‘Very well. Steve, we are strangers from another world.’
He neither laughed nor smiled; he just looked interested. Presently he said, ‘Flying saucer?’
‘No. I mean another universe, not just another planet. Although it seems like the same planet. I mean, Margrethe and I were in a state Called Arizona and a city called Nogales just earlier today. Then it changed. Nogales shrank down and nothing was quite the same. Arizona looked about the same, although I don’t know this state very well.’
‘Territory.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Arizona is a territory, not a state. Statehood was voted down.’
‘Oh. That’s the way it was in my, world, too. Something about taxes. But we didn’t come from my world. Nor from Marga’s world. We came, from -‘I stopped. ‘I’m not telling this very well.’ I looked across at Margrethe. ‘Can you explain it?’
‘I can’t explain it,’ she answered, because I don’t understand it. But, Steve, it’s true. I’m from one world, Alec is from another world, we’ve lived in still another world, and we were in yet again another world this morning. And now we are here. That is why we don’t have any money. No, we do have money but it’s not money of this world.’
Steve said, ‘Could we take this one world at a time? I’m getting dizzy.’
I said, ‘She left out two worlds.’
‘No, dear – three. You may have forgotten the iceberg world.’
‘No, I counted that. I – Excuse me, Steve. I’ll try to take it one world at a time. But it isn’t easy. This morning – We went into an ice cream parlor in Nogales because I wanted to buy Margrethe a hot fudge sundae. We sat down at a table, across from each other like right now, and that put me facing a set of traffic lights-‘
‘A set of what?’
‘A set of traffic signal lights, red, green, and amber. That’s how I spotted that we had changed worlds again. This world doesn’t have signal lights, or at least I haven’t seen any. Just traffic cops. But in the world we got up in this morning, instead of traffic cops, they do it with signal lights.’
Sounds like they do it with mirrors. What’s this got to do with buying Maggie a hot fudge sundae?’
‘That was because, when we were. shipwrecked and, floating around in the ocean, Margrethe wanted a hot fudge, sundae. This morning was my first chance to buy one for her. When the traffic lights disappeared, I knew we had changed worlds again – and that meant that my money wasn’t any good. So I could not buy her a hot fudge sundae. And could not buy her dinner tonight. No money. No spendable money, I mean. You see?’
‘I think I fell off three turns back. What happened to your money?’
‘Oh.’ I dug into my pocket, hauled out our carefully hoarded bus-fare money, picked out a twenty-dollar bill, handed it to Steve. ‘Nothing happened to it. Look at this.’
He looked at it carefully. ‘ “Lawful money for all debts public and private.” That sounds okay. But who’s this joker with his picture on it? And when did they start.printing twenty-dollar treasury notes?’
‘Never, in your world. I guess. The picture is of William Jennings Bryan, President of the United States from 1913 to 192l.’
‘Not at Horace Mann School in Akron, he wasn’t. Never heard of him.’
‘In my school he was elected in 1896, not sixteen years later. And in Margrethe’s world Mr Bryan was never president at all. Say! Margrethe! This just might be your world!’
‘Why do you think so, dear?’
‘Maybe, maybe not. As we came north out of Nogales I didn’t notice a flying field or any signs concerning one. And I just remembered that I haven’t heard or seen a jet plane all day long. Or any sort of a flying machine. Have you?’
,No. No, I haven’t. But I haven’t been thinking about them.’ She added, ‘I’m almost certain there haven’t been any near us.’
There you have it! Or maybe this is my world. Steve, what’s the situation on aeronautics here?’
‘Arrow what?’
‘Flying machines. Jet planes. Aeroplanes of any sort. And dirigibles – do you have dirigibles?’
‘None of those things rings any bells with me. You’re talking about flying, real flying, up in the air like a bird?’.
‘Yes, yes!’
‘No, of course not. Or do you mean balloons? I’ve seen a balloon.’
‘Not balloons. Oh, a dirigible is a sort of a balloon. But it’s long instead of round – sort of cigar-shaped. And it’s propelled by engines something like our truck and goes a hundred miles an hour and more – and usually fairly high, one or two thousand feet. Higher over mountains.’
For the first time Steve showed surprise rather than interest. ‘God A’mighty! You’ve actually seen something like that?’
‘I’ve ridden in them. Many times. First when I was only twelve years old. You went to school in Akron? In my world Akron is world famous as the place where they build the biggest, fastest, and best dirigible airships in all the world.’
Steve shook his head. ‘When the parade goes by, I’m out for a short beer. That’s the story of my life. Maggie, you’ve seen airships? Ridden in them?’
‘No. They are not in my world. But I’ve ridden in a flying’ machine. An aeroplano. Once. It was terribly exciting. Frightening, too. But I would like to do it again.’
‘I betcha would. Me, I reckon it would scare the tar out of me. But I would take a ride in one, even if it killed me. Folks, I’m beginning to believe you. You tell it so straight. That and this money. If it, is money.’
‘It is money,’ I insisted, ‘from another world. Look at it closely, Steve. Obviously it’s not money of your world. But it’s not play money or stage money either. Would anybody bother to make steel engravings that perfect just for stage money? The engraver who made the plates expected that note to be accepted as money… yet it isn’t even a correct denomination – that’s the first thing you noticed. Wait a moment.’ I dug into another pocket. ‘Yup! Still here.’ I took out a ten-peso note – from the Kingdom of Mexico. I had burned most of the useless money we had accumulated before the quake – Margrethe’s tips at El Pancho Villa – but I had saved a few’ souvenirs. ‘Look at this, too. Do you know Spanish?’
‘Not really. TexMex. Cantina Spanish.’ He looked at the Mexican money. ‘This looks okay.’
‘Look more closely,’ Margrethe urged him. ‘Where it says ‘Reino’. Shouldn’t that read ‘Republica’? Or is Mexico a kingdom in this world?’
‘It’s a republic… partly because I helped keep it that way. I was an election judge there when I was in the Marines. It’s amazing what a few Marines armed to their eyebrows can do to keep an election honest. Okay, pals; you’ve sold ‘me. Mexico is not a kingdom and hitchhikers who don’t have the price of dinner on them ought not to be carrying around Mexicano money that says it is a kingdom. Maybe I’m crazy but I’m inclined to throw in with you. What’s the explanation?’
‘Steve’,’ I said soberly, ‘I wish I knew. The simplest explanation is that I’ve gone crazy and that it’s all imaginary – you, me, Marga, this restaurant, this world – all products of my brain fever.’
‘You can be imaginary if you want to, but leave Maggie and me out of it. Do you have any other explanations?’
‘Uh… that depends. Do you read the Bible, Steve?’
‘Well, yes and no. Being on the road, lots of times I find myself wide awake in bed with nothing around to read but a Gideon Bible. So sometimes I do.’
‘Do you recall Matthew twenty-four, twenty-four?’
‘Huh? Should I?’
I quoted it for him. ‘That’s one possibility, Steve. These world changes may be signs sent by the Devil himself, intended to deceive us. On the other hand they may be portents of the end of world and the coming of Christ into His kingdom. Hear the Word:
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
“And then shall appear the sign ed the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
‘”And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
‘That’s what it adds up to, Steve. Maybe these are the false signs of the tribulations before the end, or maybe these wonders foretell the Parousia, the coming of Christ. But, either way, we are coming to the end of the world. Are you born again?’
‘Mmm, I can’t rightly say that I am. I was baptized a long time ago, when I was too young to have much say in the matter. I’m not a churchgoer, except sometimes to see my friends married or buried. If I was washed clean once, I guess I’m a little dusty by now. I don’t suppose I qualify.’
‘No, I’m certain that you do not. Steve, the end of the world is coming and Christ is returning soon. The most urgent business you have – that anyone has! – is to take your troubles to Jesus, be washed in His Blood, and be born again in Him. Because you will receive no warning. The Trump will sound and you will either be caught up into the arms of Jesus, safe and happy forevermore, or you will be cast down into the fire and brimstone, there to suffer agonies through all eternity. You must be ready.’
‘Cripes! Alec, have you ever thought about becoming a preacher?’
‘I’ve thought about it.’
‘You should do more than think about it, you should be one. You said all that just like you believed every word of it.’
‘I do.
‘Thought maybe. Well, I’ll pay you the respect of giving it some hard thought. But in the meantime I hope they don’t hold Kingdom Come tonight because I’ve still got this load to deliver. Hazel! Let me have the check, dear; I’ve got to get the show on the road.’
Three steak dinners came to $3.90; six beers was another sixty cents, for a total of $4.50. Steve paid with a half eagle, a coin I had never seen outside a coin collection I wanted to look at this one but had no excuse.
Hazel picked it up, looked at it. ‘Don’t get much gold around here,? she remarked. ‘Cartwheels are the usual thing. And some paper, although the boss doesn’t like paper money. Sure you can spare this, Steve?’
‘I found the Lost Dutchman.’
‘Go along with you; I’m not going to be your fifth wife.’
‘I had in mind a temporary arrangement.’
‘Not that either – not for a five-dollar gold piece.’ She dug into an apron pocket, took out a silver half dollar. ‘Your change, dear.’
He pushed it back toward her. ‘What’ll you do for fifty cents?’
She picked it up, pocketed it. ‘Spit in your eye. Thanks. Night, folks. Glad you came in.’
During the thirty-five miles or so on into Flagstaff Steve asked questions of us about the worlds we had seen but made no comments. He talked just enough to keep us talking. He was especially interested in my descriptions of airships, jet planes, and aeroplanos, but anything technical fascinated him. Television he found much harder to believe than flying machines – well, so did I. But Margrethe assured him that she had seen television herself, and Margrethe is hard to disbelieve. Me, I might be mistaken for a con man. But not Margrethe. Her voice and manner carry conviction.
In Flagstaff, just short of Route 66, Steve pulled over to the side and stopped, left his engine running. ‘All out,’ he said, ‘if you insist on heading east. If you want to go north, you’re welcome.
I said, ‘We’ve got to get to Kansas, Steve.’
‘Yes, I know. While you can get there either way, Sixty-Six is your best bet… though why anyone should want to go to Kansas beats me. It’s that intersection ahead, there. Keep right and keep going; you can’t miss it. Watch out for the Santa Fe tracks. Where you planning to sleep tonight?’
‘I don’t have any plans. We’ll walk until we get another ride. If we don’t get an all-night ride and we get too sleepy, we can sleep by the side of the road – it’s warm.’
‘Alec, you listen to your Uncle Dudley. You’re not going to sleep on the desert tonight. It’s warm now; it’ll be freezing cold by morning. Maybe you haven’t noticed but we’ve been climbing all the way from Phoenix. And if the Gila monsters don’t get you, the sand fleas will. You’ve got to rent a cabin.’
‘Steve, I can’t rent a cabin.’
‘The Lord will provide. You believe that, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I answered stiffly, ‘I believe that.’ (But He also helps those who help themselves.)
‘So let the Lord provide. Maggie, about this end-of-the world business, do you agree with Alec?’
“I certainly don’t disagree!’
‘Mmm. Alec, I’m going to give it a lot of thought… starting tonight, by reading a Gideon Bible. This time I don’t want to miss the parade. You go on down Sixty-Six, look for a place saying ‘cabins’. Not ‘motel’ ‘ not ‘roadside inn’, not a word about Simmons mattresses or private baths – just ‘cabins’. If they ask more
than two dollars, walk away. Keep dickering and you might get it for one.’
I wasn’t listening very hard as I was growing quite angry. Dicker with what? He knew that I was utterly without funds – didn’t he believe me?
‘So I’ll say good-bye,’ Steve went on. ‘Alec, can you get that door? I don’t want to get out.’
‘I can get it.’ I opened it, stepped down, then remembered my manners. ‘Steve, I want to thank you for everything. Dinner, and beer, and a long ride. May the Lord watch over you and keep you.’
‘Thank you and don’t mention it. Here.’ He reached into a pocket, pulled out a card. ‘That’s my business card. Actually it’s my daughter’s address. When you get to Kansas, drop me a card, let me know how you made out.’
‘I’ll do that.’ I took the card, then started to hand Margrethe down.
Steve stopped her. ‘Maggie! Aren’t you going to kiss Ol’ Steve good-bye?’
‘Why, certainly, Steve!’ She turned back and half faced him on the seat.
‘That’s better, Alec, you’d better turn your back.’
I did not turn my back but I tried to ignore it, while watching out the corner of my eye.
If it had gone on one half-second longer, I would have dragged her out of that cab bodily. Yet I am forced to admit that Margrethe was not having attentions forced on her; she was cooperating fully, kissing him in a fashion no married woman should ever kiss another man.
I endured it.
At last it ended. I handed her down, and closed the door. Steve called out, ‘ ‘Bye, kids!’ and his truck moved forward. As it picked up speed he tooted his horn twice.
Margrethe said, ‘Alec, you are angry with me.’
‘No. Surprised, yes. Even shocked. Disappointed. Saddened.’
‘Don’t sniff at me!’
‘Eh?’
‘Steve drove us two hundred and fifty miles and bought us a fine dinner and didn’t laugh when we told him a preposterous story. And now you get hoity-toity and holier-than-thou because I kissed him hard enough to show that I appreciated what he had done for me and my husband. I won’t stand for it, do you hear?’
‘I just meant that -‘
‘Stop it! I won’t listen to explanations. Because you’re wrong! And now I am angry and I shall stay angry until you realize you are wrong. So think it over!’ She turned and started walking rapidly toward the intersection of 66 with 89.
I hurried to catch up. ‘Margrethe!’
She did not answer and increased her pace.
‘Margrethe!’ Eyes straight ahead –
‘Margrethe darling! I was wrong. I’m sorry, I apologize.
‘She stopped abruptly, turned and threw her arms around my neck, started to cry. ‘Oh, Alec, I love you so and you’re such a fub!’
I did not answer at once as my mouth was busy. At last I said, ‘I love you, too, and what is a fub?’
‘You are.’
‘Well – In that case I’m your fub and you’re stuck with me. Don’t walk away from me again.’
‘I won’t. Not ever.’ We resumed what we had been doing.
After a while I pulled my face back just far enough to whisper: ‘We don’t have a bed to our name and I’ve never wanted one more.’
‘Alec. Check your pockets.’
‘Huh?’
‘While he ‘Was kissing me, Steve whispered to me to tell you to check your pockets and to say, “The Lord will provide.”‘
I found it in my left-hand coat pocket: a gold eagle. Never before had I held one in my hand. It felt warm and heavy.
Chapter 16
Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?
Job 4:17
Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred.
Job 6:24
AT A drugstore in downtown Flagstaff I exchanged that gold eagle for nine cartwheels, ninety-five cents in change, and a bar of Ivory soap. Buying soap was Margrethe’s idea. ‘Alec, a druggist is not a banker; changing money is something he may not want to do other than as part of a sale. We need soap. I want to wash your underwear and mine, and we both need baths… and I suspect that, at the sort of cheap lodging Steve urged us to take, soap may not be included in the rent.’
She was right on both counts. The druggist raised his eyebrows at the ten-dollar gold piece but said nothing. He took the coin, let it ring on the glass top of a counter, then reached behind his cash register, fetched out a small bottle, and subjected the coin to the acid test.
I made no comment. Silently he counted out nine silver dollars, a half dollar, a quarter, and two dimes. Instead of pocketing the coins at once, I stood fast, and subjected each coin to the same ringing test he had used, using his glass counter. Having done so, I pushed one cartwheel back at him.
Again he made no comment – he had heard the dull ring, of that putatively silver coin as well as I. He rang up ‘No Sale’, handed me another cartwheel (which rang clear as a bell), and put the bogus coin somewhere in the back of the cash drawer. Then he turned his back on me.
At the outskirts of town, halfway to Winona, we found a place shabby enough to meet our standards. Margrethe conducted the dicker, in Spanish. Our host asked five dollars. Marga called on the Virgin Mary and three other saints to witness what was being done to her. Then she offered him five pesos.
I did not understand this maneuver; I knew she had no pesos on her. Surely she would not be intending to offer those unspendable ‘royal’ pesos I still carried?
I did not find out, as our host answered with a price of three dollars and that is final, Señora, as God is my witness.
They settled on a dollar and a half, then Marga rented clean sheets and a blanket for another fifty cents – paid for the lot with two silver dollars but demanded pillows and ‘ clean pillow-cases to seal the bargain. She got them but the patrón asked something for luck. Marga added a dime and he bowed deeply and assured us that his house was ours.
At seven the next morning we were on our way, rested, clean, happy and hungry. A half hour later we were in Winona and much hungrier. We cured the latter at a little trailer-coach lunchroom: a stack of wheat cakes, ten cents; coffee, five cents no charge for second cup, no limit on butter or syrup.
I Margrethe could not finish her hot cakes- they were lavish – so we swapped plates and I salvaged what she had left.
A sign on the wall read: CASH WHEN SERVED – NO TIPPING – ARE YOU READY FOR
JUDGMENT DAY? The cook-waiter (and owner, I think) had a copy of The Watch Tower propped up by his range. I asked, ‘Brother, do you have any late news on when to expect Judgment Day?’
‘Don’t joke about it. Eternity is a long time to spend in the Pit.’
I answered, ‘I was not joking. By the signs and portents I think we are in the seven-year period prophesied in the eleventh chapter of Revelation, verses two and three. But I don’t know how far we are into it.’
‘We’re already well into the second half,’ he answered.
‘The two witnesses are now prophesying and the antichrist is abroad in the land. Are you in a state of
grace? If not, you had better get cracking.’
I answered, ‘”Therefore be ye also ready: for such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”‘
‘You’d better believe it!’
‘I do believe it. Thanks for a good breakfast.’
‘Don’t mention it. May the Lord watch over you.’
‘Thank you. May He bless and keep you.’ Marga and I left.
We headed ‘ cast again. ‘How is my sweetheart?’
‘Full of food and happy.’
‘So am I. Something you did last night made me especially happy.’
‘Me, too. But you always do, darling man. Every time.’
‘Uh, yes, there’s that. Me, too. Always. But I meant something you said, earlier. When Steve asked, if you agreed with me about Judgment Day and you told him you did agree. Marga, I can’t tell you how much it has worried me that you have not chosen to be received back into the arms of Jesus. With Judgment Day rushing toward us and no way to know the hour – well, I’ve worried. I do worry. But apparently you are finding your way back to the light but had not yet discussed it with me.’
We walked perhaps twenty paces while Margrethe did not say anything.
At last she said quietly, ‘Beloved, I would put your mind at rest. If I could. I cannot.’
‘So? I do not understand. Will you explain?’
‘I did not tell Steve that I agreed with you. I said to him that I did not disagree.’
‘But that’s the same thing!’
‘No, darling. What I did not say to Steve but could have said, in, full honesty is that I will never publicly disagree with my husband about anything. Any disagreement with you I will discuss with you in private. Not in Steve’s presence. Not anyone’s.’
I chewed that over, let several possible comments go unsaid – at last said, ‘Thank you, Margrethe.’
‘Beloved, I do it for my own dignity as well as for yours. All my life I have hated the sight of husband and wife disagreeing – disputing – quarreling in public. If you say that the sun is covered with bright green puppy dogs, I will not disagree in public.’
Ah, but it is!’
‘Sir?’ She stopped, and looked startled.
‘My good Marga. Whatever the problem, you always find a gentle answer. If I ever do see bright green puppy dogs on the face of the sun, I will try to remember to discuss it with you in private, not face you with hard decisions in public. I love you. I read too much into what you said to Steve because I really do worry.’
She took my hand and we walked a bit farther without talking.
‘Alec?’
‘Yes, my love?’
‘I do not willingly worry you. If I am wrong and you are going to the Christian Heaven, I do want to go I with you. If this means a return to faith in Jesus – and it seems that it does – then that is what I want. I will try. I cannot promise it, as faith is not a matter of simple volition. But I will try.’
I stopped to kiss her, to the amusement of a carload of men passing by. ‘Darling, more I cannot ask. Shall we pray together?’
‘Alec, I would rather not. Let me pray alone – and I will! When it comes time to pray together, I will tell you. I
Not long after that we were picked up by a ranch couple who took us into Winslow. They dropped us there without asking any questions and without us offering any information, which must set some sort of record.
Winslow is much larger than Winona; it is a respectable town as desert communities go – seven thousand at a guess. We found there an opportunity to carry out something Steve had indirectly suggested and that we had discussed the night before.
Steve was correct; we were not dressed for the desert. True, we had had no choice, as we had been caught by a world change. But I did not see another man wearing a business suit in the desert. Nor did we see Anglo women dressed in women’s suits. Indian women and Mexican women wore skirts, but Anglo women wore either shorts or trousers – slacks, jeans, cutoffs, riding pants, something. Rarely a skirt, never a suit.
Furthermore our suits were not right even as city wear. They looked as out of place as styles of the Mauve Decade would look. Don’t ask me how as I am no expert on styles, especially for women. The suit that I wore had been both smart and expensive when worn by my patrón, Don Jaime, in Mazatlán in an I other world… but on me, in the Arizona desert in this world, it was something out of skid row.
In Winslow we found just the shop we needed: SECOND WIND – A Million Bargains – All Sales Cash, No Guarantees, No Returns – All Used Clothing Sterilized Before Being Offered For Sale. Above this were the same statements in Spanish.
An hour later, after much picking over of their stock and-some heavy dickering by Margrethe, we were dressed for the desert. I was wearing khaki pants, a shirt to match, and a straw hat of vaguely western style. Margrethe was wearing considerably less: shorts that were both short and tight – indecently so – and, an -upper garment that was less than a bodice but slightly more than a brassière. It was termed a ‘halter’.
When I saw Marga in this outfit, I whispered to her, ‘I positively will not permit you to appear in public in that shameless costume.’
She answered, ‘Dear, don’t be a fub so early in the day. It’s too hot.’
‘I’m not joking. I forbid you to buy that.’
‘Alec, I don’t recall asking your permission.’
‘Are you defying me?’
She sighed. ‘Perhaps I am. I don’t want to. Did you get your razor?’
‘You saw me!’
‘I have your underpants and socks. Is there anything more you need now?’
‘No. Margrethe! Quit evading me!’
‘Darling, I told you that I will not quarrel with you in public. This outfit has a wrap-around skirt; I was about to put it on. Let me do so and settle the bill. Then we can go outside and talk in private.’
Fuming, I went along with what she proposed. I might as well admit that, under her careful management, we came out of that bazaar with more money than we had had when we came in. How? That suit from my patrón, Don Jaime, that looked so ridiculous on me, looked just right on the owner of the shop – in fact he resembled Don Jaime. He had been willing to swap, even, for what I needed – khaki shirt and pants and straw hat.
But Margrethe insisted on something to boot. She demanded five dollars, got two.
I learned, as she settled our bill, that she had wrought similar magic in getting rid of that tailored suit she no longer needed. We entered the shop with $7.55; we left it with $8.80… and desert outfits for each of us, a comb (for two), a toothbrush (also for two), a knapsack, a safety razor, plus a minimum of underwear and socks – all second hand but alleged to be sterilized.
I am not good at tactics, not with women. We were outside and down the highway to an open place where we could talk privately before Margrethe would talk to me and I did not realize that I had already lost.
Without stopping, she said, ‘Well, dear? You had something to discuss.’
‘Uh, with that skirt in place your clothing is acceptable. Barely. But you are not to appear in-public in those shorts. Is that understood?’
‘I intended to wear just the shorts. If the weather is warm. As it is.’
‘But, Margrethe, I told you not to -‘She was unsnapping the skirt, taking it off. ‘You are defying me!’
She folded it, up neatly. ‘May I place this in the knapsack? Please?’
‘You are deliberately disobeying me!’
‘But, Alec, I don’t have to obey you and you don’t have to obey me.’
‘But – Look, dear, be reasonable. You know I don’t usually give orders. But a wife must obey her husband. Are you my wife?’
‘You told me so. So I am until you tell me otherwise.’
‘Then it is your duty to obey me.’
‘No, Alec.’
‘But that is a wife’s first duty!’
‘I don’t agree.’
‘But – This is madness! Are you leaving me?’
‘No. Only if you divorce me.’
‘I don’t believe in divorce. Divorce is wrong. Against Scripture.’
She made no answer.
‘Margrethe… please put your skirt on.’
She said softly, ‘Almost you persuade me, dearest. Will you explain why you want me to do so?’
‘What? Because those shorts, worn alone, are indecent!’
‘I don’t see how an article of clothing can be indecent, Alec. A person, yes. Are you saying that I am indecent?’
‘Uh – You’re twisting my words. When you wear those shorts – without a skirt – in public, you expose so much of yourself that the spectacle is indecent. Right now, walking this highway, your limbs are fully exposed… to the people in that car that just passed, for example. They saw you. I saw them staring!’
‘Good. I hope they enjoyed it.’
‘What?’
‘You tell me that I am beautiful. But you could be prejudiced. I hope that my appearance is pleasing to other people as well.’
‘Be serious, Margrethe; we’re speaking of your naked limbs. Naked.’
‘You are saying my legs are bare. So they are. I prefer them bare when the weather is warm. What are you frowning at, dear? Are my legs ugly?’
(‘Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee!’) ‘Your limbs are beautiful, my love; I have told you so many times. But I have no wish to share your beauty.’
‘Beauty is not diminished by being shared. Let’s get back to the subject, Alec; you were explaining how my legs are indecent. If you can explain it. I don’t think you can.’
‘But, Margrethe, nakedness is indecent by its very nature. It inspires lewd thoughts.’
‘Really? Does seeing my legs cause you to get an erection?’
‘Margrethe!’
‘Alec, stop being a fub! I asked a simple question.’
‘An improper question.’ ‘
She sighed. ‘I don’t see how that question can possibly be improper between husband and wife. And I will never concede that my legs are indecent. Or that nakedness is indecent. I have been naked in front of hundreds of people -‘
‘Margrethe!’
She looked surprised. ‘Surely you know that?’
‘I did not know it and I am shocked to hear it.’
‘Truly, dear? But you know how well I swim.’
‘What’s that got to do with it? I swim well, too. But I don’t swim naked; I wear a bathing suit.’ (But I, was remembering most sharply the pool in Konge Knut – of course my darling was used to nude swimming. I found myself out on a limb.)
‘Oh. Yes. I’ve seen such suits, in Mazatlán. And in Spain. But, darling, we’re going astray again. The problem is wider than whether or not bare legs are indecent or whether I should have kissed Steve good-bye or even whether I must obey you. You are expecting me to be what I am not. I want to be your wife for many years, for -all my life – and I hope to share Heaven with you if Heaven is your
destination. But, darling, I am not a child, I am not a slave. Because I love you I wish to please you. But I will not obey an order simply because I am a wife.’
I could say that I overwhelmed her with the brilliance of my rebuttal. Yes, I could say that, but it would not be true. I was still trying to think of an answer when a car slowed down as it overtook us. I heard a whistle of the sort called ‘wolf’. The car stopped beyond us and backed up. Need a ride?’ a voice called out.
‘Yes!’ Margrethe answered, and hurried. Perforce, I did, too.
. It was a station wagon with a woman behind the wheel, a man riding with her. Both were my age or older. He reached back, opened the rear door. ‘Climb in!’
I handed Margrethe in, followed her and closed the door. ‘Got room enough?’ he asked. ‘If not, throw that junk on the floor. We never sit in the back seat, so stuff sort o’ gravitates to it. We’re Clyde and Bessie Bulkey.’
‘He’s Bulkey; I’m just well fed,’ the driver added.
‘You’re supposed to laugh at that; I’ve heard it before.’ He was indeed bulky, the sort of big-boned beefy man who is an athlete in school, then puts on weight later. His wife had correctly described both of them; she was not fat but carried some extra padding.
‘How do you do, Mrs Bulkey, Mr Bulkey. We’re Alec and Margrethe Graham. Thank you for picking us up.’
Don’t be so formal, Alec,’ she answered. ‘How far you going?’
‘Bessie, please keep one eye on the road.’
‘Clyde, if you don’t like the way I’m herding this heap, I’ll pull over and let you drive.’
‘Oh, no, no, you’re doing fine!’
‘Pipe down then, or I invoke rule K. Well, Alec?’
‘We’re going to Kansas.’
‘Coo! We’re not going that far; we turn north at Chambers. That’s just a short piece down the road, About ninety miles. But you’re welcome to that much. What are you going to do in Kansas?’
(What was I going to do in Kansas? Open an ice cream parlor… bring my dear wife back to the fold. Prepare for Judgment Day -) ‘I’m going to wash dishes.’
‘My husband is too modest,’ Margrethe said quietly. ‘We’re going to open a small restaurant and soda fountain in a college town. But on our way to that goal we are likely to wash dishes. Or almost any work.’
So I explained what had happened to us, with variations and omissions to avoid what they wouldn’t believe. ‘The restaurant was wiped out, our Mexican partner were dead, and we lost everything we had. I said “dishwashing” because that is the one job I can almost always find. But I’ll take a swing at ‘most anything.’
Clyde said, ‘Alec, with that attitude you’ll be back on, your feet before you know it.’
‘We lost some money, that’s all. We’re not too old to start over again.’ (Dear Lord, will You hold off Judgment Day long enough for me to do it? Thy will be done. Amen.)
Margrethe reached over and squeezed my hand. Llyde noticed it. He had turned around in his seat so that he faced us as well as his wife. ‘You’ll make it,’ he said. ‘With your wife backing you, you’re bound to make it.’
I think so. Thank you. ‘I knew why he was turned to face us: to stare at Margrethe. I wanted to tell him to keep his eyes to himself but, under the circumstances, I could not. Besides that, it was clear that Mr and Mrs Bulkey saw nothing wrong with the way my beloved was dressed; Mrs Bulkey was dressed the same way, only more so. Or less so. Less costume, more bare skin. I must admit, too, that,’ while she was not the immortal beauty Margrethe is, she was quite comely.
At Painted Desert we stopped, got out, and stared at the truly unbelievable natural beauty. I had seen it once before; Margrethe had never seen it and was breathless. Clyde told me that they always stopped, even though they had seen it hundreds of times.
Correction: I had seen it once before in another world. Painted Desert tended to prove what I had strongly suspected: It was not Mother Earth that changed in these wild changes; it was man and his works – and even those only, in part. But the only obvious explanation seemed to lead straight to paranoia. If so, I must not surrender to it; I must take care of Margrethe.
Clyde bought us hot dogs and cold drinks and brushed aside my offer to pay. When we got back into their car, Clyde took the wheel and invited Margrethe to ride up front with him. I was not pleased but could not show it, as Bessie promptly said, ‘Poor Alec! Has to put up with the old bag. Don’t sulk, dear; it’s only twenty-three miles to the turn-off for Chambers . . . or less than twenty-three minutes the way Clyde drives.’
This time Clyde took thirty minutes. But he waited and made sure that we had a ride to Gallup.
We reached Gallup long before dark. Despite $8.80 in our pockets, it seemed time to look for dirty dishes. Gallup has almost as many motels and cabin courts as it ‘has Indians and almost half of these hostelries have restaurants. I checked a baker’s dozen before I found one that needed a dishwasher.
Fourteen days later we were in Oklahoma City. If you think that is slow time, you are correct; it is less than fifty miles a day. But plenty had happened and I was feeling decidedly paranoid – world change after world change and always timed to cause me maximum trouble.
Ever seen a cat play with a mouse? The mouse never has a chance. If he has even the brains the good Lord gives a mouse, he knows that. Nevertheless the mouse keeps on trying… and is hauled back every time.
I was the mouse.
Or we were the mice, for Margrethe was with me… and she was all that kept me going. She didn’t complain and she didn’t quit. So I couldn’t quit.
Example: I had figured out that, while paper money was never any good after a world change, hard money, gold and silver, would somehow be negotiable, as bullion if not coin. So, when I got a chance to lay hands on hard money, I was stingy with it and refused to take paper money in change for hard money.
Smart boy. Alec, you’re a real brain.
So on our third day in Gallup Marga and I took a nap in a room paid for by dishwashing (me) and by cleaning rooms (Margrethe). We didn’t intend to go to sleep; we simply wanted to rest a bit before eating; it had been a long, hard day. We lay down on top of the bedspread.
I was just getting relaxed when I realized that something hard was pressing against my spine. I roused enough to figure out that our hoarded silver dollars had slipped out of my side pocket when I had turned over. So I eased my arm out from under Marga’s head, retrieved the dollars, counted them, added the, loose change, and placed it all on the bedside table a foot from my head, then got horizontal again, slid my arm under Marga’s head and fell right to sleep.
When I woke up it was pitch dark.
I came wide awake. Margrethe was still snoring softly on my arm. I shook her a little. ‘Honey. Wake up.’
‘Mrrf?’
‘It’s late. We may have missed dinner
She came quickly awake. ‘Can you switch on the bed lamp?’ ‘
I fumbled at the bedside table, nearly fell out of bed. ‘Can’t find the pesky thing. It’s dark as the inside of a pile of coal.’ Wait a sec, I’ll get the overhead light.’
I got cautiously off the bed, headed for the door, stumbled over a chair, could not find the door – groped for it, did find it, groped some more and found a light. switch by it. The overhead light came on.
For a long, dismal moment neither of us said anything. Then I said, inanely and unnecessarily, ‘They did it again.’
The room had the characterless anonymity of any cheap motel room anywhere. Nevertheless it was different in details from the room in which we had gone to sleep.
And our hoarded silver dollars were gone.
Everything but the clothes we were wearing was gone knapsack, clean socks, spare underwear, comb, safety razor, everything. I inspected, made certain.
‘Well, Marga, what now?’
‘Whatever you say, sir.’
‘Mmm. I don’t think they’ll know me in the kitchen. But they still might let me wash dishes.’
‘Or they may need a waitress.’
The door had a spring lock and I had no key, so I left it an inch ajar. The door led directly outdoors and looked across a parking court at the office – a corner room with a lighted sign reading OFFICE – all commonplace except that it did not match the appearance of the motel in which we had been working. In that establishment the manager’s office had been in the front end of a central, building, the rest of that central building being the coffee shop.
Yes, we had missed dinner.
And breakfast. This motel did not have a coffee shop.
‘Well, Marga?’
‘Which way is Kansas?’
‘That way… I think. But we have two choices. We can go back into the room, go to bed properly, and sleep until daylight. Or we can get out there on the highway and try to thumb a ride. In the dark.’
‘Alec, I see only one choice. If we go back inside and go to bed, we’ll get up at daylight, some hours hungrier and no better off. Maybe worse off, if they catch us sleeping in a room we didn’t pay for
‘I washed an awful lot of dishes!’
‘Not here, you didn’t. Here they might send for the police.’
We started walking.
That was typical of the persecution we suffered in trying to get to Kansas. Yes, I said ‘persecution’. If
paranoia consists in believing that the world around you is a conspiracy against you, I had become paranoid. But it was either a ‘sane paranoia (if you will pardon the Irishism), or I was suffering from delusions so monumental that I should be locked up and treated.
Maybe so. If so, Margrethe was part of my delusions an answer I could not accept. It could not be folie à deux; Margrethe was sane in any world.
It was the middle of the day before we got anything to eat, and by then I was beginning to see ghosts where a healthy man would see only dust devils. My hat had gone where the woodbine twineth and the New Mexico sun on my head was not helping my state.
A carload of men from a construction site picked us up and took us into Grants, and bought us lunch before they left us there. I may be certifiably insane but I am not stupid; we owe that ride and that meal to the fact that Margrethe in shorts indecently tight, is a sight that attracts the attention of men. That gave me plenty to think about while I enjoyed (and I did enjoy it!) that lunch they bought us. But I kept my ruminations to myself.
After they left us I said, ‘East?’
‘Yes, sir. But first I would like to check the public library. If there is one.’
‘Oh, yes! Surely.’ Earlier, in the world of our friend Steve, the lack of air travel had caused me to suspect that Steve’s world might be the world where Margrethe was born (and therefore the home of ‘Alec Graham’ as well). In Gallup we had checked on this at the public library – I had looked up American history in an encyclopedia while Marga checked on Danish history. It took us each about five minutes to determine that Steve’s world was not the world Marga was born in. I found that Bryan had been elected in 1896 but had died in office, succeeded by his vice president, Arthur Sewall – and that was all I needed to know; I then simply raced through presidents and wars I had never, heard of.
Margrethe had finished her line of investigation with her nose twitching with indignation. Once outside where we didn’t have to whisper I asked her what was troubling her. ‘This isn’t your world, dear; I made sure of that.’
‘It certainly isn’t!’
‘But we didn’t have anything but a negative to go on. There may be many worlds that have no aeronautics of any sort.’
‘I’m glad this isn’t my world! Alec, in this world Denmark is part of Sweden. Isn’t that terrible?’
Truthfully I did not understand her upset. Both countries are Scandinavian, pretty much alike – or so it seemed to me. ‘I’m sorry, dear. I don’t know much about such things,’ (I had been to Stockholm once, liked the place. It didn’t seem a good time to tell her so.)
‘And that silly book says that Stockholm is the capital and that Carl Sixteenth is king. Alec, he isn’t even royal! And now they tell me he’s my king!’
‘But, sweetheart, he’s not your king. This isn’t even your world.’
‘I know. Alec? If we have to settle here – if the world doesn’t change again – couldn’t I be naturalized?’
‘Why, yes. I suppose so.’
She sighed. ‘I don’t want to be a Swede.’
I kept quiet. There were some things I couldn’t help her with.
So in Grants we again went to a public library lo see what the latest changes had done to the world. Since we had seen no aeroplanos and no dirigibles, again it was possible that we were in Margrethe’s world. This time I looked first under ‘Aeronautics’ – did not find, dirigibles but did find flying machines… invented by Dr Alberto Santos Dumont of Brazil early in this century – and I was bemused by the inventor’s name, as, in my world, he had been a pioneer in dirigibles second only to Count von Zeppelin. Apparently the doctor’s. aerodynes were primitive compared with jet planes, or even aeroplanos; they seemed to be curiosities rather than commercial vehicles. I dropped it and turned to American history, checking first on William, Jennings Bryan.
I couldn’t, find him at all. Well, I had known that this was not my world.
But Marga was all smiles, could hardly wait to get outside the no-talking area to tell me about it. ‘In this world Scandinavia is all one big country… and Kobenhavn is its capital!’
‘Well, good!’
‘Queen Margrethe’s son Prince Frederik was crowned King Eric Gustav – no doubt to please the outlanders. But he is true Danish royalty and a Dane right down to his skull bone. This is as it should be!’
I tried to show her, that I was happy, too. Without a cent between us, with no idea where we would sleep that night, she was delighted as a child at Christmas… over an event that I could not see mattered at all.
Two short rides got us into Albuquerque and I decided that it was prudent to stay there a bit – it’s a big place even if we had to throw ourselves On Salvation Army charity. But I quickly found a job as a dishwasher in the Coffee shop of the local Holiday Inn and Margrethe went to work as a waitress in the same shop.
We had been working there less than two hours when she came back to the scullery and slid something into my hip pocket while I was bent over a sink. ‘A present for you, dear!’
I turned around. ‘Hi, Gorgeous.’ I checked my pocket – a safety razor of the travel sort – handle unscrews, and razor and handle’ and blades, all fit into a waterproof case smaller than a pocket Testament, and intended to be carried in a pocket. ‘Steal it?’
‘Not quite. Tips. Got it at the lobby notions stand. Dear, at your first break I want you to shave.’
‘Let me clue you, doll. You get hired for your looks. I get hired for my strong back, weak mind, and docile–disposition. They don’t care how I look.’
‘But I do.’
‘Your slightest wish is my command. Now get out of here; you’re slowing up production.’
That night Margrethe explained why she had bought me a razor ahead of anything else. ‘Dear, it’s not just because I like your face smooth and your hair short – although I do! These Loki tricks have kept on and each time, we have to find work at once just to eat. You say that nobody cares how a dishwasher looks… but I say looking clean and neat helps in getting hired for any job, and can’t possibly hurt.
‘But there is another reason. As a result of these changes, you’ve had to let your whiskers grow once, twice – I can count five times, once for over three days. Dearest, when you are freshly shaved, you stand tall and look happy. And that makes me happy.’
Margrethe made for me a sort of money belt – actually a cloth pocket and a piece of cloth tape – which she wanted me to wear in bed. ‘Dear, we’ve lost anything we didn’t have on us whenever a shift took place. I want you to put your razor and our hard money into this when you undress for bed.’
‘I don’t think we can outwit Satan that easily.’
‘Maybe not. We can try. We come through each change with the clothes we are wearing at the time and with whatever we have in our pockets. This seems to fit the rules.’
‘Chaos does not have rules.’
‘Perhaps this is not chaos. Alec, if you won’t wear this to bed, do you mind if I do?’
‘Oh, I’ll wear it. It won’t stop Satan if he really wants to take it away from us. Nor does it really worry me. Once he dumped us mother naked into the Pacific and we pulled out of it – remember? What does worry me is – Marga, have you noticed that every time we have gone through a change we’ve been holding each other? At least holding hands?’
‘I’ve noticed.’
‘Change happens in the blink of an eye. What happens if we’re not together, holding each other? At least touching? Tell me.’
She kept quiet so long that I knew she did not intend to answer.
I ‘Uh huh,’ I said. ‘Me, too. But we can’t be Siamese twins, touching all the time. We have to work. My darling, my life, Satan or Loki or whatever bad spirit is doing this to us, can separate us forever simply by picking any instant when we are not touching.’
‘Alec.’
‘Yes, my love?’
‘Loki has been able to do this to us at any moment for a long time. It has not happened.’
‘So it may happen the next second.’.
‘Yes. But it may not happen at all.’
We moved on, and suffered more changes. Margrethe’s precaution’s did seem to work – although in one change they seemed to work almost too well; I barely missed a jail sentence for unlawful possession of silver coins. But a quick change (the quickest we had seen) got rid of the charge, the evidence, and the complaining witness. We found ourselves in a strange courtroom and were quickly evicted for lacking tickets entitling us to remain there.
But the razor stayed with me; no cop or sheriff or marshal seemed to want to confiscate that.
We were moving on by our usual method (my thumb and Margrethe’s lovely legs; I had long since admitted to myself that I might as well enjoy the inevitable) and had been dropped in a pretty part of – Texas, it must have been – by a trucker who had turned north off 66 on ‘a side road.
We had come out of the desert into low green hills. It was a beautiful day but we were tired, hungry, sweaty, and dirty, for our persecutors – Satan or whoever – had outdone themselves: three changes in thirty-six hours.
In one day I had had two dishwashing jobs in the same town at the same address… and had collected nothing. It is difficult to collect from The Lonesome Cowboy Steak House when it turns into Vivian’s Grill in front of your eyes. The same was true three hours later when Vivian’s Grill melted into a used-car lot. The only thing good about these shocks was that by great good fortune (or conspiracy?) Margrethe was with me each time – in one case she had come to get me and was waiting with me while my boss was figuring my time, in the other she had been working with me.
The third change did us out of a night’s lodging that had already been, paid for in kind by Margrethe’s labor.
So when that trucker dropped us, we were tired and hungry and dirty and my paranoia had reached a new high.
We had been walking a few hundred yards when we came to a sweet little stream, a, sight in Texas precious beyond all else.
We stopped on the culvert bridging it. ‘Margrethe, how would you like to wade in that?’
‘Darling, I’m going to do more than wade in it, I’m going to bathe in it.’
‘Hmm – Yes, go under the fence, along the stream about fifty, seventy-five yards, and I don’t think anyone could see us from the road.’
‘Sweetheart, they can line up and cheer if they want to; I’m going to have a bath. And – That water looks clean. Would it be safe to drink?’
‘The upstream side? Certainly. We’ve taken worse chances every day since the iceberg. Now if we had something to eat – Say, your hot fudge sundae. Or would you prefer scrambled eggs?’ I held up the lower wire of the fence to let her crawl under. I
‘Will you settle for an Oh Henry bar?’
‘Make that a Milky Way,’ I answered, ‘if I have my druthers.’
‘I’m afraid you don’t, dear. An Oh Henry bar is all there is.’ She held the wire for me.
‘Maybe we’d better stop talking about food we don’t have,’ I said, and crawled under – straightened up and added, ‘I’m ready to eat raw skunk.’
‘Food we do have, dear man. I have an Oh Henry in my tote.’
I stopped abruptly. ‘Woman, if you’re joking, I’m going to beat you.’
‘I’m not joking.’
‘In Texas it is legal to correct a wife with a stick not ,thicker than one’s thumb.’ I held up my thumb. ‘Do you see one about this size?’
‘I’ll find one.’
‘Where did you get a candy bar?’
‘That roadside stop where Mr Facelli treated us to coffee and doughnuts.’ I
Mr Facelli had been our middle-of-the-night ride just before the truck that had dropped us. Two small cake doughnuts each and the sugar and cream for coffee had been our only calories for twenty-four hours.
‘The beating can wait. Woman, if you stole it, tell me about it later. You really do have a real live Oh Henry? Or am I getting feverish?’
‘Alec, do you think I would steal a candy bar? I bought it from a coin machine while you and Mr Facelli were in the men’s room after we ate.’
‘How? We don’t have any money. Not from this world.’
‘Yes, Alec. But there was a dime in my tote, from two changes back. Of course it was not a good dime, strictly speaking. But I couldn’t see any real harm if the machine would take it. And it did. But I put it out of sight before you two got back… because I didn’t have three dimes and could not offer a candy bar to Mr Facelli.’ She added anxiously, ‘Do you think I cheated? Using that dime?’
‘It’s a technicality I won’t go into… as long as I get to share in the proceeds of the crime. And that makes me equally guilty. Uh… eat first, or bathe first?’
We ate first, a picnic banquet washed down by delicious creek water. Then we bathed, with much splashing and laughing – I remember it as one of the happiest times of my life. Margrethe had soap in her tote bag, too, and I supplied the towel, my shirt. First I wiped Margrethe with it, then I wiped me with it. The dry, warm air finished the job.
What happened immediately after was inevitable. I had never in my life made love outdoors, much less in bright daylight. If anyone had asked me, I would have said that for me it would be a psychological impossibility; I would be too inhibited, too aware of the indecency involved.
I am amazed and happy to say that, while keenly aware of the circumstances, I was untroubled at the time and quite able… perhaps because of Margrethe’s bubbling, infectious enthusiasm.
I have never slept naked on grass before, either. I think we slept about an hour.
When we woke up, Margrethe insisted on shaving me. I could not shave myself very well as I had no mirror, but she could and did, with her usual efficiency. We stood knee-deep in the water; I worked up soapsuds with my hands and slathered my face. She shaved and I renewed the lather as needed.
‘There,’ she said at last, and gave me a sign-off kiss, ‘you’ll do. Rinse off now and don’t forget your ears. I’ll find the towel. Your shirt.’ She climbed onto the bank while I leaned far over and splashed water on my face.
‘Alec -‘
‘I can’t hear you; the water’s running.’
‘Please, dear!’
I straightened up, wiped the water out of my eyes, looked around.
Everything we owned was gone, everything but my razor.
Chapter 17
Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.
Job 23:8-10
MARGRETHE SAID, ‘What did you do with the soap?’
I took a deep breath, sighed it out. ‘Did I hear you correctly? You’re asking what I did with the soap?’
‘What would you rather I said?’
‘Uh – I don’t know. But not that. A miracle takes place… and you ask me about a bar of soap.’
‘Alec, a miracle that takes place again and again and again is no longer a miracle; it’s just a nuisance. Too many, too much. I want to scream or break into tears. So I asked about the soap.’
I had been halfway to hysteria myself when Margrethe’s statement hit me like a dash of cold water. Margrethe? She who took icebergs and earthquakes in her stride, she who never whimpered in adversity… she wanted to scream?
‘I’m sorry, dear. I had the soap in my hands when you were shaving me. I did not have it in my hands when I rinsed my face. I suppose I laid it on the bank. But I don’t recall. Does it matter?’
‘Not really, I suppose. Although that cake of Camay, used just once, would be half our worldly goods if I could find it, this razor being the other half. You may have placed it on the bank, but I don’t see it.’
‘Then it’s gone. Marga, we’ve got urgent things to worry about before we’ll be dirty enough to need soap again. Food, Clothing, shelter.’ I scrambled up onto the bank. ‘Shoes. We don’t even have shoes. What do we do now? I’m stumped. If I had a wailing wall, I’d wail.’
‘Steady, dear, steady.’
‘Is it all right if I just whimper a little?’
She came close, put her arms around me, and kissed me. ‘Whimper all you want to, dear, whimper for both of us. Then let’s decide what to do.’
I can’t stay depressed with Margrethe’s arms around me. ‘Do you have any ideas? I can’t think of anything but picking our way back to the highway and trying to thumb a ride… which doesn’t appeal to me in the state I’m in. Not even a fig leaf. Do you see a fig tree?’
‘Does Texas have fig trees?’
‘Texas has everything. What do we do now?’
‘We go back to the highway and start walking.’
‘Barefooted? Why not stand still and wave our thumbs? We can’t go far enough barefooted to matter. My feet are tender.’
‘They’ll toughen up. Alec, we must keep moving. For our morale, love. If we give up, we’ll die. I know it.’
Ten minutes later we were moving slowly east on the highway. But it was not the highway we had left. This one was four lanes instead of two, with wide paved shoulders. The fence marking the right of way, instead of three strands of barbed wire, was chain-link steel as high as my head. We would have had a terrible time reaching the highway had it not been for the stream. By going back into the water and holding our breaths, we managed to slither under the fence. This left us sopping wet again (and no towel-shirt) but the warm air corrected that in a few minutes.
There was much more traffic on this highway than there had been on the one we had left, both freight and what seemed to be passenger cars. And it was fast. How fast I could not guess, but it seemed at least twice as fast as any ground transportation I had ever seen. Perhaps as fast as transoceanic dirigibles.
There were big-vehicles that had to be freight movers but looked more like railroad boxcars than they looked like lorries. And even longer than boxcars. But as I stared I figured out that each one was at least three cars, articulated. I figured this out by attempting to count wheels. Sixteen per car? Six more on some sort of locomotive up front, for a total of fifty-four wheels. Was this possible?
These behemoths moved with no sound but the noise of air rushing past them, plus a whoosh of tires against pavement. My dynamics professor would have approved.
In the lane nearest us were smaller vehicles that I assumed to be passenger cars, although I could not ‘see anyone inside. Where one would expect windows appeared to be mirrors or burnished steel. They were long and low and as sleekly shaped as an airship.
And now I saw that this was not one highway, but two. All the traffic on the pavement nearest us was going east; at least a hundred yards away another stream of traffic was going west. Still farther away, seen only in glimpses, was a limit fence for the northern side of the widest right of way I have ever seen.
We trudged along on the edge of the shoulder. I began to feel gloomy about the chances of being picked up. Even if they could see us (which seemed uncertain), how could they stop quickly enough to pick up someone on the highway? Nevertheless I waved the hitchhikers’ sign at each car.
I kept my misgivings to myself. After we had been walking a dismal time, a car that had just passed us dropped out of the traffic lane onto the shoulder, stopped at least a quarter of a mile ahead of us, then backed toward us at a speed I would regard as too fast if I were going forward. We got hastily off the shoulder.
It stopped alongside us. A mirrored section a yard wide and at least that high lifted up like a storm-cellar door, and I found myself looking into the passenger compartment. The operator looked out at us and grinned. ‘I don’t believe it!’
I tried to grin back. ‘I don’t believe it myself. But here we are. Will you give us a ride?’
‘Could be.’ He looked Margrethe up and down. ‘My, aren’t you the purty thing! What happened?’
Margrethe answered, ‘Sir, we are lost.’
‘Looks like. But how did you manage to lose your clothes, too? Kidnapped? Or what? Never mind, that can wait. I’m Jerry Farnsworth.’
I answered, ‘We’re Alec and Margrethe Graham.’
‘Good to meet you. Well, you don’t look armed – except for that thing in your hand, Miz Graham. What is it?’
She held it out to him. ‘A razor.’
He accepted it, looked at it, handed it back. ‘Durned if it isn’t. Haven’t seen one like that since I was too young to shave. Well, I don’t see how you can highjack me with that. Climb in. Alec, you can have the back seat; your sister can sit up here with me.’ Another section of the shell swung upward.
‘Thank you,’ I answered, thinking sourly about beggars and choosers. ‘Marga is not my sister, she’s my wife.’
‘Lucky man! Do you object to your wife riding with me?’
‘Oh, of course not!’
I think that answer would cause a tension meter to jingle. Dear, you’d better get back there with your husband.’
‘Sir, you invited me to sit with you and my husband voiced his approval.’ Margrethe slipped into the forward passenger seat. I opened my mouth and closed it, having found I had nothing to say. I climbed into the back seat, discovered that the car was bigger inside than out; the seat was roomy and comfortable. The doors closed down; the ‘mirrors’ now were windows.
‘I’m about to put her back into the flow,’ our host said, ‘so don’t fight the safeties. Sometimes this buggy bucks like a Brahma bull, six gees or better. No, wait a sec. Where are you two going?’ He looked at Margrethe.
‘We’re going to Kansas, Mr Farnsworth.’
‘Call me Jerry, dear. In your skin?’
‘We have no clothing, sir. We lost it.’
I added, ‘Mr Farnsworth – Jerry – we’re in a distressed state. We lost everything. Yes, we are going to Kansas, but first we must find clothes somewhere – Red Cross, maybe, I don’t know. And I’ve got to find a job and make us some money. Then we’ll go to Kansas.’
‘I see. I think I do. Some of it. How are you going to get to Kansas?’
‘I had in mind continuing straight on to Oklahoma City, then north. Stick to the main highways. Since we’re hitchhiking.’
‘Alec, you really are lost. See that fence? Do you know the penalty for a pedestrian caught inside that fence?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Ignorance is bliss. You’ll be much better off on the small side roads where hitching is still legal, or at least tolerated. If you’re for Oke City, I can help you along. Hang on.’ He did something at controls in front of him. He didn’t touch the wheel because there wasn’t any wheel to touch. Instead there were two hand grips.
The car vibrated faintly, then jumped sideways. I felt as if I had fallen into soft mush and my skin tingled as with static electricity. The car bucked like a small boat in a heavy sea, but that ‘soft mush’ kept me from being battered about. Suddenly it quieted down and only that faint vibration continued. The landscape was streaking past.
‘Now,’ said Mr Farnsworth, ‘tell me about it.’
‘Margrethe?’
‘Of course, dearest. You must.’
‘Jerry… we’re from another world.’
‘Oh, no!’ He groaned. ‘Not another flying saucer! That makes four this week. That’s your story?’
‘No, no!’ I’ve never seen a flying saucer. We’re from earth, but… different. We were hitchhiking on Highway Sixty-Six, trying to reach Kansas -‘
‘Wait a minute. You said, “Sixty-Six”.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘That’s what they used to call this road before they re-built it. But it hasn’t been called anything but Interstate Forty for, oh, over forty years, maybe fifty. Hey. Time travelers! Are you?’
‘What year is this?’ I asked.
‘Nineteen-ninety-four.’
‘That’s our year, too. Wednesday the eighteenth of May. Or was this morning. Before the change.’
‘It still is. But – Look, let’s quit jumping around. Start at the beginning, whenever that was, and tell me how you wound up inside the fence, bare naked.’
So I told him.
Presently he said, ‘That fire pit. Didn’t burn you?’
‘One small blister.’
‘Just a blister. I reckon you would be safe in Hell.’
‘Look, Jerry, they really do walk on live coals.’
‘I know, I’ve seen it. In New Guinea. Never hankered to try it. That iceberg – Something bothers me. How does an iceberg crash into the side of a vessel? An iceberg is dead in the water, always. Certainly a ship can bump into one but damage should be to the bow. Right?’
‘Margrethe?’
‘I don’t know, Alec. What Jerry says sounds right. But it did happen.’
‘Jerry, I don’t know either. We were in a forward stateroom; maybe the whole front end was crushed in. But, if Marga doesn’t know, I surely do not, as I got banged on the head and went out like a light. Marga kept me afloat – I told you.’
I Farnsworth looked thoughtfully at me. He had swiveled his seat around to face both of us while I talked, and he had showed Margrethe how to unlock her chair so that it would turn, also, which brought us three into an intimate circle of conversation, knees almost touching – and left him with his back to the traffic. ‘Alec, what became of this Hergensheimer?’
‘Maybe I didn’t make that clear – it’s not too clear to me, either. It’s Graham who is missing. I am Hergensheimer.
When I walked through the fire and found myself in a different world, I found myself in Graham’s place, as I said. Everybody called me Graham and seemed to think that I was Graham – and Graham was missing. I guess you could say I took the easy way out… but there I was, thousands of miles from home, no money, no ticket, and nobody had ever heard of Alexander Hergensheimer.’ I shrugged and spread my hands helplessly. ‘I sinned. I wore
his clothes, I ate at his table, I answered to his name.’
‘I still don’t get the skinny of this. Maybe you look enough like, Graham to fool almost anyone… but your wife would know the difference. Margie?’
Margrethe looked into my eyes with sadness and love, and answered steadily, ‘Jerry, my husband is confused. A strange amnesia. He is Alec Graham. There is no Alexander Hergensheimer. There never was.’
I was left speechless. True, Margrethe and I had not discussed this matter for many weeks; true, she had never flatly admitted that I was not Alec Graham. I was learning again (again and again!) that one never won an argument with Margrethe. Any time I thought I had won, it always turned out that- she had simply shut up.
Farnsworth said to me, ‘Maybe that knock in the head, Alec?’
‘Look, that knock in the head was nothing – a few minutes’ unconsciousness, nothing more. And no gaps in my memory. Anyhow it happened two weeks after the fire walk. Jerry, my wife is a wonderful woman… but I must disagree with her on this. She wants to believe that I am Alec Graham because she fell in love with Graham before she ever met me. She believes it because she needs to believe it. But of course I know who I am: Hergensheimer. I admit that amnesia can have some funny effects… but there was one clue that I could not have faked, one that said emphatically that I, Alexander Hergensheimer, was not Alec Graham.’
I slapped my stomach, where a bay window had been. ‘Here is the proof: I wore Graham’s clothes, I told you. But his clothes did not fit me perfectly. At the time of the fire walk I was rather plump, too heavy, carrying a lot of flab right here.’ I slapped my stomach again. ‘Graham’s clothes were too tight around the middle for me. I had to suck in hard and hold my breath to fasten the waistband on any pair of his trousers. That could not happen in the blink of an eye, while walking through a fire pit. Nor did it. Two weeks of rich food in a cruise ship gave me that bay window… and it proves that I am not Alec Graham.’
Margrethe not only kept quiet, her expression said nothing. But Farnsworth insisted. ‘Margie?’
‘Alec, you were having exactly that trouble with your clothes before the fire walk. For the same reason. Too much rich food.’ She smiled. ‘I’m sorry to contradict you, my beloved… but I’m awfully glad you’re you.’
Jerry said, ‘Alec, many is the man who would walk through fire to get a woman to look at him that way just once. When you get to Kansas, you had better go to see the Menningers; you’ve got to get that amnesia untangled. Nobody can fool a woman about her husband. When she’s lived with him, slept with him, given him enemas and listened to his jokes, a substitution is impossible no matter how much the ringer may look like him. Even an identical twin could not do it. There are all those little things a wife knows and the public never sees.’
I said, ‘Marga, it’s up to you.’
She answered, ‘Jerry, my husband is saying that I must refute that – in part – myself. At that time I did not know Alec as well as a wife knows her husband. I was not his wife then; I was his lover – and I had been such only a few days.’ She smiled. ‘But you’re right in essence; I recognized him.’
Farnsworth frowned. ‘I’m getting mixed up again. We’re talking about either one man or two. This
Alexander Hergensheimer – Alec, tell me about him.’
‘I’m a Protestant, preacher, Jerry, ordained in the Brothers of the Apocalypse Christian Church of the One Truth – the Apocalypse Brethren as you hear us referred to. I was born on my grandfather’s farm outside Wichita on May twenty-second -‘
‘Hey, you’ve got, a birthday this week!’ Jerry remarked. Marga looked alert.
‘So I have. I’ve been too busy to think about it. – in nineteen-sixty. My parents and grandparents are dead; my oldest brother is still working the family farm -‘
‘That’s why you’re going to Kansas? -To find your brother?’
‘No. That farm is in another world, the one I grew up in.’
‘Then why are you going to Kansas?’
I was slow in answering. ‘I don’t have a logical answer. Perhaps it’s the homing instinct. Or it may be something like horses running back into a burning barn. I don’t know, Jerry. But I have to go back and try to find my roots.’
‘That’s a reason I can understand. Go on.’
I told him about my schooling, not hiding the fact that I had failed to make it in engineering – my switch to the seminary and my ordination on graduation, then my association with C.U.D. I did not mention Abigail, I did not mention that I hadn’t been too successful as a parson largely (in my private opinion) because Abigail did not like people and my parishioners did not like Abigail. Impossible to put all details into a short biography – but the fact is that I could not mention Abigail at all without throwing doubt on the legitimacy of Margrethe’s status and this I could not do.
‘That’s about it. If we were in my native world, you could phone C.U.D. national headquarters in Kansas
City, ‘Kansas, and check on me. We had had a successful year and I was on vacation. I took a dirigible, the Count von Zeppelin of North American Airlines, from Kansas City airport to San Francisco, to Hilo, to Tahiti, and there I joined the Motor Vessel Konge Knut and that about brings us up to date, as I’ve told you the rest.’
‘You sound kosher, you talk a good game – are you born again?’
‘Certainly! I’m afraid I’m not in a state of grace now… but I’m working on it. We’re in the Last Days, brother; it’s urgent. Are you born again?’
“Discuss it later. What’s the second law of thermodynamics?’
I made a wry face. ‘Entropy always increases. That’s the one that tripped me.’
‘Now tell me about Alec Graham.’
‘Not much I can tell. His passport showed that he was born in Texas, and he gave a law firm in Dallas as an address. For the rest you had better ask Margrethe; she knew him, I didn’t.’ (I did not mention an embarrassing million dollars. I could not explain it, so I left it out… and Marga had only my word for it; she had never seen it.)
‘Margie? Can you fill us in on Alec Graham?’
She was slow in answering. ‘I’m afraid I can’t add anything to what my husband has told you.’
‘Hey! You’re letting me down. Your husband gave a detailed description of Dr Jekyll; can’t you describe Mr Hyde? So far, he’s a zero. A mail drop in Dallas, nothing more.
‘Mr Farnsworth, I’m sure you’ve never been a shipboard stewardess -‘
‘Nope, I haven’t. But I was room steward in a cargo liner – two trips when I was a kid.’
‘Then you’ll understand. A stewardess knows many things about her passengers. She knows how often they bathe. She knows, how often they change their clothes. She knows how they smell – and everyone does smell, some good, some bad. She knows what sort of books they read – or don’t read. Most of all she knows whether or not they are truly gentlefolk, honest, generous, considerate, warmhearted. She knows everything one could need to know to judge a person. Yet she may not know a passenger’s occupation, home town, schooling, or any of those details that a friend would know.
‘Before the day of the fire walk I had been Alec Graham’s stewardess for four weeks. For the last two of those weeks I was his mistress and was ecstatically in love with him. After the fire walk it was many days before his amnesia let us resume our happy relationship – and then it did, and I was happy again. And now I have been his wife for four months – months of some adversity but the happiest time of my whole life. And it still is and I think it always will be. And that is all I know about my husband Alec Graham.’ She smiled at me and her eyes were brimming with tears, and I found that mine were, too.
Jerry sighed and shook his head. ‘This calls for a Solomon. Which I am not. I believe both your stories – and one of them can’t be correct. Never mind. My wife and I practice Muslim hospitality, something I learned in the late war. Will you accept our hospitality for a night or two? You had better say yes.’
Marga glanced at me; I said, ‘Yes!’
‘Good. Now to see if the boss is at home.’ He swiveled around to face forward, touched something. A few moments later a light came on and something went beep! once. His face lighted up and he spoke: ‘Duchess, this is your favorite husband.’
‘Oh, Ronny, it’s been so long.’
‘No, no. Try again.’
‘Albert? Tony? George, Andy, Jim -‘
‘Once more and get it right; I have company with me.’
‘Yes, Jerry?’
‘Company for dinner and overnight and possibly more.’
‘Yes, my love. How many and what sexes and when will you be home?’
‘Let me ask Hubert.’ Again he touched something. ‘Hubert says twenty-seven minutes. Two guests. The one seated by me is about twenty-three, give or take a bit, blonde, long, wavy hair, dark blue eyes, height about five seven, mass about one twenty, other basics I have not checked but about those of our daughter. Female. I am certain she is female as she is not wearing so much as a G-string.’
‘Yes, dear. I’ll scratch her eyes out. After I’ve fed her, of course.’
‘Good. But she’s no menace as her husband is with her and is watching her closely. Did I say that he is naked, too?’
You did not. Interesting.’
‘Do you want his basic statistic? If so, do you want it relaxed or at attention?’
‘My love, you are a dirty old man, I am happy to say. Quit trying to embarrass your guests.’
‘There is madness in my method, Duchess. They are naked because they have no clothes at all. Yet I suspect that they do embarrass easily. So please meet us at the gate with clothing. You have her statistics, except – Margie, hand me a foot. ‘Marga promptly put a foot up high, without comment. He felt it. ‘A pair of your sandals will fit, I think. Zapatos for him. Of mine.’
‘His other sizes? Never mind the jokes.’
‘He’s about my height and shoulders, but I am twenty pounds heavier, at least. So something from my skinny rack. If Sybil has a houseful of her junior barbarians, please use extreme prejudice to keep them away from the gate. These are gentle people; we’ll introduce them after they have a chance to dress.’
‘Roger Wilco, Sergeant Bilko. But it is time that you introduced them to me.
‘Mea culpa. My love, this is Margrethe Graham, Mrs Alec Graham.’
‘Hello, – Margrethe, welcome to our home.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Farnsworth
‘Katherine, dear. Or Kate.’
‘ “Katherine.” I can5t tell you how much you are doing for us… when we were so miserable!’ My darling started to cry.
She stopped it abruptly. ‘And this is my husband, Alec Graham.’
‘Howdy, Mrs Farnsworth. And thank you.’
‘Alec, you bring that girl straight here. I want to welcome her. Both of you.’
Jerry cut in. ‘Hubert says twenty-two minutes, Duchess.’
‘Hasta la vista. Sign off and let me get busy.’
‘End.’ Jerry turned his seat around. ‘Kate will find you a pretty to wear, Margie… although in your case there ought to be a law. Say, are you cold? I’ve been yacking so much I didn’t think of it. I keep this buggy cool enough for me, in clothes. But Hubert can change it to suit.’
‘I am a Viking, Jerry; I never get cold. Most rooms are too warm to suit me.’
‘How about you, Alec?’
‘I’m warm enough,’ I answered, fibbing only a little.
‘I believe -‘ Jerry started to say –
as the heavens opened with the most brilliant light imaginable, outshining day, and I was gripped by sudden grief, knowing that I failed to lead my beloved back to grace.
Chapter 18
Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
Job 1:9
Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
Job 11:7
I WAITED for the Shout.
My feelings were mixed. Did I want the Rapture? Was I ready to be snatched up into the loving arms of Jesus? Yes, dear Lord. Yes! Without Margrethe? No, no! Then you choose to be cast down into the Pit? Yes – no, but Make up your mind!
Mr Farnsworth looked up. ‘See that baby go!’
I looked up through the roof of the car. There was a second sun directly overhead. It seemed to shrink and lose brilliance as I watched it.
Our host went on, ‘Right on time! Yesterday we had a hold, missed the window, and had to reslot. When you’re sitting on the pad, and single-H is boiling away, even a hold for one orbit can kill your profit margin. And yesterday wasn’t even a glitch; it was a totally worthless re-check ordered by a Nasa fatbottom. Figures.’
He seemed to be talking English.
Margrethe said breathlessly, ‘Mr Farnsworth – Jerry what was it?’
‘Eh? Never seen a lift-off before?’
‘I don’t know what a lift-off is.’
‘Mm… yes. Margie, the fact that you and Alec are from another world – or worlds – hasn’t really soaked through My skull yet. Your world doesn’t have space travel?’
‘I’m not sure what you mean but I don’t think we do.’
I was fairly sure what he meant so I interrupted. ‘Jerry, you’re talking about flying to the moon, aren’t you? Like Jules Verne.’
‘Yes. Close enough.’
‘That was an ethership? Going to the moon? Golly Moses!’ The profanity just slipped out.
‘Slow down. That was not an ethership, it was an, unmanned freight rocket. It is not going to Luna; it is going only as far as Leo – low Earth orbit. Then it comes back, ditches off Galveston, is ferried back to North Texas Port, where it will lift again sometime next week. But some of its cargo will go on to Luna City or Tycho Under – and some may go as far as the Asteroids. Clear?’
‘Uh… not quite.’
‘Well, in Kennedy’s second term -‘
‘Who?’
‘John F. Kennedy. President. Sixty-one to sixty-nine.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m going to have to relearn history again. Jerry, the most confusing thing about being bounced around among worlds is not new technology, such as television or jet planes – or even space-travel ships. It is different history.’
‘Well – When we get home, I’ll find you an American history, and a history of space travel. A lot of them around the house; I’m in space up to my armpits – started with. model rockets as a kid. Now, besides Diana Freight Lines, I’ve got a piece of Jacob’s Ladder and the Beanstalk, both – just a tax loss at present but -‘
I think he caught sight of my face. ‘Sorry. You skim through the books I’ll dig out for you, then we’ll talk.’
Farnsworth looked back at his controls, punched something, blinked at it, punched again, and, said, ‘Hubert says that we’ll have the sound in three minutes twenty-one seconds.’
When the sound did arrive, I was disappointed. I had expected a thunderclap to match that incredible light. Instead it was a rumble that went on and on, then faded away without a distinct end.
A few minutes later the car left the highway, swung right in a large circle and went under the highway through a tunnel and came out on a smaller highway. We stayed on this highway (83, I noted) about five minutes, then there was a repeated beeping sound and a flash of lights. ‘I hear you,’ Mr Farnsworth said. ‘Just hold your horses.’ He swung his chair around and faced forward, grasped the two hand grips.
The next several minutes were interesting. I was reminded of something the Sage of Hannibal said: ‘If it warn’t for the honor, I’d druther uv walked.’ Mr Farnsworth seemed to regard any collision avoided by a measurable distance as less than sporting. Again and again that ‘soft mush’ saved us from bruises if not broken bones. Once that signal from the machinery went Bee-bee-beebeep! at him; he growled in answer: ‘Pipe down! You mind your business; I’ll mind mine,’ and subjected us to another near miss.
We turned off onto a narrow road, private I concluded, as there was an arch over the entrance reading FARNSWORTH’S FOLLY. We went up a grade. At the top, lost among trees, was a high gate that snapped out of the way as we approached it.
There we met Katie Farnsworth.
If you have read this far in this memoir, you know that I am in love with my wife. That is a basic, like the speed of light, like the love of God the Father. Know ye now that I learned that I could love another person, a woman, without detracting from my love for Margrethe, without wishing to take her from her lawful mate, without lusting to possess her. Or at least not much.
In meeting her I learned that five feet two inches is the perfect height for a woman, that forty is the perfect age, and that a hundred and ten pounds is the correct weight, just as for a woman’s voice contralto is the right register. That my own beloved darling is none of these is irrelevant; Katie Farnsworth makes them perfect for her by being herself content with what she is.
But she startled me first by the most graceful gesture of warm hospitality I have ever encountered.
She knew from her husband that we were utterly without clothes; she knew also from him that he felt that we were embarrassed by our state. So she had fetched clothing for each of us.
And she herself was naked.
No, that’s not right; I was naked, she was unclothed. That’s not quite right, either. Nude? Bare? Stripped? Undressed? No, she was dressed in her own beauty, like Mother Eve before the Fall. She made it seem so utterly appropriate that I wonder how I had ever acquired the delusion that freedom from clothing equals obscenity.
Those clamshell doors lifted; I got out and handed Margrethe out. Mrs Farnsworth dropped what she was carrying, put her arms around Margrethe and kissed her. ‘Margrethe! Welcome, dear.’
My darling hugged her back and sniffled again.
Then she offered me her hand. ‘Welcome to you, too, Mr Graham. Alec.’ I took her hand, did not shake it. Instead I handled it like rare china and bowed over it. I felt that I should kiss it but I had never learned how.
For Margrethe she had a summer dress the shade of Marga’s eyes. Its styling suggested the Arcadia of myth; one could imagine a wood nymph wearing it. It hung on the left shoulder, was open all the way down on the right but wrapped around with generous overlap. Both sides of this simple garment ended in a long sash ribbon; the end that went under passed through a slot, which permitted both ends to go all the way around Marga’s waist, then to tie at her right side.
It occurred to me that this was a fit-anyone dress. It would be tight or loose on any figure depending on how it was tied.
Katie had sandals for Marga in blue to match her dress.
For me she had Mexican sandals, zapatos, of lhe cutleather openwork sort that are almost as fit-anyone as that dress, simply by how they are tied. She offered me trousers and shirt that were superficially equivalent to those I had bought in Winslow at the SECOND WIND – but these were tailormade of summer-weight wool rather than mass-produced from cheap cotton. She also had for me socks that fitted themselves to my feet and knit shorts that seemed to be my size.
When she had dressed us, there was still clothing on the grass -hers. I then realized that she had walked to the gate dressed, stripped down there, and waited for us ‘dressed’ as we were.
That’s politeness.
Dressed, we all got into the car. Mr Farnsworth waited a moment before starting up his driveway. ‘Katie, our guests are Christians.’
Mrs Farnsworth seemed delighted. ‘Oh, how very interesting!’
‘So I thought. Alec? Verb. sap. Not many Christians in these parts. Feel free to speak your mind in front of Katie and me… but when anyone else is around, you may be more comfortable not discussing your beliefs. Understand me?’
‘Uh… I’m afraid I don’t.’ My head was in a whirl and I felt a ringing in my ears.
‘Well… being a Christian isn’t against the law here; Texas has freedom of religion. Nevertheless Christians aren’t at all popular and Christian worship is mostly underground. Uh, if you want to get in touch with your own people, I suppose we could manage to locate a catacomb. Kate?’
‘Oh, I’m sure we could find someone who knows. I can put out some feelers.’
‘If Alec says to, dear. Alec, you’re in no danger of being stoned; this country isn’t some ignorant redneck
backwoods. Or not much danger. But I don’t want you to be discriminated against or insulted.’
Katie Farnsworth said, ‘Sybil.’
‘Oh, oh! Yes. Alec our daughter is a good girl and as civilized as one can expect in a teenager. But she is an apprentice witch, a recent convert to the Old Religion and, being, both a convert and a teenager, dead serious about it. Sybil would not be rude to a guest – Katie brought her up properly. Besides, she knows I would skin her alive. But it would be a favor to me if you will avoid placing too much strain on her. As I’m sure you know, every teenager is a time bomb waiting to go off.’
Margrethe answered for me: ‘We will be most careful. This “Old Religion” – is this the worship of Odin?’
I felt a chill… when I was already discombobulated beyond my capacity. But our host answered, ‘No. Or at least I don’t think so. You could ask Sybil. If you are willing to risk having your ear talked off; she’ll try to convert you. Very intense.’
Katie Farnsworth added, ‘I have never heard Sybil mention Odin. Mostly she speaks just of “the Goddess”. Don’t Druids worship Odin? Truly I don’t know. I’m afraid Sybil considers us so hopelessly old-fashioned that she doesn’t bother to discuss theology with us.’
‘And let’s not discuss it now,’ Jerry added, and started us up the drive.
The Farnsworth mansion was long, low, and rambling, with a flavor of lazy opulence. Jerry swung us under a porte-cochère; we all got out. He slapped the top of his car as one might slap the neck of a horse. It moved away and turned the corner of the house as we went inside.
I’m not going to say much about their house as, while it was beautiful and Texas lavish, it would not necessarily appear any one way long enough to justify describing it; most of what we saw Jerry called ‘hollow grams’. How can I describe them? Frozen dreams? Three-dimensional, pictures? Let me put it this way: Chairs were solid. So were table tops. Anything else in that house, better touch it cautiously and find out, as it might be as beautifully there as a rainbow… and just as insubstantial.
I don’t know how these ghosts were produced. I think it is possible that the laws of physics in that world
were somewhat different from those of the Kansas of my youth.
Katie led us into what Jerry called their ‘family room’ and Jerry stopped abruptly. ‘Bloody Hindu whorehouse!’
It was a very large room with ceilings that seemed impossibly high for a one-storey ranch house. Every wall, arch, alcove, soffit, and beam was covered with sculptured figures. But such figures! I found myself blushing. These figures had apparently been copied from that notorious temple cavern in southern India, the one that depicts every possible vice of venery in obscene and blatant detail.
Katie said, ‘Sorry, dear! The youngsters were dancing in here.’ She hurried to the left, melted into one sculpture group and disappeared. ‘What will you have, Gerald?’
‘Uh, Remington number two.’
‘Right away.’
Suddenly the obscene figures disappeared, the ceiling lowered abruptly and changed to a
beam-and-plaster construction, one wall became a picture window looking out at mountains that belonged in Utah (not Texas), the wall opposite it now carried a massive stone fireplace with a goodly fire crackling in it, the furniture changed to the style sometimes called ‘mission’ and the floor changed to flagstones covered with Amerindian rugs.
‘That’s better. Thank you, Katherine. Sit down, friends – pick a spot and squat.’
I sat down, avoiding what was obviously the ‘papa’ chair – massive and leather upholstered. Katie and Marga took a couch together. Jerry satin that papa chair. ‘My love, what will you drink?’
‘Campari and soda, please.’
‘Sissy. And you, Margie?’
‘Campari and soda would suit me, too.’
‘Two sissies. Alec?’
‘I’ll go along with the ladies.’
‘Son, I’ll tolerate that in the weaker sex. But not from a grown man. Try again.’
‘Uh, Scotch and soda.’
‘I’d horsewhip you, if I had a horse. Podnuh, you have just one more chance.’
‘Uh… bourbon and branch?’
‘Saved yourself. Jack Daniel’s with water on the side. Other day, man in Dallas tried to order Irish whisky. Rode him out o’town on a rail. Then they apologized to him. Turned out he was a Yankee and didn’t know any better.’ All this time our host was drumming with his fingertips on a small table at his elbow. He stopped this fretful drumming and, suddenly, at the table by my chair appeared a Texas jigger of brown liquid and a tumbler of water. I found that the others had been served, too. Jerry raised his glass. ‘Save your Confederate money! Salud!’
We drank and he went on, ‘Katherine, do you know where our rapscallion is hiding?’
‘I think they are all in the pool, dear.’
‘So.’ Jerry resumed that nervous drumming. Suddenly there appeared in the air in front of our host, seated on a diving board that jutted out of nowhere, a young female. She was in bright sunlight although the room we were in was in cool shadow. Drops of water sprinkled on her. She faced Jerry, which
placed her back toward me. ‘Hi, Pip-squeak.’
‘Hi, Daddy. Kiss kiss.’
‘In a pig’s eye. When was the last time I spanked you?’
‘My ninth birthday. When I set fire to Aunt Minnie. What did I do now?’
‘By the great golden gawdy greasy gonads of God, what do you mean by leaving that vulgar, bawdy, pornic program running in the family room?’
‘Don’t give me that static, Daddy doll; I’ve seen your books.’
‘Never mind what I have in my private library; answer my question.’
‘I forgot to turn it off, Daddy. I’m sorry.’
‘That’s what the cow said to Mrs Murphy. But the fire burned on. Look, my dear, you know you are free to use the controls to suit yourself. But when you are through, you must put the display back the way you found it. Or, if you don’t know how. you must put it back to zero for the default display.’
‘Yes, Daddy. I just forgot.’
‘Don’t go squirming around like that; I’m not through chewing you out. By the big brass balls of Koshchei, where did you get that program?’
‘At campus. It was an instruction tape in my tantric yoga class.’
‘”Tantric yoga”? Swivel hips, you don’t need such a course. Does your mother know about this?’
Katherine moved in smoothly: ‘I urged her to take it, dear one. Sybil is talented, as we know. But raw talent is not I enough; she needed tutoring.’
‘So? I’ll never argue with your mother on this subject, so I withdraw to a previously prepared position. That tape. How did you come by it? You are familiar with the applicable laws concerning copyrighted material; we both remember the hooraw over that Jefferson Starship tape -‘
‘Daddy, you’re worse than an elephant! Don’t you ever forget anything?’
‘Never, and much worse. You are warned that anything you say may be taken down in writing and held against you at another time and place. How say you?’
‘I demand to see an attorney!’
‘Oh, so you did pirate it!’
‘Don’t you wish I had! So you could gloat. I’m sorry, Daddy, but I paid the catalog fee, in full, in cash, and the campus library service copied it for’ me. So there. Smarty.’
‘Smarty yourself. You wasted your money.’
‘I don’t think so. I like it.’
‘So do I. But you wasted your money. You should have asked me for it.’
‘Huh!’
‘Gotcha! I thought at first you had been picking locks in my study or working a spell on ’em. Pleased to hear that you were merely extravagant. How much?’
‘Uh… forty-nine fifty. That’s at student’s discount.’
‘Sounds fair; I paid sixty-five. All right. But if it shows up on your semester billing, I’ll deduct it from your allowance.
Just one thing, sugar plum – I brought two nice people home, a lady and a gentleman. We walk into the parlor. What had been the parlor. And these two gentlefolk are faced with the entire Kama Sutra, in panting, quivering color. What do you think of that?’
‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘So we’ll forget it. But it is never polite to shock people, especially guests, so let’s be more careful next time. Will you be at dinner?’
‘Yes. If I can be excused early and run, run, run. Date, Daddy.’
‘What time will you be home?’
‘Won’t. All-night gathering. Rehearsal for Midsummer Night. Thirteen covens.’
He sighed. ‘I suppose that I should thank the Three Crones that you are on the pill.’
‘Pill shmill. Don’t be a cube, Daddy; nobody ever gets pregnant at a Sabbat; everybody knows that.’
‘Everybody but me. Well, let us offer thanks that you are willing to have dinner with us.’ Suddenly she shrieked as she fell forward off the board. The picture followed her down.
She splashed, then came up spouting water. ‘Daddy! You pushed me!’
‘How could you say such a thing?’ he answered in self-righteous tones. The living picture suddenly vanished.
Katie Farnsworth said conversationally, ‘Gerald keeps trying to dominate his daughter. Hopelessly, of course. He should take her to bed and discharge his incestuous yearnings. But they are both too prissy for that.’
‘Woman, remind me to beat you.’
‘Yes, dearest. You wouldn’t have to force her. Make your intentions plain and she will burst into tears and surrender. Then both of you will have the best time of your lives. Wouldn’t you say so, Margrethe?’
‘I would say so. ‘
By then I was too numb to be shocked by Margrethe’s words.
‘Dinner was a gourmet’s delight and a social confusion. It was served in the formal dining hall, i.e., that same family room with a different program controlling the hollow grams. The ceiling was higher, the windows were tall, evenly spaced, framed by floor-length drapes, ‘and they looked out on formal gardens.
One piece of furniture wheeled itself in, and was not a hollow gram – or not much so. It was a banquet table that (so far as I know) was – in itself, pantry, stove, icebox – all of a well-equipped kitchen. That’s a conclusion, subject to refutation. All I can say is that I never saw a servant and never saw our hostess do any work. Nevertheless her husband congratulated her on her cooking – as well he might, and so did we.
Jerry did a little work; he carved a roast (prime rib, enough for a troop of hungry Boy Scouts) and he served the plates, serving them at his place. Once a plate was loaded, it went smoothly around to the person for whom it was intended, like a toy train on a track – but there was no train and no track.
Machinery concealed by hollow grams? I suppose so. But that simply covers one mystery with another.
(I learned later that a swank Texas household in that world would have had human servants conspicuously in sight. But Jerry and Katie had simple tastes.)
There were six of us at the table, Jerry at one end, Katie at the other; Margrethe sat on Jerry’s right, his daughter Sybil on his left; I was at the right of my hostess, and at her left was Sybil’s young man, her date. This put him opposite me, and I had Sybil on my right.
The young man’s name was Roderick Lyman Culverson III; he did not manage to catch my name. I have long suspected that the male of our species, in most cases, should be raised in a barrel and fed through the bung-hole. Then, at age eighteen, a solemn decision can be made: whether to take him out of the barrel, or to drive in the bung.
Young Culverson gave me no reason to change my opinion – and I would have voted to drive in the bung.
Early on, Sybil made clear that they were at the same campus. But he seemed to be as much a stranger to the Farnsworths as he was to us. Katie asked, ‘Roderick, are you an apprentice witch, too?’
He looked as if he had sniffed something nasty, but Sybil saved him from having to answer such a crude question. ‘Mothuh! Rod received his athame ages ago.’
‘Sorry I goofed,’ Katie said tranquilly. ‘Is that a diploma you get when you finish your apprenticeship?’
‘It’s a sacred knife, Mama, used in ritual. It can be used to -‘
‘Sybil! There are gentiles present.’ Culverson frowned at Sybil, then glared at me. I thought how well he would look with a black eye but I endeavored to keep my thoughts out of my face.
Jerry said, ‘Then you’re a graduate warlock, Rod?’
Sybil broke in again. ‘Daddy! The correct word is -‘
‘Pipe down, sugar plum! Let him answer for himself. Rod?’
‘That word is used only by the ignorant -‘
‘Hold it! I am uninformed on some subjects, and then I seek information, as I am now doing. But you don’t sit at my table and call me ignorant. Now can you answer me without casting asparagus?’
Culverson’s nostrils spread but he took a grip on himself. ‘”Witch” is the usual term for both male and female adepts in the Craft. “Wizard” is an acceptable term but is not technically exact; it means “sorcerer” or “magician”… but not all magicians are witches and not all witches practice magic. But “warlock” is considered to be offensive as well as incorrect because it is associated with Devil worship – and the Craft is not Devil worship – and the word itself by its derivation means “oath breaker” – and witches do not break oaths. Correction: The Craft forbids the breaking of oaths. A witch who breaks an oath, even to a gentile, is subject to discipline, even expulsion if the oath is that major. So I am not a “graduate warlock”. The correct designation for my present status is “Accepted Craftsman”, that is to say: “witch”.’
‘Well stated! Thank you. I ask forgiveness for using the term “warloc” to you and about you -‘ Jerry waited.
A long moment later Culverson said hastily, ‘Oh, certainly! No offense meant and none taken.’
‘Thank you. To add to your comments about derivations, “witch” drives from “wicca” meaning “wise”, and from “wicce” meaning “woman”… which may account for most witches being female and suggests that our ancestors may have known something that we don’t. In any case “the Craft” is the short way of saying “the Craft of Wisdom”. Correct?’
‘Eh Oh, certainly! Wisdom. That’s what the Old Religion is all about.’
‘Good. Son, listen to me carefully. Wisdom includes not getting angry unnecessarily. The Law ignores trifles and the wise man does, too. Such trifles as a young girl defining an athame among gentiles – knowledge that isn’t all that esoteric anyhow – and an old fool using a word inappropriately. Understand me?’
Again Jerry waited. Then he said very softly, ‘I said, “Do you understand me?” ‘
I Culverson took a deep breath. ‘I understood you. A wise I man ignores trifles.’
‘Good. May I offer you another slice of the roast?’
Culverson kept quiet for some time then. As did I. As did Sybil. Katie and Jerry and Margrethe kept up a flow of’ polite chitchat that ignored the fact that a guest had just been thoroughly and publicly spanked. Presently Sybil said, ‘Daddy, are you and Mama expecting me to attend fire worship Friday?’
‘”Expect” is hardly the word,’ Jerry answered, ‘when you have picked another church of your own. “Hope” would be closer.’
Katie added, ‘Sybil, tonight you feel that your coven is all the church you will ever need. But that could change… and I understand that the Old Religion does not forbid its members to attend other religious services.’
Culverson put In, “That reflects centuries, millennia, of persecution, Mrs Farnsworth. It is still in our laws that each member of a coven must also belong publicly to some socially approved church. But we no longer try too hard to enforce it.’
‘I see,’ agreed Katie. ‘Thank you, Roderick. Sybil, since your new church encourages membership in another church, it might be prudent to attend fairly regularly just to protect your Brownie points. You may need them.’
‘Exactly,’ agreed her father. ‘ “Brownie points.” Ever occur to you, hon, that your pop being a stalwart pillar of the congregation, with a fast checkbook, might have something to do with the fact that he also sells more Cadillacs than any other dealer in Texas?’
‘Daddy, that sounds utterly shameless.’
‘It sure is. It also sells Cadillacs. And don’t call it fire worship; you know it is not. It is not the flame we worship, but what it stands for.’
Sybil twisted her serviette and, for the moment, looked a troubled thirteen instead of the mature woman her body showed her to be. ‘Papa, that’s just it. All my life that flame has meant to me healing, cleansing, life everlasting until I studied the Craft. Its history. Daddy, to a witch… fire means the way they kill us!’
I was shocked almost out of breathing. I think it had not really sunk into me emotionally that these two, obnoxious but commonplace young punk, and pretty and quite delightful young girl… daughter of Katie, daughter of Jerry, our two Good Samaritans without equal – that these two were witches.
Yes, yes, I know: Exodus twenty-two verse eighteen, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ As solemn an injunction as the Ten Commandments, given to Moses directly by God, in the presence of all the children of Israel
What was I doing breaking bread with witches?
Mark me for a coward. I did not stand up and denounce them. I sat tight.
Katie said, ‘Darling, darling! That was clear back in the middle ages! Not today, not now, not here.’
Culverson said, ‘Mrs Farnsworth, every witch knows that the terror can start up again any time. Even a season of bad crops could touch it off. And Salem wasn’t very long ago. Nor very far away.’ He added, ‘There are still Christians around. They would set the fires if they could. Just like Salem.’
This was a great chance to keep my mouth shut. I blurted out, ‘No witch was burned at Salem.’
He looked at me. ‘What do you know about it?’
‘The burnings were in Europe, not here. In Salem witches were hanged, except one who was pressed to death.’ (Fire should never have been used. The Lord God ordered us not to suffer them to live; He did not tell us to put them to death by torture.)
He eyed me again. ‘So? You seem to approve of the hangings.’
‘I never said anything of the sort!’ (Dear God, forgive me!)
Jerry cut in. ‘I rule this subject out of order! There will be no further discussion of it at the table. Sybil, we don’t want you to attend if it upsets you or reminds you of tragic occasions. Speaking of hanging, what shall we do about the backfield of the Dallas Cowboys?’
Two hours later Jerry Farnsworth and I were again seated in that room, this time it being Remington number three: a snow storm against the windows, an occasional cold draft across the floor, and once the howl of a wolf – a roaring fire felt good. He poured coffee for us, and brandy in huge snifters, big enough for goldfish. ‘You hear of noble brandy,’ he said. ‘Napoleon, or Carlos Primero. But this is royal brandy – so royal it has hemophilia.’
I gulped; I did not like the joke. I was still queasy from thinking about witches, dying witches. With a jerk of the heels, or dancing on flames. And all of them with Sybil’s sweet face.
Does the Bible define ‘witch’ somewhere? Could it be that these modern members of the Craft were not at all what Jehovah meant by ‘witch’?
Quit dodging, Alex! Assume that ‘witch’ in Exodus means exactly what ‘witch’ means here in Texas t day. You’re the judge and she has confessed. Can you sentence Katie’s teenager to hang? Will you spring the trap? Don’t dodge it, boy; ‘You’ve been dodging all your life.
Pontius Pilate washed his hands.
I will not sentence a witch to die! So help me, Lord, I can do no other.
Jerry said, ‘Here’s to the success of your venture, yours and Margie’s. Sip it slowly and it will not intoxicate; it will simply quiet your nerves while it sharpens your wits. Alec, tell me now why you expect the end of the world.’
For the next hour I went over the evidence, pointing out that it was not just one prophecy that agreed on the signs, but many: Revelations, Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Paul in writing to the Thessalonians, and again to the Corinthians, Jesus himself in all four of the Gospels, again and again in each.
To my surprise Jerry had a copy of the Book. I picked out passages easy for laymen to understand, wrote down chapter and verse so that he could study them later. One Thessalonians 4:15-17 of course, and the 24th chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, all fifty-one verses of it, and the same prophecies in Saint Luke, chapter twenty-one – and Luke 21:32 with its clue to the confusion many as to ‘this generation’. What Christ actually said was that the generation which sees these signs and portents will live to see His return, hear the Shout, experience Judgment Day. The message is plain if you read all of it; the errors have arisen from picking out bits and pieces and ignoring the rest. The parable of the fig tree explains this.
I also picked out for him, in Isaiah and Daniel and elsewhere, the Old Testament prophecies that parallel the New Testament prophecies.
I handed him this list of prophecies and urged him to study them carefully, and, if he encountered difficulties, simply read more widely. And take it to God. ‘”Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find.”‘
He said, ‘Alec, I can agree with one thing. The news for the past several months has looked to me like. Armageddon. Say tomorrow afternoon. Might as well be the end of the world and Judgment Day, as there won’t be enough left to salvage after this one.’ He looked sad. ‘I used to worry about what kind of a world Sybil would grow up in. Now I wonder if she’ll grow up.’
‘Jerry. Work on it. Find your way to grace. Then lead your wife and daughter. You don’t need me, you don’t need anyone but Jesus. He said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice, I will come in to him.” Revelations three, twenty.’
‘You believe.’
‘I do.’
‘Alec, I wish I could go along with you. It would be comforting, the world being what it is today. But I can’t see proof in the dreams of long-dead prophets; you can read anything into them. Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything. Oh, my church, too – but at least mine is honestly pantheistic. Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything just give him time to rationalize it. Forgive me for being blunt.’
‘Jerry, in religion bluntness is necessary. “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.” That’s Job again, chapter nineteen. He’s your Redeemer, too, Jerry – I pray that you find’ Him.’
‘Not much chance, I’m afraid.’ Jerry stood up.
‘You haven’t found Him yet. Don’t quit. I’ll pray for you.’
‘Thank you, and thanks for trying. How do the shoes feel?’
‘Comfortable, quite.’
‘If you insist on hitting the road tomorrow, you must have shoes that won’t give you bunions between here and Kansas. You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure. And sure that we must leave. If we stayed another day, you’d have us so spoiled we would
never hit the road again.’ (The truth that I could not tell him was that I was so upset by witchcraft and fire worship that I had to leave. But I could not load my weakness onto him.)
‘Let me show you to your bedroom. Quietly, as Margie may be asleep. Unless our ladies have stayed up even later than we have.’
At the bedroom door he put out his hand. ‘If you’re right and I’m wrong, you tell me that it’s possible that even you can slip.’
‘True. I’m not in a state of grace, not now. I’ve got to work on it.’
‘Well, good luck. But if you do slip, look me up in Hell, will you?’
So far as I could tell, Jerry was utterly serious. ‘I don’t know that it is permitted.’
‘Work on it. And so will I. I promise you’ – he grinned -‘some hellacious hospitality. Really warm!’.
I grinned back. ‘It’s a date.’
Again my darling had fallen asleep without undressing. I smiled at her without making a sound, then got beside her and pillowed her head on my shoulder. I would let her wake up slowly, then undress the poor baby and put her to bed. Meanwhile I had a thousand – well, dozens – of thoughts to get untangled.
Presently I noticed that it was getting light. Then I noticed how scratchy and lumpy the bed was. The light increased and I saw that we were sprawled over bales of hay, in a barn.
Chapter 19
And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, 0 mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou has sold thyself to work evil
in the sight of the Lord.
Kings 21:20
WE DID the last ninety miles down 66 from Clinton to Oklahoma City pushing hard, ignoring the fact that we were flat broke again, nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep.
We had seen a dirigible.
Of course this changed, everything. For months I had been nobody from nowhere, penniless, dishwashing my only trade, and a tramp in fact. But back in my own world – A well-paying job, a respected position in the community, a fat bank account. And an end to this truly infernal bouncing around between worlds.
We were riding into Clinton middle of the morning, guests of a farmer taking a load of produce into town. I heard Margrethe gasp. I looked where she was staring I and there she was! – silvery and sleek and beautiful. I could not make out her name, but her logo told me that she was Eastern Airlines.
‘Dallas-Denver Express,’ our host remarked, and hauled a watch out of his overalls. ‘Six minutes late. Unusual.’
I tried to cover my excitement. ‘Does Clinton have an airport?’
‘Oh, no. Oklahoma City, nearest. Goin’ to give up hitchhiking and take to the air?’
‘Would be nice.’
‘Wouldn’t it, though. Beats farmin’.’
I kept the conversation on inanities until he dropped us outside the city market a few minutes later. But, once Margrethe and I were alone, I could hardly contain myself. I started to kiss her, then suddenly stopped myself. Oklahoma is every bit as moral as Kansas; most communities have stiff laws about public Iallygagging.
I wondered how, hard I was going to find it to readjust, after many weeks in many worlds not one of which had the high moral standards of my home world. It could be difficult to stay out of trouble when (admit it!) I had grown used to kissing my wife in public and to other displays, innocent in themselves, but never seen in public in moral communities. Worse, could I keep my darling out of trouble? I had been born here and could slip back into its ways… but Marga was as affectionate as a collie pup and had no sense of shame whatever about showing it.
I said, ‘Sorry, dear, I was about to kiss you. But I must not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Uh, I can’t kiss you in public. Not here. Only in private. It’s – It’s a case of “When in Rome, one must do as the Romans do.” But never mind that now. Darling, we’re home! My home, and now it’s-your home. You saw the dirigible.’
‘That was an airship truly?’
‘Really and truly… and the happiest sight I’ve seen in months. Except – Don’t get your hopes up too high, too fast. We know how some of these shifting worlds strongly resemble each other in many ways. I suppose there is an outside possibility that this is a world with dirigibles… but not my world. Oh, I don’t believe that but let’s not get too excited.’
(I did not notice that Margrethe was not at all excited.)
‘How will you tell that this is your world?’
‘We could check just as we have before, at public libraries. But in this case there is something faster and better. I want to find the Bell Telephone office – I’ll ask at that grocery store.’
I wanted the telephone office rather than a public telephone because I wanted to consult telephone books’ before making telephone calls – was it my world?
Yes, it was! The office had telephone books for all of Oklahoma and also books from major cities in, other states – including a most familiar telephone book for Kansas City, Kansas. ‘See, Margrethe?’ I pointed to the listing for Churches United for Decency, National Office.
‘I see.’
‘Isn’t it exciting? Doesn’t it make you want to dance and sing?’
(She made it sound like: ‘Doesn’t he look natural? And so many, lovely flowers.’)
We had the alcove where the telephone books were to ourselves. So I whispered urgently, ‘What’s the trouble, dear? This is a happy occasion. Don’t you understand? Once I get on that phone we’ll have money. No more menial jobs, no more wondering how we will eat or where we will sleep. We’ll go straight home by Pullman – no, by dirigible! You’ll like that, I know you will! The ultimate in luxury. Our honeymoon, darling -the honeymoon we could never afford.’
:You will not take me to Kansas City.’
What do you mean?’
‘Alec… your wife is there.’
Believe me when I say that I had not thought once about Abigail in many, many weeks. I had become convinced that I would never see her again (regaining my home world was totally unexpected) and I now
had a wife, all the wife any man could ever want: Margrethe.
I wonder if that-first shovelful of dirt hits a corpse with the same shock.
I pulled out of it. Some. ‘Marga, here’s what we’ll do. Yes, I have a problem, but we can solve it. Of course you go to Kansas City with me! You must. But there, because of Abigail, I must find a quiet place for you to stay while I get things straightened out.’ (Straightened out? Abigail was going to scream bloody murder.) ‘First I must get at my money. Then I must see a lawyer.’ (Divorce? In a state where there was only one legal ground and ‘that one granted divorce only to the injured party? Margrethe the other woman? Impossible. Let Margrethe be exposed in stocks? Be ridden out of town on a rail if Abigail demanded it? Never mind what would be done to me, never mind that Abigail would strip me of every cent – Margrethe must not be subjected to the Scarlet Letter laws of my home world. No!)
‘Then we will go to Denmark.’ (No, it can’t be divorce.)
‘We will?’
‘We will. Darling, you are my wife, now and forever. I can’t leave you here while I get things worked out in Kay See; the world might shift and I would lose you. But we can’t go to Denmark until I lay hands on my money. All clear?’ (What if Abigail has cleaned out my bank account?)
‘Yes, Alec. We will go to Kansas City.’
(That settled part of it. But it did not settle Abigail. Never mind, I would burn that bridge when I came to it.)
Thirty seconds later I had more problems. Certainly the girl in charge would place a call for me long distance collect. Kansas City? For Kansas City, either Kansas or Missouri, the fee to open the trunk line for query was twenty-five cents. Deposit it in the coin box, please, when I tell you. Booth two.
I went to the booth and dug into my pocket for coins, laid them out:
A twenty-cent piece;
Two threepenny coppers;
A Canadian quarter, with the face of the Queen (queen?);
A half dollar;
Three five-cent pieces that were not nickels, but smaller.
And not one of these coins carried the familiar ‘God Is Our Fortress’ motto of the North American Union.
I stared at that ragbag collection and tried to figure out when this last change had taken place. Since I last was paid evidently, which placed it later than yesterday afternoon but earlier than the hitch we had gotten just after breakfast. While we slept last night? But we had not lost our clothes, had not lost our money. I even had my razor, a lump in my breast pocket.
Never mind – any attempt to understand all the details of these changes led only to madness. The shift had indeed taken place; I was here in my native world… and it had left me with no money. With no legal money.
By Hobson’s choice, that Canadian quarter looked awfully good. I did not try to tell myself that the Eighth Commandment did not apply to big corporations. Instead I did promise myself that I would pay it back. I picked it up and took the receiver off the hook.
‘Number, please.’
‘Please place a collect call to Churches United for Decency in Kansas City, Kansas. The number is State Line I224J. I’ll speak to anyone who answers.’
‘Deposit twenty-five cents, please.’ I deposited that Canadian quarter and held my breath – heard it go tingthunk-thunk. Then Central said, ‘Thank you. Do not hang up. Please wait.’
I waited. And waited. And waited.
‘On your call to Kansas City – Churches United for Decency reports that they do not accept collect calls.’
‘Hold it! Please tell them that the Reverend Alexander Hergensheimer is calling.’
‘Thank you. Please deposit twenty-five cents.’
‘Hey! I didn’t get any use out of that first quarter. You hung up too soon.’
‘We did not disconnect; the party in Kansas City hungup.’
‘Well, call them back, please, and this time tell them not to hang up.’
‘Yes, sir. Please deposit twenty-five cents.’
‘Central, would I be calling collect if I had plenty of change on me? Get them on the line and tell them who I am. Reverend Alexander Hergensheimer, Deputy Executive Director.’
‘Please wait on the line.’
So I waited again. And waited.
‘Reverend? The party in Kansas City says to tell you that they do not accept-,collect calls from – I am quoting exactly – Jesus: Christ Himself.’
‘That’s no way to talk on the telephone. Or anywhere.’
‘I quite agree. There was more. This person said to tell you that he had never heard of you.’
‘Why, that -‘I shut up, as I had no way to express myself within the dignity of the cloth.
‘Yes, indeed. I tried to get his name. He hung up on me.’
‘Young man? Old man? Bass, tenor, baritone?’
‘Boy soprano. I gathered an impression that it was the office boy, answering the phone during the lunch hour.’
‘I see. Well, thank you for your efforts. Above and beyond the call of duty, in my opinion.’
‘A pleasure, Reverend.’
I left there, kicking myself. I did not explain to Margrethe until we were clear of the building. ‘Hoist by my own petard, dear one. I wrote that “No Collect Calls” order myself. An analysis of the telephone log proved to me beyond any possible doubt that collect calls to our office were never for the benefit of the association. Nine out of ten are begging calls… and Churches United for Decency is not a charity. It collects money; it does not give it away. The tenth call is either from a troublemaker or a crank. So I set this firm rule and enforced it… and it paid off at once. Saved hundreds of dollars a year just in telephone tolls.’ I managed to smile. ‘Never dreamed that I would be caught in my own net.’
‘What are your plans now, Alec?’
‘Now? Get out on Highway Sixty-Six and start waving my thumb. I want us to reach Oklahoma City before five o’clock. It should be easy; it’s not very far.’
‘Yes, sir. Why five o’clock, may I ask?’
‘You can always ask anything and you know it. Knock off the Patient Griselda act, sweetheart; you’ve been moping ever since we saw that dirigible. Because there is a district office of C.U.D. in Oklahoma City and I want to be there before they close. Wait’ll you see them roll out the red carpet, hon! Get to Oke City and’our troubles are over.’
That afternoon reminded me of wading through sorghum. January sorghum. We had no trouble getting rides – but the rides were mostly short distances. We averaged about twenty miles an hour on a highway that permitted sixty miles per hour. We lost fifty-five minutes for a good reason: a free meal. For the umpteenth time a trucker bought us something to eat when he ate… for the reason that there is almost no man alive who can stop to eat, and fail to invite Margrethe to eat if she is there. (Then I get fed, too, simply because I’m her property. I’m not complaining.)
We ate in twenty minutes, then he spent thirty minutes and endless quarters playing pinball machines… and I stood there and seethed and Margrethe stood beside him and clapped her hands and squealed when he made, a good score. But her social instincts are sound; he then drove us all the rest -of the way to Oklahoma City. There he went through town when he could have taken a bypass, and at four-twenty he dropped us at 36th and Lincoln, only two blocks from the C.U.D. district office.
I walked that two blocks whistling. Once I said, ‘Smile, hon! A month from now – or sooner – we’ll eat in the Tivoli.’
‘Truly?’
‘Truly. You’ve told me so much about it that I can’t wait. There’s the building!’
Our suite is on the second, floor. It warmed the cockles to see the door with lettering on the glass:
CHURCHES UNITED FOR DECENCY – Enter.
‘After you, my love!’ I grabbed the knob, to open for her.
The door was locked.
I banged on it, then spotted a doorbell and rang it. Then I alternated knocking and ringing. And again.
A blackamoor carrying a mop and pail came down the corridor, started to pass us. I called, ‘Hey, Uncle! DO you have a key to this suite?’
‘Sure don’t, Captain. Ain’t nobody in there now. They most generally locked up and gone by four o’clock.’
‘I see. Thanks.’
‘A pleasure, Captain.’
Out on the street again, I grinned sheepishly at Margrethe. ‘Red carpet treatment. Closing at four. When the cat is away, the mice will play. Some heads will roll, I promise you. I can’t think of another cliché to fit the situation. Oh, yes, I can. Beggars can’t be choosers. Madam, would you like to sleep in the park tonight? Warm night, no rain expected. Chiggers and mosquitoes, no extra charge.’
We slept in Lincoln Park, on the golf course, on a green that was living velvet – alive with chiggers.
It was a good night’s sleep despite chiggers. We got up when the first early golfers showed up, and we got off the golf course with nothing worse than dirty looks. We made use of public washrooms in the park, and rejoined much neater, feeling fresher, me with a fresh shave, and both of us filled with free water for breakfast. On the whole I felt cheerful. It was too early to expect those self-appointed playboys at C. U. D. to show up, so, when we ran across a, policeman, I asked the location of the public library, then I added, ‘By the way, where is the airport?’
‘The what?’
‘The dirigible flying field.’
The cop turned to Margrethe. ‘Lady, is he sick?’
I did feel sick a half hour later when I checked the directory in the building we had visited the afternoon before… I felt sick but unsurprised to find no Churches United for Decency among its tenants. But to make certain I walked up to the second floor. That suite was now occupied by an insurance firm.
‘Well, dear, let’s go to the public library. Find out what kind of world we are in.’
‘Yes, Alec.’ She was looking cheerful. ‘Dearest, I’m sorry you are disappointed… but I am so relieved. I
I as frightened out of my wits at the thought of meeting your wife.’
‘You won’t. Not ever. Promise. Uh, I’m sort of relieved, too. And hungry.’
We walked a few more steps. ‘Alec. Don’t be angry.’
‘I’ll do no more than give you a fat lip. What is it?’
‘I have five quarters. Good ones.’
‘At this point I am supposed to say, “Daughter, were you a good girl in Philadelphy?” Out with it. Whom did you kill? Much blood?’
‘Yesterday. Those pinball games. Every time Harry won free games he gave me a quarter. “For luck,” he said.’
I decided not to beat her. Of course they were not ‘good quarters’ but they turned out to be good enough. Good enough, that is, to fit coin machines. We had passed a penny arcade; such places usually have coin-operated food, dispensers and this one did. The prices were dreadfully high – fifty cents for a skimpy stale sandwich; twenty-five cents for a bare mouthful of chocolate. But it was better than some breakfasts we had had on the road. And we certainly did not steal, as the quarters from my world were real silver.
Then we went to the public library to find out what sort of world we must cope with now.
We found out quickly:
Marga’s world.
Chapter 20
The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.
Proverbs 28:1
MARGRETHE WAS as elated as I had been the day before. She bubbled, she smiled, she looked sixteen. I looked around for a private place – back of book stacks or somewhere – where I could kiss her without worrying about a proctor. Then I remembered that this was Margrethe’s world where nobody cared… and grabbed her where she stood and bussed her properly.
And got scolded by a librarian.
No, not for what I had done, but because we had been somewhat noisy about it. Public kissing did not in itself disturb that library’s decorum. Hardly. I noticed, while I was promising to keep quiet and apologizing for the breach, a display rack by that librarian’s desk:
New Titles INSTRUCTIONAL PORNOGRAPHY –
Ages 6 to 12
Fifteen minutes later I was waving my thumb again on Highway 77 to Dallas.
Why Dallas? A law firm: O’Hara, Rigsbee, Crumpacker, and Rigsbee.
As soon as we were outside the library, Marga had started talking excitedly about how she could now end our troubles: her bank account in Copenhagen.
I said, ‘Wait a minute, darling. Where’s your checkbook? Where’s your identification?’
What it, came to was that Margrethe could possibly draw on her assets in Denmark after several days at a highly optimistic best or after several weeks at a more probable estimate… and that even the longer period involved quite a bit of money up front for cablegrams. Telephone across the Atlantic? Marga did not think such a thing existed. (And even if it did, I thought it likely that cablegrams were cheaper and more certain.)
Even after all arrangements had been made, it was possible that actual payment might involve postal delivery from Europe – in a world that had no airmail.
So we headed for Dallas, I having assured Marga that, at the very worst, Alec Graham’s lawyers would advance Alec Graham enough money to get him (us) off the street, and, with luck, we would come at once into major assets.
(Or they might fail to recognize me as Alec Graham and prove that I was not he – by fingerprints, by signature, by something – and thereby lay the ghost of ‘Alec Graham’ in Margrethe’s sweet but addled mind. But I did not mention this to Margrethe.)
It is two hundred miles from Oklahoma City to Dallas; we arrived there at 2 p.m., having picked up a ride at the intersection of 66 and 77, and kept it clear into the Texas metropolis. We were dropped where 77 crosses 80 at the Trinity River, and we walked to the Smith Building; it took us half an hour.
The receptionist in suite 7000 looked like something out, of the sort of stage show that C. U. D. has spent much time and money to suppress. She was dressed but not very much, and her makeup was what Marga calls ‘high style’ She was nubile and pretty and, with my newly learned toleration, I simply enjoyed the sinful sight. She smiled and said, ‘May I help you?’
‘This is a fine day for golf. Which of the partners is still in the office?’
‘Only Mr Crumpacker, I’m afraid.’
‘He’s the one I want to see.’
‘And whom shall I say is calling?~
(First hurdle – I missed it. Or did she?) ‘Don’t you recognize me?’
‘I’m sorry. Should I?’
‘How long have you been working here?’
‘Just over three months.’
‘That accounts for it. Tell Crumpacker that Alec Graham is here.’
I could not hear what Crumpacker said to her but I was watching her eyes; I think they widened – I feel sure of it. But all she said was, ‘Mr Crumpacker will, see you.’ Then she turned to Margrethe. ‘May I offer you a magazine while you wait? And would you like a reefer?’
I said, ‘She’s coming with me.’
‘But
‘Come along, Marga.’ I headed quickly for the inner offices.
Crumpacker’s door was easy to find; it was the one with the squawking issuing from it. This shut off as I opened the door and held it for Margrethe. As I followed her in, he was saying, ‘Miss, you’ll have to wait outside!’
‘No,’ I denied, as I closed the door behind me. ‘Mrs Graham stays’.’
He looked startled. ‘Mrs Graham?’
‘Surprised you, didn’t I? Got married since I saw you last. Darling, this is Sam Crumpacker, one of my attorneys.’ (I had picked his first name off his door.)
‘How do you do, Mr Crumpacker?’
‘Uh, glad to meet you, Mrs Graham. Congratulations to you, Alec you always could pick ’em.’
I said, ‘Thanks. Sit down, Marga.’
‘Just a moment, folks! Mrs Graham can’t stay – really she can’t! You know that.’
‘I know no such thing. This time I’m going to have a witness.’ No, I did not know that he was crooked. But I had learned long ago, in dealing with legislators, that anyone who tries to keep you from having a witness is bad news. So C.U.D. always had witnesses and always stayed within the law; it was cheaper that way.
Marga was seated; I sat down beside her. Crumpacker had jumped up when we came in; he remained standing. His mouth worked nervously. ‘I ought to call the Federal prosecutor.’
‘Do that,’ I agreed. ‘Pick up the phone there and call him. Let’s both of us go see him. Let’s tell him everything. With witnesses. Let’s call in the press. All of the press, not just the tame cats.’
(What did I know? Nothing. But when it’s necessary to bluff, always bluff big. I was scared. This rat could turn and fight like a cornered mouse – a rabid one.)
‘I should.’
‘Do it, do it! Let’s name names, and tell who did what and who got paid. I want to get everything out into the open… before somebody slips cyanide into my soup.’
‘Don’t talk that way.’
‘Who has a better right? Who pushed me overboard? Who?’
‘Don’t look at me!’
‘No, Sammie, I don’t think you did it; you weren’t there. But it could be your godson. Eh?’ Then I smiled my biggest right-hand-of-fellowship smile. ‘Just joking, Sam. My old friend would not want me dead. But you can tell me some things and help me out. Sam, it’s not convenient to be dumped way off on the other side of the world – so you owe me.’ (No, I still knew nothing… nothing save the evident fact that here was a man with a guilty conscience – so crowd him.)
‘Alec, let’s not do anything hasty.’
‘I’m in no hurry. But I’ve got to have explanations. And money.’
‘Alec, I tell you on my word of honor all I know about what happened to you is that this squarehead ship came into Portland and you ain’t aboard. And I have to go all the way to Oregon f’ God’s sake to witness them breaking into your strong-box. And there’s only a hundred thousand in it; the rest is missing. Who got it, Alec? Who got to you?’
He had his eyes on me; I hope my face didn’t show anything. But he lad hulled me. Was this true? This shyster would lie as easily as he talked. Had my friend purser, or the purser and the captain in cahoots, looted that lockbox?
As a working hypothesis, always prefer the simpler explanation. This man was more likely to lie than the purser was to steal. And it was likely – no, certain – that the captain would have to be present before the purser would force his way into the lockbox of a missing passenger. If these two responsible officers, with careers and reputations to lose, nevertheless combined to steal, why would they leave a hundred thousand behind? Why not take it all and be blandly ignorant about the contents of my lockbox? – as indeed they should be. Something fishy here.
‘What are you implying was missing?’
‘Huh?’ He glanced at Margrethe. ‘Uh – Well, damn it there should have been nine hundred grand more. The money you didn’t pass over in Tahiti.’
‘Who says I didn’t?’
‘What? Alec, don’t make things worse. Mr Z. says so. You tried to drown his bagman.’
I looked at him and laughed. ‘You mean those tropical gangsters? They tried to get the boodle without
identifying themselves and without giving receipts. I told them an emphatic no – so the clever boy had his muscle throw me into the pool. Hmm – Sam, I see it now. Find out who came aboard the Konge Knut in Papeele.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s your man. He not only got the boodle; he pushed me overboard. When you know, don’t bother to try to get him extradited, just tell me his name. I’ll arrange the rest myself. Personally.’
‘Damn it, we want that million dollars.’
‘Do you think you can get it? It wound up in Mr Z’s hands… but you got no receipt. And I got a lot of grief from asking for a receipt. Don’t be silly, Sam; the nine hundred thousand is gone. But not my fee. So pass over that hundred grand. Now.’
‘What? The Federal prosecutor in Portland kept that, impounded it as evidence.’
‘Sam, Sam boy, don’t try to teach your grandmother how to steal sheep. As evidence for what? Who is charged? Who is indicted? What crime is alleged? Am I charged with stealing something out of my own lockbox? What crime?’
“What crime?” Somebody stole that nine hundred grand, that’s what!’
‘Really? Who’s the complainant? Who asserts that there ever was nine hundred thousand in that lockbox? I certainly never told anyone that – so who says? Pick up that phone, Sam; call the Federal prosecutor in Portland. Ask him why he held that money -on whose complaint? Let’s get to the bottom of this. Pick it up, Sam. If that Federal clown has my money, I want to shake it loose from him.’
‘You’re almighty anxious to talk to prosecutors! Strange talk from you.’
‘Maybe I’ve had an acute attack of honesty. Sam, your unwillingness to call Portland tells me all I need
to know. You were called out there to act on my behalf, – as my attorney. American passenger lost overboard, ship of foreign registry, you betcha they get hold of the passenger’s attorney to inventory his assets. Then they pass it all over to his attorney and he gives a receipt for it. Sam, what did you do with my clothes?’
‘Eh? Gave ’em to the Red Cross. Of course.’
‘You did, eh?’
‘After the prosecutor released ’em, I mean.’
‘Interesting. The Federal attorney keeps the money, although no one has complained that any money is missing… but lets the clothes out of his hands when the only probable crime is murder.’
‘Huh?’
‘Me, I mean. Who pushed me and who hired him to? Sam, we both know where the money is.’ I stood up, pointed. ‘In that safe. That’s where it logically has to be. You wouldn’t bank it; there would be a record. You’ wouldn’t hide it at home; your wife might find it. And you certainly didn’t split with your partners Sam, open it. I want to see whether there is a hundred thousand in… or a million.’
‘You’re out of your mind!’
‘Call the Federal prosecutor. Let him be our witness.’
I had him so angry he couldn’t talk. His hands trembled. It isn’t safe to get a little man too angry – and I topped him by six inches, weight and other measurements to match. He wouldn’t attack me himself – he was a lawyer – but I would need to be careful going through doorways, and such.
Time to try to cool him – ‘Sam, Sam, don’t take it so seriously. You were leaning on me pretty heavily… so I leaned back. The good Lord alone knows why prosecutors do anything – the gonif most likely has
stolen it by now… in the belief that I am dead and will never complain. So I’ll go to Portland and lean on him, hard.’
‘There’s a paper out on you there.’
‘Really? What charges?’
‘Seduction under promise of marriage. A female crewman of that ship.’ He had the grace to look apologetically at Margrethe. ‘Sorry, Mrs Graham. But your husband asked me.’
‘Quite all right,’ she answered crisply.
‘I do get around, don’t I? What does she look like? Is she pretty? What’s her name?’
‘I never saw her; she wasn’t there. Her name? Some Swede name. Let me think. Gunderson, that was it. Margaret S. Gunderson.’
Margrethe, bless her heart, never let out a peep – not even at being called a Swede. I said in wonderment, ‘I’m accused of seducing this woman … aboard a foreign-flag vessel, somewhere, in the South Seas. So there’s a warrant out for me in Portland, Oregon. Sam, what kind of a lawyer are you? To let a client have paper slapped on him on that sort of charge,’
‘I’m a smart lawyer, that’s the kind I am. Just as you said, no telling what a Federal attorney will do; they take their brains out when they appoint ’em. It simply wasn’t important enough to talk about, you being dead, or so we all thought. I’m just looking out for your interests, letting you know about it before you step in it. Gimme some time, I’ll get it quashed – then you go to Portland.’
‘Sounds reasonable. There aren’t any charges outstanding on me here, are there?’
‘No. Well, yes and no. You know the deal; we assured them that you would not be coming back, so they turned the blind eye when you left. But here you are, back. Alec, you can’t afford to be seen here.
Or elsewhere in Texas. Or anywhere in the States, actually. Word gets around, and they’ll dig up those old charges.’
‘I was innocent!’
He shrugged. ‘Alec, all my clients are innocent. I’m talking like a father, in your own interest. Get out of Dallas. If you go as far as Paraguay, so much the better.’
‘How? I’m broke. Sam, I’ve got to have some dough.’
‘Have I ever let you down?’ He got out his wallet, counted out five one-hundred-dollar bills, laid them in front of me.
I looked at them. ‘What’s that? A tip?’ I picked them up, pocketed them. ‘That won’t get us to Brownsville. Now let’s see some money.’
‘See me tomorrow.’
‘Don’t play games, Sam. Open that safe and get me some real money. Or I don’t come here tomorrow; I go see the Federal man and sing like the birdies. After I get square with him – and I will; the Feds love a state’s witness, it’s the only way they ever win a case – then I go to Oregon and pick up that hundred grand.’
‘Alec, are you threatening me?’
‘You play games, I play games. Sam, I need a car and I don’t mean a beat-up Ford. A Cadillac. Doesn’t have to be new, but a cream puff, clean, and a good engine. A Cadillac and a few grand and we’ll be in Laredo by midnight, and in Monterrey by morning. I’ll call you from Mexico City and give you an address. If you really want me to go to Paraguay and stay there, you send the money to D. F. for me to do it.’
It did not work out quite that way, but I settled for a used Pontiac and left with six thousand dollars in cash, and instructions to go to a particular used-car lot and accept the deal offered me – Sam would call and set it up. He agreed also to call the Hyatt and get us the bridal suite, and would see that they held it. Then I was to come back at ten the next morning.
I refused to get up that early. ‘Make that eleven. We’re still on our honeymoon.’
Sam chuckled, slapped me on the back, and agreed.
Out in the corridor we headed toward the elevators but went ten feet farther and I opened the door to the fire-escape trunk. Margrethe followed me without comment but once inside the staircase trunk and out of earshot of others she said, ‘Alec, that man is not your friend.’
‘No, he’s not.’
‘I am afraid for you.’
‘I’m afraid for me, too.’
‘Terribly afraid. I fear for your life.’
‘My love, I fear for my life, too. And for yours. You are in danger as long as you are with me.’
‘I will not leave you!’
‘I know. Whatever this is, we are in it together.’
‘Yes. What are our plans now?’
‘Now we go to Kansas.’
‘Oh, good! Then we are not driving to Mexico?’
‘Hon, I don’t even know how to drive a car.’
We came out in a basement garage and walked up a ramp to a side street. There we walked several blocks away from the Smith Building, picked up a cruising taxi, rode it to the Texas & Pacific Station, there picked up a taxi at the taxi rank, and rode it to Fort Worth, twenty-five miles west. Margrethe was very quiet on the trip. I did not ask her what she was thinking about because I knew: It can’t be
happy-making to discover that a person you fell in love with was mixed up in some shenanigan that smelled Of gangsters and rackets’. I made myself a solemn promise never to mention the matter to her.
In Fort Worth I had the hackie drop us on its most stylish shopping street, letting him pick it. Then I said to Marga, ‘Darling, I’m about to buy you a heavy gold chain.’
‘Goodness, darling! I don’t need a gold chain.’
‘We need it. Marga, the first time I was in this world with you, in Konge Knut – I learned that here the dollar was soft, not backed by gold, and every price I have seen today confirms that. So, if change comes again – and we never know – even the hard money of this world, quarters and half dollars and dimes, won’t be worth anything because they’re not really silver. As for the paper money I got from Crumpacker – waste paper!
‘Unless I change it into something else. We’ll start with that gold chain and from here on you wear it to bed, you even wear it to bathe – unless you hang it around my neck.’
‘I see. Yes.’
‘We’ll buy some heavy gold jewelry for each of us, then I’m going to try to find a coin dealer – buy some silver cartwheels, maybe some gold coins. But my purpose is to get rid of most of this paper money in the
next hour – all but the price of two bus tickets to Wichita, Kansas, three hundred and fifty miles north of here. Could you stand to ride a bus all night tonight? I want to get us out of Texas.
‘Certainly! Oh, dear, I do want to get out of Texas! Truly, I’m still frightened.’
‘Truly, you are not alone.’
‘But -‘
‘”But” what, dear? And quit looking sad.’
‘Alec, I haven’t had a bath for four days.’
We found that jewelry shop, we found the coin shop; I spent about half that flat money and saved the rest for bus fare and other purposes in this world – such as dinner, which we ate as soon as the shops started to close. A hamburger we had eaten in Gainesville seemed an awfully long way off in time and space. Then I determined that there was a bus going north – Oklahoma City, Wichita, Salina – at ten o’clock that evening. I bought tickets and paid an extra dollar on each to reserve seats. Then I threw money away like a drunken sailor took a room in a hotel across from the bus station, knowing that we would be checking out in less than two hours.
It was worth it. Hot baths for each of us, taking turns, each of us remaining fully dressed and carrying the other’s clothing, jewelry, and all the money while the other was naked and wet. And carrying my razor, which had become a talisman of how to outwit Loki’s playful tricks.
And new, clean underwear for each of us, purchased in passing while we were converting paper money into valuta.
I had hoped for time enough for love – but no; by the time I was clean and dry we had to dress and check out to catch that bus. Never mind, there would be other times. We climbed into the bus, put the backrests back, put Marga’s head on my shoulder. As the bus headed north we fell asleep.
I woke up sometime later because the road was so rough. We were seated right behind the driver, so I leaned forward and asked, ‘Is this a detour?’ I could not recall a rough stretch when we had ridden south on this same road about twelve hours earlier.
‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ve crossed into Oklahoma, that’s all. Not much pavement in Oklahoma. Some near Oke City and a little between there and Guthrie.’
The talk had wakened Margrethe; she straightened up. ‘What is it, dear?’
‘Nothing. Just Loki having fun with us. Go back to sleep.’
Chapter 21
What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said unto me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, And serve Him day and night in His temple.
Revelation 7:13-15
I WAS driving a horse and buggy and not enjoying it. The day was hot, the dust kicked up by horse’s hooves stuck to sweaty skin, flies were bad, there was no breeze. We were somewhere near the corner of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, but I was not sure where. I had not seen a map for days and the roads were no longer marked with highway signs for the guidance of automobilists – there were no automobiles.
The last two weeks (more or less – I had lost track of the days) had been endless torments of Sisyphus, one ridiculous frustration after another. Sell silver dollars to a local dealer in exchange for that world’s paper? – no trouble; I did it several times. But it didn’t always help. Once I had sold silver for local paper money and we had ordered dinner – when, boom, another world change and we went hungry. Another time I was cheated outrageously and when I complained, I was told: ‘Neighbor, possession of that coin is illegal and you know it. I’ve offered you a price anyhow because I like you. Will you take it? Or shall I do my plain duty as a citizen?’
I took it. The paper money he gave us for five ounces of silver would not buy – dinner for Marga and me at a backwoods gourmet spot called ‘Mom’s Diner’.
That was in a charming community called (by a sign at its outskirts):
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
A Clean Community Blackamoors, Kikes, Papists Keep Moving!
We kept moving. That whole two weeks had been spent trying to travel-the two hundred miles from Oklahoma City to Joplin, Missouri. I had been forced to give up the notion of avoiding Kansas City. I still had no intention of staying in or near Kansas City, not when a sudden change of worlds could land us in Abigail’s lap. But I had learned in Oklahoma City that the fastest and indeed the only practical route- to Wichita was a long detour through Kansas City. We had retrogressed to the horse-and-buggy era.
When you consider the total age of the earth, from Creation in 4004 BC to the year of Our Lord I994, or 5998 years – call it 6000 – in a period of 6000 years, 80 or 90 years is nothing much. And that is how short a time it has been since the horse-and-buggy day in my world. My father was born in that day (1909) and my paternal grandfather not only never owned an automobile but refused to ride in one. He claimed that they were spawn of the Devil, and used to quote passages from Ezekiel to prove it. Perhaps he was right.
But the horse-and-buggy era does have -shortcomings. There are obvious ones such as no inside plumbing, no air conditioning, no modern medicine. But for us there was an unobvious but major one; where there are no trucks and no cars there is effectively no hitchhiking. Oh, it is sometimes possible to hitch rides on farm wagons – but the difference in speed between a human’s walk and a horse’s walk is
not great. We rode when we could but, either way, fifteen miles was a good day’s progress – too good; it left no time to work for meals and a place to sleep.
There is an old paradox, Achilles and the Tortoise, in which the remaining distance to your goal is halved at each The question is: How long does it take to reach your goal? The answer is: You can’t get there from here.
That is the way we ‘progressed’ from Oklahoma City to Joplin.
Something else compounded my frustration: I became increasingly persuaded that we were indeed in the latter days, and we could expect the return of Jesus and the Final Judgment at any moment – and my darling, my necessary one, was not yet back in the arms of Jesus. I refrained from nagging her about it, although it took all my will power to respect her wish to handle it alone. I began to sleep badly through worrying about her.
I became a bit crazy, too (in addition to my paranoid belief that these world changes were aimed at me personally) – crazy in that I acquired an unfounded but compelling belief that finishing this journey was essential to the safety of my darling’s immortal soul. Just let us get as far as Kansas, dear Lord, and I will pray without ceasing until I have converted her and brought her to grace. 0 Lord God of Israel, grant me this boon!
I continued to look for dishwashing jobs (or anything) even while we still had silver and gold to trade’ for local money. But motels disappeared entirely; hotels became scarce and restaurants decreased in numbers and size to fit an economy in which travel was rare and almost all meals were eaten at home.
It became easier to find jobs cleaning stalls in livery stables. I preferred dishwashing to shoveling horse manure – especially as I had only one pair of shoes. But I stuck to the rule of take any honest work but keep moving!
You may wonder why we did not shift to hitching rides on freight trains. In the first place I did not know how, never having done it. Still more important, I could not guarantee Marga’s safety. There were the hazards of mounting a moving freight car. But worse were dangers from people: railroad bulls and road kids – hobos, tramps, bindlestiffs, bums. No need to discuss those grisly dangers, -as I kept her away from rail lines and hobo jungles.
And I worried. While abiding strictly to her request not to be pressured, I did take to praying aloud every night and in her presence, on my knees. And at last, to my great joy, my darling joined me, on her knees. She did not pray aloud and I stopped vocalizing myself, save for a final: ‘In Jesus’ name, Amen.’ We still did not talk about it.
I wound up driving this horse and buggy (goodness,’ what a hot day! – ‘Cyclone weather’, my grandmother Hergensheimer would have called it) as a result of a job cleaning stalls in a livery stable. As, usual I had quit after one day, telling my temporary employer that my wife and I had to move on to Joplin; her mother was ill.
He told me that he had a rig that needed to be returned to the next town up the road. What he meant was that he had too many rigs and nags on hand, his own and others, or he would have waited until he could send it back by renting it to a passing drummer.
I offered to return it for one day’s wages at the same extremely low rate that he had paid me to shovel manure and curry nags.
He pointed out that he was doing me a favor, since my wife and I had to get to Joplin.
He had both logic and strength of position on his side; I agreed. But his wife did put up a lunch for us, as well as giving us breakfast after we slept in their shed.
So I was not too unhappy driving that rig, despite the weather, despite the frustrations. We were getting a few miles closer to Joplin every day – and now my darling was praying. It was beginning to look like ‘Home Free!’ after all.
We had just reached the outskirts of this town (Lowell? Racine? I wish I could remember) when we encountered something right straight out of my childhood: a camp meeting, an old-time revival. On the left side of the road was a cemetery, well kept but the grass was drying; facing it on the right was the revival tent, pitched in a pasture. I wondered whether the juxtaposition of graveyard and Bible meeting was accidental, or planned? – if the Reverend Danny had been involved, I would know it was planned; most people cannot see gravestones without thinking about the long hereafter.
Crowded ranks of buggies and farm wagons stood near the tent, and a temporary corral lay beyond them. Picnic tables of the plank-and-sawhorse type were by the tent on the other side; I could see
remains of lunch. This was a serious Bible meeting, one that started in the morning, broke for lunch, carried on in the afternoon – would no doubt break for supper, then adjourn only when the revivalist judged that there were no more souls to be saved that day.
(I despise these modern city preachers with their five minute ‘inspirational messages’. They say Billy Sunday could preach for seven hours on only a glass of water then do it again in the evening and the next day. No wonder heathen cults have spread like a green bay tree!)
There was a two-horse caravan near the tent. Painted on its side was: Brother ‘Bible’ Barnaby. Out front was a canvas sign on guys and stays:
That Old-Time Religion! Brother ‘Bible’ Barnaby Healing Every Session 10a.m. – 2p.m. – 7p.m.
Every Day from Sunday June 5th till
!!!JUDGMENT DAY!!!
I spoke to the nag and pulled on the reins to let her know that I wanted to stop. ‘Darling, look at that!’
Margrethe read the sign, made no comment.
‘I admire his courage,’ I said. ‘Brother Barnaby is betting his reputation that Judgment Day will arrive before it’s time to harvest wheat… which could be early this year, hot as it is.’
‘But you think Judgment Day is soon.’
‘Yes, but I’m not betting a professional reputation on it just my immortal soul and hope of Heaven. Marga, every Bible student reads the prophecies slightly differ ently. Or very differently. Most of the current crop of premillenarians don’t expect the Day earlier than the year two thousand. He might have
something. Do you mind if we, stay here an hour?’
‘We will stay however long you wish. But – Alec, you wish me to go in? Must I?’
‘Uh -‘ (Yes, darling, I certainly do want you to go inside.) ‘You would rather wait in the buggy?’
Her silence was answer enough. ‘I see. Marga, I’m not trying to twist your arm. Just one thing – We have not been separated except when utterly necessary for several weeks. And you know why. With the changes coming almost every day, I would hate to have one hit while you were sitting out here and I was inside, quite a way off. Uh, we could stand outside the tent. I see they have the sides rolled up.’
She squared her shoulders. ‘I was being silly. No, we will go inside. Alec, I do need to hold your hand; you are right: Change comes fast. But I will not ask you to stay away from a meeting of your coreligionists.’
‘Thank you, Marga.’
‘And, Alec – I will try!’
‘Thank you. Thank you loads! Amen!’
‘No need to thank me. If you go to your Heaven, I want to go, too!’
‘Let’s go inside, dear.’
I put the buggy at the far end of a rank, then led the mare to the corral, Marga with me. As we came back to the tent I could hear:
‘- the corner where you are!
‘Brighten the corner where you are!
‘Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar! ‘So-‘
I chimed in: ‘- brighten the corner where you are!’
It felt good.
Their instrumental music consisted of a foot-pumped organ and a slide trombone. The latter surprised me but Pleased me; there is no other instrument that can get right down and rassle with The Holy City the way a trombone can, and it is almost indispensable for The Son of God Goes Forth to War.
The congregation was supported by a choir in white angel robes – a scratch choir, I surmised, as the white robes were homemade, from sheets. But what. that choir may have lacked in professionalism it made up for in zeal. Church music does not have to be good as long as it is sincere – and loud.
The sawdust trail, six feet wide, led straight down the middle, benches on each side. It dead-ended against a chancel rail of two-by-fours. An usher led us down the trail in answer to my hope for seats down front. The place was crowded but he got people to squeeze over and we wound up on the aisle in the second row, me outside. Yes there were still seats in the back, but every preacher despises people – their name is legion! – who sit clear at the back when there are seats open down front.
As the music stopped, Brother Barnaby stood up and came to the pulpit, placed his hand on the Bible. ‘It’s all in the Book,’ he said quietly, almost in a whisper. The congregation became dead still.
He stepped forward, looked around. ‘Who loves you?’
‘Jesus loves me!’
‘Let Him hear you.’
‘JESUS LOVES ME!’
‘How do you know that?’
‘IT’S IN THE BOOK!’
I became aware of an odor I had not smelled in a long time. My professor of homiletics pointed out to us once in a workshop session that a congregation imbued with religious fervor has a strong and distinctive odor (‘stink’ is the word he used) compounded of sweat and both male and female hormones. ‘My sons,’ he told us, ‘if your assembled congregation smells too sweet, you aren’t getting to them. If you can’t make ’em sweat, if they don’t break out in their own musk like a cat in rut, you might as ‘Well quit and go across the street to the papists. Religious ecstasy is the strongest human emotion; when- it’s there, you can smell it!’
Brother Barnaby got to them.
(And, I must confess, I never did. That’s why I wound up as an organizer and money-raiser.)
‘Yes, it’s in the Book. The Bible is the Word of God, not just here and there, but every word. Not as allegory, but as literal truth. You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. I read to you now from the Book: “For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with-a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the Trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.”
‘That last line is great news, my brothers and sisters:
“- the dead in Christ shall rise first.” What does that say? It does not say that the dead shall rise first; it says that the dead in Christ shall rise first. Those who were washed in the blood of the Lamb, born again in Jesus, and then have died in a state of grace before His second coming, they will not be forgotten, they will be first. Their graves will open, they will be miraculously restored to life and health and physical perfection and will lead the parade to Heaven, there to dwell in happiness by the great white throne forevermore!’
Someone shouted, ‘Hallelujah!’
‘Bless you, sister. Ah, the good news! All the dead in Christ, every one! Sister Ellen, taken from her family by the cruel hand of cancer, but who died with the name of Jesus on her lips, she will help lead the procession. Asa’s beloved wife, who died giving birth but in a state of grace, she will be there! All your dear ones who died in Christ will be gathered up and you will see them in Heaven. Brother Ben, who lived a sinful life, but found God in a foxhole before an enemy bullet cut him down, he will be there… and his case is specially good news, witnessing that God can be found anywhere. Jesus is present not only in churches – in fact there are fancy-Dan churches where His Name is rarely heard -´
‘You- can say that again!’
‘And I will. God is everywhere; He can hear you when you speak. He can hear you more easily when you are ploughing a field, or down on your knees by your bed, than He can in some ornate cathedral, surrounded by the painted and perfumed. He is here now, and He promises you, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you. I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me.” That’s His promise, dearly beloved, in plain words. No obscurities, no highfalutin “interpretation”, no so-called “allegorical meanings”. Christ Himself is waiting for you, if only you will ask.
‘And if you do ask, if you are born again in Jesus, if He washes away your sins and you reach that state of grace… what then? I read you the first half of God’s promise to the faithful. You will hear the Shout, you will hear the great Trumpet sounding His advent, as He promised, and t he dead in Christ shall rise again. Those dry bones will rise again and be covered with living, healthy flesh.
‘Then what?
‘Hear the words of the Lord: “Then we which are alive” – That’s you and me, brothers and sisters; God is talking about us. “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord’!
‘So shall we ever be! So shall we ever be! With the Lord in Heaven!’
,Hallelujah!’
‘Bless His Name!’
‘Amen! Amen!’
(I found that I was one of those saying ‘Amen!’)
‘But there’s a price. There are no free tickets to Heaven. What happens if you don’t ask Jesus to help you? What if you ignore. His offer to be washed free of sin and reborn in the blood of the Lamb? What then? Well? Answer me!’
The congregation was still save for heavy breathing, then a voice from the back said, not loudly, ‘Hellfire.’
‘Hellfire and damnation! Not for just a little while but through all eternity! Not some mystical, allegorical fire that singes only your peace of mind and burns no more than a Fourth of July sparkler. This is the real thing, a raging fire, as real as this.’ Brother Barnaby slapped the pulpit with a crack that could be heard throughout the tent. ‘The sort of fire that makes a baseburner glow cherry red, then white. And you are in that fire, Sinner, and the ghastly pain goes on and on, it never stops. Never! There’s no hope for you. No use asking for a second chance. You’ve had your second chance… and your millionth chance. And more. For two thousand years sweet Jesus has been begging you, pleading with you, to accept from Him that for which He died in agony on the Cross to give you. So, once you are burning in that fiery Pit and trying to cough up the brimstone – that’s sulfur, plain ordinary sulfur, burning and stinking, and it will burn your lungs and blister your sinful hide! – when you’re roasting deep in the Pit for your sins, don’t go whining about how dreadful it hurts and how you didn’t know it would be like that. Jesus knows all about pain; He died on the Cross. He died for you. But you wouldn’t listen and now you’re down in the Pit and whining.
‘And there you’ll stay, suffering burning agony throughout eternity! Your whines can’t be heard from down in the Pit; they are drowned out by the screams of billions of other sinners!’
Brother Barnaby lowered his voice to conversational level. ‘Do you want ‘ to burn in the Pit?’
‘No!’ – ‘Never!’ – ‘Jesus save us!’
‘Jesus will save you, if you ask Him to. Those who died in Christ are saved, we read about them. Those alive when He returns will be saved if they are born again and remain in that state of grace. He promised us that He would return, and that Satan would be chained for- a thousand years while He rules in peace and justice here on earth. That’s the Millennium, folks, that’s the great day at hand. After that thousand years Satan will be loosed for a little while and the final battle will be fought. There’ll be war in Heaven. The Archangel Michael will be the general for our side, leading God’s angels against the Dragon – that’s Satan again – and his host of fallen angels. And Satan lost – will lose, that is, a thousand years, from now. And nevermore will he be seen in Heaven.
‘But that’s a thousand years from now, dear friends. You will live to see it… if you accept Jesus and are born again before that Trumpet blast that signals His return. When will that be? Soon, soon! What does the Book say? In the Bible God tells you not once but many times, in Isaiah, in Daniel, in Ezekiel, and in. all four of the Gospels, that you will not be told the exact hour of. His return. Why? So you can’t sweep the dirt under the rug, that’s why! If He told you that He would arrive New Year’s Day the year two thousand, there are those who would spend the next five and a half years consorting with lewd women, worshiping strange gods, breaking every one of the Ten Commandments… then, sometime Christmas Week nineteen ninety-nine you would find them in church, crying repentance, trying to make a deal.
‘No siree Bob! No cheap deals. It’s the same price to everyone. The Shout and the Trump may be months away… or you may hear it before I can finish this sentence. It’s up to you to be ready when it comes.
‘But we know that it is coming soon. How? Again it’s in the Book. Signs and portents. The first, without which the rest cannot happen, is the return of the Children of Israel to the Promised Land – see Ezekiel, see Matthew, see today’s newspapers. They rebuild the Temple… and sure enough they have; it’s in the Kansas City Star. There be other signs and portents, wonders of all sorts – but the greatest are tribulations, trials to test the souls of men the way Job was tested. Can there be a better word to describe the twentieth century than “tribulations”?
`Wars and terrorists and assassinations and fires and plagues. And more wars. Never in history has mankind been tried so bitterly. But endure as Job endured and the end is happiness and eternal peace – the peace of God, which passeth all understanding. He offers you His hand, He loves you, He will save you.’
Brother Barnaby stopped and wiped his forehead with a large handkerchief that was already soggy from such use.
The choir (perhaps at a signal. from him) started singing softly, ‘We shall gather at the river, the beautiful, beautiful river, that flows by the throne of God and presently segued into:
‘Just as I am, without one plea -´
Brother Barnaby got down on one knee and held out his arms to us. ‘Please! Won’t you answer Him? Come, accept Jesus, let Him gather you in His arms -´
The choir continued softly with:
‘But that Thy blood was shed for me, ‘And Thou bidd’st me come to Thee, ‘0 Lamb of God, I come, I come!’
And the Holy Ghost descended.
I felt Him overpower me and the joy of Jesus filled my heart. I stood up and stepped out into the aisle. Only then did I remember that I had Margrethe with me. I turned and saw her staring back at me, her face filled with a sweet and deeply serious look. ‘Come, darling,’ I whispered, and led her into the aisle. Together we went down the sawdust trail to God.
There were others ahead of us at the chancel rail. I found us a place, pushed some crutches and a truss aside, and knelt down. I placed my right hand on the rail, rested my forehead on it, while I continued to hold Marga’s hand with my left. I prayed Jesus to wash away our sins and receive us into His arms.
One of Brother Barnaby’s helpers was whispering inter my ear. ‘How is it with you, brother?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said happily, ‘and so is my wife. Help someone who needs it.’
‘Bless you, brother.’ He moved on. A sister farther down was writhing and speaking in tongues; he stopped lo comfort her.
I bowed my head again, then became aware of neighing And loud squeals of frightened horses and a great-flapping and shaking of the canvas roof above us. I looked up and saw a split start and widen, then the canvas blew away. The ground trembled, the sky was dark.
The Trump shook my bones, the Shout was the loudest ever heard, joyous and triumphant. I helped Margrethe to her feet smiled at her. ‘It’s now, darling!’
We were swept up.
We were tumbled head over heels and tossed about by a funnel cloud, a Kansas twister. I was wrenched away from Marga and tried to twist back, but could not. You can’t swim in a twister; you go where it takes you. But I knew she was safe.
The storm turned me upside down and held me there for a long moment, about two hundred feet up. The horses had broken out of the corral, and some of the people, not caught up, were milling about. The force of the twister turned me again and I stared down at the cemetery.
The graves were opening.
Chapter 22
When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.
Job 38:7
THE WIND whipped me around, and I saw no more of the graves. By the time I was faced down again the ground was no longer in sight – just a boiling cloud glowing inside with a great light, amber and saffron and powder blue and green gold. I continued to search for Margrethe, but few people drifted near me and none was she. Never mind, the Lord would protect her. Her temporary absence could not dismay me; we had taken the only important hurdle together.
I thought about that hurdle. What a near thing! Suppose that old mare had thrown a shoe and the delay had caused us to reach that point on the road an hour later than we did? Answer: We would never have reached it. The Last Trump would have sounded while we were still on the road, with neither of us in a state of grace. Instead of being caught up into the Rapture, we would have gone to Judgment unredeemed, then straight to Hell.
Do I believe in predestination?
That is a good question. Let’s move on to questions I can answer. I floated above those clouds for a time unmeasured by me. I sometimes saw other people but no one came close enough for talk. I began to wonder when I would see our Lord Jesus – He had promised specifically that He would meet us ‘in the air’.
I had to remind myself that I was behaving like a little child who demands that Mama do it now and is answered, ‘Be patient, dear. Not yet.’ God’s time and mine were not the same; the Bible said so.
Judgment Day had to be a busy time and I had no concept of what duties Jesus had to carry out. Oh, yes, I did know of one; those graves opening up reminded me. Those who had died in Christ (millions? billions? more?) were to go first to meet our Father Who art in Heaven, and of course the Lord Jesus would be with them on that glorious occasion; He had promised them that.
Having figured out the reason for the delay, I relaxed. I was willing to wait my turn to see Jesus… and when I did see Him, I would ask Him to bring Margrethe and me together.
No longer worried, no longer hurried, utterly comfortable, neither hot nor cold, not hungry, not thirsty, floating as effortlessly as a cloud, I began to feel the bliss that had been promised. I slept.
I don’t know how long I slept. A long time – I had been utterly exhausted; the last three weeks had been grinding. Running a hand across my face told me that I had slept a couple of days or more; my whiskers had reached the untidy state that meant at least two days of neglect. I touched my breast pocket – yes,
my trusty Gillette, gift of Marga, was still buttoned safely inside. But I had no soap, no water, no mirror.
This irritated me as I had been awakened by a bugle call (not the Great Trumpet – probably just one wielded by an angel on duty), a call that I knew without being told meant, ‘Wake up there! It is now your turn.’
It was indeed – so when the ‘roll was called up yonder’ I showed up with a two-day beard. Embarrassing!
Angels handled us like traffic cops, herding us into the formations they wanted. I knew they were angels; they wore wings and white robes and were heroic in size – one that flew near me was nine or ten feet tall. They did not flap their wings (I learned later that wings were worn only for ceremony, or as badges of authority). I discovered that I could move as these traffic cops directed. I had not been able to control my motions earlier; now I could move in any direction by volition alone.
They brought us first into columns, single file, stretched out for miles (hundreds of miles? thousands?). Then they brought the columns into ranks, ‘twelve abreast – these were stacked in layers, twelve deep. I was, unless I miscounted, number four in my rank, which was stacked three layers down. I was about two hundred places back in my column – estimated while forming up – but I could not guess how long the column was.
And we flew past the Throne of God.
But first an angel positioned himself in the air about fifty yards off our left flank. His voice carried well. ‘Now hear this! You will pass in review in this formation. Hold’ your position at all times. Guide on the creature on your left, the creature under you, and the one ahead. of you. Leave ten cubits between ranks and between layers, five cubits, elbow to elbow in ranks. No crowding, no breaking out of ranks, no, slowing down as we pass the Throne. Anybody breaking flight discipline will be sent to the tail end of the flight… and I’m warning you now, the Son might be gone by then, with nobody but Peter or Paul or
some other saint to receive the parade. Any questions?’
“How much is a cubit?’
‘Two cubits is one yard. Any creature in this cohort who does not know how long a yard is?’
No, one spoke up. The angel added, ‘Any more questions?’
A woman to my left and above me called out, ‘Yes! My. daughter didn’t have her cough medicine with her. So I fetched it. Can you take it to her?’
‘Creature, please accept my assurance that any cough your daughter manages to take with her to Heaven will be purely psychosomatic.’
‘But her doctor said -´
‘And in the meantime shut up and let’s get on with this parade. Special requests can be filed after arriving in Heaven.’
There were more questions, mostly silly, confirming an opinion I had kept to myself for years: Piety does not imply horse sense.
Again the trumpet sounded; our cohort’s flightmaster called out, ‘Forward!’ Seconds later there was a single blast; he shouted, ‘Fly!’ We moved forward.
(Note: I call this angel ‘he’ because he seemed male.
Ones that seemed to be female I refer to as ‘she’. I never have been sure about sex in an angel. If any. I think they are androgynous but I never had a chance to find out. Or the courage to ask.)
(Here’s another one that bothers me. Jesus had brothers and sisters; is the Virgin Mary still a virgin? I have never had the courage to ask that question, either.)
We could see His throne for many miles ahead. This was not the great white Throne of God the Father
in Heaven; this was just a field job for Jesus to use on this occasion. Nevertheless it was magnificent, carved out of a single diamond with its myriad facets picking up Jesus’ inner light and refracting it in a shower of fire and ice in all directions. And that is what I saw best, as the face of Jesus shines with such blazing light that, without sun glasses, you can’t really see His features.
Never mind; you knew Who He was. One could not help knowing. A feeling of overpowering awe grabbed me when we were still at least twenty-five miles away. Despite my professors of theology, for the first time in my life I understood (felt) that single emotion that is described in the Bible by two words used together: love and fear. I loved/feared the Entity on that throne, and now I knew why Peter and James had abandoned their nets and followed Him.
And of course I did not make my request to Him as we passed closest (about a hundred yards). In my life on earth I had addressed (prayed to) Jesus by name thousands of times; when I saw Him in the Flesh I simply reminded myself that the angel herding us had. promised us a chance to file personal requests when we reached Heaven. Soon enough. In the meantime it pleased me to think about Margrethe, somewhere in this parade, seeing the Lord Jesus on His throne… and if I had not intervened, she might never have seen Him. It made me feel warm and good, on top of the ecstatic awe I felt in staring at His blinding light.
Some miles past the throne the column swung up and to the right, and we left the neighborhood first of earth and then of the solar system. We headed straight for Heaven and picked up speed.
Did you know that earth looks like a crescent moon when you look back at it? I wondered whether or not any flat-earthers had managed to attain the Rapture. It did not seem likely, but such ignorant superstition is not totally incompatible with believing in Christ. Some superstitions are absolutely forbidden – astrology, for example, and Darwinism. But the flat-earth nonsense is nowhere forbidden that I know of. If there were any flat-earthers with us, how did they feel to look back and see that the earth was round as a tennis ball?
(Or would the Lord in His mercy let them perceive it as flat? Can mortal man ever understand the viewpoint of God?)
It seemed to take about two hours to reach the neighborhood of Heaven. I say ‘seemed to’ because it might have been any length of time; there was no human scale by which to judge. In the same vein, the total period of the Rapture seemed to me to be about two days… but I had reason later to believe that it may have been seven years – at least by some reckoning. Measures of time and space become very slippery when one lacks mundane clocks and’ yardsticks.
As we approached the Holy City our guides had us slow down and then make a sightseeing sweep around it before going in through one of the gates.
This was no minor jaunt. New Jerusalem (Heaven, the Holy City, Jehovah’s capital) is laid out foursquare like the District of Columbia, but it is enormously bigger, one thousand three hundred and twenty miles on a side, five thousand two hundred and eighty miles around it, and that gives an area of one million seven hundred and forty-two thousand four hundred square miles.
This makes cities like Los Angeles or New York look tiny.
In solemn truth the Holy City covers an area more than six times as big as all of Texas! At that, it’s crowded. But are, expecting only a few more after us.
It’s a walled city, of course, and the walls are two hundred and sixteen feet high, and the same wide. The tops of the wall are laid out in twelve traffic lanes – and no guard rails. Scary. There are twelve gates, three in each wall, the famous pearly gates (and they are); these normally stand open – will not be closed, we were told, until the Final Battle.
The wall itself is of iridescent jasper but it has a dozen footings in horizontal layers that are more dazzling than the wall itself: sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, amethyst – I may have missed some. New Jerusalem is so dazzling everywhere that it is hard for a human to grasp it – impossible to grasp it all at once.
When we finished the sweep around the Holy City, our cohort’s flightmaster herded us, into a holding pattern like dirigibles at O’Hare and kept us there until he received a signal that one of the gates was free
and I was hoping to get at least a glimpse of Saint Peter, but no – his office is at the main gate, the Gate of Judah, whereas we went in by the opposite gate, named for Asher, where we were registered by angels deputized to act for Peter.
Even with all twelve gates in use and dozens of Peter deputized clerks at each gate and examination waived (since we all were caught up at the Rapture – guaranteed saved) we had to queue up quite a long time just to get registered in, receive temporary identifications, temporary bunking assignments, temporary eating assignments –
(‘Eating’?)
Yes, I thought so, too, and I asked the angel who booked me about it. He/she looked down at me. ‘Refection is optional. It will do you no harm never to eat and not to drink. But many creatures and some angels ‘enjoy eating, especially in company. Suit yourself.’
‘Thank you. Now about this berthing assignment. It’s a single. I want a double, for me and my wife. I want -‘
‘Your former wife, you mean. In Heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage. I
‘Huh? Does that mean we can’t live together?’
‘Not at all. But both of you must apply, together, at Berthing General. See the office of Exchange and Readjustments. Be sure, each of you, to fetch your berthing chit.’
‘But that’s the problem! I got separated from my wife. How do I find her?’
‘Not part of my M.0.S. Ask at the information booth. In the meantime use your singles apartment in Gideon Barracks.’
‘But -´
He (she?) sighed. ‘Do you realize how many thousands of hours I have been sitting here? Can you guess how complex it is to provide for millions of creatures at once, some alive and never dead, others newly incarnate? This is the first time we have had to install plumbing for the use of fleshly creatures – do you even suspect how inconvenient that is? I say that, when you install plumbing, you are bound to get creatures who need plumbing – and there goes the neighborhood! But did they listen to me? Hunh! Pick up your papers, go through that door, draw a robe and a halo – harps are optional. Follow the green line to Gideon Barracks.’
‘No!’
I saw his (her) lips move; she (he) may have been praying. ‘Do you think it is proper to run around Heaven, looking the way you do? You are quite untidy. We aren’t used to living-flesh creatures. Uh… Elijah is the last I recall, and I must say that you look almost as disreputable as he did. In addition to discarding those rags and putting on a decent white robe, if I were you I would do something about that dandruff.’
‘Look,’ I said tensely. ‘Nobody knows the trouble I’ve Seen, nobody knows but Jesus. While you’ve been sitting around in a clean white robe and a halo in an immaculate City with streets of gold, I’ve been struggling with Satan himself. I know I don’t look very neat but I didn’t choose to come here looking this way. Uh – Where can I pick up some razor blades?’
‘Some what?’
‘Razor blades. Gillette double-edged blades, or that type. For this.’ I took out my razor, showed it to her/him. ‘Preferably stainless steel.’
‘Here everything is stainless. But what in Heaven is that?’
‘A safety razor. To take this untidy beard off my face.’
‘Really? If the Lord in His wisdom had intended His male creations not to have hair on their faces, He would have created them with smooth features. Here, let me dispose of that.’ He-she reached for my razor.
I snatched it back. ‘Oh, no, you don’t! Where’s that information booth?’
‘To your left. Six hundred and sixty miles. ‘ She-he sniffed.
I turned away, fuming. Bureaucrats. Even in Heaven. I didn’t ask any more questions there because I
spotted a veiled meaning. Six hundred and sixty miles is a figure I recalled from our sightseeing tour: the exact distance from a center gate (such as Asher Gate, where I was) to the center of Heaven, i.e., the Great White Throne of the Lord God Jehovah, God the Father. He (she) was telling me, none too gently, that if I did not like the way I was being treated, I could take my complaints to the Boss – i.e., ‘Get lost!’
I picked up my papers and backed away, looked around for someone else in authority.
The one who organized this gymkhana, Gabriel or Michael or whoever, had anticipated that there would be lots of creatures milling around, each with problems that didn’t quite fit the system. So scattered through the crowd were cherubs. Don’t think of Michelangelo or Luca della Robbia; these were not bambinos with dimpled knees; these were people a foot and a half taller than we newcomers were like angels but with little cherub wings and each with a badge reading ‘STAFF’.
Or maybe they were indeed angels; I never have been sure about the distinction between angels and cherubim and seraphim and such; the Book seems to take it for granted that you know such things without being told. The papists list nine different classes of angels! By whose authority? It’s not in the Book!
I found only two distinct classes in Heaven: angels and humans. Angels consider themselves superior and do not hesitate to let you know it. And they are indeed superior in position and power and privilege.
Saved souls are second-class citizens – The notion, one that runs all through Protestant Christianity and maybe among papists as well, that, a saved soul will practically sit in the lap of God well, it ain’t so! So you’re saved and you go to Heaven you find at once that you are the new boy on the block, junior to everybody else.
A saved soul in Heaven occupies much the position of a blackamoor in Arkansas. And it’s the angels who really rub your nose in it.
I never met an angel I liked.
And this derives from how they feel about us. Let´s look at it from the angelic viewpoint. According to Daniel there are a hundred million angels in Heaven. Before the Resurrection and the Rapture, Heaven must have been uncrowded, a nice place to live and offering a good career – some messenger work, some choral work, an occasional ritual. Fm sure the angels liked it.
Along comes a great swarm of immigrants, many millions (billions?), and some of them aren’t even house-broken. All of them require nursemaiding. After untold eons of beatific living, suddenly the angels find themselves working overtime, running what amounts to an enormous orphan asylum. It’s not surprising that they don’t like us.
Still… I don’t like them, either. Snobs!
I found a cherub (angel?) with a STAFF badge and asked the location of the nearest information booth. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Straight down the boulevard Six thousand furlongs. It’s by the River that flows from the Throne.’
I stared down the boulevard. At that distance God the Father on His Throne looked like a rising sun. I said, ‘Six thousand furlongs is over six hundred miles. Isn’t there one in this neighborhood?’
‘Creature, it was done that way on purpose. If we had placed a booth on each corner, every one of them would have crowds around it, asking silly questions. This way, a creature won’t make the effort unless it has a truly important question to ask.’
Logical. And infuriating. I found that I was again possessed by unheavenly thoughts. I had always pictured Heaven as a place of guaranteed beatitude – not filled with the same silly frustration so common on earth. I counted to ten in English, then in Latin. ‘Uh, what’s the flight time? Is there a speed limit?’
´Surely you don’t think that you would be allowed to fly there, do you?’
‘Why not? Just earlier today I flew here and then all the way around the City.’
‘You just thought you did. Actually, your cohort leader did it all. Creature, let me give you a tip that may keep you out of trouble. When you get your wings – if you ever do get wings – don’t try to fly over the Holy City, You’ll be grounded so fast your teeth will ache. And your wings stripped away.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you don’t rate it, that’s why. You Johnny-Come-Latelies show up here and think you own the place. You’d carve your initials in the Throne if you could get that close to it. So let me put you wise.
Heaven operates by just one rule: R.H.I.P. Do you know what that means?’
‘No,’ I answered, not entirely truthfully.
‘Listen and learn. You can forget the Ten Commandments. Here only two or three of them still apply and you’ll find you can’t break those even if you were to’ try. The golden rule everywhere in Heaven is: Rank Hath Its Privileges. At this eon you are a raw recruit in. the Armies of the Lord, with the lowest rank possible. And the least privilege. In fact the only privilege I can think of that you rate is being here, just being here. The Lord in His infinite wisdom has decreed that you qualify to enter here. But that’s all.
Behave yourself and you will be allowed to stay. Now as to the traffic rule you asked about. Angels and nobody else fly over the Holy City. When on duty or during ceremonies. That does not mean you. Not even if you get wings. If you do. I emphasize this because a surprising number of you creatures have arrived here with the delusion that going to Heaven automatically changes a creature into an angel. It doesn’t. It can’t. Creatures never become angels. A saint sometimes. Though seldom. An angel, never.’
I counted ten backwards, in’Hebrew. ‘If you don’t mind, I’m still trying to reach that information booth. Since I am not allowed to fly, how do I get there?’
‘Why didn’t you say that in the first place? Take the bus.’
Sometime later I was seated in a chariot bus of the Holy City Transit Lines and we were rumbling toward the distant Throne. The chariot was open, boat-shaped, with an entrance in the rear, and had no discernible motive power and no teamster or conductor. It stopped at marked chariot stops and that is how I got aboard. I had not yet found out how to get it to stop.
Apparently everyone in the City rode these buses (except V.I.P.s who rated private chariots). Even angels. Most passengers were humans dressed in conventional white and wearing ordinary halos. But a few were humans in costumes of various eras and topped off by larger and fancier halos. I noticed that angels were fairly polite to these creatures in the fancier halos. But they did not sit with them. Angels sat in the front of the car, these privileged humans in the middle part, and the common herd (including yours truly) in the rear.
I asked one of my own sort how long it took to reach the Throne.
‘I don’t know,’ I was answered. ‘I don’t go nearly that far.
This soul seemed to be female, middle-aged, and friendly, so I used a commonplace opener. ‘That’s a Kansas accent, is it not?’
She smiled. ‘I don’t think so. I was born in Flanders.’
‘Really? You speak very fluent English.’
She shook her head gently. ‘I never learned English.’
‘But -´
‘I know. You are a recent arrival. Heaven is not affected by the Curse of Babel. Here the Confusion of Tongues took place… and a good thing for me as I, have no skill in languages – a handicap before I died. Not so here. ‘She looked at me with interest. ‘May I ask where you died? And when?’
‘I did not die,’ I told her. ‘I was snatched up alive in the Rapture.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, how thrilling! You must be very holy.
‘I don’t think so. Why do you say that?’
‘The Rapture will come – came? – without warning. Or so I was taught.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then with no warning, and no time for confession, and no priest to help you… you were ready! As free from sin as Mother Mary. You came straight to Heaven. You must be holy. ‘ She added, ‘That’s what I thought when I saw your costume, since saints – martyrs especially – often dress as they did on earth. I saw too that you are not wearing your saint’s halo. But that’s your privilege. ‘She looked suddenly shy. ‘Will you bless me? Or do I presume?’.
‘Sister, I am not a saint.’
‘You will not grant me your blessing?’
(Dear Jesus, how did this happen to me?) ‘Having heard say that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I am ,not a saint, do you still want me to bless you?’
‘If you will… holy father.’
‘Very well. Turn and lower your head a little – ´Instead she turned fully and dropped to her knees. I put a hand on her head. ‘By authority vested in me as an ordained minister of the one true catholic church of Jesus Christ the Son of God the Father and by the power of the Holy. Ghost, I bless this our sister in Christ. So mote it be!’
I heard echoes of ‘Amen!’ around us; we had had quite an audience. I felt embarrassed. I was not certain, and still am not certain, that I had any authority to bestow blessings in Heaven itself. But the dear woman had asked for it and I could not refuse.
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. ‘I knew it, I knew it!’
‘Knew what?’
´That you are a saint. Now you are wearing it!’
I started to say, ‘Wearing what?’ when a minor miracle occurred. Suddenly I was looking at myself from outside: wrinkled and dirty khaki pants, Army-surplus shirt with dark sweat stains in the armpits and a bulge of razor in the left breast pocket, three-day growth of beard and in need of a haircut… and, floating over my head, a halo the size of a washtub, shining and sparkling!
‘Up off your knees,’ I said instead, ‘and let’s stop being conspicuous.´
‘Yes, father.’ She added, ‘You should not be seated back here.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that, daughter. Now tell me about yourself.’ I looked around as she resumed her seat, and happened to catch the eye of an angel seated all alone, up forward. (S)he gestured to me to come forward.
I had had my fill of the arrogance of angels; at first I ignored the signal. But everyone I was noticing and pretending not to, and my awe-struck companion was whispering urgently, ‘Most holy person, the angelic one wants to see you.´
I gave in – partly because it was easier, partly because I wanted to ask the angel a question. I got up and went to the front of the bus.
‘You wanted me?’
‘Yes. You know the rules. Angels in front, creatures in back, saints in the middle. If you sit in back with creatures, you are teaching them bad habits. How can you expect to maintain your saintly privileges if you ignore protocol? Don’t let it happen again.’
I thought of several retorts, all unheavenly. Instead I said, ‘May I ask a question?’
`Ask.’
‘How much longer until this bus reaches the River from the Throne?’
‘Why do you ask? You have all eternity before you.´
‘Does that mean that you don’t know? Or that you won’t tell?’
‘Go sit down in your proper section. At once!’
I went back and tried to find a seat in the after space. But my fellow creatures had closed in and left me no room. No one said anything and they would not meet my eye, but it was evident that no one would aid me in defying the authority of an angel. I sighed and sat down in the mid-section, in lonely splendor, as I was the only saint aboard. If I was a saint.
I don’t know how long it took to reach the Throne. In Heaven the light doesn’t vary and the weather does not change and I had no watch. It was simply a boringly long time. Boring? Yes. A gorgeous palace constructed of precious stone is a wonderful sight to see. A dozen palaces constructed of jewels can be a dozen wonderful sights, each different from the other. But a hundred miles of such palaces will put you to sleep, and six hundred miles of the same is deadly dull. I began to long for a used-car lot, or a dump, or (best yet) a stretch of green and open countryside.
New Jerusalem is a city of perfect beauty; I am witness to that. But that long ride taught me the uses of ugliness.
I never have found out who designed the Holy City.
That God authorized the design and construction is axiomatic. But the Bible does not name the architect(s), or the builder(s). Freemasons speak of ‘the Great Architect, meaning Jehovah – but you won’t find that in the Bible. Just once I asked an angel, ‘Who designed this city?’ He didn’t sneer at my ignorance, he didn’t scold me- he appeared to be unable to conceive it as a question. But it remains a question to me: Did God create (design and build) the Holy City Himself, right down to the smallest jewel? Or did He farm it out to subordinates?
Whoever designed it, the Holy City has a major shortcoming, in my opinion – and never mind telling me
that my presumption in passing judgment on God’s design is blasphemous. It is a lack, a serious one.
It lacks a public library.
One reference librarian who had devoted her life to answering any and all questions, trivial and weighty, would be more use in Heaven than another cohort of arrogant angels. There must be plenty of such ladies in Heaven, as it takes a saintly disposition and the patience of Job to be a reference librarian and to stick with it for forty years. But to carry on their vocation they would need books and files and so forth, the tools of their profession. Given a chance, I’m sure they would set up the files and catalog the books but where would they get the books? Heaven does not seem to have a book-publishing industry.
Heaven doesn’t have industry. Heaven doesn’t have an economy. When Jehovah decreed, after the expulsion from Eden, that we descendants of Adam must gain our bread by the sweat of our faces, He created economics and it has been operating ever since for ca. 6000 years.
But not in Heaven.
In Heaven He giveth us, our daily bread without the sweat of our faces. In truth you don’t need daily bread; you can’t starve, you won’t even get hungry enough to matter – just hungry enough to enjoy eating if you want to amuse yourself by stopping in any of the many restaurants, refectories, and lunchrooms.’ The best hamburger I ever ate in my life was in a small lunchroom off the Square of Throne on the banks of the River. But again, ‘m ahead of my story.
Another lack, not as serious for my taste but serious, is gardens. No gardens, I mean, except the grove of the Tree of Life by the River near the Throne, and a few, a very few, private gardens here and there. I think I know why this is so and, if I am right, it may be self-correcting. Until we reached Heaven (the people of the Rapture and the resurrected dead-in-Christ) almost all citizens of the Holy City were angels. The million or so exceptions were martyrs for the faith, children of Israel so holy that they made it without ever having personally experienced Christ (i.e., mostly before 30 AD), and another group from unenlightened lands – souls virtuous without ever knowing of Christ. So 99 percent of the citizens of the Holy City were angels.
Angels don’t seem to be interested in horticulture. I suppose that figures – I can’t imagine an angel down on his/her knees, mulching the soil around a plant. They just aren’t the dirty-fingernails sort needed to grow prize roses.
Now that angels are outnumbered by humans by at least ten to one I expect that we will see gardens – gardens, garden clubs, lectures on how to prepare the soil, and so forth. All the endless ritual of the devoted gardener. Now they will have time for it.
Most humans in Heaven do what they want to do without the pressure of need. That nice lady (Suzanne) who wanted my blessing was a lacemaker in Flanders; now she teaches it in a school open to anyone who is interested. I have gathered a strong impression that, for most humans, the real problem of an eternity of bliss is how to pass the time. (Query: Could there be something to this reincarnation idea so prevalent in other religions but so firmly rejected by Christianity? Could a saved soul be rewarded, eventually, by being shoved back into the conflict? If not on earth, then elsewhere? I’ve got to lay hands on a Bible and do some searching. To my utter amazement, here in Heaven Bibles seem to be awfully hard to come by.)
‘The information booth was right where it was supposed to be, close to the bank of the River of the Water of Life that flow’s from the Throne of God and winds through the grove of the Tree of Life. The Throne soars up from the, middle of the grove but you can’t see it very well that close to its base. It’s like looking up at the tallest of New York skyscrapers while standing on the sidewalk by it. Only more so.
And of course you can’t see the Face of God; you are, looking straight up one thousand four hundred and- forty cubits. What you see is, the Radiance… and you can feel the Presence.
The information booth was as crowded as that cherub had led me to expect. The inquirers weren’t queued up; they were massed a hundred deep around it. I looked at that swarm and wondered how long it would take me to work my way up to the counter. Was it possible to work my way there other than by the nastiest of bargain-day tactics, stepping on corns, jabbing with elbows, all the things that make department stores so uninviting to males?
I stood back and looked at that mob and tried to figure out how to cope. Or was there some other way to locate Margrethe without stepping on corns?
I was still standing there when a STAFF cherub came up to me. ‘Holy one, are you trying to reach the information booth?’
‘I surely am!’
‘Come with me. Stay close behind me.’ He was carrying a long staff of the sort used by riot police. ‘Gangway! Make way for a saint! Step lively there!’ In nothing flat I reached the counter of the booth. I
don’t think anyone was injured but there must have been some hurt feelings. I don’t approve of that sort of action; I think that treatment should be even-handed for everyone. But, where R.H.I.P. is the rule, being even a corporal is vastly better than being a private.
I turned to thank the cherub; he was gone. A voice said, ‘Holy one, what do you want?’ An angel back of the counter was looking down at me.
I explained that I wanted to locate my wife. He Drummed on the counter. ‘That’s not ordinarily a service we supply. There is a co-op run by creatures called “Find Your Friends and Loved Ones” for that sort of thing.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Near Asher Gate.’
‘What? I just came from there. That’s where I registered in.’
‘You should have asked the angel who checked you in. You registered recently?’
‘Quite recently; I was caught up in the Rapture. I did ask the angel who registered me… and got a fast brushoff. He, she, uh, that angel told me to come here.’
`Mrf. Lemme see your papers.’
I passed them over. The angel studied them, slowly and carefully, then called to another angel, who had stopped servicing the mob to watch. ‘Tirl! Look at this.’
So the second angel looked over my papers, nodded sagely, handed them—back – glanced at me, shook his head sadly.’ ‘Is something wrong?’ I asked.
‘No. Holy one, you had the misfortune to be serviced,’ if that is the word, by an angel who wouldn’t help his closest friend, if he had one, which he doesn’t. But I’m a bit surprised that she was so abrupt with a saint.’
‘I wasn’t wearing this halo at the time.’
‘That accounts for it. You drew it later?’
‘I did not draw it. I acquired it miraculously, on the way from Asher Gate to here.’
`I see. Holy one, it’s your privilege to put Khromitycinel on the report. On the other hand I could use the farspeaker to place your inquiry for you.’
‘I think that would be better.’
‘So do I. In the long run. For you. If I make my meaning clear.’
‘You do.’
‘But before I call that co-op let’s check with Saint Peter’s office and make sure your wife has arrived. When did she die?’
‘She didn’t die. She was caught up in the Rapture, too.’
‘So? That means a quick and easy check, no searching of old rolls. Full name, age, sex if any, place and date of we don’t need that. Full name first.’
Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson.’
‘Better spell that.’
I did so.
‘That’s enough for now. If Peter’s clerks can spell. You can’t wait here; we don’t have a waiting room. There is a little restaurant right opposite us – see the sign?’
I turned and looked. ‘ “The Holy Cow”?´
‘That’s it. Good cooking, if you eat. Wait there; I’ll send word to you.’
‘Thank you!’
‘You are welcome -‘She glanced again at my papers, then handed them back. ‘- Saint Alexander Hergensheimer.’
The Holy Cow was the most homey sight I had seen since the Rapture: a small, neat lunchroom that would have looked at home in Saint Louis or Denver. I went inside. A tall blackamoor whose chef’s hat stuck up through his halo was at the grill with his back to me. I sat down at the counter, cleared my throat.
‘Just hold your horses.’ He finished what he was doing, turned around. ‘What can I – Well, well! Holy man, what can I fix for you? Name it, just name it!’
‘Luke! It’s good to see you!’ ‘
He stared at me. ‘We have met?’
‘Don’t you remember me? I used to work for you. Ron’s Grill, Nogales. Alec. Your dishwasher.’
He stared a-gain, gave a deep sigh. ‘You sure fooled me. Saint Alec.’
‘Just “Alec” to my friends. It’s some sort of administrative mistake, Luke. When they catch it, I’ll trade this Sunday job for an ordinary halo.’
‘Beg to doubt – Saint Alec. They don’t make mistakes in Heaven. Hey! Albert! Take the counter. My friend, Saint Alec and I are going to sit in the dining room. Albert’s my sous-chef.’
I shook hands with a fat little man who was almost a parody of what a French chef should look like. He was wearing a Cordon Bleu hat as well as his halo. Luke and I went through a side door into a small dining room, sat down at a table. We were joined by a waitress and I got another shock.
Luke, said, ‘Hazel, I want you to meet an old friend of mine, Saint Alec – he and I used to be business associates. Hazel is hostess of The Holy Cow.’
‘I was Luke’s dishwasher,’ I told her. ‘Hazel, it’s wonderful to see you!’ I stood up, started to shake hands, then changed my mind for the better, put my arms around her.
She smiled up at me, did not seem surprised. ‘Welcome, Alec! “Saint Alec” now, I see. I’m not surprised.’
‘I am. It’s a mistake.’
‘Mistakes don’t happen in Heaven. Where is Margie? Still alive on earth?’
‘No.’ I explained how we had been separated. ‘So I’m waiting here for word.’
‘You’ll find her.’ She kissed me, quickly and warmly which reminded me of my four-day beard. I seated her, sat down with my friends. ‘You are sure to find her quickly, because that is a promise we were made and is precisely carried out. Reunion in Heaven with friends and loved ones. “We shall gather by the River -” and sure enough, there it is, right outside the door. Steve Saint Alec, you, do remember Steve? He was with you and Margie when we met.’
‘How could I forget him? He bought us dinner and gave us a gold eagle when we were stony. Do I remember Steve!’
‘I’m happy to hear you say that… because Steve credits you with converting him – born-again conversion
and getting him into Heaven. You see, Steve was killed on the Plain of Meggido, and I was killed in the War, too, uh, that was about five years after we met you
‘Five years?’
‘Yes. I was killed fairly early in the War; Steve lasted clear to Armageddon-‘
‘Hazel… it hasn’t been much over a month since Steve bought us that dinner at Rimrock.’
‘That’s logical. You were caught up in the Rapture and that touched off the War. So you spent the War years up in the air, and that makes it work out that Steve and I are here first even though you left first. You can discuss it with Steve; he’ll be in soon. By the way, I’m his concubine now his wife, except that here there is no marrying or giving in marriage. Anyhow Steve went back into the Corps when war broke out and got up to captain before they killed him. His outfit landed at Haifa and Steve died battling for the Lord at the height of Armageddon. I’m real proud of him.’
‘You should be. Luke, did the War get you, too?’
Luke gave a big grin. ‘No, sir, Saint Alec. They hanged me.’
‘You’re joking!’
`No joke. They hanged me fair and square. You remember when you quit me?’
‘I didn’t quit you. A miracle intervened. That’s how I met Hazel. And Steve.’
‘Well… you know more about miracles than I do. Anyway, we had to get another dishwasher right fast, and we had to take a Chicano. Man, he was a real bad ass, that one. Pulled a knife on me. That was his mistake. Pull a knife on a cook in his own kitchen? He cut me up some, I cut him up proper. Jury mostly his cousins, I think. Anyhow the D.A. said it was time for an example. But it was all right. I had been baptized long before that; the prison chaplain helped me be born again. I spoke a sermon standing on that trap with the noose around my neck. Then I said, “You can do it now! Send me to Jesus!
Hallelujah!” And they did. Happiest day of my lifel’
Albert stuck his head in. ‘Saint Alec, there’s an angel here looking for you.’
‘Coming!’
The angel was waiting just outside for the reason that he was taller than the doorway and not inclined to stoop. ‘You are Saint Alexander Hergensheimer?’
‘That’s me.’
“Your inquiry concerning a creature designated Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson: The report reads: Subject was not caught up in the Rapture, and has not shown up in any subsequent draft. This creature, Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson, is not in Heaven and is not expected. That is all.’
Chapter 23
I cry unto Thee, and Thou dost not hear me:
I stand up, and Thou regardest me not.
Job 30:20
SO OF course I eventually wound up in, Saint Peter’s office at the Gate of Judah – having chased all over Heaven first. On Hazel’s advice I went back to the Gate of Asher and looked up that co-op ‘Find Your Friends and Loved Ones’.
‘Saint Alec, angels don’t pass out misinformation and the records they consult are accurate. But they may not have consulted the right records, and, in my opinion, they would not have searched as deeply as you would search if you were doing it yourself -angels being angels. Margie might be listed under her maiden name.’
‘That was what I gave them!’
‘Oh. I thought you asked them to search for “Margie Graham”?’
‘No. Should I go back and ask them to?’
‘No. Not yet. And when you do – if you must don’ ask again at this information booth. Go directly to St Peter’s office. There you’ll get personal attention from other humans, not from angels.’
‘That’s for me!’
‘Yes. But try first at “Find Your Friends and Loved Ones”. That’s not a bureaucracy; it’s a co-op made up of volunteers, all of them people who really care. That’s how Steve found me after he was killed. He didn’t know my family name and I hadn’t used it for years, anyhow. He didn’t know my date and place of death. But a little old lady at “Find Your Friends” kept right on searching females named Hazel until Steve said “Bingo!” If he had just checked at the main personnel office – Saint Peter’s – they would have reported “insufficient data, no identification”.’
She smiled and went on, ‘But the co-op uses imagination. They brought Luke and me together, even
though we hadn’t even met before we died. After I got tired of loafing I decided that I wanted to manage a little restaurant it’s a wonderful way to meet people and make friends. So I asked the co-op and they set their computers on “cook”, and after a lot of false starts and wrong numbers it got Luke and me together and we formed a partnership and set up The Holy Cow. A similar search got us Albert.’
Hazel, like Katie Farnsworth, is the sort of woman who heals just by her presence. But she’s practical about it, too, like my own treasure. She volunteered to launder-my dirty clothes and lent me a robe of Steve’s to wear while my clothes dried. She found me a mirror and a cake of soap; at long last I tackled a five-day (seven-year?) beard. My one razor blade was closer to being a saw than a knife by then, but a half hour’s patient honing using the inside -of a glass tumbler (a trick I had learned in -seminary) restored it to temporary usefulness.
But now I needed a proper shave even though I had shaved – tried to shave – a couple of hours ago. I did not know how long I had been on this hunt but I did know that I had shaved four times… with cold water, twice without soap, and once by Braille – no mirror. Plumbing had indeed been installed for us fleshly types… but not up to American Standard quality. Hardly surprising, since angels don’t use plumbing and don’t need it, and since the overwhelming majority of the fleshly ones have little or no experience with inside plumbing.
The people who man the co-op were as helpful as Hazel said they would be (and I don’t think my fancy halo had anything to do with it) but nothing they turned up gave me any clue to Margrethe, even though they patiently ran computer searches on every combination I could think of.
I thanked them and blessed them and headed for Judah Gate, all the way across Heaven, thirteen hundred and twenty miles away. I stopped only once, at the Square of, the Throne, for one of Luke’s heaven burgers and a cup of the best coffee in New Jerusalem, and some encouraging words from Hazel. I continued my weary search feeling, much bucked up.
The Heavenly Bureau of Personnel occupies two colossal palaces on the right as you come through the gate. The first and smaller is for BC admissions; the second is for admissions since then, and included Peter’s office suite, on the second floor. I went straight there.
A big double door read SAINT PETER – Walk In, so I did. But not into his office; here was a waiting room big enough for Grand Central Station. I pushed through a turnstile that operated by pulling a ticket out of a slot, and a mechanical voice said, ‘Thank you. Please sit down and wait to be called.’
My ticket read ‘2013’ and the place was crowded; I decided, as I looked around for an empty seat, that
I was going to need another shave before my number would come up.
I was still looking when a nun bustled up to me, and ducked a knee in a quick curtsy. ‘Holy one, may I serve you?’ I did not know enough about the costumes worn by Roman Catholic orders to know what sisterhood she belonged to, but she was dressed in what I would call ‘typical’ – long black dress down to her ankles and to her wrists, white, starched deal over her chest and around her neck and. covering her ears, a black headdress covering everything else and giving her the silhouette of a sphinx, a big rosary hanging around her neck… and an ageless, serene face topped off by a lopsided pince-nez. And, of course, her halo.
The thing that impressed me most was that she was here. She was the first proof I had seen that papists can be saved. In seminary we used to argue about that in late-night bull sessions… although, the official position Of my Church was that certainly they could be saved, as long as they believed, as we did and were born again Jesus. I made a mental note to ask her when and how she had been born again – it would be, I was sure, an inspiring story.
I said, ‘Why, thank you, Sister! That’s most kind of you. Yes, you can help me – that is, I hope you can. I’m Alexander Hergensheimer and I’m trying to find my wife. This is the place to inquire, is it not? I’m new here.’
‘Yes, Saint Alexander, this is the place. But you did want to see Saint Peter, did you not?’
‘I’d like to pay my respects. If he’s not too busy.’
‘I’m sure he will want to see you, Holy Father. Let me tell my Sister Superior.’ She picked up the cross on her rosary, appeared to whisper into it, then looked up. ‘Is that spelled H,E,R,G,E,N,S,H,E,I,M,E,R, Saint Alexander?’
‘Correct, Sister.’
She spoke again to the rosary. Then she added, to me, ‘Sister Marie Charles is secretary, to Saint Peter. I’m her assistant and general gopher.’ She smiled. ‘Sister Mary Rose.’
‘It is good to meet you, Sister Mary Rose. Tell me about yourself. What order are you?’
‘I’m a Dominican, Holy Father. In life I was a hospital administrator in Frankfurt, Germany. Here, where there is no longer a need for nursing, I do this work because I like to mingle with people. Will you come with me, sir?’
The crowd parted like the waters of the Red Sea, whether in deference to the nun or to my gaudy halo, I cannot say. Maybe both. She took me to an unmarked side door and straight in, and I found myself in the office of her boss, Sister Marie Charles. She was a tall nun, as tall as I am, and handsome – or ‘beautiful’ may be more accurate. She seemed younger than her assistant… but how is one to tell with nuns? She was seated at a big flattop desk piled high and with an old-style Underwood typewriter swung out from its side. She got up quickly, faced me, and dropped that odd curtsy.
`Welcome, Saint Alexander! We are honored by your call. Saint Peter will be with you soon. Will you be seated? May we offer you refreshment? A glass of wine? A Coca-Cola?’
‘Say, I would really enjoy a Coca-Cola! I haven’t had, one since I was on earth.’
‘A Coca-Cola, right away.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll tell you a secret. Coca-Cola is Saint Peter’s one vice. So we always have them on ice here.’
A voice came out of the air above her desk – a strong’ resonant baritone of the sort I think of as a good preaching voice – a voice like that of ‘Bible’ Barnaby, may his name be blessed. ‘I heard that, Charlie. Let him have his Coke in here; I’m free now.’
‘Were you eavesdropping again, Boss?’
‘None of your lip, girl. And fetch one for me, too.’
Saint Peter was up and striding toward the door with his hand out as I was ushered in. I was taught in church history that he was believed to have been about ninety when he died. Or when he was executed (crucified?) by the, Romans, if he was. (Preaching has always been a chancy vocation, but in the days of Peter’s ministry it was as chancy as that of a Marine platoon sergeant.)
This man looked to be a strong and hearty sixty, or possibly seventy – an outdoor man, with a permanent’ suntan and the scars that come from sun damage. His hair and beard were full and seemed never to have been cut, streaked with grey but not white, and (to my surprise) he appeared to have been at one time a redhead. He was well muscled and broad shouldered, and his hands were calloused, as I learned when he gripped my hand. He was dressed in sandals, a brown robe of coarse wool, a halo like mine, and a dinky little skullcap resting in the middle of that fine head of hair.
I liked him on sight.
He led me around to a comfortable chair near his desk chair, seated me before he sat back down. Sister Marie Charles was right behind us with two Cokes on a tray, in the familiar pinchwaist bottles and with not-so-familiar (I had not seen them for years) Coke ‘glasses with the tulip tops and the registered trademark. I wondered who had the franchise in Heaven and how such business matters were handled.
He said, ‘Thanks, Charlie. Hold all calls.’
‘Even?’
‘Don’t be silly. Beat it.’ He turned to me. ‘Alexander, I try to greet each newly arrived saint personally. But somehow I missed you.’
‘I arrived in the middle of a mob, Saint Peter. Those from the Rapture. And not at this gate. Asher Gate.’
‘That accounts for it. A busy day, that one, and we still aren’t straightened out. But a Saint should be escorted to the main gate… by twenty-four angels and two trumpets. I’ll have to look into this.’
‘To be frank, Saint Peter,’ I blurted out, ‘I don’t think I am a saint. But I can’t get this fancy halo off.’
I He shook his head. ‘You are one, all right. And don’t let your misgivings gnaw at you; no saint ever knows that he is one, he has to be told. It is a holy paradox that anyone who thinks he is a saint never is.
Why, when I arrived here and they handed me the keys and told me I was in charge, I didn’t believe it. I thought the Master was playing a joke on me in return for a couple of japes I pulled on Him back in the days when we were barnstorming around the Sea of Galilee. Oh, no! He meant it. Rabbi Simon bar Jona the old fisherman was gone and I’ve been’ Saint Peter ever since. As you are Saint Alexander, like it or not. And you will like it, in time.’
He tapped on a fat file folder lying on his desk. ‘I’ve been reading your record. There is no doubt about your sanctity. Once I reviewed your record I recalled your trial. Devil’s Advocate against you was Thomas Aquinas; he came up to me afterwards and told me that his attack was pro forma, as there had never been, any doubt in his mind but what you qualified. Tell me, that first miracle, ordeal by fire – did your faith ever waver?’
‘I guess it did. I got a blister out of it.’
Saint Peter snorted. ‘One lonely blister! And you don’t think you qualify. Son, if Saint Joan had had faith as firm as yours, she would have quenched the fire that martyred her’. I know of -´
Sister Marie Charles’ voice announced, ‘Saint Alexander’s wife is here.’
‘Show her in!’ To me he added, ‘Tell you later’.’
I hardly heard him; my heart was bursting.
The door opened; in walked Abigail.
I don’t know how to describe the next few minutes. Heartbreaking disappointment coupled with embarrassment summarizes it.
Abigail looked at me and said severely, ‘Alexander, what in the world are you doing wearing that preposterous halo? Take it off instantly!’
Saint Peter rumbled, ‘Daughter, you are not “in the world”; you are in my private office. You will not speak to Saint Alexander that way.’
Abigail turned her gaze to him, and sniffed. ‘You call him a saint? And didn’t your mother teach you to stand up for ladies? Or are saints exempt from such niceties?’
‘I do stand up, for ladies. Daughter, you will address me, with respect. And you will speak to your husband with the respect a wife owes her husband.’
‘He’s not my husband!’
‘Eh?’ Saint Peter looked from her to me, then back. ‘Explain yourself.’
‘Jesus said, “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels.” So there! And He said it again in Mark twelve, twenty-five.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Saint Peter, ‘I heard Him say it. To the Sadducees. By that rule you are no longer a wife.’
‘Yes! Hallelujah! Years I have waited to be rid of that clod – be rid of him without sinning.’
‘I’m unsure about the latter. But not being a wife does not relieve you of the duty to speak politely to this saint who was once your husband.’ Peter turned again to me. ‘Do You wish her to stay?’
‘Me? No, no! There’s been a mistake.’
`So it appears. Daughter, you may go.’
‘Now you just wait! Having come all this way, I have things I’ve been planning to tell you. Perfectly scandalous goings-on I have seen around here. Why, without the slightest sense of decency –
`Daughter, I dismissed you. Will you walk out on your own feet? Or shall I send for two stalwart angels and have you thrown out?’
‘Why, the very idea! I was just going to say -´
‘You are not going to say!’
‘Well, I certainly have as much right to speak my mind as anyone!’
‘Not in this office. Sister Marie Charles!’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Do you still remember the judo they taught you when you were working with the Detroit police?’
‘I do!’
‘Get this yenta out of here.’
The tall nun grinned and dusted her hands together. What happened next happened so fast that I can’t describe it. But Abigail left very suddenly.
Saint Peter sat back down, sighed, and picked up his Coke. ‘That woman would try the patience of Job.
How long were you married to her?´
‘Uh, slightly over a thousand years.’
‘I understand you. Why did you send for her?’
‘I didn’t. Well, I didn’t intend to.’ I started to try to explain.
He stopped me. ‘Of course! Why didn’t you say that you were searching for your concubine? You misled Mary Rose. Yes, I know whom you mean: the zaftig shiksa who runs all through the latter part of your dossier. Very nice girl, she seemed to me. You are looking for her?’
‘Yes, surely. The day of the Trump and the Shout we were snatched up together. But that whirlwind, a real Kansas twister, was so violent that we were separated.’
‘You inquired about her before. An inquiry relayed from the information booth by the River.’
‘That´s right.’
‘Alexander, that inquiry is the last entry in your file. I can order the search repeated… but I can tell you ahead of time that it will be useful only to assure you. The answer, will be the same: She is not here.’
He stood up and came around to put a hand on my shoulder. ‘This is a tragedy that I have seen repeated endlessly. A loving couple, confident of eternity together: One comes here, the other does not. What can I do? I wish I could do something. I can’t.’
‘Saint Peter, there has been a mistake!’
He did not answer.
‘Listen to me! I know! She and I were side by side, kneeling at the chancel rail, praying… and just before the Trump and the Shout the Holy Ghost descended on us and we were in a perfect state of grace
and were snatched up together. Ask Him! Ask Him! He will listen to you.’
Peter sighed again. ‘He will listen to anyone, in any of His Aspects. But I will inquire.’ He picked up a telephone instrument so old-fashioned that Alexander Graham Bell could have assembled it. ‘Charlie, give me the Spook. Okay, I’ll wait. Hi! This is Pete, down at the main gate. Heard any new ones? No?
Neither have I Listen, I got a problem. Please run Yourself back to the day of the Shout and the Trump, when You, in Your aspect as Junior, caught up alive all those incarnate souls who were at that moment in a state of grace. Place Yourself outside a wide place in the road called Lowell, Kansas – that’s in North America – and at a tent meeting, a revival under canvas. Are You there? Now, at least a few femtoseconds before the Trump, it is alleged by one Alexander Hergensheimer, now canonized, that You descended on him and is beloved concubine Margrethe. She is described as about three and a half cubits tall, blonde, freckled, eighty mina – Oh, You do? Oh. Too late, huh? I was afraid of that. I’ll tell him.’
I interrupted, whispering urgently, ‘Ask Him where she is!´
‘Boss, Saint Alexander is in agony. He wants to know where she is. Yes, I’ll tell him.’ Saint Peter hung up. ‘Not in Heaven, not on earth. You can figure out the answer yourself And I’m sorry.-
I, must state that Saint Peter was endlessly patient with me. He assured me that I could talk with any One of the Trinity… but reminded me that, in consulting the Holy Ghost we had consulted all of Them. Peter had fresh searches made of the Rapture list, the graves-opened list, and of the running list of all arrivals since then – while telling me that no computer search could conceivably deny the infallible answers of God Himself speaking as the Holy Ghost… which I understood and agreed with, while welcoming new searches.
I said, ‘But how about on earth? Could she be alive somewhere there? Maybe in Copenhagen?’
Peter answered, ‘Alexander, He is as omniscient on earth as He is in Heaven. Can’t you see that?’
I gave a deep sigh. ‘I see that. I’ve been dodging the obvious. All right, how do I get from here to Hell?’
‘Alec! Don’t talk that way!’
‘The hell I won’t talk that way! Peter, an eternity here without her is not an eternity of bliss; it is an eternity of boredom and loneliness and grief. You think this damned gaudy halo means anything to me when I know – yes, you´ve convinced me! – that my beloved is burning in the Pit? I didn’t ask much. Just to be allowed to live with her. I was willing to wash dishes forever if only I could see her smile, hear her voice, touch her hand! She’s been shipped on a technicality and you know it! Snobbish, bad-tempered angels get to live here without ever doing one, lick to deserve it. But my Marga, who is a real angel if one ever lived, gets turned down and sent to Hell to everlasting torture on a childish twist in the rules. You can tell the Father and His sweet-talking Son and that sneaky Ghost, that they can take their gaudy Holy City and shove it! If Margrethe has to be in Hell, that’s where I want to be!’
Peter, was saying, ‘Forgive him, Father; he’s feverish, with grief – he doesn’t know what he is saying.’
I quieted down a little. ‘Saint Peter, I know exactly what I am saying. I don’t want to stay here. My beloved is in Hell, so that is where I want to be. Where I must be.’
‘Alec, you’ll get over this.’
‘What you don’t see is that I don’t want to get over this. I want to be with my love and share her fate.
You tell me she’s in Hell -´
‘No, I told you that it is certain that she is not in Heaven and not on earth.’
‘Is there a fourth place? Limbo, or some such?’
‘Limbo is a myth. I know of no fourth place.’
‘Then I want to leave here at once and look all over Hell for her. How?’
Peter shrugged.
‘Damn it, don’t give me a run-around! That’s all I’ve been handed since the day I walked through the fire
one run-around after another. Am I a prisoner?.
‘No.
‘Then tell me how to go to Hell.’
‘Very well. You can’t wear that halo to Hell. They wouldn’t let you in.´
‘I never wanted it. Let’s go!´
‘Not long after that I stood on the threshold of Judah Gate, escorted there by two angels. Peter did not say good-bye to me; I guess he was disgusted. I was sorry about that; I liked him very much. But I could not make him understand that Heaven was not Heaven to me without Margrethe.
I paused at the brink. ‘I want you to take one message back to Saint Peter -´
They ignored me, grabbed me from both sides, and tossed me over.
I fell.
And fell.
Chapter 24
Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.
Job 23:3-4
AND STILL I fell.
For modern man one of the most troubling aspects of eternity lies in getting used to the slippery quality of time. With no clocks and no calendars and lacking even the alternation of day and night, or the phases of the moon, or the pageant of seasons, duration becomes subjective and ‘What time is it?’ is a matter of opinion, not of fact.
I think I fell longer than twenty minutes; I do not think that I fell as long as twenty years.
But don’t risk any money on it either way.
There was nothing to see but the insides of my eyeballs. There was not even the Holy City receding in the distance.
Early on, I tried to entertain myself by reliving in memory the happiest times in my life – and found that happy memories made me sad. So I thought about sad occasions and that was worse. Presently I slept. Or I think I did. How can you tell when you are totally cut off from sensation? I remember reading about one of those busybody ‘scientists’ building something he called a ‘sensory deprivation chamber’. What he achieved was a thrill-packed three-ring circus compared with the meager delights of falling from Heaven to Hell.
My first intimation that I was getting close to Hell was the stink. Rotten eggs. H2S Hydrogen, sulfide. The stench of burning brimstone.
You don’t die from it, but small comfort that may be, since those who encounter this stench are dead when they whiff it. Or usually so; I am not dead. They tell of other live ones in history and literature – Dante, Aeneas, Ulysses, Orpheus. But weren’t all of those cases fiction? Am I the first living man to go to Hell, despite all those yarns?
If so, how long will I stay alive and healthy? Just long enough to hit the flaming surface of the Lake? – there to go psst! and become a rapidly disappearing grease spot? Had my Quixotic gesture been just a wee bit hasty? A rapidly disappearing grease spot could not be much help to Margrethe; perhaps I should have stayed in Heaven and bargained. A saint in full-dress halo picketing the Lord in front of His Throne might have caused Him to reverse His decision… since His decision it had to be, L. G. Jehovah being omnipotent.
A bit late to think of it, boy! You can see the red glow on the clouds now. That must be boiling lava down there. How far down? Not far enough! How fast am I falling? Too fast!
I can see what the famous Pit is now: the caldera of an incredibly enormous volcano. Its walls are all around me, miles high, yet the flames and the molten lava are still a long, long way below me. But coming up fast! How are your miracle-working powers today, Saint Alec? You coped with that other fire pit with only a blister; think you can handle this one? The difference is only a matter of degree.
‘With patience and plenty of saliva the elephant de-flowered the mosquito.’ That job was just a matter of degree, too; can you do as well as that elephant? Saint Alec, that was not a saintly thought; what has happened to your piety? Maybe it’s the influence of this wicked neighborhood. Oh, well, you no longer need worry about sinful thoughts; it is too late to worry about any sin. You no longer risk going to Hell for your sins; you are now entering Hell – you are now in Hell. In roughly three seconds you are going to be a grease spot. ‘Bye, Marga my own! I’m sorry I never managed to get you that hot fudge sundae.
Satan, receive my soul; Jesus is a fink –
They netted me like a butterfly. But a butterfly would have needed asbestos wings to halve been saved the way I was saved; my pants were smoldering. They threw a bucket of water over me when they had me on the bank.
‘Just sign this chit.’
‘What chit?’ I sat up and looked out at the flames.
‘This chit.’ Somebody was holding a piece of paper under my nose and offering me a pen.
‘Why do you want me to sign it?’
‘You have to sign it. It acknowledges that we saved you from the burning Pit.’
`I want to see a lawyer. Meanwhile I won’t sign anything.’ The last time I was in this fix it got me tied down, washing dishes, for four months. This time I couldn’t spare four months; I had to get busy at once, searching for Margrethe.
‘Don’t be stupid. Do you want to be tossed back into that stuff?’
A second voice said, ‘Knock it off, Bert. Try telling him the truth.’
(‘Bert?’ I thought that first voice was familiar!) ‘Bert! What are you doing here?’ My boyhood chum, the one who shared my taste in literature. Verne and Wells and Tom Swift – ‘garbage’, Brother Draper had called it.
The owner of the first voice looked at me more closely. ‘Well, I’ll be a buggered baboon. Stinky Hergensheimer!’
‘In the flesh.’
‘I’ll be eternally damned. You haven’t changed much. Rod, get the net spread again; this is the wrong fish. Stinky, you’ve cost us a nice fee; we were fishing for Saint Alexander.’
`Saint who?’
‘Alexander. A Mick holy ^an who decided to go slumming. Why he didn’t come in by a
Seven-Forty-Seven God only knows; we don’t usually get carriage trade here at the Pit. As may be, you’ve probably cost us a major client by getting in the way just when this saint was expected and you ought to pay us for that.’
“How about that fin you owe me?’
`Boy, do you have a memory! That’s outlawed by the statute of limitations.’
‘Show it, to me in Hell’s law books. Anyhow, limitations can’t apply; you never answered me when I tried to collect. So it’s five bucks, compounded quarterly at six percent, for… how many years?’
‘Discuss it later, Stinky. I’ve got to keep an eye out for this saint.’
‘Bert.’
‘Later, Stinky.’
‘Do you recall my right name? The one my folks gave me?’
‘Why, I suppose – Alexander! Oh no, Stinky, it can´t be! Why, you almost flunked out of that backwoods Bible college, after you did flunk out of Rolla.’ His face expressed pain and disbelief. ‘Life can’t be that unfair.’
“The Lord moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.” Meet Saint Alexander, Bert. Would you like me to bless you? In lieu of a fee, I mean.
´We insist on cash. Anyhow, I don’t believe it.’
‘I believe it,’ the second man, the one Bert had called ‘Rod’, put in. ‘And I’d like your blessing, father; I’ve never, been blessed by a saint before. Bert, there’s nothing showing on the distant warning screen and, as you know, only one ballistic arrival was projected for this watch so this has to be, Saint Alexander.’
Can’t be. Rod, I know this character. If he’s a saint, I’m a pink monkey -‘ There was a bolt of lightning but of a cloudless sky. When Bert picked himself up, his clothes hung on him loosely. But he did not need them, as he was now covered with pink fur.
The monkey looked up at me indignantly. ‘Is that any way to treat an old pal?’
‘Bert, I didn’t do it. Or at least I did not intend to do it. Around me, miracles just happen; I don’t do them on, purpose.´
`Excuses. If I had rabies, I’d bite you.’
Twenty minutes later, we were in a booth at a lakefront bar, drinking beer and waiting for a thaumaturgist reputed, to be expert in shapes and appearances. I had been telling them why I was in Hell. ‘So I’ve got to find her. First I’ve got to check the Pit; if she’s in there it’s really urgent.’
‘She’s not in there,’ said Rod.
‘Huh? I hope you can prove that. How do you know?’
‘There’s never anyone in the Pit. That’s a lot of malarkey thought up to keep the peasants in line. Sure, a lot of the hoi polloi arrive ballistically, and a percentage of them used to fall into the Pit until the manager set up this safety watch Bert and I are on. But falling into the Pit doesn’t do a soul any harm… aside from scaring him silly. It burns, of course, so he comes shooting out even faster than he went in. But he’s not damaged. A fire bath just cleans up his allergies, if any.’
(Nobody in the Pit! No ‘burning in Hell’s fires throughout eternity what a shock that was going to be to Brother ‘Bible’ Barnaby and a lot of others whose stock in trade depended on Hell’s fires. But I was not here to discuss eschatology with two lost souls; I was here to find Marga.) ‘This “manager” you speak of. Is. that a euphemism for the Old One?’
The monkey – Bert, I mean – squeaked, ‘If you mean Satan, say so!’
‘That’s who I mean.’
‘Naw. Mr Ashmedai is city manager; Satan never does any work. Why should he? He owns this planet.’
This is a planet?’
‘You think maybe it’s a comet? Look out that window. Prettiest planet in this galaxy. And the best kept. No snakes. No cockroaches. No chiggers. No poison ivy. No tax collectors. No rats. No cancer. No preachers. Only two lawyers.’
‘You make it sound like Heaven.’
“Never been there. You say you just came from there; you tell us.’
‘Well… Heaven’s okay, if you’re an angel. It’s not a planet; it’s an artificial place, like Manhattan. I’m not here to plug Heaven; I’m here to find Marga.’ Should I try to see this Mr Ashmedai? Or would I be better off going directly to Satan?’
The monkey tried to whistle, produced a mouselike squeak. Rod shook his head. ‘Saint Alec, you keep surprising me. I’ve been here since 1588, whenever that was, and I’ve never laid eyes on the Owner. I’ve never thought of trying to see him. I wouldn’t know how to start. Bert, what do you think?’
‘I think I need another beer.’
‘Where do you put it? Since that lightning hit you, you aren’t big enough to put away one can of beer, let alone, three.’
‘Don’t be nosy and call the waiter.’
The quality of discourse did not improve, as every question I asked turned up more questions and no answers. The thaumaturgist arrived and bore off Bert on her shoulder, Bert chattering angrily over her fee she wanted half of all his assets and demanded a contract signed in blood before she would get to work. He wanted her to accept ten percent and wanted me to pay half of that.
When they left, Rod said it was time we found a pad for me; he would take me to a good hotel nearby.
I pointed out that I was without funds. ‘No problem, Saint Alec. All our immigrants arrive broke, but American Express and Diners Club and Chase Manhattan vie for the chance to extend first credit, knowing that whoever signs an immigrant first has a strong chance of keeping his business forever and six weeks past.’
‘Don’t they lose a lot, extending unsecured credit that way?’
‘No. Here in Hell, everybody pays up, eventually. Bear in mind that here a deadbeat can’t even die to avoid his debts, So just sign in, and charge everything to room service until you set it up with one of the big three.’
The Sans Souci Sheraton is on the Plaza, straight across from the Palace. Rod took me to the desk; I signed a registration card and asked for a single with bath. The desk clerk, a small female devil with cute little horns, looked at the card I had signed and her eyes widened. ‘Uh, Saint Alexander?’
‘I’m Alexander Hergensheimer, just as I registered. I am sometimes called “Saint Alexander”, but I don’t think the title applies here.’
She was busy not listening while she thumbed through her reservations. ‘Here it is, Your Holiness – the reservation for your suite.’
‘Huh? I don’t need a suite. And I probably couldn’t pay for it.’
‘Compliments of the management, sir.’
Chapter 25
And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.
Kings 11:3
Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?
Job 4:17
COMPLIMENTS OF the management!!’ How? Nobody knew I was coming here until just before I was chucked out Judah Gate. Did Saint Peter have a hotline to Hell? Was there some sort of
under-the-table cooperation with the Adversary? Brother, how that thought would scandalize the Board of Bishops back home!
Even more so, why? But I had no time to ponder it; the little devil – imp? – on duty slapped the desk bell and shouted, ‘Front!’
The bellhop who responded was human, and a very attractive youngster. I wondered how he had died so young and why he had missed going to Heaven. But it was none of my business so I did not ask. I did notice one thing: While he reminded me in his appearance of a Philip Morris ad, when he walked in front of me, leading me to my suite, I was reminded of another cigarette ad – ‘So round, so firm, so fully packed.’ That lad had the sort of bottom that Hindu lechers write poetry about – could it have been that, sort of sin that caused him to wind up here?
I forgot the matter when I entered that suite.
The living room was too small for football but large enough for tennis. The furnishings would be described as adequate' by any well-heeled oriental potentate. The alcove calledthe buttery’ had a
cold-table collation laid out ample for forty guests, with a few hot dishes on the end – roast pig with apple in mouth, baked peacock with feathers restored, a few such tidbits. Facing this display was a bar that was well stocked – the chief purser of Konge Knut would have been impressed by it.
My bellhop (‘Call me “Pat”.’) was moving around, opening drapes, adjusting windows, changing – thermostats, checking towels – all of those things bellhops do to encourage a liberal tip – while I was trying to figure out how to’ tip. Was there a way to charge a tip for a bellhop to room service? Well, I would have to ask Pat. I went through the bedroom (a Sabbath Day’s journey!) and tracked Pat down in the bath.
Undressing. Trousers at half-mast and about to be, kicked-off. Bare bottom facing me. I called out, ‘Here, lad! No! Thanks for the thought… but boys are not my weakness.’
‘The’y’re my weakness,’ Pat answered, ‘but I’m not a boy’- and turned around, facing me.
Pat was right;_she was emphatically not a boy.
I stood there with my chin hanging down, while she took off the rest of her clothes, dumped them into a hamper. ‘There!’ she said, smiling. ‘Am I glad to get out of that monkey suit! I’ve been wearing it since you were reported as spotted on radar. What happened, Saint Alec? Did you stop for a beer?’
‘Well… yes. Two or three beers.’
‘I thought so. Bert Kinsey had the watch, did he not? If the Lake ever overflows and covers this part of town with lava, Bert will stop for a beer before he runs for it. Say, what are you looking troubled about? Did I say something wrong?’
‘Uh, Miss. You are very pretty – but I didn’t ask for a girl, either.’
She stepped closer to me, looked up and patted my cheek. I could feel her breath on my chin, smell its sweetness. ‘Saint Alec,’ she said softly, ‘I’m not trying to seduce you. Oh, I’m available, surely; a party girl, or two or three, comes with the territory for all our luxury suites. But I can do a lot more than make love to you.’ She reached out, grabbed a bath towel, draped it around her hips. ‘Ichiban bath girl, too. Prease, you rike me wark arong spine?’ She dimpled and tossed the towel aside. ‘I’m a number-one bartender, too. May I serve you a Danish zombie?’
‘Who told you I liked Danish zombies?’
She had turned away to open a wardrobe. ‘Every saint I’ve ever met liked them. Do you like this?’ She held up a robe that appeared to be woven from a light blue fog.
‘It’s lovely. How’ many saints have you met?’
‘One. You. No, two, but the other one didn’t drink zombies. I was just being flip. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m not; it may be a clue. Did the information, come from a Danish girl? A blonde, about your size, about your weight, too. Margrethe, or Marga. Sometimes “Margie”.’
‘No. The scoop on you was in a printout I was given when I was assigned to you. This Margie – friend of yours?’
‘Rather more than a friend. She’s the reason I’m, in ‘Hell. On Hell. In?’
‘Either way. I’m fairly certain I’ve never met your Margie.’
‘How does one go about finding another person here?. Directories? Voting lists? What?’
I’ve never seen either. Hell isn’t very organized. It’s an anarchy except for a touch of absolute monarchy on some points.’
‘Do you suppose I could ask Satan?’
She looked dubious. ‘There’s no rule I know of that says you can’t write a letter to His Infernal Majesty. But there is no rule that says He has to read it, either. I think it would be opened and read by some secretary; they wouldn’t just dump, it into the Lake. I don’t think they would.’ She added, ‘Shall we go into the den? Or are you ready for bed?’
`Uh, I think I need a bath. I know I do.’
‘Good! I’ve never bathed a saint before. Fun!’
.’Oh, I don’t need help. I can bathe myself.’
She bathed me.
She gave me a manicure. She gave me a pedicure, and tsk-tsked over my toenails – ‘disgraceful’ was the mildest term she used. She trimmed my hair. When I asked about razor blades, she showed me a cupboard in the bath stocking eight or nine different ways of coping with beards. ‘I recommend that electric razor with the three rotary heads but, if you will trust me, you will learn’ that I am quite competent with an old-fashioned straight razor.’
`l’m just looking for some Gillette blades.’
‘I don’t know that brand but there are brand-new razors here to match all these sorts of blades.’
‘No, I want my own sort. Double-edged. Stainless.’
`Wilkinson Sword, double-edged lifetime?’
‘Maybe. Oh, here we are! – “Gillette Stainless – Buy Two Packs, Get One Free.”
`Good. I’ll shave you.’
‘No, I can do it.’
A half hour later I settled back against pillows in a bed for a king’s honeymoon. I had a fine Dagwood in my belly a Danish zombie nightcap in my hand, and I was wearing brand new silk pajamas in maroon and old gold. Pat took off that translucent peignoir in blue smoke that she had worn except while bathing me and got in beside me, placed a drink for herself, Glenlivet on rocks, where she could reach it.
Q said to myself, ‘Look, Marga, I didn’t choose this. There is only this one bed. But it’s a big bed and she’s not trying to snuggle up. You wouldn’t want me to kick her out, would you? She’s a nice kid; I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I’m tired; I’m going to drink this and go right to sleep.’)
I didn’t go right to sleep. Pat was not the least bit aggressive. But she was very cooperative. I found one part of my mind devoting itself intensely to what Pat had to offer. (plenty!) while another part of my mind was explaining to Marga that this wasn’t anything serious; I don’t love her; I love you and only you and always will… but I haven’t been able to sleep and –
Then we slept for a while. Then we watched a living hollowgram that Pat said was ‘X rated’. and I learned about things I had never heard of, but it turned out that, Pat had and could do them and could teach me, and this time I paused just long enough to tell Marga I was learning them for both of us, then I turned my whole attention to learning.
Then we napped again.
It was some time later that Pat reached out and touched my shoulder. ‘Turn over this way, dear; let me see your face. I thought so. Alec, I know you’re carrying the torch for your sweetheart; that’s why I’m here: to make it easier. But I can’t if you won’t try. What did she do for you that I haven’t done and can’t do? Does she have that famous left-hand thread? Or what? Name it, describe it. I’ll do it, or fake it, or send out for it. Please, dear. You’re beginning to hurt my professional pride.’
‘You’re doing just fine.’ I patted her hand.
‘I wonder. More girls like me, maybe, in various flavors? Drown you in tits? – chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, tutti-frutti. “Tutti-frutti” -hmm… Maybe you’d like a San. Francisco sandwich? Or some other Sodom-and-Gomorrah fancy? I have a male friend from Berkeley who isn’t all that male; he has a delicious, playful imagination; I’ve teamed with him many times. And he has on call others like him; he’s a member of both Aleister Crowley Associates and Nero’s Heroes and Zeroes. If you fancy a mob scene, Donny and I can cast it any way you like, and the Sans Souci will orchestrate it to suit your taste. Persian Garden, sorority house, Turkish harem, jungle drums with obscene rites, nunnery – “Nunnery” – did I tell you what I did before I died?’
`I wasn’t certainhad died.’
‘Oh, certainly. I’m not an imp faking human; I’m human. You don’t think anyone could get a job like this without human experience, do you? You have to be human right down to your toes to please a fellow human most; that stuff about the superior erotic ability of succubi is just their advertising. I was a nun, Alec, from adolescence to death, most of it spent teaching grammar and arithmetic to children who didn’t want to learn.
‘I soon learned that my vocation had not been a true one. What I did not know was how to get out of it. So I stayed. At about thirty I discovered just how miserably, awful my mistake had been; my sexuality reached maturity. Mean to say I got horny, Saint Alec, and stayed horny and got more so every year.
‘The worst thing about my predicament was not that I was subjected to temptation but that I was not subjected to temptation – as I would have grabbed any opportunity. Fat chance! My confessor might have looked upon me with lust had I been a choir boy – as it was, he sometimes snored while I was confessing. Not surprising; my sins were dull, even to me.’
‘What were your sins, Pat?’
‘Carnal thoughts, most of which I did not confess. Not being forgiven, they went straight into Saint Peter’s computers. Blasphemous adulterous fornication.’
Huh? Pat, you have quite an imagination.’
‘Not especially, just horny. You probably don’t know just how hemmed in a nun is. She is a bride of Christ; that’s the contract. So even to think about the joys of sex makes of her an adulterous wife in the worst possible way.’
‘Be darned. Pat, I recently met two nuns, in Heaven. Both seemed like hearty wenches, one especially. Yet there they were.’
‘No inconsistency. Most nuns confess their sins regularly, are forgiven. Then they usually die in the bosom of their Family, with its chaplain or confessor at hand. So gets the last rites with her sins all forgiven and she’s shipped straight to Heaven, pure as Ivory soap.
‘But not me!’ She grinned. ‘I’m being punished for my sins and enjoying every wicked minute of it. I died a virgin in 1918, during the big flu epidemic, and so many died so fast that no priest got to me in time to grease me into Heaven. So I wound up here. At the end of my thousand year apprenticeship -´
‘Hold it! You died in 1918?’
‘Yes. The great Spanish Influenza epidemic. Born in 1878, died in 1918, on my fortieth birthday. Would you prefer for me to look forty? I can, you know.’
‘No, you look just fine. Beautiful.’
‘I wasn’t sure. Some men – Lots of eager mother humpers around here and most of them never got a chance to do it while they were alive. It’s one of my easier entertainments. I simply lead you into hypnotizing yourself, you supply the data. Then I look and sound exactly like your mother. Smell like her, too. Everything. Except that I am available to you in ways that your mother probably was not. -‘
‘Patty, I don’t even like my mother!’
‘Oh. Didn’t that cause you trouble at Judgment Day?’
‘No. That’s not in the rules. It says in the Book that you must honor thy father and thy mother. Not one word about loving them. I honored her, all the full protocol. Kept her picture on my desk. A letter every week. Telephoned her on her birthday. Called on her in person as my duties permitted. Listened to her eternal bitching and to her poisonous gossip about her women friends. Never contradicted her. Paid her hospital bills. Followed her to her grave. But weep I did not. She didn’t like me and I didn’t like her.
Forget my mother! Pat, I asked you a question and you changed the subject.’
‘Sorry, dear. Hey, look what I’ve found!’
‘Don’t change the subject again; just keep it warm in your hand while you answer my question. You said something about your “thousand-year apprenticeship”.’
‘Yes?’
‘But you said also that you died in 1918. The Final Trump sounded in 1994 – I know; I was there. That’s only seventy-six years later than your death. To me that Final Trump seems like only a few days ago, about a month, no more. I ran across something that seemed to make it seven years ago. But that still isn’t over nine hundred, the best part of a thousand years. I’m not a spirit, I’m a living body. And I’m not Methuselah.’ (Damn it, is Margrethe separated from me by a thousand years? This isn’t fair!)
‘Oh. Alec, in eternity a thousand years isn’t any particular time; it is simply a long time. Long enough in this case to test whether or not I had both the talent and the disposition for the profession. That took quite a while because, while I was horny enough – and stayed that way; almost any guest can send me right through the ceiling as you noticed – I had arrived here knowing nothing about sex. Nothing! But I did learn and eventually Mary Magdalene gave me high marks and recommended me for permanent appointment.’
‘Is she down here?’
‘Oh. She’s a visiting professor here; she’s on the permanent faculty in Heaven.’
‘What does she teach in Heaven?’
‘I have no idea but it can’t be what she teaches here. Or I don’t think so. Hmm. Alec, she’s one of the eternal greats; she makes her own rules. But this time you changed the subject. I was trying to tell you that I don’t know how long my apprenticeship lasted because time is whatever you want it to be. How long have you and I been in bed together?’
‘Uh, quite a while. But not long enough. I think it must be near midnight.’
‘It’s midnight if you want it to be midnight. Want me to get on top?’
The next morning, whenever that was, Pat and I had breakfast on the balcony looking out over the Lake. She was dressed in Marga’s favorite costume, shorts tight and’ short, and a halter with her breasts tending to overflow their bounds. I don’t know when she got her clothes, but my pants and shirt had been cleaned and repaired in the night and my underwear and socks washed – in Hell there seem to be busy little imps everywhere. Besides, they could have driven a flock of geese through our bedroom the latter part of the night without disturbing me.
I looked at Pat across the table, appreciating her wholesome, girl-scout beauty, with her sprinkle of freckles across her nose, and thought how strange it was that I had ever confused sex with sin. Sex can involve sin, surely any human act can involve cruelty and injustice. But sex alone held no taint of sin. I had arrived here tired, confused, and unhappy – Pat had first made me happy, then caused me to rest, then left me happy this lovely morning.
Not any less anxious to find you, Marga my own – but in much better shape to push the search.
Would Margrethe see it that way?
Well, she had never seemed jealous of me.
How would I feel if she took a vacation, a sexual vacation, such as I had just enjoyed? That’s a good question. Better think about it, boy – because sauce for the goose is not a horse of another color.
I looked out over the Lake, watched the smoke rise and the flames throwing red lights on the smoke… while right and left were green and sunny early summer sights, with snow-tipped mountains in the far distance. Pat -‘
‘Yes, dear?’
‘The Lake bank can’t be more than a furlong from here. But I can’t smell any brimstone.’
‘Notice how the breeze is blowing those banners? From anywhere around the Pit the wind blows toward the Pit. There it rises – incidentally slowing any soul arriving ballistically – and then on the far side of the globe there is a corresponding down draft into a cold pit where the hydrogen sulfide reacts with oxygen to form water and sulfur. The sulfur is deposited; the water comes out as water vapor, and returns. The two pits and this circulation control the weather here somewhat the way the moon acts as a control on earth weather. But gentler.’
I was never too hot at physical sciences… but that doesn’t sound like the natural laws I learned in school.’
‘Of course not. Different Boss here. He runs this planet to suit himself.’
Whatever I meant to answer got lost in a mellow gong played inside the suite. ‘Shall I answer, sir?’
‘Sure, but how dare you call me “sir”? Probably just room service. Huh?´
‘No, dear Alec, room service will just come in when they see that we are through.’ She got up, came back quickly with an envelope. ‘Letter by Imperial courier. For ‘You, dear.’
Me?’ I accepted it gingerly, and opened it. An embossed seal at the top: the conventional Devil in red, horns, hooves, tail, pitchfork, and standing in flames. Below it:
Saint Alexander Hergensheimer Sans Souci Sheraton
The Capital
Greetings:
In,response to your petition for an audience with His Infernal Majesty, Satan Mekratrig, Sovereign of Hell and His Colonies beyond, First of the Fallen Thrones, Prince of Lies, I have the honour to advise you that His Majesty requires you to substantiate your request by supplying to this office a full and frank memoir of your life. When this has been done, a decision on your request will be made.
May I add to His Majesty’s message this advice: Any attempt to omit, slur over, or color in the belief that you will thereby please His Majesty will not please Him.
I have the honour to remain, Sincerely His,
(s) Beelzebub Secretary to His Majesty
I read it aloud to Pat. She blinked her eyes and whistled. ‘Dear, you had better get busy!’
`I -´ The paper burst into flames; I dropped it into the dirty dishes. ‘Does that always happen?’
‘I don’t know; it’s’ the first time I’ve ever seen a message from Number One. And the first time I’ve heard of anyone being even conditionally granted an audience.’
‘Pat. I didn’t ask for an audience. I planned to find out how to do so today. But I have not put in the request this answers.’
‘Then you must put in the request at once. It wouldn’t do to let it stay unbalanced. I’ll help dear – I’ll type
it for you.’
The imps had been around again. In one corner of that vast living room I found that they had installed two desks, one a writing desk, with stacks of paper and a tumbler of pens, the other a more complex setup. Pat went straight to that one. ‘Dear, it looks like I’m still assigned to you. I’m your secretary now. The latest and best Hewlett-Packard equipment – this is going to be fun! Or do you know how to type?’
‘I’m, afraid not.’
‘Okay, you write it longhand; I’ll put it into shape… and correct your spelling and your grammar – you just whip it out. Now I know why I was picked for this job. Not my girlish smile, dear – my typing. Most of, my guild can’t type. Many of them took up whoring because shorthand and typing were too much for them. Not me. Well, let’s get to work; this job will run days, weeks, I don’t know. Do you want me to continue to sleep here?’
‘Do you want to leave?’
‘Dear, that’s the guest’s decision. Has to be.’
‘I don’t want you to leave.’ (Marga! Do please understand!)
‘Good thing you said that, or I would have burst into tears. Besides, a good secretary should stick around in case something comes up in the night.’
‘Pat, that was an old joke when I was in seminary.’
‘It was an old joke before you were born, dear. Lets get to work.’
Visualize a calendar (that I don’t have), its pages ripping off in the wind. This manuscript gets longer and longer but Pat insists that Prince Beelzebub’s advice must be taken literally. Pat makes two copies of all that I write; one copy stacks up on my desk, the other copy disappears each night. Imps again. Pat tells
me that I can assume that the vanishing copy is going to the Palace, at least as far as the Prince’s desk… so what I am doing so far must be, satisfactory.
In less than two hours each day Pat types out and prints out what takes me all day to write. But I stopped driving so hard when a handwritten note came in:
You are working too hard. Enjoy yourself. Take her to the theater. Go on a picnic. Don’t be so wound up.
(s)B.
The note self-destroyed, so I knew it was authentic. So I obeyed. With pleasure! But I am not going to describe the fleshpots of Satan’s capital city.
This morning I finally reached that odd point where I was (am) writing now about what is going on now – and I hand my last page to Pat.
Less than an hour after I completed that line above, the gong sounded; Pat went out into the foyer, hurried back. She put her arms around me. ‘This is good-bye, dear. I won’t be seeing you again.’
‘What!’
‘Just that, dear. I was told this morning that my assignment was ending. And I have something I must tell you.
You will find, you are bound to learn, that I have been reporting on you daily. Please don’t be angry about it. I am a professional, part of the Imperial security staff.’
‘Be damned! So every kiss, every sigh, was a fake.’
‘Not one was a fake! Not one! And, when you find your Marga, please tell her that I said she is lucky.’
‘Sister Mary Patricia, is this another lie?’
‘Saint Alexander, I have never lied to you. I’ve had to hold back some things until I was free to speak, that’s all.’ She took her arms from around me.
‘Hey! Aren’t you going to kiss me good-bye?’
‘Alec, if you really want to kiss me, you won’t ask.’
I didn’t ask; I did it. If Pat was faking, she’s a better actress than I think she is.
Two giant fallen angels were waiting to take me to the Palace. They were heavily armed and fully armored. Pat had packaged my manuscript and told me that I was expected to bring it with me. I started to leave – then stopped most suddenly. ‘My razor!’
‘Check your pocket, dear.’
‘Huh? How’d it get there?’
‘I knew you weren’t coming back, dear.’
Again I learned that, in the company of angels, I could fly. Out my own balcony, around the Sans Souci Sheraton, across the Plaza, and we landed on a third-floor balcony of Satan’s Palace. Then through several corridors, up a flight of stairs with lifts too high to be comfortable for humans. When I stumbled, one of my escorts caught me, then steadied me until we reached the top, but said nothing – neither ever said anything.
Great brass doors, as complex as the Ghiberti Doors, opened. I was shoved inside.
And saw Him.
A dark and smoky hall, armed guards down both sides, a high throne, a Being on it, at least twice as high as a man… a Being that was the conventional Devil such as YOU see on a Pluto bottle or a deviled-ham tin – tail and horns and fierce eyes, a pitchfork in lieu of scepter, a gleam from braziers glinting off Its dark red skin, sleek muscles. I had to remind myself that the Prince of Lies could look any way He wished; this was probably to daunt me.
His voice rumbled out like a foghorn: ‘Saint Alexander, you may approach Me.’
Chapter 26
I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.
Job 30:29
I STARTED up the steps leading to the throne. Again, the lifts were too high, the treads too wide, and now I had no one to steady me. I was reduced to crawling up those confounded steps while Satan looked down at me with a sardonic smile. From all around came music from an unseen source, death music, vaguely Wagnerian but nothing I could identify. I think it was laced with that below-sonic frequency that makes dogs howl, horses run away, and causes men to think of flight or suicide.
That staircase kept stretching.
I didn’t count the number of steps when I started up, but the flight looked to be about thirty steps, no more. When I had been crawling up it for several minutes, I realized that it looked as high as ever. The Prince of Lies!
So I stopped and waited.
Presently that rumbling voice said, ‘Something wrong,’ Saint Alexander?’
‘Nothing wrong,’ I answered, ‘because You planned it this way. If You really want me to approach You, You will turn off the joke circuit. In the meantime there is no point in my trying to climb a treadmill.’
‘You think I am doing that to you?’
‘I know that You are. A game. Cat and mouse.’
‘You are trying to make a fool of Me, in front of My gentlemen.’
‘No, Your Majesty, I cannot make a fool of You. Only You can do that.’
`Ah so. Do you realize that I can blast you where you stand?’
‘Your Majesty, I have been totally in Your power since I entered Your realm. What do You wish of me? Shall I continue trying to climb Your treadmill?’
‘Yes.’
‘So I did, and the staircase stopped stretching and the treads reduced to a comfortable seven inches. In seconds I reached the same level as Satan – the level of His cloven feet, that is. Which put me much too close to Him. Not only was His Presence terrifying – I had to keep a close grip on myself – but also He stank! Of filthy garbage cans, of rotting meat, of civet and skunk, of brimstone, of closed rooms and gas from diseased gut – all that and worse. I said to myself, Alex Hergensheimer, if you let Him prod you into throwing up and thereby kill any chance of getting you and Marga back together – just don’t do it!
Control yourself!
‘The stool is for you,’ said Satan. ‘Be seated.’
Near the throne was a backless stool, low enough to destroy the dignity of anyone who sat on it. I sat.
Satan picked up a manuscript with a hand so big that the business-size sheets were like a deck of cards in His hand. ‘I’ve read it. Not bad. A bit wordy but My editors will cut it – better that way than too brief. We will need an ending for it… from you or by a ghost. Probably the latter; it needs more impact than you give it. Tell me, have you ever thought of writing for a living? Rather than preaching?’
‘I don’t think I have the talent.’
‘Talent shmalent. You should see the stuff that gets published. But you must hike up those sex scenes; today’s cash customers demand such scenes wet. Never mind that now; I didn’t call you here to discuss your literary style and its shortcomings. I called you in to
make you an offer.’
I waited. So did He. After a bit He said, ‘Aren’t curious about the offer?’
‘Your Majesty, certainly I am. But, if my race has learned one lesson, concerning You, it is that a human should be extremely cautious in bargaining with You.´
He I chuckled and the foundations shook. ‘Poor ‘little human, did you really think that I wanted to your scrawny soul?’
‘I don’t know what You want. But I’m not as smart as Dr Faust, and not nearly as smart as Daniel Webster. It behooves me to be cautious.’
‘Oh, come! I don’t want your soul. There’s no for souls today; there are far too many of them and quality, is way down. I can pick them up at a nickel a bunch, like radishes. But I don’t; I’m overstocked. No, Saint Alexander, I wish to retain your services. Your professional services.’
(I was suddenly alarmed. What’s the catch? Alex, this is loaded! Look behind you! What’s He after?) ‘You need a dishwasher?’
He chuckled again, about 4.2 on the Richter scale. ‘No, no, Saint Alexander! Your vocation – not the exigency to which you were temporarily reduced. I want to hire you as a gospel-shouter, a
Bible-thumper. I want you to work the Jesus business, just as you were trained to. You won’t have to raise money or pass the collection plate; the salary will be ample and the duties light. What do you say?’
‘I say You are trying to trick me.’
‘Now that’s not very kind. No tricks, Saint Alexander. You will be free to preach exactly as you please, no restrictions. Your title will be personal chaplain to Me’, and Primate of Hell. You can devote the rest of your time as little or as much as you wish – to saving lost souls… and there are plenty of those here.
Salary to be negotiated but not less than the incumbent, Pope Alexander the Sixth, a notoriously greedy soul. You*won’t be pinched, I promise you. Well? How say you?’
`(Who’s crazy? The Devil, or me? Or am I having another of those nightmares that have been dogging me lately?) ‘Your Majesty, You have not mentioned anything I want.´
‘Ah so? Everybody needs money. You’re broke; you can´t stay in that fancy suite another day without finding a job.´ He tapped the manuscript. ‘This may bring in something, some day. Not soon. I’m not going to advance you anything on it; it might not sell. There, are too many
I-Was-a-Prisoner-of-the-Evil-King extravaganzas on the market already these days.’
‘Your Majesty, You have read my memoir; You know what I want.’
‘Eh? Name it.’
‘You know. My beloved. Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson.’
He looked surprised. ‘Didn’t I send you a memo about that? She’s not in Hell.’
I felt like a patient who has kept his chin up right up to the minute the biopsy comes back… and then can’t accept the bad news. ‘Are You sure?’
‘Of course I am. Who do you think is in charge around here?’
(Prince of Liars, Prince of Lies!) ‘How can You be sure? The way I hear it, nobody keeps track. A person could be in Hell for years and You would never know, one way or the other.’
‘If that’s the way you heard it, you heard wrong. Look, if you accept My offer, you’ll be able to afford the best agents in history, from Sherlock Holmes to J. Edgar Hoover, to search all over Hell for you. But you’d be wasting your money; she is not in My jurisdiction. I’m telling you officially.’
I hesitated. Hell is a big place; I could search it* by myself throughout eternity and I might not find Marga. But plenty of money (how well I knew it!) made hard things easy and impossible things merely difficult.
However – Some of the things I had done as executive deputy of C.U.D. may have been a touch shoddy (meeting a budget isn’t easy), but as an ordained minister I had never hired out to the Foe. Our Ancient Adversary. How can a minister of Christ be chaplain to Satan? Marga darling, I can’t.
`No.´
‘I can’t hear you. Let Me sweeten the deal. Accept and I assign My prize female agent Sister Mary Patricia to you permanently. She’ll be your slave – with the minor reservation that you must not sell her. However, you can rent her out, if you wish. How say you now.
‘No.’
‘Oh, come, come! You ask for one female; I offer you a better one. You can’t pretend not to be satisfied with Pat; you’ve been shacked up with her for weeks. Shall I play back some of the sighs and moans?’
‘You unspeakable cad!’
‘Tut, tut, don’t be rude to Me in My own house. You know and I know and we all know that there isn’t any great difference between one female and another – save possibly in their cooking. I’m offering you one slightly, better in place of the one you mislaid. A year from now you’ll thank Me. Two years from now you’ll wonder why you ever fussed. Better accept, Saint Alexander; it is the best offer you can hope for, because, I tell you solemnly, that Danish zombie you ask for is not in Hell. Well?’
`No.´
Satan drummed on the arm of his throne and looked vexed. ‘That’s your last word?’
‘Yes.’
`Suppose I offered you the chaplain job with your ice maiden thrown in?’
‘You said she wasn’t in Hell!’
‘I did not say that I did not know where she is.’
‘You can get her?’
‘Answer My question. Will you accept service as My chaplain if the contract includes returning her to you?’
(Marga, Marga!) ‘No.’
Satan said briskly, ‘Sergeant General, dismiss the guard. You come with me.’
‘Leftanright!… Hace! For´d!… Harp!’
Satan got down from His throne, went around behind it without further word to me. I had to hurry to catch up with His giant strides. Back of the throne was a long dark tunnel; I broke into a run when it seemed that He was getting away from me. His silhouette shrank rapidly against a dim light at the far end of the tunnel.
Then I almost stepped on His heels. He had not been receding as fast as I had thought; He had been changing in size. Or I had been. He and I were now much the same height. I skidded to a halt close behind Him as He reached doorway at the end of the tunnel. It was barely lighted by a red glow.
Satan touched something at the door; a white fan light came on above the door. He opened it and turned toward me. ‘Come in, Alec.’
My heart skipped and I gasped for breath. Jerry! Jerry Farnsworth!’
Chapter 27
For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
Ecclesiastes 1:18
And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
Job 3:2-3
MY EYES dimmed, my head started to spin, my knees went rubbery. Jerry said sharply, ‘Hey, none of that!’ – grabbed me around the waist, dragged me inside, slammed the door.
He kept me from falling, then shook me and slapped my face. I shook my head and caught my breath. I heard Katie’s voice: ‘Let’s get him in where he can lie down.’
My eyes focused. ‘I’m okay. I was just taken all over queer for a second.’ I looked around. We were in the foyer of the Farnsworth house.
‘You went into syncope, that’s What you did. Not surprising, you had a shock. Come into the family room.’
‘All right. Hi, Katie. Gosh, it’s good to see you.’
“You, too, dear.’ She came closer, put her arm around me, and kissed me A learned again that, while Marga was my be-all, Katie was my kind of woman, too. And Pat. Marga, I wish you could have met Pat. (Marga!)
The family room seemed bare – unfinished furniture, no windows, no fireplace. Jerry said, `Katie, give us Remington number two’, will you, please? I’m going to punch drinks.’
‘Yes, dear.’
While they were busy, Sybil came tearing in, threw her arms around me (almost knocking me off my feet; the child is solid) and kissed me, a quick buss unlike Katie’s benison. ‘Mr Graham! You were terrific! I watched all of it. With Sister Pat. She thinks you’re terrific, too.’
The left wall changed into a picture window looking out at mountains; the opposite wall now had a field-stone fireplace with a brisk fire that looked the same as the last time I saw it. The ceiling now was
low; furniture and floor and fixtures were all as I recalled. ‘Remington number two.’ Katie turned away from the controls. ‘Sybil, let him be, dear. Alec, off your feet. Rest.’
‘All right.’ I sat down. ‘Uh… is this Texas? Or is it Hell?’
‘Matter of opinion,’ Jerry said.
‘Is there a difference?’ asked Sybil.
‘Hard to tell,’ said Katie. ‘Don’t worry about it now, Alec. I watched you, too, and I agree with the girls. I was proud of ‘you.’
‘He’s a tough case,’ Jerry put in. ‘I didn’t get a mite of change off him. Alec, you stubborn squarehead, I lost three bets on you.’ Drinks appeared at our places. Jerry raised his glass. ‘So here’s to you.’
‘To Alec!’
‘Right!’
‘Here’s to me,’ I agreed and took a big slug of Jack Daniel’s. ‘Jerry? You’re not really -‘
He grinned at me. The tailored ranch clothes faded; the western boots gave way to cloven hooves, horns stuck up through His hair, His skin glowed ruddy red and oily over heavy muscles; in His lap a preposterously huge phallus thrust rampantly skyward.
Katie said gently, ‘I think You’ve convinced him, dear, and it’s not one of Your prettier guises.’
Quickly the conventional Devil-faded and the equally convenntional Texas millionaire returned. ‘That’s better,’ said Sybil. ‘Daddy, why do You use that corny one?’
‘It’s an emphatic symbol. But what I’m wearing now is appropriate here. And you should be in Texas clothes, too.’
‘Must I? I think Patty has Mr Graham used to skin by now.’
‘Her skin, not your skin. Do it before I fry you for lunch.’
‘Daddy, You’re a fraud.’ Sybil grew blue jeans and a halter without moving out of her chair. ‘And I’m tired of being a teenager and see no reason to continue the charade. Saint Alec knows he was hoaxed.’
‘Sybil, you talk too much.’
Dear One, she may be right,’ Katie put in quietly.
Jerry shook His head. I sighed and said what I had to say. ‘Yes, Jerry, I know I’ve been hoaxed. By those who I thought were my friends. And Marga’s friends, too. You have been behind it all? Then who am I? Job?’
‘Yes and no.’
`What does that mean… Your Majesty?’
‘Alec, you need not call Me that. We met as friends. I hope we will stay friends.’
‘How can we be friends? If I am Job. Your Majesty… where is my wife!’
‘Alec, I wish I knew. Your memoir gave Me some clues and I have been following them. But I don’t know as yet. You must be patient.’
‘Uh… damn it, patient I’m not! What clues? Set me on the trail! Can’t You see that I’m going out of my mind?’
‘No, I can’t, because you’re not. I’ve just been grilling you. I pushed you to what should have been your breaking point, You can’t be broken. However, you can’t help Me search for her, not at this point. Alec, you’ve got to remember that you are human… and I am not. I have powers that you can’t imagine. I have limitations that you cannot imagine, too. So hold your peace and listen.
‘I am your friend. If you don’t believe that I am, you are free to leave My house and fend for yourself. There are jobs to be had down at the Lake front – if you can stand the reek of brimstone. You can search for Marga your own way. I don’t owe you two anything as I am not behind your troubles. Believe Me.’
‘Uh… I want to believe You.’
`Perhaps you’ll believe Katie.’
Katie said, ‘Alec, the Old One speaks sooth to you. He did not compass your troubles. Dear, did you ever bandage a wounded dog… and have the poor beastie, in its ignorance, gnaw away the dressing and damage itself still more?’
‘Uh, yes.’ (My dog Brownie. I was twelve. Brownie died.)
‘Don’t be like that poor dog. Trust Jerry. If He is to help you, He must do things beyond your ken. Would you try to direct a brain surgeon? Or attempt to hurry one?’
I smiled ruefully and reached out to pat her hand. ‘I’ll be good, Katie. I’ll try.’
‘Yes, do try, for Marga’s sake.’
‘I will. Uh, Jerry – stipulating that I’m merely human and can’t understand everything, can You tell me anything?’
‘What I can, I will. Where shall I start?’
‘Well, when lasked if I was Job, You said, “Yes and no.” What did You mean?’
‘You are indeed another Job. With the original Job I was, I confess, one of the villains. This time I’m not.
‘I’m not proud of the fashion in which I bedeviled Job. I’m not proud of the fashion in which I have so often let My Brother Yahweh maneuver Me into doing His dirty work – starting clear back with Mother Eve – and before that, in ways I cannot explain. And I’ve always been a sucker for a bet, any sort of a bet… and I’m not proud of that weakness, either.’
Jerry looked at the fire and brooded. ‘Eve was a pretty one. As soon as I laid eyes on her I knew that Yahweh had finally cooked up a creation worthy of an Artist. Then I found out He had copied most of the design.’
‘Huh? But -‘
‘Man, do not interrupt. Most of your errors – this MY brother actively encourages – arise from believing that your God is solitary and all powerful. In fact My Brother – and I, too, of course – is no more than a corporal in the T.O. of the Commander in Chief. And, I must add, the Great One I think of as the
C-in-C, the Chairman, the Final Power, may be a mere private to some higher Power I cannot comprehend.
‘Behind every mystery lies another mystery. Infinite recession. But you don’t need to know final answers
if there be such – and neither do I. You want to know what happened to you… and to Margrethe. Yahweh came to Me and offered the same wager We had made over Job, asserting that He had a follower who was even more stubborn than Job. I turned Him down. That bet over Job had not been much fun; long before it was concluded I grew tired of clobbering the poor schmo. So this time I told My
Brother to take His shell games elsewhere.
‘It was not until I saw you and Marga trudging along Interstate Forty, naked as kittens and just as helpless, that I realized that Yahweh had found someone else with whom to play His nasty games. So I fetched you here and kept you for a week or so -‘
‘What? Just one night!’
‘Don’t quibble. Kept you long enough to wring you dry, then sent you on your way… armed with some tips on how to cope, yes, but in fact you were doing all right on your own. You’re a tough son of a bitch, Alec, so much so that I looked up the bitch you are the son of. A bitch she is and tough she was and the combo of that vixen and your sweet and gentle sire produced a creature able to survive. So I let you alone.
‘I was notified that you were coming here; My spies are everywhere. Half of My Brother’s personal staff are double agents.’
‘Saint Peter?’ –
‘Eh? No, not Pete. Pete is a good old Joe, the most perfect Christian in Heaven or on earth. Denied his Boss thrice, been making up for it ever since. Utterly delighted to be on nickname terms with his Master in all three of His conventional Aspects. I like Pete. If he ever has a falling out with My Brother, hes got a job here.
`Then you showed up in Hell. Do you recall an invitation I extended to you concerning Hell?’
(‘- look me up. I promise you some hellacious hospitality.-´) ‘Yes!’
Did I deliver? Careful how you answer; Sister Pat is listening.’
‘She’s not listening,’ Katie denied. ‘Pat is a lady. Not much like some people. Darling, I can shorten this.
What Alec wants to know is why he was persecuted, how he was persecuted, and what he can do about it now. Meaning Marga. Alec, the why is simple; you were picked for the same reason that a pit bull is picked to go into the pit and be torn to ribbons: because Yahweh thought you could win. The how is equally simple. You guessed right when you thought you were paranoid. Paranoid but not crazy; were indeed conspiring against you. Every time you got close to the answer the razzle-dazzle started over again. That million dollars. Minor razzle-dazzle, that money existed only long enough to confuse you- I think that covers everything but what you can do. What you can do and all that you can do is to trust Jerry. He may fail – it’s very dangerous – but He will try.’
I looked at Katie with increased respect, and some trepidation. She had referred to matters I had never mentioned to Jerry. ‘Katie? Are you human? Or are you, uh, a fallen throne or something like that?’
She giggled. ‘First time anyone has suspected that. I’m human, all too human, Alec love. Furthermore I’m no stranger to you; you know lots about me.’
‘I do?’
‘Think back. April of the year one thousand four hundred and forty-six years before the birth of Yeshua of Nazareth.’
‘I should be able to identify it that way? I’m sorry; I can’t.’
‘Then try it this way: exactly forty years after the exodus from Egypt of the Children of Israel.’
The conquest of Canaan.
‘Oh, pshaw! Try the Book of Joshua,, chapter What’s my name, what’s my trade; was I mother, wife, or, maid?’
(One of the best-known stories in the Bible. Her? I’m talking to her?) ‘Uh . . . Rahab?’
‘The harlot of Jericho. That’s me. I hid General Joshua’s spies, in my house… and thereby saved my parents and my brothers and sisters from the massacre. Now tell me I’m “well preserved”.’
Sybil snickered. ‘Go ahead. I dare you.’
‘Gosh, Katie, you’re well preserved! That’s been over three thousand years, about thirty-four hundred. Hardly a wrinkle. Well, not many.’
“Not many”! No breakfast for you, young man!’
‘Katie, you’re beautiful and you know it. You and Margrethe tie for first place.’
‘Have you looked at me?’ demanded Sybil. ‘I have my fans. Anyhow, Mom is over four thousand years old. A hag.’
‘No, Sybil, the parting of the Red Sea was in fourteen-ninety-one BC. Add that to the date of the Rapture, nineteen-ninety-four AD. Then add seven years -´
“Alec.’
‘Yes, Jerry?’
‘Sybil is right. You just haven’t noticed it. The thousand years of peace between Armageddon and the War in Heaven is half over. My Brother, wearing his Jesus hat, is now ruling on earth, and I am chained and cast down into the Pit for this entire thousand years.’
‘You don’t look chained from here. Could I have some more Jack Daniel’s? – I’m confused.’
‘I’m chained enough for this purpose; I’ve ceased “going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down
in it. ” Yaliweh has it all to Himself for the short time remaining before He destroys it. I won’t bother His games.’ Jerry shrugged. ‘I declined to take part in Armageddon – I pointed out to Him that He had plenty of homegrown villains for it. Alec, with My Brother writing the scripts, I was always supposed to fight fiercely, like Harvard, then lose. It got monotonous. He’s got me scheduled to take another dive at the end of this Millennium, to fulfill His prophecies. That “War in Heaven” He predicted in the so-called Book of Revelation. I’m not going to go. I’ve told My angels that they can form a foreign legion if they
want to, but I’m sitting this one out. What’s the point in a battle if the outcome is predetermined thousands of years before the whistle?’
He was watching me while He talked. He stopped abruptly. ‘What’s eating on you now?’
‘Jerry… if it has been five hundred years since I lost Margrethe, it’s hopeless. Isn’t it?’
I ‘Hey! Damnation, boy, haven’t I told you not to try to understand things you can’t understand? Would I be working on it if it were hopeless?’
Katie said, ‘Jerry, I had Alec all quieted down… and You got him upset again.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You didn’t mean to. Alec, Jerry is blunt, but He’s right. For you, acting alone, the search was always hopeless. But with Jerry’s help, you may find her. Not certain, but a hope worth pursuing. But time isn’t relevant, five hundred years or five seconds. You don’t have to understand it, but do please believe it.’
‘All right. I will. Because otherwise there would be no hope, none.’
‘But there is hope; all you have to do now is be patient.’
‘I’ll try. But I guess Marga and I will never have our soda fountain and lunch counter in Kansas.’
‘Why not?’ asked Jerry.
‘Five centuries? They won’t even speak the same language. There will be no one who knows a hot fudge sundae, from curried goat. Customs change.’
‘So you reinvent the hot fudge sundae and make a killing. Don’t be a pessimist, son.’
‘Would you like one right now?’ asked Sybil.
‘I don’t think he had better mix it with Jack Daniel’s,’ Jerry advised.
`Thanks, Sybil… but I´d probably cry in it. I associate it with Marga.´
So don’t. Son, crying in your drink is bad enough crying into a hot fudge sundae is disgusting.’
‘Do I get to finish the story of my scandalous youth, or won’t anybody listen?’
I sai ‘Katie, I’m listening. You made a deal with Joshua.’
‘With his spies. Alec love, to anyone whose love and respect I want – you, I mean I need to explain something. Some people who know who I am – and even more who don’t – class Rahab the harlot as a traitor. Treason in time of war, betrayal of fellow citizens, all that. I -´
‘I never thought so, Katie. Jehovah had decreed that Jericho’, would fall. Since it was ordained, you couldn’t change it. What you did was to save your father and mother and the other kids.’
‘Yes, but there is more to it, Alec. Patriotism is a fairly late concept. Back then, in the land of Canaan, any loyalty other than to one’s family was personal loyalty to a chief of some sort – usually a successful warrior who dubbed himself “king”. Alec, a whore doesn’t – didn’t – have that sort of loyalty.’
‘So? Katie, in spite of studying at seminary I don’t really have any sharp concept of what life was like back then. I keep trying to see it in terms of Kansas.’
‘Not too different. A whore at that time and place was, either a temple prostitute, or a slave, or a
self-owned private contractor. I was a free woman. Oh, yeah? Whores don’t fight city hall, they can’t. An officer of the king comes in, he expects free tail and free drinks, same for the civic patrol – the cops.
Same for any sort of politician. Alec, I tell you the truth; I gave away more tail than I sold – and often got a black eye as a bonus. No, I did not feel loyalty to Jericho; the Jews weren’t any more cruel and they were much cleaner!’
`Katie, I don’t know of any Protestant Christian who thinks anything bad of Rahab. But I have long wondered about one detail in her – your – story. Your house, was on the city wall?”
‘Yes. It was inconvenient for housekeeping – carrying water up all those steps – but convenient for business, and the rent was low. It was the fact that I lived on the wall that let me save General Joshua’s agents. Used a clothesline; they went out the window. Didn’t get my clothesline back, either.’
‘How high was that wall?’
‘Hunh? Goodness, I don’t know. It was high.’
‘Twenty cubits.’
‘Was it, Jerry?’
I was there. Professional interest. First use of nerve warfare in combination with sonic weapons.’
‘The reason I ask about the height, Katie, is because it states in the Book that you gathered all your family into your house and stayed there, all during the siege.’
‘We surely did, seven horrid days. My contract with the Israelite spies required it. My place was only two little rooms, not big enough for three adults and seven kids. We ran out of food, we ran out of water, the kids cried, my father complained. He happily took the money I brought in; with seven kids he needed it. But he resented having to stay under the same roof where I entertained johns, and he was especially bitter about having to use my bed. My workbench. But use it he did, and I slept on the floor.’
‘Then your family were all in your house when the walls came tumbling down.’
‘Yes, surely. We didn’t dare leave it until they came for us, the two spies. My house was marked at the window with red string.’
‘Katie, your house was on the wall, thirty feet up. The Bible says the wall fell down flat. Wasn’t anyone hurt?’
She looked startled. ‘Why, no.’
‘Didn’t the house collapse?’
‘No. Alec, it’s been a long time. But I remember the trumpets and the shout, and then the earthquake rumble as the city wall fell. But my house wasn’t hurt.’
`Saint Alec!´
‘Yes, Jerry?’
‘You should know; you’re a saint. A miracle. If Yahweh hadn’t been throwing miracles right and left, the
Israelites would never have conquered the Canaanites. Here this ragged band of Okies comes into a rich country of walled cities – and they never lose a battle. Miracles. Ask the Canaanites. If you can find one. My Brother pretty regularly had them all put to the sword, except some few cases, where the young and pretty ones were saved as slaves.’
‘But it was the Promised Land, Jerry, and they were His Chosen People.’
‘They are indeed the Chosen People. Of course, being chosen by Yahweh is no great shakes. Do you know your Book well enough to know how many times He crossed them up? My Brother is a bit of a jerk.’
I had had too much Jack Daniel’s and too many shocks. But Jerry’s casual blasphemy triggered me. ‘The Lord God Jehovah is a just God!’
‘You never played marbles with Him. Alec, “justice” is not a divine concept; it is a human illusion. The very basis of the Judeo-Christian code is injustice, the scapegoat system. The scapegoat sacrifice runs all through the Old Testament, then it reaches its height in the New Testament with the notion of the Martyred Redeemer. How can justice possibly be served by loading your sins on another? Whether it be a lamb having its throat cut ritually, or a Messiah nailed to a cross and “dying for your sins”. Somebody should tell all of Yahweh’s followers, Jews and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
‘Or maybe there is. Being in that catatonic condition called “grace” at the exact moment of death – or at the final Trump – will get you into Heaven. Right? You got to Heaven that way, did you not?’
‘That’s correct. I hit it lucky. For I had racked up quite a list of sins before then.’
‘A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst Of taking the name o Lord in vain – then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?’
I answered stiffly, ‘If you read the words of the Bible literally, that is the system. But the Lord moves in mysterious -´
‘Not mysterious to Me, bud: I’ve known Him too long. It’s His world, His rules, His doing. His rules are exact and anyone can follow them and reap the reward. But “Just” they are not. What do you think of what He has done to you and your Marga? Is that justice?’
I took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been trying to figure that out ever since Judgment Day… and Jack Daniel’s isn’t helping. No, I don’t think it’s what I signed up for.’
‘Ah, but you did!’
‘How?’
‘My Brother Yahweh, wearing His Jesus face, said: “After this manner therefore pray ye: ” Go ahead, say it.’
“Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done -´
‘Stop! Stop right there. “Thy will be done -” No Muslim claiming to be a “slave of God” ever gave a more sweeping consent than that. In that prayer you invite Him to do His worst. The perfect masochist. That’s the test of Job, boy. Job was treated unjustly in every way day after day for years – I know, I know, I was there; I did it – and My dear Brother stood by and let Me do it. Let Me? He urged Me, He connived in it, accessory ahead of the fact.
Now it’s your turn. Your God did it to you. Will you curse Him? Or will you come wiggling back on your belly like a whipped dog?’
Chapter 28
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
Matthew 7:7
I WAS saved from answering that impossible question by an interruption – and was I glad! I suppose every man has doubts at times about God’s justice. I admit that I had been much troubled lately and had
been forced to remind myself again and again that God’s ways are not man’s ways, and that I could not expect always to understand the purposes of the Lord.
But I could not speak my misgivings aloud, and least of all to the Lord’s Ancient Adversary. It was especially upsetting that Satan chose at this moment to have the shape and the voice of my only friend.
Debating with the Devil is a mug’s game at best.
The interruption was mundane: a telephone ringing. Accidental interruption? I don’t think Satan tolerates
`accidents’. As may be, I did not have to answer the question that I could not answer.
Katie said, ‘Shall I get it, dear?’
‘Please.’
A telephone handset appeared in Katie’s hand. ‘Lucifer’s office, Rahab speaking. Repeat, please. I will inquire.’ She looked at Jerry.
‘I’ll take it.’ Jerry operated without a visible telephone instrument. ‘Speaking. No. I said, no. No, damn it! Refer that to Mr Ashmedai. Let Me have the other call.’ He muttered something about the impossibility of getting competent help, then said, ‘Speaking. Yes, Sir!’ Then He said nothing for quite a long time. At last He said, ‘At once, Sir. Thank you.’
Jerry stood up. ‘Please excuse Me, Alec; I have work to do. I can’t say when I will be back. Try’ to treat this waiting as a vacation. and My house is yours. Katie, take care of him. Sybil, keep him amused.’ Jerry vanished.
`Will I keep him amused!’ Sybil got up and stood in front of me, rubbed her hands together. Her western clothes faded out, leaving Sybil. She grinned.
Katie said mildly, ‘Sybil, stop that. Grow more clothes at once or I’ll send you home.’
‘Spoilsport.’ Sybil developed a skimpy bikini. ‘I plan to make Saint Alec forget that Danish baggage.’
‘What’ll you bet, dear? I’ve been talking to Pat.’
‘So? What did Pat say?’
‘Margrethe can cook.’
Sybil looked disgusted. ‘A girl spends fifty years on her back, studying hard. Along comes some slottie who can make chicken and dumplings. It’s not fair.’
I decided to change the subject. ‘Sybil, those tricks you do with clothes are fascinating. Are you a graduate witch now?’
Instead of answering me at once, Sybil glanced at Katie, who said to her: ‘All over with, dear. Speak freely.’
‘Okay. Saint Alec, I’m no witch. Witchcraft is poppycock. You know that verse in the Bible about not suffering witches to live?’
‘Exodus twenty-two, eighteen.’
‘That’s the one. The Old Hebrew word translated there as “witch” actually means “poisoner”. Not letting a poisoner continue to breathe strikes me as a good idea. But I wonder how many friendless old women have been hanged or burned as a result of a sloppy translation?’
(Could this really be true? What about the ‘literal word of God’ concept on which I had been reared? Of course the word ‘witch’ is English, not the original Hebrew… but the translators of the King James,
version were sustained by God – that’s why that version of the Bible [and only that one] can be taken literally. But – No! Sybil must be mistaken. The Good Lord would not let hundreds, thousands, of innocent people be tortured to death over a mistranslation He could so easily have corrected.)
‘So you did not attend a Sabbat that night. What did you do?’
‘Not what you think; Israfel and I aren’t quite that chummy. Chums, yes; buddies, no.’
“Israfel”? I thought he was in Heaven.’
`That’s his godfather. The trumpeter. This Israfel can’t play a note. But he did ask me to tell you, if I ever got a chance, that he really isn’t the pimple he pretended to be as “Roderick Lyman Culverson, Third”.’
‘I’m glad to hear that. As he certainly did a good job of portraying an unbearable young snot. I didn’t see how a daughter of Katie and Jerry – or is it just of Katie? – could have such poor taste as to pick that boor as a pal. Not Israfel, of course, but the part he was playing.’
‘Oh. Better fix that, too. Katie, what relation are we?’
‘I don’t think even Dr Darwin could find any genetic relationship, dear. But I am every bit as proud of you as. I would be were you my own daughter.’
‘Thank you, Mom!’
‘But we are all related,’ I objected, ‘through Mother Eve. Since Katie, wrinkles and all, was born while the Children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, there are only about eighty begats from Eve to Katie. With your birthdate and simple arithmetic we could make a shrewd guess at how close your blood relationship is.’
‘Oh, oh! Here we go again. Saint Alec, Mama Kate is descended from Eve; I am not. Different species. I’m an imp. An afrit, if you want to get technical.’
She again vanished her clothes and did a body transformation. ‘See?’
I said, ‘Say! Weren’t you managing the desk at the Sans Souci Sheraton the evening I arrived in Hell?’
‘I certainly was. And I’m flattered that you remember me, in my own shape.’ She resumed her human appearance, plus the tiny bikini. ‘I was there because I knew you by sight. Pop didn’t want anything to go wrong.’
Katie stood up. ‘Let’s continue this dip before dinner’
‘I’m busy seducing Saint Alec.´
‘Dreamer. Continue it outdoors.’
Outside it was a lovely Texas late afternoon, with lengthening shadows. ‘Katie, a straight answer, please. Is, Hell? Or is this Texas?’
‘Both.’
‘I withdraw the question.’
I must have let my annoyance show in my voice, for she turned and put a hand on my chest. ‘Alec, I was not jesting. For many centuries Lucifer has maintained pieds-à-terre here and there on earth. In each He had an established personality, a front. After Armageddon, when His Brother set Himself up as king of earth for the Millennium, He quit visiting earth. But some of these place’s were home to Him, so He pinched them off and took them with, Him. You see?’
‘I suppose I do. About as well as a cow understands calculus.’
‘I don’t understand the mechanism; it’s on the God level. But those numerous changes you and Marga underwent during your persecution: How deep did each change go? Do you think the entire planet was involved each time?’
Reality tumbled in my mind in a fashion it had not-since the last of those ‘changes’. ‘Katie, I don’t know! I was always too busy surviving. Wait a moment. Each change did cover the whole planet earth, and about a century of its history. Because I always checked the history and memorized as much as I could. Cultural. changes, too. The whole complex.’
‘Each change stopped not far beyond the end of your nose, Alec, and no one but you – you two – was aware of any change. You didn’t check history; you checked history books. At least this is the way Lucifer would have handled it, had He been arranging the deception.’
‘Uh – Katie, do you realize how long it would take to revise, rewrite, and print an entire encyclopedia? That’s what I usually consulted.’
`But Alec, you have already been told that time is never a problem on the God level. Or space. Whatever needed to deceive you was provided. But no more than that. That is the conservative principle in art at the God level. While I can’t do it, not being at that level, I have seen a lot of it done. A skillful Artist in shapes and appearances does no more than necessary to create His effect.’
Rghab sat down on the edge of the pool, paddled her feet in the water. ‘Come sit beside me. Consider the edge of the “big bang”. What is there out beyond that limit where the red shift has the magnitude that means that the expansion of the universe equals the speed of light – what is beyond?’
I answered rather stiffly, ‘Katie, your hypothetical question lacks meaning. I’ve kept up, more or less, with such silly notions as the “big bang” and the “expanding universe” because a preacher of the Gospel must keep track of such theories in order to be able to refute them. The two you mention imply an impossible length of time impossible because the world was created about six thousand years ago. “About” because the exact date of Creation is hard to calculate, and also because I am uncertain as to the present date. But around six thousand years not the billion years or so the big-bangers need.’
‘Alec… your universe is about twenty-three billion years old.’ ‘
I started to retort, closed my mouth. I will not flatly contradict my hostess.
She added, ‘And your universe was created in four thousand and four BC.’
I stared at the water long enough for Sybil to surface and splash us.
‘Well, Alec?´
‘You’ve left me with nothing to say.’
‘But notice carefully what I did say. I did not say that the world was created twenty-three billion years ago; I said that was its age. It was created old. Created with fossils in the ground and craters on the moon, all speaking of great age. Created that way by Yahweh, because it amused Him to do so. One of those scientists said, “God does not roll dice with the universe.” Unfortunately not true. Yahweh rolls loaded dice with His universe… to deceive His creatures.’
‘Why would He do that?’
‘Lucifer says that it is because He is a poor Artist, the sort who is always changing his mind and scraping the canvas. And a practical joker. But I’m really not entitled to an opinion; I’m not at that level. And Lucifer is prejudiced where His Brother is concerned; I think that is obvious. You haven’t remarked on the greatest wonder.’
‘Maybe I missed it.’
‘No, I think you were being polite. How an old whore happened to have opinions about cosmogony and teleology and eschatology and other long words of Greek derivation; that’s the greatest wonder. Not?’
`Why, Rahab honey, I was just so busy counting your wrinkles that I wasn’t lis´
This got me shoved into the water. I came up sputtering and spouting and found both women laughing at me. So I placed both hands on the edge of the pool with Katie captured inside the circle. She did not seem to mind being captive; she leaned against me like a cat. ‘You were about to say?’ I asked.
‘Alec, to be able to read and write is as wonderful as sex. Or almost. You may not fully appreciate what a, blessing it is because you probably learned how as a baby and have been doing it casually ever since. But when I was a whore in Canaan almost four millennia ago, I did not know how to read and write. I learned by listening… to johns, to neighbors, to gossip in the market. But that’s not a way to learn much, and even scribes and judges were ignorant then.
‘I had been dead nearly three centuries before I learned to read and write, and when I did learn, I was taught by the ghost of a harlot from what later became the great Cretan civilization. Saint Alec, this may startle you but, An general throughout history, whores learned to read and write long before respectable women took up the dangerous practice. When I did learn, brother. For a while it crowded sex out of my life.’
She grinned up at me. ‘Almost, anyhow. Presently I went back to a more healthy balance, reading and sex, in equal amounts.’
‘I don’t have the strength for that ratio.’
`Women are different. My best education started with the burning of the Library at Alexandria. Yahweh didn’t want it, so Lucifer grabbed the ghosts of all those thousands of codices, took them to, Hell, regenerated them carefully – and Rahab had a picnic! And let me add: Lucifer has His eye on the Vatican Library, since it will be up for salvage soon. Instead of having to regenerate ghosts, in the case of the Vatican Library, Lucifer plans to pinch it off intact just before Time Stop, and take it unhurt to Hell.
Won’t that be grand?’
‘Sounds as if it would be. The only thing about which I’ve ever envied the papists is their library. But… “regenerated ghosts”?’
‘Slap my back.’
‘Huh?’
‘Slap it. No, harder than that; I’m not a fragile little butterfly. Harder. That’s more like it. What you just, slapped is a regenerated ghost.’
‘Felt solid.’
‘Should be, I paid list price for the job. It was before Lucifer noticed me and made me a bird in a gilded cage, a pitiful sight to see. I understand that, if you are saved and go to Heaven, regeneration goes with salvation… but here you buy it on credit, then work your arse off to pay for it. That being exactly how I paid for it. Saint Alec, you didn’t die, I know. A regenerated body is just like the one a person has before death, but better. No contagious diseases, no allergies, no old-age wrinkles – and “wrinkles” my foot! I wasn’t wrinkled the day I died… or at least not much. How did you get me talking about wrinkles? We were discussing relativity and the expanding universe, high-type intellectual conversation.’
That night Sibil made a strong effort to get into my bed, an effort that Katie firmly thwarted – the went to bed with me herself. ‘Pat said that you were not to be allowed to sleep alone.’
Pat thinks I’m sick. I’m not.’
‘I won’t argue it. And don’t quiver your chin, dear; Mother Rahab will let you sleep.’
Sometime in the night I woke up sobbing, and Katie was there. She comforted me. I’m sure Pat told her about my nightmares. With Katie there to quiet me down I got back to sleep rather quickly.
It was a sweet Arcadian interlude… save for the absence of Margrethe. But Katie had me convinced that I owed it to Jerry (and to her) to be patient and not brood over my loss. So I did not, or not much, in the daytime, and, while night could be bad, even lonely nights are not too lonely with Mother Rahab to soothe one after waking up emotionally defenceless. She was always there except one night she had to be away. Sybil took that watch, carefully instructed by Katie, and carried it out the same way.
I discovered one amusing thing about Sybil. In sleep she slips back into her natural shape, imp or afrit,
without knowing it. This makes her about six inches shorter and she has those cute little horns that were the first thing I had noticed about her, at the Sans Souci.
Daytimes we swam and sunbathed and rode horseback and picnicked out in the hills. In making this enclave Jerry had apparently pinched off many square miles; we appeared to be able to go as far as we liked in any direction.
Or perhaps I don’t understand at all how such things are done.
Strike out ‘perhaps’ – I know as much about operations On the God level as a frog knows about Friday.
Jerry had been gone about a week when Rahab showed up at the breakfast table with my memoir manuscript. Saint Alec, Lucifer sent instructions that you are to bring up to date and keep it up to date.-
`All right. Will longhand do? Or, if there is a typewriter around, I guess I could hunt and peck.´
‘You do it longhand; I’ll do a smooth draft. I’ve done lots of secretarial work for Prince Lucifer.’
‘Katie, sometimes you call Him Jerry, sometimes Lucifer, never Satan.’
‘Alec, He prefers “Lucifer” but He answers to anything. “Jerry” and “Katie” were names invented for you and Marga -´
‘And “Sybil”,’ Sybil amended.
‘And “Sybil”. Yes, Egret. Do you want your own name back now?’
‘No, I think it’s nice that Alec – and Marga – have names for us that no one else knows.’
`Just a minute,’ I put in. ‘The day I met you, all three of you responded to those names as if you had worn them all your lives.’
‘Mom and I are pretty fast at extemporaneous drama,’ Sybil-Egret said. ‘They didn’t know they were fire-worshipers until I slipped it into the conversation. And I didn’t know I was a witch until Mom tipped me off. Israfel is pretty sharp, too. But he did have more time to think about his role.’
‘So we were snookered in all directions. A couple of country cousins.’
‘Alec,’ Katie said to me earnestly, ‘Lucifer always has reasons for what He does. He rarely explains. His intentions are malevolent only toward malicious people which you are not.’
.We three were sunbathing by the pool when Jerry returned suddenly. He said abruptly to me, not even stopping first to speak to Katie: ‘Get your clothes on. We’re leaving at once.
Katie bounced up, rushed in and got my clothes. The women had me dressed as fast as a fireman answering an alarm. Katie shoved my razor into my pocket, buttoned it. I announced, ‘I’m ready!’
`Where’s his manuscrip?´
Again Katie rushed in, out again fast. ‘Here!’
In that brief time Jerry had grown twelve feet tall – and changed. He was still Jerry, but I now knew why Lucifer was known as the most beautiful of all the angels. ‘So long!’ he said. ‘Rahab, I’ll call you if I can.’ He started to pick me up.
‘Wait! Egret and I must kiss him good-bye!’
‘Oh. Make it snappy!´
They did, ritual pecks only, given simultaneously. Jerry grabbed me, held me like a child, and we went straight up. I had a quick glimpse of Sans Souci, the Palace, and the Plaza, then smoke and flame from the Pit covered them. We went on out of this world.
How we traveled, how long we traveled, where we traveled I do not know. It was like that endless fall to Hell, but made much more agreeable by Jerry’s arms. It reminded me of times when I was very young, two or three years old, when my father would sometimes pick me up after supper and hold me until I fell asleep.
I suppose I did sleep. After a long time I became alert by feeling Jerry sweeping in for a landing. He put me down, set me on my feet.
There was gravity here; I felt weight and ‘down’ again had meaning. But I do not think we were on a planet. We seemed to be on a platform or a porch of some immensely large building. I could not see it because we were right up against it. Elsewhere there was nothing to see, just an amorphous twilight.
Jerry said, ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’
‘Good. Listen carefully. I am about to take you in to see – no, for you to be seen by – an Entity who is to me, and to my brother your god Yahweh, as Yahweh is to you. Understand me?’
‘Uh… maybe. I’m not sure.’
`A is to B as B is to C. To this Entity your lord god jehoyah is equivalent to a child building sand castles at a beach, then destroying them in childish tantrums. To Him, I am a child, too. I look up to Him as you look up to your triple deity – father, son, and holy ghost. I don’t worshipe this Entity as God; He does not demand, does not expect, does not want, that sort of bootlicking. Yahweh may be the, only god who ever thought up that curious vice – at least I do not know of another planet or place in any universe where god-worship is practiced. But I am young and not much traveled.’
Jerry was watching me closely. He appeared to be troubled. ‘Alec, maybe this analogy will explain it. When you were growing up, did you ever have to take a pet to a veterinarian?’
‘Yes. I didn’t like it because they always hated it so.’
‘I don’t like it, either. Very well, you know what it is to take a sick or damaged animal to the vet. Then you had lo wait while the doctor decided whether or not your pet could be made well. Or whether the kind and gentle thing to do was to put the little creature out of its misery. Is this not true?’
‘Yes. Jerry, you’re telling me that things are dicey. Uncertain.’
‘Utterly uncertain. No precedent. A human being has never been taken to this level before. I don’t know what He will do.’
‘Okay. You told me before that there would be a risk.’
‘Yes. You are in great danger. And so am I, although I think your danger is much greater than mine. But, Alec, I can assure you of this: If It. decided to extinguish you, you will never know it. It is not a sadistic God.’
`”It” – is it “It” or “He”?´
‘Uh… use “he”. If It embodies, It will probably use a human appearance. If so, you can address Him as “Mr Chairman” or “Mr Koshchei”. Treat Him as you would a man much older than you are and one you respect highly. Don’t bow down or offer worship. Just stand your ground and tell the truth. If you die, die with dignity.’
The guard who stopped us at the door was not human, – until I looked again and then he was human. And that Characterizes the uncertainty of everything I saw at the place Jerry referred to as ‘The Branch Office’.
The guard said to me, ‘Strip down, please. Leave your clothes with me; you can pick them up later, What is that metal object?’
I explained that it was just a safety razor.
‘And what is it for?’
‘It’s a… a knife for cutting hair off the face.
‘You grow hair on your face?’
I tried to explain shaving.
‘If you don’t want hair there, why do you grow it there?’ Is it a material of economic congress?’
‘Jerry, I think I’m out of my depth.’
‘I’ll handle it.’ I suppose he then talked to the guard but I didn’t hear anything. Jerry said to me, ‘Leave your razor with your clothes. He thinks you are crazy but he thinks I am crazy, too. It doesn’t matter.’
Mr Koshchei may be ‘an ‘It’ but to me He looked like a twin brother of Dr Simmons, the vet back home in Kansas to whom I used to take cats and dogs, and once, a turtle – the procession of small animals who shared my childhood. And the Chairman’s office looked exactly like Dr Simmons’ office, even to the rlolltop desk the doctor must have inherited from his grandfather. There was a well-remembered Seth Thomas eight-day clock on a little shelf over the doctor’s desk.
I realized (being cold sober and rested) that this was not Dr Simmons and that the semblance was intentional but not intended to deceive. The Chairman, whatever He or It or She may be, had reached into my mind with some sort of hypnosis to create an ambience in which I could relax. Dr Simmons used
to pet an animal and talk to it, before he got down to the uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and often painful things that he had to do to that animal.
It had worked. It worked with me, too. I knew that Mr Koshchei was not the old veterinary surgeon of my childhood… but this simulacrum brought out in me the same feeling of trust.
Mr Koshchei looked up as we came in. He nodded to Jerry, glanced at me. ‘Sit down.’
We sat down. Mr Koshchei turned back to His desk. My manuscript was on it. He picked it up, jogged the sheets – straight, put them down. ‘How are things in your bailiwick, Lucifer? Any problems?’
‘No, Sir. Oh, the usual gripes about the air conditioning. Nothing I can’t handle.’
‘Do you want to rule earth this millennium?’
‘Hasn’t my brother claimed it?’
‘Yahweh has claimed it, yes – he has pronounced Time Stop and torn it down. But I am not bound to let him rebuild. Do you want it? Answer Me.’
“Sir, I would much rather start with all-new materials.’
‘All your guild prefer to start fresh. With no thought of the expense, of course. I could assign you to the Glaroon for a few cycles. How say you?’
Jerry was slow in answering. ‘I must leave it to the Chairman’s judgment.’
,’You are quite right; you must. So we will discuss it later. Why have you interested yourself in this creature of your brother´s?’
I must have dropped off to sleep, for I saw puppies and kittens playing in a courtyard – and there was nothing of that sort there. I heard Jerry saying, ‘Mr Chairman, almost everything about a human creature is ridiculous, except its ability to suffer bravely and die gallantly for whatever it loves and believes in. The validity of that belief, the appropriateness of that love, is irrelevant; it is the bravery and the gallantry that count. These are uniquely human qualities, independent of mankind’s creator, who has none of them himself – as I know, since he is my brother… and I lack them, too.
‘You ask, why this animal, and why me? This one I picked up beside a road, a stray – and, putting aside its own troubles – much too big for it! – it devoted itself to a (and fruitless) attempt to save my “soul” by the rules it had been taught. That its attempt was misguided and useless does not matter; it tried hard on my behalf when it believed me to be in extreme danger. Now that it is in trouble I owe it an equal effort.’
Mr Koshchei pushed his spectacles down His nose and looked over them. ‘You offer no reason why I should interfere with local authority.’
‘Sir, is there not a guild rule requiring artists to be kind in their treatment of their volitionals?’
‘No.
Jerry looked daunted. ‘Sir, I must have misunderstood my training.’
‘Yes, I think you have. There is an artistic principle not a rule – that volitionals should be treated consistently. But to insist on kindness would be to eliminate that degree of freedom for which volition in creatures was invented. Without the possibility of tragedy the volitionals might as well be golems.’
‘Sir, I think I understand that. But would the Chairman please amplify the artistic principle of consistent treatment?’
‘Nothing- complex about it, Lucifer. For a creature to act out its own minor part, the rules under which it acts must be either known to it or be such that the rules can become known through trial and error – with error not always fatal. In short the creature must be able to learn and to benefit by its experience.’
‘Sir, that is exactly my complaint about my brother. See that record before You. Yahweh baited a trap and thereby lured this creature into a contest that it could not win then declared the game over and took the prize from it. And, although this is an extreme case, a destruction test, this nevertheless is typical of his treatment of all his volitionals. Games so rigged that his creatures cannot win. For six millennia I got his losers… and many of them arrived in Hell catatonic with fear – fear of me, fear of an eternity of torture.
They can’t believe they’ve been lied to. My therapists have to work hard to reorient the poor slobs. It’s not funny.’
Mr Koshchei did not appear to listen. He leaned back in His old wooden swivel chair, making it creak – and, yes, I do not know that the creak came out of my memories – and looked again at my memoir. He scratched the grey fringe around His bald pate and made an irritating noise, half whistle, half hum – also out of my buried memories of Doc Simmons, but utterly real.
This female creature, the bait. A volitional?’
‘In my opinion, yes, Mr Chairman.’
(Good heavens, Jerry! Don’t you know?)
‘Then I think we may assume that this one would not be satisfied with a simulacrum.’ He hummed and whistled through His teeth. ‘So let us look deeper.’
Mr Koshchei’s office seemed small when we were admitted; now there were several others present: another angel who looked a lot like Jerry but older and with a pinched expression unlike Jerry’s expansive joviality, another older character who wore a long coat, a big broad-brimmed hat, a patch over one eye, and had a crow sitting on his shoulder, and – why, confound his arrogance! – Sam Crumpacker, that Dallas shyster.
Back of Crumpacker three men were lined up, well-fed types, and all vaguely familiar. I knew I had seen them before.
Then I got it. I had won a hundred (or was it a thousand?) from each of them on a most foolhardy bet.
I looked back at Crumpacker, and was angrier than ever – the scoundrel was now wearing my face!
I turned to Jerry and started to whisper urgently. ‘See lhat man over there? The one -´
‘Shut up.’
`But -´
`Be quiet and listen.’
Jerry’s brother was speaking. ‘So who’s complaining? You want I should put on my Jesus hat and prove it? The fact that some of them make it proves it ain’t too hard – Seven point one percent in this last batch, not counting golems, Not good enough? Who says?´
The old boy in the black hat said, ‘I count anything less’ than fifty percent a failure.’
‘So who’s talking? Who lost ground to me every year for a millennium? How you handle your creatures; that’s your business. What I do with mine; that’s my business.
‘That’s why I’m here,’ the big hat replied. ‘You grossly interfered with one of mine.’
‘Not, me!’ Yahweh hooked a thumb at the man who man who managed to look like both me and Sam Crumpacker. ‘That one! My Shabbes goy. A little rough? So whose boy is he? Answer that!’
Mr Koshchei tapped my memoir, spoke to the man with my face. ‘Loki, how many places do you figure in this story?’
‘Depends on how You figure it, Chief. Eight or nine places, if You count the walk-ons. All through it, when You consider that I spent four solid weeks softening up this foxy schoolteacher so that she would
roll over and pant when Joe Nebbish came along.’
Jerry had a big fist around my upper ~ left arm. ‘Keep quiet!’
Loki went on: ‘And Yahweh didn’t pay up.
‘So why should I? Who won?’
‘You cheated. I had your champion, your prize bigot, ready to crack when you pulled Judgment Day early. There he sits. Ask him. Ask him if he still swears by you. Or at you? Ask him. Then pay up. I have munition bills to meet.’
Mr Koshchei stated, ‘I declare this discussion out of order. This office is not a collection agency. Yahweh, the principal complaint against you seems to be that you are not consistent in your rules for your creatures.’
‘Should I kiss them? For omelets you break eggs.’
‘Speak to the case in point. You ran a destruction lit test. Whether it was artistically necessary is moot. But, at the end of the test, you took one to Heaven, left the other behind, – and thereby punished both of them. Why?´
‘One rule for all. She didn’t make it.’
‘Aren’t you the god that announced the rule concerning binding the mouths of the kine that tread the grain?’
The next thing I knew I was standing on Mr Koshchei’s desk, staring right into His enormous face. I suppose Jerry put me there. He was saying, ‘This is yours?’
I looked in the direction He indicated – and had to keep from fainting. Marga!
Margrethe cold and dead and encased in a coffin shaped cake of ice. It occupied much of the desktop and was beginning to melt onto it.
‘I tried to throw myself onto it, found I could not move.
“I think that answers Me,’ Mr Koshchei went on. ‘Odin, what is its destiny?’
‘She died fighting, at Ragnarok. She has earned a cycle in Valhalla.’
‘Listen to him!’ Loki sneered. ‘Ragnarok is not over. And this time I’m winning. This pige is mine! All Danish broads are willing… but this one is explosive!’ He smirked and winked at me. ‘Isn’t She?’
The Chairman said quietly, ‘Loki, you weary Me’- and suddenly, Loki was missing. Even his chair was gone. ‘Odin, will you spare her for part of that cycle?’
‘For how long? She has earned the right to Valhalla.’
‘An indeterminate time. This creature had stated its willingness to wash dishes “forever” in order to take care of her. One may doubt that it realizes just how long a period, “forever” is… yet its story does show earnestness of purpose.’
‘Mr Chairman, my warriors, male and female, dead in honorable combat, are my equals, not my slaves – I am to be first among such equals. I raise no objections… if she consents.
My heart soared. Then Jerry, from clear across the room, wispered in my ear, ‘Don’t get your hopes up. To her it may be as long as a thousand years. Woman do forget.´
The Chairman was saying, ‘The web patterns are intact, are they not?’
Yahweh answered, ‘So who destroys file copies?’
‘Regenerate as necessary.’
‘And who is paying for this?’
‘You are. A fine to teach you to pay attention to consistency.´
‘Oy! Every prophecy I fulfilled! And now He tells me consistent I am not! This is justice?’
‘No. It is Art. Alexander. Look at Me.’
I looked at that great face; Its eyes held me. They got bigger, and bigger, and bigger. I slumped forward and fell into them.
Chapter 29
There is, no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
Ecclesiastes 1: 11
THIS WEEK Margrethe and I, with help from our daughter Gerda, are giving our house and our shop a
real Scandahoovian cleaning, because the Farnsworths, our friends from Texas – our best friends anywhere – are coming to see us. To Marga and me, a visit from Jerry and Katie is Christmas and the Fourth of July rolled into one. And for our kids, too; Sybil Farnsworth is Inga’s age; the girls are chums.
This time will be extra special; they are bringing Patricia Marymount with them. Pat is almost as old a friend as the Farnsworths and the sweetest person in the world – an old-maid schoolmarm but not a bit prissy.
‘The Farnsworths changed our luck. Marga and I were down in Mexico on our honeymoon when the earthquake that destroyed Mazatlán hit. We weren’t hurt but we had a bad time getting out – passports, money, and travelers checks gone. Halfway home we met the Farnsworths and that changed everything – no more trouble. Oh, I got back to Kansas with no baggage but a razor (sentimental value, Marga gave it to me on our honeymoon; I’ve used it ever since).
When we reached my home state, we found just the mom-and-pop shop we wanted – a lunchroom in this little college town, Eden, Kansas, southeast of Wichita. The shop was owned by Mr and Mrs A. S. Modeus; they Wanted to retire. We started as their employees; in less than a month we were their tenants. Then I went into hock to the bank up to my armpits and that made us owners-of-record of MARGA’S HOT FUDGE SUNDAE soda fountain, hot dogs, hamburgers, and Marga’s heavenly Danish open-face sandwiches.
Margrethe wanted to name it Marga-and-Alex’s Hot Fudge Sundae – I vetoed that; it doesn’t scan. Besides, she is the one who meets the public; she’s our best advertising. I work back where I’m not seen
dishwasher, janitor, porter, you name it. Margrethe handles the front, with help from Astrid. And from me; all of us can cook or concoct anything on our menu, even the open-face sandwiches. However, with the latter we follow Marga’s color Photographs and lists of ingredients; in fairness to our customers only Margrethe is allowed to be creative.
Our namesake item, the hot fudge sundae, is ready at all times and I have kept the price at ten cents, although that allows only one-and-a-half cent gross profit. Any customer having a birthday gets one free, along with our Singing Happy Birthday! with loud banging on a drum, and a kiss. College boys appreciate kissing Margrethe more than they do the free sundae. Understandable. But Pop Graham doesn’t do too badly with the co-eds, either. (I don’t force kisses on a ‘birthday girl’.)
Our shop was a success from day one. The location is good – facing Elm Street gate and Old Main. Plentiful good trade was guaranteed by low prices and Margrethe’s magic touch with food… and her beauty and her sweet personality; we aren’t selling calories, we’re selling happiness. She piles a lavish serving of happiness on each plate; she has it to spare.
With me to watch the pennies, our team could not lose. And I do watch pennies; if the cost of ingredients ever kills that narrow margin on a hot fudge sundae, the price goes up. Mr Belial, president of our bank, says that the country is in a long, steady period of gentle prosperity. I hope he is right; meanwhile I watch the gross profit.
The town is enjoying a real estate boom, caused by, the, Farnsworths plus the change in climate it used to be that the typical wealthy Texan had a summer home in Colorado Springs, but now that we no longer fry eggs on our sidewalks, Texans are beginning to see the charms of Kansas. They say it’s a change in the Jet Stream. (Or is it the Gulf Stream? I never was strong in science.) Whatever, our summers now are balmy and our winters are mild; many, of Jerry’s friends or associates are buying land in Eden and building summer homes. Mr Ashmedai, manager of some of Jerry’s interests, now lives here year round – and Dr Adramelech, chancellor of Eden College, caused him to be elected to the board of trustees, along with an honorary doctorate – as a former money-raiser I can see why.
We welcome them all and not just for their money… but I would not want Eden to grow as crowded as Dallas.
Not that it could. This is a bucolic place; the college is our only ‘industry’. One community church serves all sects, The Church of the Divine Orgasm – Sabbath school at 9:30 a.m., church services at 11, picnic and orgy immediately following.
We don’t believe in shoving religion down a kid’s throat, but the truth is that young people like our community church – thanks to our pastor, the Reverend Dr M. 0. Loch. Malcolm is a Presbyterian, I think; he still has a Scottish burr in his speech. But there is nothing of the dour Scot about him and kids love him. He leads the revels and directs the rituals – our daughter Elise is a Novice Ecdysiast under him and she talks of having a vocation. (Piffle. She’ll marry right out of high school; I could name the young man – though I can’t see what she sees in him.)
Margrethe serves in the Altar Guild; I pass the plate on the Sabbath and serve on the finance board. I’ve never, given up my membership in the Apocalypse Brethren but I must admit that we Brethren read it wrong; the end of the millennium came and went and the Shout was never heard.
A man who is happy at home doesn’t lie awake nights worrying about the hereafter.
What is success? My classmates at Rolla Tech, back when, may think that I’ve settled for too little,
owner with-the-bank of a tiny restaurant in a nowhere town. But I have what I want. I would not want to be a saint in Heaven if Margrethe was not with me; I wouldn’t fear going to Hell if she was there – not that I believe in Hell or ever stood a chance of being a saint in Heaven.
Samuel Clemens put it: ‘Where she was, there was Eden. ‘Omar phrased it: ‘- thou beside me in the wilderness, ah wilderness were paradise enow.’ Browning termed it: ‘Summum Bonum’. All were asserting the same great truth, which is for me:
Heaven is where Margrethe is.
The End
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
Articles & Links
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
This is the full text of the wonderful science fiction story titled “Farnham’s Freehold”, by Robert Heinlein. It is a great story that was written during the height of the Cold War, when the M.A.D. military deterrence strategy was the rule of the land.
“Farnham’s Freehold” is kind of a post-apocalyptic Swiss Family Robinson meets a high tech, near-feudal dystopian society in which those of darker complexion are considered The Chosen while “whites” are treated as slaves as well as dinner. The destruction of the Northern Hemisphere has allowed the evolution of a dark-skin dominant society based on some tenets of the Koran, which is both decadent and highly intelligent, yet lacking in other areas (such as the idea of “fun”, especially via card games such as Bridge as well as Scrabble, Monopoly etc., etc as well as physical sports such as golf, baseball, etc.). This future society is absolutely fascinating, however, uncomfortable.Enjoy.
Chapter 1
“It’s not a hearing aid,” Hubert Farnham explained. “It’s a radio, tuned to the emergency frequency.”
Barbara Wells stopped with a bite halfway to her mouth. “Mr. Farnham!
You think they are going to attack?”
Her host shrugged. “The Kremlin doesn’t let me in on its secrets.” His son said, “Dad, quit scaring the ladies. Mrs. Wells — “
“Call me ‘Barbara.’ I’m going to ask the court to let me drop the ‘Mrs.’ “You don’t need permission.”
“Watch it, Barb,” his sister Karen said. “Free advice is expensive.” “Shaddap. Barbara, with all respect to my worthy father, he sees spooks.
There is not going to be a war.”
“I hope you’re right,” Barbara Wells said soberly. “Why do you think
so?”
“Because the communists are realists. They never risk a war that would
hurt them, even if they could win. So they won’t risk one they can’t win.” “Then I wish,” his mother said, “that they would stop having these
dreadful crises. Cuba. All that fuss about Berlin-as if anybody cared! And now this. It makes a person nervous. Joseph!”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You fetch me coffee. And brandy. Café royale.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The houseboy, a young Negro, removed her plate, barely touched.
Young Farnham said, “Dad, it’s not these phony crises that has Mother upset; it’s the panicky way you behave. You must stop it.”
“No.”
“You must! Mother didn’t eat her dinner…and all because of that silly button in your ear. You can’t — “
“Drop it, Duke.” “Sir?”
“When you moved into your own apartment, we agreed to live as friends.
As my friend your opinions are welcome. But that does not make you free to interfere between your mother-my wife-and myself.”
His wife said, “Now, Hubert.” “Sorry, Grace.”
“You’re too harsh on the boy. It does make me nervous.”
“Duke is not a boy. And I’ve done nothing to make you nervous. Sorry.” “I’m sorry, too, Mother. But if Dad regards it as interference, well —
” Duke forced a grin. “I’ll have to find a wife of my own to annoy. Barbara, will you marry me?”
“No, Duke.”
“I told you she was smart, Duke,” his sister volunteered.
“Karen, pipe down. Why not, Barbara? I’m young, I’m healthy. Why, someday I might even have clients. In the meantime you can support us.”
“No, Duke. I agree with your father.” “Huh?”
“I should say that my father agrees with your father. I don’t know that my pops is carrying around a radio tonight but I’m certain that he is listening to one. Duke, every car in our family has a survival kit.”
“No fooling!”
“My car out in your father’s driveway, the one Karen and I drove down from school, has a kit in its trunk that Pops picked before I re-entered
college. Pops takes it seriously, so I do.”
Duke Farnham opened his mouth, closed it. His father asked, “Barbara, what did your father select?”
“Oh, lots of things. Ten gallons of water. Food. A jeep can of gasoline.
Medicines. A sleeping bag. A gun — ” “Can you use a gun?”
“Pops made me learn. A shovel. An ax. Clothes. Oh, yes, a radio. But the important thing was ‘Where?’ — so he kept saying. If I were at school, he would expect me to head for the basement of the gym. But here — Pops would expect me to head up into the mountains.”
“You won’t need to.” “Sir?”
“Dad means,” explained Karen, “that you are welcome in our panic hole.” Barbara showed a questioning look. Her host said, “Our bomb shelter.
‘Farnham’s Folly’ my son calls it. I think you would be safer there than you would be running for the hills-despite the fact that we are only ten miles from a MAMMA Base. If an alarm comes, we’ll duck into it. Right, Joseph?”
“Yes, sir! That way I stay on your payroll.”
“The hell you do. You’re fired the instant the sirens sound-and I start charging you rent.”
“Do I pay rent, too?” asked Barbara.
“You wash dishes. Everybody does. Even Duke.” “Count me out,” Duke said grimly.
“Eh? Not that many dishes, Son.”
“I’m not joking, Dad. Khrushchev said he would bury us — and you’re making it come true. I’m not going to crawl into a hole in the ground!”
“As you wish, sir.”
“Sonny boy!” His mother put down her cup. “If an attack comes, of course you’re going into the shelter!” She blinked back tears. “Promise Mother.”
Young Farnham looked stubborn, then sighed. “All right. If an attack comes — if an alarm sounds, I mean; there isn’t going to be an attack — I’ll go into your panic hole. But, Dad, this is just to soothe Mother’s nerves.”
“Nevertheless you are welcome.”
“Okay. Let’s go into the living room and break out the cards-with a firm understanding that we drop the subject. Suits?”
“Agreed.” His father got up and offered his arm to his wife. “My dear?” In the living room, Grace Farnham declined to play bridge. “No, dear,
I’m too upset. You play with the young people, and — Joseph! Joseph, bring me just a teensy bit more coffee. Royale, I mean. Don’t look that way, Hubert; it helps, you know it does.”
“Would you like a Miltown, dear?”
“I don’t need drugs. I’ll just have a drop more coffee.”
They cut for partners; Duke shook his head sadly. “Poor Barbara! Stuck with Dad — Did you warn her, Sis?”
“Keep your warnings to yourself,” his father advised.
“She’s entitled to know, Dad. Barbara, that juvenile delinquent across from you is as optimistic in contract as he is pessimistic in-well, in other matters. Watch out for psychic bids. If he has a Yarborough — “
“Drop dead, Duke. Barbara, what system do you prefer? Italian?”
Her eyes widened. “The only Italian I know is vermouth, Mr. Farnham. I play Goren. Nothing fancy, I just try to go by the book.”
“‘By the book,'” Hubert Farnham agreed.
“‘By the book,'” his son echoed. “Which book? Dad likes to ring in the Farmers’ Almanac, especially when you’re vulnerable, doubled and redoubled. Then he’ll point out how, if you had led diamonds — “
“Counselor,” his father interrupted, “will you deal those cards? Or
shall I stuff them down your throat?”
“I’ll go quietly. Put a little blood in it? A cent a point?” Barbara said hastily, “That’s steep for me.”
Duke answered, “You gals aren’t in it. Just Dad and myself. That’s how I pay my office rent.”
“Duke means,” his father corrected, “that is how he gets deep into debt to his old man. I was beating him out of his allowance when he was still in junior high.”
Barbara shut up and played cards. The stakes made her tense, even though it was not her money. Her nervousness was increased by suspicion that her partner was a match player.
Her nerves relaxed, though not her care, as it began to appear that Mr.
Farnham found her bidding satisfactory. But she welcomed the rest that came from being dummy. She spent these vacations studying Hubert Farnham.
She decided that she liked him, for the way he handled his family and for the way he played bridge-quietly, thoughtfully, exact in bidding, precise and sometimes brilliant in play. She admired the way he squeezed out the last trick, of a contract in which she had forced them too high, by having the boldness to sluff an ace.
She knew that Karen expected her to pair off with Duke this weekend and admitted that it seemed reasonable. Duke was as handsome as Karen was pretty- and a catch…rising young lawyer, a year older than herself, with a fresh and disarming wolfishness.
She wondered if he expected to make out with her? Did Karen expect it and was she watching, secretly amused?
Well, it wasn’t going to happen! She did not mind admitting that she was a one-time loser but she resented the assumption that any divorcee was available. Damn it, she hadn’t been in bed with anybody since that dreadful night when she had packed and left. Why did people think — Duke was looking at her; she locked eyes with him, blushed, and looked away, looked at his father instead.
Mr. Farnham was fiftyish, she decided. And looked it. Hair thinning and already gray, himself thin, almost gaunt, but with a slight potbelly, tired eyes, lines around them, and deep lines down his cheeks. Not handsome — With sudden warmth she realized that if Duke Farnham had half the strong masculine charm his father had, a panty girdle wouldn’t be much protection. She dismissed it by being quickly angry with Grace Farnham. What excuse did a woman have for being an incipient alcoholic, fretful and fat and self- indulgent, when she had this man?
The thought was chased away by realization that Mrs. Farnham was what Karen might become. Mother and daughter looked alike, save that Karen had not gone to pot. Barbara did not like this thought. She liked Karen better than any other sorority sister she had found when she went back to finish college. Karen was sweet and generous and gay — But perhaps Grace Farnham had been so, once. Did women have to become fretful and useless?
Hubert Farnham looked up from the last trick. “Three spades, game and rubber. Well bid, partner.”
She flushed again. “Well played, you mean. I invited too much.”
“Not at all. At worst we would have been down one. If you don’t bet, you can’t win. Karen, has Joseph gone to bed?”
“Studying. He’s got a quiz.”
“I thought we might invite him to cut in. Barbara, Joseph is the best player in this house-always audacity at the right time. Plus the fact that he is studying to be an accountant and never forgets a card. Karen, can you find us something without disturbing Joseph?”
“‘Spect ah kin, Boss. Vodka and tonic for you?” “And munching food.”
“Come on, Barbara. Let’s bottle.”
Hubert Farnham watched them go, while thinking it was a shame that so nice a child as Mrs. Wells should have had a sour marriage. A sound game of bridge and a good disposition — Gangly and horse faced, perhaps — But a nice smile and a mind of her own. If Duke had any gumption —
But Duke didn’t have any. He went to where his wife was nodding by the television receiver, and said, “Grace? Grace darling, ready for bed?” — then helped her into her bedroom.
When he came back, he found his son alone. He sat down and said, “Duke, I’m sorry about that difference of opinion at dinner.”
“That? Oh, forget it.”
“I would rather have your respect than your tolerance. I know that you disapprove of my ‘panic hole.’ But we have never discussed why I built it.”
“What is there to discuss? You think the Soviet Union is going to attack. You think that hole in the ground will save your life. Both ideas are unhealthy. Sick. Especially unhealthy for Mother. You are driving her to drink. I don’t like it. I liked it still less to have you remind me-me, a lawyer! — that I must not interfere between husband and wife.” Duke started to get up. “I’ll be going.”
“Please, Son! Doesn’t the defense get a chance?” “Uh — All right, all right!” Duke sat down.
“I respect your opinions. I don’t share them but many people do. Perhaps most people, since most Americans have made no effort to save themselves. But on the points you made, you are mistaken. I don’t expect the USSR to attack — and I doubt if our shelter is enough to save our lives.”
“Then why go around with that plug in your ear scaring Mother out of her
wits?”
“I’ve never had an automobile accident. But I carry auto insurance. That
shelter is my insurance policy.”
“But you just said it wouldn’t save your life!”
“No, I said I doubted that it would be enough. It could save our lives if we lived a hundred miles away. But Mountain Springs is a prime target…and no citizen can build anything strong enough to stop a direct hit.”
“Then why bother?”
“I told you. The best insurance I can afford. Our shelter won’t stop a direct hit. But it will stand up to a near miss-and Russians aren’t supermen and rockets are temperamental. I’ve minimized the risk. That’s the best I can do.”
Duke hesitated. “Dad, I can’t be diplomatic.” “Then don’t try.”
“So I’ll be blunt. Do you have to ruin Mother’s life, turn her into a lush, just on the chance that a hole in the ground will let you live a few years longer? Will it be worth while to be alive-afterwards-with the country devastated and all your friends dead?”
“Probably not.” “Then why?”
“Duke, you aren’t married.” “Obviously.”
“Son, I must be blunt myself. It has been years since I’ve had any real interest in staying alive. You are grown and on your own, and your sister is a grown woman, even though she is still in school. As for myself — ” He shrugged. “The most satisfying thing left is the fiddling pleasure of a game of bridge. As you are aware, there isn’t much companionship left in my marriage.”
“I am aware, all right. But it’s your fault. You’re crowding Mother into a nervous breakdown.”
“I wish it were that simple. In the first place — You were at law
school when I built the shelter, during that Berlin crisis. Your mother perked up and stayed sober. She would take a martini and let it go at that-instead of four as she did tonight. Duke, Grace wants that shelter.”
“Well-maybe so. But you aren’t soothing her by trotting around with that plug in your ear.”
“Perhaps not. But I have no choice.” “What do you mean?”
“Grace is my wife, Son. ‘To love and to cherish’ includes keeping her alive if I can. That shelter may keep her alive. But only if she is in it. How much warning today? Fifteen minutes, if we’re lucky. But three minutes could be time enough to get her into the shelter. But if I don’t hear the alert, I won’t have three minutes. So I listen. During any crisis.”
“Suppose it happens when you are asleep?”
His father smiled. “If the news is bad, I sleep with this button taped into my ear. When it’s really bad-as it is tonight — Grace and I sleep in the shelter. The girls will be urged to sleep there. And you are invited.”
“Not likely!”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Dad, stipulating that an attack is possible-merely stipulating, as the Russians aren’t crazy-why build a shelter smack on a target? Why don’t you pick a place far from any target, build there-again stipulating that Mother needs one for her nerves, which may be true-and get Mother off the sauce?”
Hubert Farnham sighed. “Son, she won’t have it. This is her home.” “Make her!”
“Duke, have you ever tried to make a woman do anything she really didn’t want to do? Besides that, a weakness for the sauce-hell, growing alcoholism-is not that simple. I must cope with it as best I can. However — Duke, I told you that I did not have much reason to stay alive. But I do have one reason.”
“Such as?”
“If those lying, cheating bastards ever throw their murder weapons at the United States, I want to live long enough to go to hell in style-with eight Russian side boys!”
Farnham twisted in his chair. “I mean it, Duke. America is the best thing in history, I think, and if those scoundrels kill our country, I want to kill a few of them. Eight side boys. Not less. I felt relieved when Grace refused to consider moving.”
“Why, Dad?”
“Because I don’t want that pig-faced peasant with the manners of a pig to run me out of my home! I’m a free man. I intend to stay free. I’ve made every preparation I can. But I wouldn’t relish running away. I — Here come the girls.”
Karen came in carrying drinks, followed by Barbara. “Hi! Barb got a look at our kitchen and decided to make crêpes Suzettes. Why are you two looking grim? More bad news?”
“No, but if you will snap the television on, we might get part of the ten o’clock roundup. Barbara, those glorified pancakes smell wonderful. Want a job as a cook?”
“What about Joseph?”
“We’ll keep Joseph as housekeeper.” “I accept.”
Duke said, “Hey! You refused my offer of honorable matrimony and turn around and agree to live in sin with my old man. How come?”
“I didn’t hear ‘sin’ mentioned.”
“Don’t you know? Barbara…Dad is a notorious sex criminal.” “Is this true, Mr. Farnham?”
“Well…”
“That’s why I studied law, Barbara. It was breaking us to bring Jerry
Giesler all the way from Los Angeles every time Dad got into a jam.” “Those were the good old days!” Duke’s father agreed. “But, Barbara,
that was years ago. Contract is my weakness now.”
“In that case I would expect a higher salary — “
“Hush, children!” Karen said forcefully. She turned up the sound:
” — agreed in principal to three out of four of the President’s major points and has agreed to meet again to discuss the fourth point, the presence of their nuclear submarines in our coastal waters. It may now be safely stated that the crisis, the most acute in post-World-War-Two years, does seem to be tapering oft to a mutual accommodation that both countries can live with. We pause to bring you exciting news from General Motors followed by an analysis in depth — “
Karen turned it down. Duke said, “Just as I said, Dad. You can take that cork out of your ear.”
“Later. I’m busy with crêpes Suzettes. Barbara, I’ll expect these for breakfast every morning.”
“Dad, quit trying to seduce her and cut the cards. I want to win back what I’ve lost.”
“That’ll be a long night.” Mr. Farnham~ finished eating, stood up to put his plate aside; the doorbell rang. “I’ll answer it.”
He went to the door, returned shortly. Karen said, “Who was it, Daddy? I cut for you. You and I are partners. Look pleased.”
“I’m delighted. But remember that a count of eleven is not an opening bid. Somebody lost, I guess. Possibly a nut.”
“My date. You scared him off.”
“Possibly. A baldheaded old coot, very weather-beaten and ragged.”
“My date,” Karen confirmed. “President of the Dekes. Go get him, Daddy.” “Too late. He took one look at me and fled. Whose bid is it?”
Barbara continued to try to play like a machine. But it seemed to her that Duke was overbidding; she found herself thereby bidding timidly and had to force herself to overcome it. They went set several times in a long, dreary rubber which they “won” but lost on points.
It was a pleasure to lose the next rubber with Karen as her partner.
They shifted and again she was Mr. Farnham’s partner. He smiled at her. “This time we clobber them!”
“I’ll try.”
“Just play as you did. By the book. Duke will supply the mistakes.” “Put your money where your mouth is, Dad. Want a side bet of a hundred
dollars on this rubber?” “A hundred it is.”
Barbara thought about seventeen lonely dollars in her purse and got nervous. She was still more nervous when the first hand ended at five clubs, bid and made-by Duke-and realized that he had overbid and would have been down one had she covered his finesse.
Duke said, “Care to double that bet, Governor?” “Okay. Deal.”
Her morale was bolstered by the second hand: her contract at four spades and made possible by voids; she was able to ruff before cleaning out trumps.
Her partner’s smile was reward enough. But it left her shaky.
Duke said, “Both teams vulnerable, no part score. How’s your blood pressure, Daddy-o? Double again?”
“Planning on firing your secretary?” “Speak up, or accept a white feather.” “Four hundred. You can sell your car.”
Mr. Farnham dealt. Barbara picked up her hand and frowned. The count was not bad-two queens, a couple of jacks, an ace, a king-but no biddable suit and the king was unguarded. It was a strength and distribution which she had long
tagged as “just good enough to go set on.” She hoped that it would be one of those sigh-of-relief hands in which everyone passes.
Her partner picked up his hand and glanced at it. “Three no trump.” Barbara repressed a gasp, Karen did gasp. “Daddy, are you feverish?” “Bid.”
“Pass!”
Barbara said to herself, “‘God oh god, what I do now?” Her partner’s bid promised twenty-five points-and invited slam. She held thirteen points.
Thirty-eight points in the two hands-grand slam.
That’s what the book said! Barbara girl, “three no trump” is twenty- five, twenty-six, or twenty-seven points-add thirteen and it reads “Grand Slam.”
But was Mr. Farnham playing by the book? Or was he bidding a shut-out to grab the rubber and nail down that preposterous bet?
If she passed, then game and rubber-and four hundred dollars-was certain. But grand slam (if they made it) was, uh, around fifteen dollars at the stakes Duke and his father were playing. Risk four hundred dollars of her partner’s money against a chance of fifteen? Ridiculous!
Could she sneak up on it with the Blackwood Convention? No, no! — there hadn’t been background bidding.
Was this one of those bids Duke had warned her about? (But her partner had said, “Play by the book.”) “Seven no trump,” she said firmly.
Duke whistled. “Thanks, Barbara. We’re ganging up on you, Dad. Double.” “Pass.”
“Pass,” Karen echoed.
Barbara again counted her hand. That singleton king looked awfully naked. But…either the home team had thirty-eight points-or it didn’t. “Redouble.”
Duke grinned. “Thanks, sweetie pie. Your lead, Karen.”
Mr. Farnham put down his hand and abruptly left the table. His son said, “Hey! Come back and take your medicine!”
Mr. Farnham snapped on the television, moved on and switched on the radio, changed its setting. “Red alert!” he snapped. “Somebody tell Joseph!” He ran out of the room.
“Come back! You can’t duck this with that kind of stunt!” “Shut up, Duke!” Karen snapped.
The television screen flickered into life: ” — closing down. Tune at once to your emergency station. Good luck, good-bye, and God bless you all!”
As the screen went blank the radio cut in: ” — not a drill. This is not a drill. Take shelter. Emergency personnel report to their stations. Do not go out on the street. If you have no shelter, stay in the best protected room of your home. This is not a drill. Unidentified ballistic objects have been radar sighted by our early-warning screens and it must be assumed that they are missiles. Take shelter. Emergency personnel report to their — “
“He means it,” Karen said in an awed voice. “Duke, show Barb where to go. I’ll wake Joseph.” She ran out of the room.
Duke said, “I don’t believe it.”
“Duke, how do we get into the shelter?”
“I’ll show you.” He stood up unhurriedly, picked up the hands, put each in a separate pocket. “Mine and Sis’s in my trousers, yours and Dad’s in my coat. Come on. Want your suitcase?”
“No!”
Chapter 2
Duke led her through the kitchen to the basement stairs. Mr. Farnham was halfway down, his wife in his arms. She seemed asleep. Duke snapped out of his attitude. “Hold it, Dad! I’ll take her.”
“Get on down and open the door!”
The door was steel set into the wall of the basement. Seconds were lost because Duke did not know how to handle its latch. At last Mr. Farnham passed his wife over to his son, opened it himself. Beyond, stairs led farther down. They managed it by carrying Mrs. Farnham, hands and feet, a limp doll, and took her through a second door into a room beyond. Its floor was six feet lower than the basement and under, Barbara decided, their back garden. She hung back while Mrs. Farnham was carried inside.
Mr. Farnham reappeared. “Barbara! Get in here! Where’s Joseph? Where’s Karen?”
Those two came rushing down the basement stairs as he spoke. Karen was flushed and seemed excited and happy. Joseph was looking wild-eyed and was dressed in undershirt and trousers, his feet bare.
He stopped short. “Mr. Farnham! Are they going to hit us?” “I’m afraid so. Get inside.”
The young Negro turned and yelled, “Doctor Livingston I presume!” — dashed back up the stairs.
Mr. Farnham said, “Oh, God!” and pressed his fists against his temples.
He added in his usual voice, “Get inside, girls. Karen, bolt the door but listen for me. I’ll wait as long as I can.” He glanced at his watch. “Five minutes.”
The girls went in. Barbara whispered, “What happened to Joseph?
Flipped?”
“Well, sort of. Dr. — Livingston-I-Presume is our cat. Loves Joseph, tolerates us.” Karen started bolting the inner door, heavy steel, and secured with ten inch-thick bolts.
She stopped. “I’m damned if I’ll bolt this all the way while Daddy is outside!”
“Don’t bolt it at all.”
Karen shook her head. “I’ll use a couple, so he can hear me draw them.
That cat may be a mile away.”
Barbara looked around. It was an L-shaped room; they had entered the end of one arm. Two bunks were on the right-hand wall; Grace Farnham was in the lower and still asleep. The left wall was solid with packed shelves; the passage was hardly wider than the door. The ceiling was low and arched and of corrugated steel. She could see the ends of two more bunks at the bend. Duke was not in sight but he quickly appeared from around the bend, started setting up a card table in the space there. She watched in amazement as he got out the cards he had picked up-how long ago? It seemed an hour. Probably less than five minutes.
Duke saw her, grinned, and placed folding chairs around the table.
There came a clanging at the door. Karen unbolted it; Joseph tumbled in, followed by Mr. Farnham. A lordly red Persian cat jumped out of Joseph’s arms, started an inspection. Karen and her father bolted the door. He glanced at his wife, then said, “Joseph! Help me crank.”
“Yes, sir!”
Duke came over. “Got her buttoned up, Skipper?” “All but the sliding door. It has to be cranked.”
“Then come take your licking.” Duke waved at the table. His father stared. “Duke, are you seriously proposing to finish a card game while we’re being attacked?”
“I’m four hundred dollars serious. And another hundred says we aren’t being attacked. In a half hour they’ll call it off and tomorrow’s papers will
say the northern lights fouled up the radar. Play the hand? Or default?” “Mmm — My partner will play it; I’m busy.”
“You stand behind the way she plays it?” “Of course.”
Barbara found herself sitting down at the table with a feeling that she had wandered into a dream. She picked up her partner’s hand, studied it. “Lead, Karen.”
Karen said, “Oh, hell!” and led the trey of clubs. Duke picked up the dummy, laid it out in suits. “What do you want on it?” he asked.
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll play both hands face up.” “Better not.”
“It’s solid.” She exposed the cards.
Duke studied them. “I see,” he admitted. “Leave the hands; Dad will want to see this.” He did some figuring. “Call it twenty-four hundred points. Dad!”
“Yes, Son?”
“I’m writing a check for four hundred and ninety-two dollars-and let that be a lesson to me.”
“You don’t need to — “
All lights went out, the floor slammed against their feet. Barbara felt frightening pressure on her chest, tried to stand up and was knocked over. All around was a noise of giant subway trains, and the floor heaved like a ship in a cross sea.
“Dad!”
“Yes, Duke! Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know. But make that five hundred and ninety-two dollars!”
The subterranean rumbling went on. Through this roar Barbara heard Mr. Farnham chuckle. “Forget it!” he called out. “The dollar just depreciated.”
Mrs. Farnham started to scream. “Hubert! Hubert, where are you? Hubert!
Make it stop!”
“Coming, dear!” A pencil of light cut the blackness, moved toward the bunks near the door. Barbara raised her head, made out that it was her host, on hands and knees with a flashlight in his teeth. He reached the bunk, succeeded in quieting Grace; her screams ceased. “Karen?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, Just bruised. My chair went over.”
“All right. Get the emergency lighting on in this bay. Don’t stand up.
Crawl. I’ll light you from here. Then get the hypo kit and-ow! Joseph!” “Yes, sir.”
“You in one piece?” “I’m okay, Boss.”
“Persuade your furry-faced Falstaff to join you. He jumped on me.” “He’s just friendly, Mr. Farnham.”
“Yes, yes. But I don’t want him doing that while I’m giving a hypo. Call
Some minutes later the rumbling had died out, the floor was steady, Mrs.
Farnham had been knocked out by injected drug, two tiny lights were glowing in the first bay, and Mr. Farnham was inspecting.
Damage was slight. Despite guardrails, cans had popped off shelves; a fifth of rum was broken. But liquor was almost the only thing stored in glass, and liquor had been left in cases, the rest of it had come through. The worst casualty was the shelter’s battery-driven radio, torn loose from the wall and smashed.
Mr. Farnham was on his knees, retrieving bits of it. His son looked down. “Don’t bother, Dad. Sweep it up and throw it away.”
“Some parts can be salvaged.”
“What do you know about radios?”
“Nothing,” his father admitted. “But I have books.”
“A book won’t fix that. You should have stocked a spare.” “I have a spare.”
“Then for God’s sake get it! I want to know what’s happened.”
His father got up slowly and looked at Duke. “I would like to know, too. I can’t hear anything over this radio I’m wearing. Not surprising, it’s short range. But the spare is packed in foam and probably wasn’t hurt.”
“Then get it hooked up.” “Later.”
“Later, hell. Where is it?”
Mr. Farnham breathed hard. “I’ve had all the yap I’m going to take.” “Huh? Sorry. Just tell me where the spare is.”
“I shan’t. We might lose it, too. I’m going to wait until I’m sure the attack is over.”
His son shrugged. “Okay, if you want to be difficult. But all of us want to hear the news. It’s a shabby trick if you ask me.”
“Nobody asked you. I told you I’ve had all the yap I’m going to take. If you’re itching to know what’s happening outside, you can leave. I’ll unbolt this door, crank back the armor door, and you can open the upper door yourself.”
“Eh? Don’t be silly.”
“But close it after you. I don’t want it open-both for blast and radioactivity.”
“That’s another thing. Don’t you have any way to measure radioactivity?
We ought to take steps to — ” “SHUT UP!”
“What? Dad, don’t pull the heavy-handed father on me.” “Duke, I ask you to keep quiet and listen. Will you?”
“Well…all right. But I don’t appreciate being bawled out in the presence of others.”
“Then keep your voice down.” They were in the first bay near the door. Mrs. Farnham was snoring by them; the others had retreated around the bend, unwilling to witness. “Are you ready to listen?”
“Very well, sir,” Duke said stiffly.
“Good. Son, I was not joking. Either leave…or do exactly as I tell you. That includes keeping your mouth shut when I tell you to. Which will it be? Absolute obedience, prompt and cheerful? Or will you leave?”
“Aren’t you being rather high-handed?”
“I intend to be. This shelter is a lifeboat and I am boat officer. For the safety of all I shall maintain discipline. Even if it means tossing somebody overboard.”
“That’s a farfetched simile. Dad, it’s a shame you were in the Navy. It gives you romantic ideas.”
“I think it’s a shame, Duke, that you never had service. You’re not realistic. Well, which is it? Will you take orders? Or leave?”
“You know I’m not going to leave. And you’re not serious in talking about it. It’s death out there.”
“Then you’ll take orders?”
“Uh, I’ll be cooperative. But this absolute dictatorship — Dad, tonight you made quite a point of the fact that you are a free man. Well, so am I. I’ll cooperate. But I won’t take unreasonable orders, and as for keeping my mouth shut, I’ll try to be diplomatic. But when I think it’s necessary, I’ll voice my opinion. Free speech. Fair enough?”
His father sighed. “Not nearly good enough, Duke. Stand aside, I want to unbolt the door.”
“Don’t push a joke too far, Dad.”
“I’m not joking. I’m putting you out.”
“Dad…I hate to say this…but I don’t think you are man enough. I’m bigger than you are and a lot younger.”
“I know. I’ve no intention of fighting you.” “Then let’s drop this silly talk.”
“Duke, please! I built this shelter. Not two hours ago you were sneering at it, telling me that it was a ‘sick’ thing to do. Now you want to use it, since it turned out you were wrong. Can’t you admit that?”
“Oh, certainly. You’ve made your point.”
“Yet you are telling me how to run it. Telling me that I should have provided a spare radio. When you hadn’t provided anything. Can’t you be a man, give in, and do as I tell you? When your life depends on my hospitality?”
“Cripes! I told you I would cooperate.”
“But you haven’t been doing so. You’ve been making silly remarks, getting in my way, giving me lip, wasting my time when I have urgent things to do. Duke, I don’t want your cooperation, on your terms, according to your judgment. While we are in this shelter I want your absolute obedience.”
Duke shook his head. “Get it through your head that I’m no longer a child, Dad. My cooperation, yes. But I won’t promise the other.”
Mr. Farnham shook his head sorrowfully. “Maybe it would be better if you took charge and I obeyed you. But I’ve given these circumstances thought and you haven’t. Son, I anticipated that your mother might be hysterical; I had everything ready to handle it. Don’t you think I anticipated this situation?”
“How so? It’s pure chance that I’m here at all.”
“‘This situation’ I said. It could be anybody. Duke, if we had been entertaining friends tonight-or if strangers had popped up, say that old fellow who rang the doorbell-I would have taken them in; I planned on extras. Don’t you think, with all the planning I have done, that I would realize that somebody might get out of hand? And plan how to force them into line?”
“How?”
“In a lifeboat, how do you tell the boat officer?” “Is that a riddle?”
“No. The boat officer is the one with the gun.”
“Oh. I suppose you do have guns down here. But you don’t have one now, and” — Duke grinned — “Dad, I can’t see you shooting me. Can you?”
His father stared, then dropped his eyes. “No. A stranger, maybe. But you’re my son.” He sighed. “Well, I hope you cooperate.”
“I will. I promise you that much.”
“Thank you. If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” Mr. Farnham turned away. “Joseph!”
“Yes, sir?”
“It’s condition seven.” “Condition seven, sir?”
“Yes, and getting worse. Be careful with the instruments and don’t waste
time.”
“Right away, sir!”
“Thank you.” He turned to his son. “Duke, if you really want to
cooperate, you could pick up the pieces of this radio. It’s the same model as the one in reserve. There may be pieces we can use to repair the other one if it becomes necessary. Will you do that?”
“Sure, sure. I told you I would cooperate.” Duke got on his knees, started to complete the task he had interrupted.
“Thank you.” His father turned away, moved toward the junction of the
bays.
“Mr. Duke! Get your hands up!”
Duke looked over his shoulder, saw Joseph by the card table, aiming a
Thompson submachine gun at him. He jumped to his feet. “What the hell!”
“Stay there!” Joseph said. “I’ll shoot.”
“Yes,” agreed Duke’s father, “he doesn’t have the compunctions you thought I had. Joseph, if he moves, shoot him.”
“Daddy! What’s going on?”
Mr. Farnham turned to face his daughter. “Get back!” “But, Daddy — “
“Shut up. Both of you get into that lower bunk. Karen on the inside.
Move!”
Karen moved. Barbara looked wide-eyed at the automatic her host now held
in his hand and got quickly into the lower bunk of the other bay. “Arms around each other,” he said briskly. “Don’t either of you let the other one move.” He went back to the first bay.
“Duke.”
“Yes?”
“Lower your hands slowly and unfasten your trousers. Let them fall but don’t step out of them. Then turn slowly and face the door. Unfasten the bolts.”
“Dad — “
“Shut up. Joseph, if he does anything but exactly what I told him to, shoot. Try for his legs, but hit him.”
Face white, expression dazed, Duke did as he was told: let his trousers fall until he was hobbled, turned and started unbolting the door. His father let him continue until half the bolts were drawn. “Duke. Stop. The next few seconds determine whether you go-or stay. You know the terms.”
Duke barely hesitated. “I accept.”
“I must elaborate. You will not only obey me, you will obey Joseph.” “Joseph?”
“My second-in-command. I have to have one, Duke; I can’t stay awake all the time. I would gladly have had you as deputy-but you would have nothing to do with it. So I trained Joseph. He knows where everything is, how it works, how to repair it. So he’s my deputy. Well? Will you obey him just as cheerfully? No back talk?”
Duke said slowly, “I promise.”
“Good. But a promise made under duress isn’t binding. There is another commitment always given under duress and nevertheless binding, a point which as a lawyer you will appreciate. I want your parole as a prisoner. Will you give me your parole to abide by the conditions until we leave the shelter? A straight quid-pro-quo: your parole in exchange for not being forced outside?”
“You have my parole.”
“Thank you. Throw the bolts and fasten your trousers. Joseph, stow the Tommy gun.”
“Okay, Boss.”
Duke secured the door, secured his pants. As he turned around, his father offered him the automatic, butt first. “What’s this for?” Duke asked.
“Suit yourself. If your parole isn’t good, I would rather find it out
now.”
Duke took the gun, removed the clip, worked the slide and caught the
cartridge from the chamber, put it back into the clip and reloaded the gun- handed it back. “My parole is good. Here.”
“Keep it. You were always a headstrong boy, Duke, but you were never a
liar.”
“Okay…Boss.” His son put the pistol in a pocket. “Hot in here.” “And going to get hotter.”
“Eh? How much radiation do you think we’re getting?”
“I don’t mean radiation. Fire storm.” He walked into the space where the
bays joined, looked at a thermometer, then at his wrist. “Eighty-four and only twenty-three minutes since we were hit. It’ll get worse.”
“How much worse?”
“How would I know, Duke? I don’t know how far away the hit was, how many megatons, how widespread the fire. I don’t even know whether the house is burning overhead, or was blasted away. Normal temperature in here is about fifty degrees. That doesn’t look good. But there is nothing to do about it.
Yes, there’s one thing. Strip down to shorts. I shall.”
He went into the other bay. The girls were still in the lower bunk, arms around each other, keeping quiet. Joseph was on the floor with his back to the wall, the cat in his lap. Karen looked round-eyed as her father approached but she said nothing.
“You kids can get up.”
“Thanks,” said Karen. “Pretty warm for snuggling.” Barbara backed out and Karen sat up.
“So it is. Did you hear what just happened?” “Some sort of argument,” Karen said cautiously.
“Yes. And it’s the last one. I’m boss and Joseph is my deputy.
Understood?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Mrs. Wells?”
“Me? Why, of course! It’s your shelter. I’m grateful to be in it-I’m grateful to be alive! And please call me Barbara, Mr. Farnham.”
“Sorry. 11mm — Call me ‘Hugh,’ I prefer it to “Hubert.’ Duke, everybody-first names from now on. Don’t call me ‘Dad,’ call me ‘Hugh.’ Joe, knock off the ‘mister’ and the ‘miss.’ Catch?”
“Okay, Boss, if you say so.”
“Make that ‘Okay, Hugh.’ Now you girls peel down, panties and bra or such, then get Grace peeled to her skin and turn the light out there. It’s hot, it’s going to get hotter. Joe, strip to your shorts.” Mr. Farnham took his jacket off, started unbuttoning his shirt.
Joseph said, “Uh, I’m comfortable.” “I wasn’t asking, I was telling you.” “Uh…Boss, I’m not wearing shorts!”
“He’s not,” Karen confirmed. “I rushed him.”
“So?” Hugh looked at his ex-houseboy and chuckled. “Joe, you’re a sissy.
I should have made Karen straw boss.” “Suits me.”
“Get a pair out of stores and you can change in the toilet space. While you’re about it, show Duke where it is. Karen, the same for Barbara. Then we’ll gather for a powwow.”
The powwow started five minutes later. Hugh Farnham was at the table, dealing out bridge hands, assessing them. When they were seated he said, “Anybody for bridge?”
“Daddy, you’re joking.”
“My name is ‘Hugh.’ I was not joking, a rubber of bridge might quiet your nerves. Put away that cigarette, Duke.”
“Uh…sorry.”
“You can smoke tomorrow, I think. Tonight I’ve got pure oxygen cracked pretty wide and we are taking in no air. You saw the bottles in the toilet space?” The space between the bays was filled by pressure bottles, a water tank, a camp toilet, stores, and a small area where a person might manage a stand-up bath. Air intakes and exhausts, capped off, were there, plus a hand- or-power blower, and scavengers for carbon dioxide and water vapor. This space was reached by an archway between the tiers of bunks.
“Oxygen in those? I thought it was air.”
“Couldn’t afford the space penalty. So we can’t risk fire, even a cigarette. I opened one inlet for a check. Very hot — heat ‘hot’ as well as making a Geiger counter chatter. Folks, I don’t know how long we’ll be on
bottled breathing. I figured thirty-six hours for four people, so it’s nominally twenty-four hours for six, but that’s not the pinch. I’m sweating- and so are you. We can take it to about a hundred and twenty. Above that, we’ll have to use oxygen just to cool the place. It might end in a fine balance between heat and suffocation. Or worse.”
“Daddy — ‘Hugh,’ I mean. Are you breaking it gently that we are going to be baked alive?”
“You won’t be, Karen. I won’t let you be.” “Well…I prefer a bullet.”
“Nor will you be shot. I have enough sleeping pills to let twenty people die painlessly. But we aren’t here to die. We’ve had vast luck; with a little more we’ll make it. So don’t be morbid.”
“How about radioactivity?” asked Duke. “Can you read an integrating counter?” “No.”
“Take my word for it that we are in no danger yet. Now about sleeping — This side, where Grace is, is the girls’ dorm; this other side is ours. Only four bunks but that’s okay; one person has to monitor air and heat, and the other one without a bed can keep him awake. However, I’m taking the watch tonight and won’t need company; I’ve taken Dexedrine.”
“I’ll stand watch.” “I’ll stay up with you.” “I’m not sleepy.”
“Slow down!” Hugh said. “Joe, you can’t stand watch now because you have to relieve me when I’m tuckered out. You and I will alternate until the situation is safe.”
Joe shrugged and kept quiet. Duke said, “Then it’s my privilege.” “Can’t either of you add? Two bunks for women, two for men. What’s left
over? We’ll fold this table and the gal left over can sprawl on the floor here. Joe, break out the blankets and put a couple here and a couple in the tank space for me.”
“Right away, Hugh!”
Both girls insisted on standing watch. Hugh shut them off. “Cut for it.” “But — “
“Pipe down, Barbara. Ace low, and low girl sleeps in a bunk, the other here on the floor. Duke, do you want a sleeping pill?”
“That’s one habit I don’t have.” “Don’t be an iron man.” “Well…a rain check?”
“Surely. Joe? Seconal?”
“Well, I’m so relieved that I don’t have to take that quiz tomorrow…” “Glad somebody is happy. All right.”
“I was going to add that I’m pretty keyed up. You’re sure you won’t need
me?”
“I’m sure. Karen, get one for Joe. You know where?”
“Yes, and I’m going to get one for me, since I won the cut. I’m no iron
man! And a Miltown on top of it.”
“Do that. Sorry, Barbara, you can’t have one; I might have to wake you and have you keep me awake. You can have Miltown. You’ll probably sleep from it.”
“I don’t need it.”
“As you wish. Bed, everybody. It’s midnight and two of you are going on watch in eight hours.”
In a few minutes all were in bed, with Barbara where the table had been; all lights out save one in the tank space. Hugh squatted on blankets there, playing solitaire-badly.
Again the floor heaved, again came that terrifying rumble. Karen
screamed.
Hugh was up at once. This one was not as violent; he was able to stay on his feet. He hurried into the girls’ dorm. “Baby! Where are you?” He fumbled, found the light switch.
“Up here, Daddy. Oh, I’m scared! I was just dropping off and it almost threw me out. Help me down.”
He did so; she clung to him, sobbing. “There, there,” he said, patting her. “You’ve been a brave girl, don’t let it throw you.”
“I’m not brave. I’ve been scared silly all along. I just didn’t want it to show.”
“Well…I’m scared too. So let’s not show it, huh? Better have another pill. And a stiff drink.”
“All right. Both. I’m not going to sleep in that bunk. It’s too hot up there, as well as scary when it shakes.”
“All right, I’ll pull the mattress down. Where’s your panties and bra, baby girl? Better put ’em on.”
“Up there. I don’t care, I just want people. Oh, I suppose I should.
Shock Joseph if I didn’t.”
“Just a moment. Here are your pants. But where did you hide your brassiere?”
“Maybe it got pushed down behind.”
Hugh dragged the mattress down. “I don’t find it.”
“The hell with it. Joe can look the other way. I want that drink.” “All right. Joe’s a gentleman.”
Duke and Barbara were sitting on the blanket she had been napping on; they were looking very solemn. Hugh said, “Where’s Joe? He wasn’t hurt, was he?”
bunk.”
Duke gave a short laugh. “Want to see ‘Sleeping Innocence’? That bottom
Hugh found his second-in-command sprawled on his back, snoring, as
deeply unconscious as Grace Farnham. Dr. — Livingstone-I-Presume was curled up on his chest. Hugh came back. “Well, that blast was farther away. I’m glad Joe could sleep.”
“It was too damned close to suit me! When are they going to run out of those things?”
“Soon, I hope. Folks, Karen and I have just formed the ‘I’m-scared-too’ club and are about to celebrate with a drink. Any candidates?”
“I’m a charter member!”
“So am I,” agreed Barbara. “God, yes!”
Hugh fetched paper cups, and bottles-Scotch, Seconal, and Miltown. “Water, anyone?”
Duke said, “I don’t want anything interfering with the liquor.” “Water, please,” Barbara answered. “It’s so hot.”
“How hot is it, Daddy?”
“Duke, I put the thermometer in the tank room. Go see, will you?” “Sure. And may I use that rain check?”
“Certainly.” Hugh gave Karen another Seconal capsule, another Miltown pill, and told Barbara that she must take a Miltown-then took one himself, having decided that Dexedrine had made him edgy. Duke returned.
“One hundred and four degrees,” he announced. “I opened the valve another quarter turn. All right?”
“Have to open it still wider soon. Here are your pills, Duke-a double dose of Seconal and a Miltown.”
“Thanks.” Duke swallowed them, chased them with whisky. “I’m going to sleep on the floor, too. Coolest place in the house.”
“Smart of you. All right, let’s settle down. Give the pills a chance.” Hugh sat with Karen after she bedded down, then gently extracted his
hand from hers and returned to the tank room. The temperature was up two degrees. He opened the valve on the working tank still wider, listened to it sigh to emptiness, shook his head, got a wrench and shifted the gauge to a full tank. Before he opened it, he attached a hose, led it out into the main room. Then he went back to pretending to play solitaire.
A few minutes later Barbara appeared in the doorway. “I’m not sleepy,” she said. “Could you use some company?”
“You’ve been crying.” “Does it show? I’m sorry.”
“Come sit down. Want to play cards?”
“If you want to. All I want is company.” “We’ll talk. Would you like another drink?” “Oh, would I! Can you spare it?”
“I stocked plenty. Barbara, can you think of a better night to have a drink? But both of us will have to see to it that the other one doesn’t go to sleep.”
“All right. I’ll keep you awake.”
They shared a cup, Scotch with water from the tank. It poured out as sweat faster than they drank it. Hugh increased the gas flow again and found that the ceiling was unpleasantly hot. “Barbara, the house must have burned over us. There is thirty inches of concrete above us and then two feet of dirt.”
“How hot do you suppose it is outside?”
“Couldn’t guess. We must have been close to the fireball.” He felt the ceiling again. “I beefed this thing up-roof, walls, and floor are all one steel-reinforced box. It was none too much. We may have trouble getting the doors open. All this heat — And probably warped by concussion.”
She said quietly, “Are we trapped?”
“No, no. Under these bottles is a hatch to a tunnel. Thirty inch culvert pipe with concrete around it. Leads to the gully back of the garden. We can break out-crowbars and a hydraulic jack-even if the end is crushed in and covered with crater glass. I’m not worried about that; I’m worried about how long we can stay inside…and whether it will be safe when we leave.”
“How bad is the radioactivity?”
He hesitated. “Barbara, would it mean anything to you? Know anything about radiation?”
“Enough. I’m majoring-I was majoring-in botany; I’ve used isotopes in genetics experiments. I can stand bad news, Hugh, but not knowing-well, that’s why I was crying.”
“Mmm — The situation is worse than I told Duke.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Integrating counter back of the bottles. Go look.”
She went to it, stayed several minutes. When she came back, she sat down without speaking. “Well?” he asked.
“Could I have another drink?” “Certainly.” He mixed it.
She sipped it, then said quietly, “If the slope doesn’t change, we’ll hit the red line by morning.” She frowned. “But that marks a conservative limit. III remember the figures, we probably won’t start vomiting for at least another day.”
“Yes. And the curve should level off soon. That’s why heat worries me more than radiation.” He looked at the thermometer, cracked the valve still wider. “I’ve been running the water-vapor getter on battery; I don’t think we should crank the blower in this heat. I’m not going to worry about Cee-Oh-Two until we start to pant.”
“Seems reasonable.”
“Let’s forget the hazards. Anything you’d like to talk about? Yourself?” “Little to tell, Hugh. Female, white, twenty-five years old. Back in
school, or was, after a bad marriage. A brother in the Air Force-so possibly he’s all right. My parents were in Acapulco, so perhaps they are, too. No pets, thank God-and I was so pleased that Joe saved his cat. No regrets, Hugh, and not afraid…not really. Just…sad.” She sniffed. “It was a pretty nice world, even if I did crumb up my marriage.”
“Don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying! Those drops are sweat.” “Yes. Surely.”
“They are. It’s terribly hot.” Suddenly she reached both hands behind her ribs. “Do you mind? If I take this off? Like Karen? It’s smothering me.”
“Go ahead. Child, if you can get comfortable-or less uncomfortable-do so. I’ve seen Karen all her life, Grace even longer. Skin doesn’t shock me.” He stood up, went behind the oxygen bottles, and looked at the record of radiation. Having done so, he checked the thermometer and increased the flow of oxygen.
As he sat down he remarked, “I might as well have stored air instead of oxygen, then we could smoke. But I did not expect to use it for cooling.” He ignored the fact that she had accepted his invitation to be comfortable. He added, “I was worried about heating the place. I tried to design a stove to use contaminated air safely. Possible. But difficult.”
“I think you did amazingly well. This is the only shelter I’ve ever heard of with stored air. You’re a scientist. Aren’t you?”
“Me? Heavens, no. High school only. What little I know I picked up here and there. Some in the Navy, metal work and correspondence courses. Then I worked for a public futility and learned something about construction and pipelines. Then I became a contractor.” He smiled. “No, Barbara, I’m a ‘general specialist.’ ‘The Elephant Child’s ‘satiable curiosity.’ Like Dr.– Livingston-I-Presume.
“How did a cat get a name like that?”
“Karen. Because he’s a great explorer. That cat can get into anything.
Do you like cats?”
“I don’t know much about them. But Dr. Livingstone is a beauty.” “So he is but I like all cats. You don’t own a cat, he is a free
citizen. Take dogs; dogs are friendly and fun and loyal. But slaves. Not their fault, they’ve been bred for it. But slavery makes me queasy, even in animals.”
He frowned. “Barbara, I’m not as sad over what has happened as you are.
It might be good for us. I don’t mean us six; I mean our country.” She looked startled. “How?”
“Well — It’s hard to take the long view when you are crouching in a shelter and wondering how long you can hold out. But — Barbara, I’ve worried for years about our country. It seems to me that we have been breeding slaves- and I believe in freedom. This war may have turned the tide. This may be the first war in history which kills the stupid rather than the bright and able- where it makes any distinction.”
“How do you figure that, Hugh?”
“Well, wars have always been hardest on the best young men. This time the boys in service are as safe or safer than civilians. And of civilians those who used their heads and made preparations stand a far better chance. Not every case, but on the average, and that will improve the breed. When it’s over, things will be tough, and that will improve the breed still more. For years the surest way of surviving has been to be utterly worthless and breed a lot of worthless kids. All that will change.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “That’s standard genetics. But it seems cruel.” “It is cruel. But no government yet has been able to repeal natural
laws, though they keep trying.”
She shivered in spite of the heat. “I suppose you’re right. No, I know
you’re right. But I could face it more cheerfully if I thought there was going to be any country left. Killing the poorest third is good genetics…but there is nothing good about killing them all.”
“Mmm, yes. I hate to think about it. But I did think about it. Barbara, I didn’t stockpile oxygen just against radiation and fire storm. I had in mind worse things.”
“Worse? How?”
“All the taik about the horrors of World War Three has been about atomic weapons-fallout, hundred-megaton bombs, neutron bombs. The disarmament talks and the pacifist parades have all been about the Bomb, the Bomb, the Bomb-as if A-weapons were the only thing that could kill. This may not be just an A- weapons war; more likely it is an ABC war-atomic, biological, and chemical.” He hooked a thumb at the tanks. “That’s why I stocked that bottled breathing. Against nerve gas. Aerosols. Viruses. God knows what. The communists won’t smash this country if they can kill us without destroying our wealth. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that bombs had been used only on military targets like the antimissile base here, but that New York and Detroit and such received nerve gas. Or a twenty-four plague with eighty percent mortality. The horrid possibilities are endless. The air outside could be loaded with death that a counter won’t detect and a filter can’t stop.” He smiled grimly. “Sorry. You had better go back to bed.”
“I’m miserable anyway and don’t want to be alone. May I stay?” “Certainly. I’m happier with you present no matter how gloomy I sound.” “What you’ve been saying isn’t nearly as gloomy as the thoughts I have
alone. I wish we knew what was going on outside!” She added, “I wish we had a periscope.”
“We do have.” “Huh? Where?”
“Did have. Sorry. That pipe over there. I tried to raise it but it won’t budge. However — Barbie, I tromped on Duke for demanding that I break out our spare radio before the attack was over. But maybe it’s over. What do you think?”
“Me? How would I know?”
“You know as much as I do. That first missile was intended to take out the MAMMA base; they wouldn’t bother with us otherwise. If they are spotting from orbiting spaceships, then that second one was another try at the same target. The timing fits, time of flight from Kamchatka is about half an hour and the second hit about forty-five minutes after the first. That one was probably a bull’s-eye-and they know it, because more than an hour has passed and no third missile. That means they are through with us. Logical?”
“Sounds logical to me.”
“It’s crumby logic, my dear. Not enough data. Perhaps both missiles failed to knock out MAMMA, and MAMMA is now knocking out anything they throw. Perhaps the Russkis have run out of missiles. Perhaps the third round will be delivered by bomber. We don’t know. But I’m itching to find out. Twist my arm.”
“I would certainly like to hear some news.”
“We’ll try. If it’s good news, we’ll wake the others.” Hugh Farnham dug into a corner, came out with a box, unpacked a radio. “Doesn’t have a scratch. Let’s try it without an antenna.
“Nothing but static,” he announced shortly. “Not surprised. Although it’s mate could pull in local stations without an aerial. Now we’ll hook to the fixed antenna. Wait here.”
He returned shortly. “No soap. Stands to reason that there isn’t anything left of the fixed antenna. So we’ll try the emergency one.”
Hugh took a wrench and removed a cap from an inch pipe that stuck down through the ceiling. He tested the opening with a radiation counter. “A little
more count.” He got two steel rods, each five feet long; with one he probed the pipe. “Doesn’t go up as far as it should. The top of this pipe was buried just belowground. Trouble.” He screwed the second rod into the first.
“Now comes the touchy part. Stand back, there may be debris-hot both ways-spilling down.”
“It’ll get on you.”
“On my hands, maybe. I’ll scrub afterwards. You can go over me with a Geiger counter.” He tapped with a sledge on the bottom of the joined rods. Up they went about eighteen inches. “Something solid. I’ll have to bang it.”
Many blows later the rod was seated into the pipe. “It felt,” he said, as he stopped to scrub his hands, “as if we passed into open air the last foot or so. But it should have stuck out five feet above ground. Rubble, I suppose. What’s left of our home. Want to use the counter on me?”
“Hugh, you say that as casually as ‘What’s left of yesterday’s milk.”
He shrugged. “Barbie girl, I was broke when I joined the Navy, I’ve been flat busted since; I will not waste tears over a roof and some plumbing.
Getting any count?”
“You’re clean.”
“Check the floor under the pipe.”
There were hot spots on the floor; Hugh wiped them with damp Kleenex, disposed of it in a metal waste can. She checked his hands afterwards, and the spots on the floor.
“Well, that used up a gallon of water; this radio had better work.” He clipped the antenna lead to the rod, switched it on.
Ten minutes later they admitted that they were getting nothing. Noise- static all over the dial-but no signal. He sighed. “I’m not surprised. I don’t know what ionization does to radio waves, but that must be a sorcerer’s brew of hot isotopes over our heads. I had hoped we could get Salt Lake City.”
“Not Denver?”
“No. Denver had an ICBM base. I’ll leave the gain up; maybe we’ll hear something.”
“Don’t you want to save the battery?”
“Not really. Let’s sit down and recite limericks.” He looked at the integrating counter, whistled softly, then checked the thermometer. “I’ll give our sleeping beauties a little more relief from the heat. How well are you standing it, Barbie?”
“Truthfully, I had forgotten it. The sweat pours off and that’s that.” “Me, too.”
“Well, don’t use more oxygen on my account. How many bottles are left?” “Not many.”
“How many?”
“Less than half. Don’t fret. I’ll bet you five hundred thousand dollars- fifty cents in the new currency-that you can’t recite a limerick I don’t know.”
“Clean, or dirty?”
“Are there clean ones?”
“Okay. ‘A playful young fellow named Scott — ‘” The limerick session was a flop. Hugh accused her of having a clean mind. She answered, “Not really, Hugh. But my mind isn’t working.”
“I’m not at my sharpest. Another drink?”
“Yes. With water, please, I sweat so; I’m dry. Hugh?” “Yes, Barbie?”
“We’re going to die. Aren’t we?” “Yes.”
“I thought so. Before morning?”
“Oh, no! I feel sure we can live till noon. If we want to.”
“I see. Hugh, would you mind if I moved over by you? Would you put your
arm around me? Or is it too hot?”
“Any time I’m too hot to put my arm around a girl I’ll know I’m dead and in hell.”
“Thanks.” “Room enough?” “Plenty.”
“You’re a little girl.”
“I weigh a hundred and thirty-two pounds and I’m five feet eight and that’s not little.”
“You’re a little girl. Put the cup aside. Tilt your face up.” “Mmmm — Again. Please, again.”
“A greedy little girl.”
“Yes. Very greedy. Thank you, Hugh.” “Such pretty ones.”
“They’re my best feature. My face isn’t much. But Karen’s are prettier.” “A matter of opinion. Your opinion.”
“Well — I won’t argue. Scrunch over a little, dear. Dear Hugh — ” “All right?”
“Room enough. Wonderfully all right. And kiss me, too. Please?” “Barbara, Barbara!”
“Hugh darling! I love you. Oh!” “I love you, Barbara.”
“Yes. Yes! Oh, please! Now!” “Right now!”
“You all right, Barbie?”
“I’ve never been more all right. I’ve never been happier in my life.” “I wish that were true.”
“It is true. Hugh darling, I’m utterly happy now and not at all afraid.
I feel wonderful. Not even too warm.” “I’m dripping sweat on you.”
“I don’t mind. There are two drops on your chin and one on the end of your nose. And I’m so sweaty my hair is soaked. Doesn’t matter. Hugh dearest, this is what I wanted. You. I don’t mind dying-now.”
“I do!”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no! Barbie hon, I didn’t mind dying, before. Now suddenly life is worth living.”
“Oh. I think it’s the same feeling.”
“Probably. But we aren’t going to die, ii I can swing it. Want to move
now?”
“If you want to. If you’ll put your arm around me after we do.”
“Try to stop me. But first I’m going to make us a long, tall drink. I’m
thirsty again. And breathless.”
“Me, too. Your heart is pounding.”
“It has every excuse. Barbie girl, do you realize that I am more than twice your age? Old enough to be your father.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Why, you little squirt! Talk that way and I’ll drink this all myself.” “Yes, Hugh. Hugh my beloved. But we are the same age
because we are going to die at the same time.”
“Don’t talk about dying. I’m going to find some way to outwit it.”
“If anybody can, you will. Hugh, I’m not feeling morbid. I’ve looked it in the face and I’m no longer afraid-not afraid to die, not afraid to live.
But — Hugh, I’d like one favor.” “Name it.”
“When you give the pills to the others-the overdose-I don’t want them.”
“Uh…it might be needful.”
“I didn’t mean that I wouldn’t; I will when you tell me to. But not when the others do. Not until you do.”
“Mmm, Barbie, I don’t plan on taking them.” “Then please don’t make me take them.”
“Well — I’ll think about it. Now shut up. Kiss me.” “Yes, dear.”
“Such long legs you have, Barbie. Strong, too.” “And such big feet.”
“Quit fishing for compliments. I like your feet. You would look unfinished without them.”
“Be inconvenient, too. Hugh, do you know what I would like to do?” “Again?”
“No, no. Well, yes. But right now.”
“Sleep? Go ahead, dear. I won’t fall asleep.”
“No, not sleep. I’m not ever going to sleep again. Never. I can’t spare one minute we’ve got left. I was thinking that I would like to play contract again-as your partner.”
“Well — We might be able to rouse Joe. Not the others; three grains of Seconal is pretty convincing. We could play three-handed.”
“No, no. I don’t want any company but you. But I so enjoyed playing, as your partner.”
“You’re a good partner, honey. The best. When you say ‘by the book,’ you mean it.”
“Not ‘the best.’ I’m not in your class. But I wish that we had-oh, years and years ! — so that I could get to be. And I wish the attack had held off ten minutes, so that you could have played that grand slam.”
“Didn’t need to. When you answered my bid I knew it was a lay-down.” He squeezed her shoulders. “Three grand slams in one night.”
“Three?”
“Didn’t you consider that H-bomb a grand slam?” “Oh. And then there was the second bomb, later.”
“I was not counting the second bomb, it was too far away. If you don’t know what I counted, I refuse to draw a diagram.”
“Oh! In that case, there could easily be a fourth grand slam. I can’t make another forcing bid; my bra is gone and — “
“Was that a forcing bid?”
“Of course it was. But you can make the next forcing bid. I’ll spot it.” “Slow down! Three grand slams is maximum. A small slam, maybe-if I take another Dexedrine. But four grand slams? Impossible. You know how old I am.” “We’ll see. I think we’ll get a fourth.”
At that moment the biggest slam of all hit them.
Chapter 3
The light went out, Grace Farnham screamed, Dr. — Livingstone — I- Presume wailed, Barbara was knocked silly and came to heaped over a steel bottle and disoriented by blackness and no floors or walls.
She groped around, found a leg, found Hugh attached to it. He was limp.
She felt for his heartbeat, could not find it.
She shouted: “Hello! Hello! Anybody!” Duke answered, “Barbara?” “Yes, yes!”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m all right. Hugh is hurt. I think he’s dead.”
“Take it easy. When I find my trousers, I’ll light a match — if I can
get off my shoulders. I’m standing on them.” “Hubert! Hubert!”
“Yes, Mother! Wait.” Grace continued to scream; Duke alternated reassurances and cursing the darkness. Barbara felt around, slipped on loose oxygen bottles, hurt her shin, and found a flat surface. She could not tell what it was; it was canted steeply.
Duke called out, “Got ’em!” A match flared up, torch bright in oxygen- rich air.
Joe’s voice said, “Better put that out. Fire hazard.” A flashlight beam cut the gloom.
Barbara called out, “Joe! Help me with Hugh!” “Got to see about lights.”
“He may be dying.”
“Can’t do a thing without light.” Barbara shut up, tried again to find heartbeat-found it and clutched Hugh’s head, sobbing.
Lights came on in the men’s bay; enough trickled in so that Barbara could make out her surroundings. The floor sloped about thirty degrees; she, Hugh, steel bottles, water tank, and other gear were jumbled in the lower corner. The tank had sprung a leak and was flooding the toilet space. She saw that, had the tilt been the other way, she and Hugh would have been buried under steel and water.
Minutes later Duke and Joe joined her, letting themselves down through the door. Joe carried a camp lamp. Duke said to Joe, “How are we going to move him?”
“We don’t. It might be his spine.” “Still have to move him.”
“We don’t move him,” Joe said firmly. “Barbara, have you moved him?” “I took his head in my lap.”
“Well, don’t move him anymore.” Joe looked his patient over, touching him gently. “I can’t see any gross injuries,” he decided. “Barbara, if you can stay put, we’ll wait until he comes to. Then I can check his eyes for concussion, see if he can wiggle his toes, things like that.”
“I’ll hold still. Anybody else hurt?”
“Not to speak of,” Duke assured her. “Joe thinks he’s cracked some ribs and I wrenched a shoulder. Mother just got rolled into the corner of her bunk. Sis is soothing her. Sis is okay-a lump on her head where a can conked her.
Are you all right?”
“Just bruises. Hugh and I were playing double solitaire and trying to keep cool when it hit.” She wondered how long the lie would stand up. Duke had no more on than she did and didn’t seem troubled by it; Joe was dressed in underwear shorts. She added, “The cat? Is he all right?”
“Dr. — Livingstone-I-Presume,” Joe answered seriously, “escaped injury.
But he is vexed that his sandbox was dumped over. He’s cleaning himself and criticizing.”
“I’m glad he wasn’t hurt.”
“Notice anything about this blast?”
“What, Joe? It was the hardest of the three. Much the hardest.”
“Yes. But no rumbling. Just one great, big, grand slam, then…nothing.” “What does that indicate?”
“I don’t know. Barbara, can you stay here and not move? I want to get more lights on, check the damage, and see what to do about it.”
“I won’t move.” Hugh seemed to be breathing easily. In the silence she could hear his heart beat. She decided that she didn’t have anything to be unhappy about.
Karen joined her, carrying a flashlight and moving carefully on the slant. “How’s Daddy?”
“No change.”
“Knocked cold, I guess. So was I. You okay?” She played the flashlight over Barbara.
“Not hurt.”
“Well! I’m glad you’re in uniform, too. I can’t find my pants. Joe ignores it so carefully, it’s painful. Is that boy square!”
“I don’t know where my clothes are.”
“Joe has the only pants among us. What happened to you? Were you asleep?”
“No. I was here. We were talking.”
“Hmm — Further deponent sayeth not. I’ll keep your grisly secret.
Mother won’t know; I gave her another hypo.” “Aren’t you jumping at conclusions?”
“My favorite exercise. I hope my nasty suspicions are correct. I wish I had had something better to do than sleep last night. Since it’s probably our last night.” She leaned over and kissed Barbara. “I like you.”
“Thanks, Karen. Me, too. You.”
“Let’s hold a funeral and preach about what nice guys we are. You made my daddy happy when you had the guts to bid that slam. If you made him happier still, I’m in favor of it.” She straightened up. “‘Bye. I’ll go sort groceries. If Daddy wakes up, yell.” She left.
“Barbara?”
“Yes, Hugh? Yes!”
“Keep your voice down. I heard what my daughter said.” “You did?”
“Yes. She’s a gentleman. Barbara? I love you. I may not have another chance to say so.”
“I love you.” “Darling.”
“Shall I call the others?” “Shortly. Are you comfortable?” “Oh, very!”
“Then let me rest a bit. I feel woozy.”
“As long as you like. Uh, can you wiggle your toes? Do you hurt anyplace?”
“I hurt lots of places, but not too much. Let me see — Yes, I can move everything. All right, call Joe.”
“No hurry.”
“Better call him. Work to do.”
Shortly Mr. Farnham was back in charge. Joe required him to move himself-a mass of bruises but no break, sprain, nor concussion. It seemed to Barbara that Hugh had landed on the bottles and that she had landed on him. She did not discuss her theory.
Hugh’s first act was to bind Joe’s ribs with elastic bandage. Joe gasped as it tightened but seemed more comfortable with it. The lump on Karen’s head was inspected; Hugh decided that there was nothing he could do for it.
“Will somebody fetch the thermometer?” he asked. “Duke?” “It’s busted.”
“It’s a bimetal job. Shockproof.”
“I looked for it,” Duke explained, “while you were doctoring. Seems cooler to me. While it may be shockproof, it couldn’t stand being mashed between two tanks.”
“Oh. Well, it’s no big loss.”
“Dad? Wouldn’t this be a good time to try the spare radio? Just a suggestion.”
“I suppose so, but — I hate to tell you, Duke, but you’ll probably find it smashed, too. We tried it earlier. No results.” He glanced at his wrist. “An hour and half ago. At two A.M. Has anyone else the time?”
Duke’s watch agreed.
“We seem to be in fair shape,” Hugh decided, “except for water. There are some plastic jugs of water but we need to salvage the tank water; we may have to drink it. With Halazone tablets. Joe, we need utensils of any sort, and everybody bail. Keep it as clean as you can.” He added, “When Joe can spare you, Karen, scrounge some breakfast. We’ve got to eat, even if this is Armageddon.”
“And Armageddon sick of it,” Karen offered.
Her father winced. “Baby girl, you will write on the blackboard one thousand times: ‘I will not make bad puns before breakfast.'”
“I thought it was pretty good, Hugh.”
“Don’t encourage her, Barbara. All right, get with it.”
Karen returned shortly, carrying Dr. Livingstone. “I wasn’t much help,” she announced, “because somebody has to hang onto this damn cat. He wants to help.”
“Kablerrrrt!”
“You did so! I’m going to entice him with sardines and get breakfast.
What do you want, Daddy Hugh Boss? Crêpes Suzettes?” “Yes.”
“What you’ll get is Spam and crackers.” “All right. How’s the bailing going?”
“Daddy, I won’t drink that water even with Halazone.” She made a face. “You know where it wound up.”
“We may have to drink it.”
“Well…if you cut it with whisky — “
“Mmm — Every case of liquor is leaking. The two I’ve opened each has one fifth, unbroken.”
“Daddy, you’ve ruined breakfast.”
“The question is, do I ration it evenly? Or save it all for Grace?” “Oh.” Karen’s features screwed up in painful decision. “She can have my
share. But the others shouldn’t be deprived just because Gracie has a yen.” “Karen, at this stage it’s not a yen. In a way, for her it’s medicine.” “Yeah, sure. And diamond bracelets and sable coats are medicine for me.” “Baby, there’s no point in blaming her. It may be my fault. Duke thinks
so. When you are my age, you will learn to take people as they are.”
“Hush mah mouf. Maybe I’m harsh-but I get tired of bringing friends home and having Mom pass out about dinnertime. Or try to kiss my boy friends in the kitchen.”
“She does that?”
“Haven’t you seen? No, you probably haven’t. Sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too. But only on your account. It’s a peccadillo, at most.
As I was saying, when you get to be my age — “
“Daddy, I don’t expect to get to be your age-and we both know it. If we’ve got even two fifths of liquor, it’s probably enough. Why don’t you just serve it to whoever needs it?”
The lines in his face got deeper. “Karen, I haven’t given up. It’s distinctly cooler. We may get out of this yet.”
“Well — I guess that’s the proper attitude. Speaking of medicine, didn’t you squirrel away some Antabuse when we built this monster?”
“Karen, Antabuse doesn’t stop the craving; it simply makes the patient deathly ill if he drinks. If your estimate of our chances is correct, can you see any reason why I should force Grace to spend her last hours miserably? I’m not her judge, I’m her husband.”
Karen sighed. “Daddy, you have an annoying habit of being right. All right, she can have mine.”
“I was merely asking your opinion. You’ve helped. I’ve decided.” “Decided how?”
“None of your business, half pint. Get breakfast.”
“I’m going to put kerosene in yours. Give me a kiss, Daddy.” He did. “Now pipe down and get to work.”
Five of them gathered for breakfast, sitting on the floor as chairs would not stand up. Mrs. Farnham was still lethargic from heavy sedation. The others shared canned meat, crackers, cold Nescafé, canned peaches, and warm comradeship. They were dressed, the men in shorts, Karen in shorts and halter, and Barbara in a muumuu belonging to Karen. Her underwear had been salvaged but was soaked and the air was too moist to dry it.
Hugh announced, “Time for a conference. Suggestions are welcome.” He looked at his son.
“One item, Dad-Hugh,” Duke answered. “The backhouse took a beating. I patched it and rigged a platform out of boards that had secured the air bottles. Just one thing — ” He turned to his sister. “You setter types be careful. It’s shaky.”
“You be careful. You were the one hard to housebreak. Ask Daddy.” “Stow it, Karen. Good job, Duke. But with six of us I think we should
rig a second one. Can we manage that, Joe?” “Yes, we could. But…”
“But what?”
“Do you know how much oxy is left?”
“I do. We must shift to blower and filter soon. And there is not a working radiation counter left. So we won’t know what we’ll be letting in. However, we’ve got to breathe.”
“But did you look at the blower?” “It looked all right.”
“It’s not. I don’t think I can repair it.”
Mr. Farnham sighed. “I’ve had a spare on order for six months. Well, I’ll look at it, too. And you, Duke; maybe one of us can fix it.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s assume we can’t repair it. Then we use the oxygen as sparingly as possible. After that we can get along, for a while, on the air inside. But there will come a time when we have to open the door.”
Nobody said anything. “Smile, somebody!” Hugh went on. “We aren’t licked. We’ll rig dust filters out of sheets in the door-better than nothing. We still have one radio-the one you mistook for a hearing aid, Barbara. I wrapped it and put it away; it wasn’t hurt. I’ll go outside and put up an antenna and we can listen to it down here; it could save us. We’ll rig a flagpole, from the sides of a bunk perhaps, and fly a flag. A hunting shirt. No, the American flag; I’ve got one. If we don’t make it, we’ll go down with our colors flying!”
Karen started clapping. “Don’t scoff, Karen.”
“I’m not scoffing, Daddy! I’m crying. ‘The rockets’ red glare-the bombs bursting in air-gave proof through the night — that our flag was still — ‘” Her voice broke and she buried her face in her hands.
Barbara put an arm around her. Hugh Farnham went on as if nothing had happened. “But we won’t go down. Soon they will search this area for survivors. They’ll see our flag and take us out-helicopter, probably.
“So our business is to be alive when they come.” He stopped to think. “No unnecessary work, no exercise. Sleeping pills for everybody and try to sleep twelve hours a day and lie down all the time; it will make the air last as long as possible. The only work is to repair that blower and we’ll knock that off if we can’t fix it. Let’s see — Water must be rationed. Duke, you are water marshal. See how much pure water there is; work out a schedule to stretch it. There is a one-ounce glass with the medicines; use it to dispense water. That’s all, I guess: repair the blower, minimum exercise, maximum sleep, rationed water. Oh, yes! Sweat is wasteful. It’s still hot and,
Barbara, you’ve sweat right through that sack. Take it off.” “May I leave the room?”
“Certainly.” She left, walking carefully on the steep floor, went into the tank room, and returned wearing her soaked underwear. “That’s better,” he approved. “Now — “
“Hubert! Hubert! Where are you? I’m thirsty.” “Duke, give her one ounce.
Charge it to her.” “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t forget that the cat has to have water.” “The dirty water, maybe?”
“Hmm. We won’t die through playing fair with our guest. Let’s keep our pride.”
“He’s been drinking the dirty water.”
“Well — You boss it. Suggestions, anyone? Joe, do the plans suit you?” “Well — No, sir.”
“So?”
“No exercise, least oxygen used, makes sense. But when it comes time to open the door, where are we?”
“We take our chances.”
“I mean, can we? Short on air, panting, thirsty, maybe sick — I’d like to be certain that anyone, Karen say, with a broken arm, can get that door open.”
“I see.”
“I’d like to try all three doors. I’d like to leave the armor door open.
A girl can’t handle that crank. I volunteer to try the upper door.”
“Sorry, it’s my privilege. I go along with the rest. That’s why I asked for suggestions. I’m tired, Joe; my mind is fuzzy.”
“And if the doors are blocked? Probably rubble against the upper door —
“
“We have the jack.”
“Well, if we can’t use the doors, we should make sure of the escape
tunnel. Duke’s shoulder isn’t so good. My ribs are sore but I can work-today. Tomorrow Duke and I will be stiff and twice as sore. There are those steel bottles cluttering the hatch and plunder stored in the hole. Takes work. Boss, I say we’ve got to be sure of our escape-while we’re still in pretty good shape.”
“I hate to order heavy work. But you’ve convinced me.” Hugh stood up, suppressing a groan. “Let’s get busy.”
“I’ve got one more suggestion.” “So?”
“You ought to sack in. You haven’t been to bed at all and you got banged up pretty hard.”
“I’m okay. Duke has a bad shoulder, you’ve got cracked ribs. And there’s heavy work to be done.”
“I plan to use block and tackle to skid those bottles aside. Barbara can help. She’s husky, for a girl.”
“Certainly I can,” agreed Barbara. “I’m bigger than Joe is. Excuse me,
Joe.”
“No argument. Boss. Hugh. I don’t like to emphasize it but I thought of
this. You admit you’re tired. Not surprising, you’ve been on the go twenty- four hours. Do you mind my saying that I would feel more confident you could get us through if you would rest?”
“He’s right, Hugh.”
“Barbara, you haven’t had any sleep.”
“I don’t have to make decisions. But I’ll lie down and Joe can call me when he needs me. Okay, Joe?”
“Fine, Barbara.”
Hugh grinned. “Ganging up on me. All right, I’ll take a nap.”
A few minutes later he was in the bottom bunk in the men’s dormitory, his feet braced against the footboard. He closed his eyes and was asleep before he could get his worries organized.
Duke and Joe found that five of the bolts of the inner door were stuck. “We’ll let them be,” Joe decided. “We can always drift them back with a sledgehammer. Let’s crank back the armor door.”
The armor door, beyond the bolted door, was intended to withstand as much blast as the walls. It was cranked into place, or out, by a rack and gear driven by a long crank.
Joe could not budge it. Duke, heavier by forty pounds, put his weight on it-no results. Then they leaned on it together.
“Frozen.”
“Yeah.”
“Joe, you mentioned a sledgehammer.”
The young Negro frowned. “Duke, I would rather your father tried that.
We could break the crank. O~ a tooth on the rack.”
“The trouble is, we’re trying to crank a ton or so of door uphill, when it was meant to move on the level.”
“Yes. But this door always has been pesky.” “What do we do?”
“We get at the escape tunnel.”
A block and tackle was fastened to a hook in the ceiling; the giant bottles were hauled out of the jumble and stacked, with Barbara and Karen heaving on the line and the men guiding them and then bracing them so that the stack could not roll. When the middle of the floor was clear they were able to get at the manhole cover to the tunnel. It was the massive, heavy-traffic sort and the hook in the ceiling was for lifting it.
It came up, creaking. It swung suddenly because of the 300 out-of-plumb of everything, taking a nick out of Duke’s shin and an oath out of Duke.
The hole was packed with provisions. The girls dug them out, Karen, being smaller, going down inside as they got deeper and Barbara stacking the stuff.
Karen stuck her head up. “Hey! Water Boss! There’s canned water here.” “Well, goody for me!”
Joe said, “I had forgotten that. This hatch hasn’t been opened since the shelter was stocked.”
“Joe, shall I knock out the braces?”
“I’ll get ’em. You clear out the supplies. Duke, this isn’t armored the way the door is. Those braces hold a piece of boiler plate against the opening, with the supplies behind it and the manhole cover holding it all down. Inside the tunnel, at ten foot intervals, are walls of sandbags, and the mouth has dirt over it. Your father said the idea was to cofferdam a blast.
Let it in, slow it down, a piece at a time.”
“We’ll find those sandbags jammed against that boiler plate.” “If so, we’ll dig ’em out.”
“Why didn’t he use real armor?”
“He thought this was safer. You saw what happened to the doors. I would hate to have to pry loose a steel barrier in that tunnel.”
“I see. Joe, I’m sorry I ever called this place a ‘hole in the ground.'” “Well, it isn’t. It’s a machine-a survival machine.”
“I’m through,” Karen announced. “Some gentleman help me up. Or you,
Duke.” out.
“I’ll put the lid on with you under it.” Duke helped his sister to climb Joe climbed down, flinching at the strain on his ribs. Dr. Livingstone
had been superintending. Now he followed his friend into the hole, using Joe’s
shoulders as a landing.
“Duke, if you’ll hand me that sledge — Stay out of the way, Doc. Get your tail down.”
“Want me to take him?” asked Karen.
“No, he likes to be in on things. Somebody hold the light.” The braces were removed and piled on the floor above.
“Duke, I need the tackle now. I don’t want to hoist the plate. Just take its weight so I can swing it back. It’s heavy.”
“Here it comes.”
“That’s good. Doc! Darn you, Doc! Get out from under my feet! Just a steady strain, Duke. Somebody hand me the flashlight. I’ll swing her back and have a look.”
“And get a face full of isotopes.”
“Have to chance it. A touch more — That’s got her, she’s swinging
free.”
Then Joe didn’t say anything. At last Duke said, “What do you see?” “I’m not sure. Let me swing it back, and hand me one brace.”
“Right over your head. Joe, what do you see?”
The Negro was swinging the plate back when suddenly he grunted. “Doe!
Doe, come back here! That little scamp! Between my legs and into the tunnel. Doc!”
“He can’t get far.”
“Well — Karen, will you go wake your father?”
“Damn it, Joe! What do you see?” “Duke, I don’t know. That’s why I need Hugh.” “I’m coming down.”
“There isn’t room. I’m coming up, so Hugh can go down.” Hugh arrived as Joe scrambled out. “Joe, what do you have?” “Hugh, I would rather you looked yourself.”
“Well — I should have built a ladder for this. Give me a hand.” Hugh went down, removed the brace, swung back the plate.
He stared even longer than Joe had, then called up. “Duke! Let’s heave this plate out.”
“What is it, Dad?”
“Get the plate out, then you can come down.” It was hoisted out; father and son exchanged places. Duke stared down the tunnel. “That’s enough, Duke. Here’s a hand.”
Duke rejoined them; his father said, “What do you think?” “I don’t believe it.”
“Daddy,” Karen said tensely, “somebody is going to talk, or I’m going to wrap this sledgehammer around somebody’s skull.”
“Yes, baby. Uh, there’s room for you girls to go down together.”
Barbara was handed down by Duke and Hugh, she helped Karen down over her. Both girls scrunched down and looked.
Karen said softly, “I’ll be goldarned!” She started crawling into the tunnel.
Hugh called out, “Baby! Come back!” Karen did not answer. He added, “Barbara, tell me what you see.”
“I see,” Barbara said slowly, “a beautiful wooded hillside, green trees, bushes, and a lovely sunny day.”
“That’s what we saw.” “But it’s impossible.” “Yes.”
“Karen is outside. The tunnel isn’t more than eight feet long. She’s holding Dr. Livingstone. She says, ‘Come on out!” “Tell her to get away from the mouth. It’s probably radioactive.”
“Karen! Get away from the tunnel! Hugh, what time is it?” “Just past seven.”
“Well, it’s more like noon outside. I think.” “I’ve quit thinking.” “Hugh, I want to go out.”
“Uh — Oh, hell! Don’t tarry at the mouth. And be careful.” “I will.” She started to crawl.
Chapter 4
Hugh turned to his deputy. “Joe, I’m going out. Get me a forty-five and a belt. I shouldn’t have let those girls go out unarmed.” He eased himself down the hole. “You two guard the place.”
His son said, “Against what? There’s nothing to guard in here.”
His father hesitated. “I don’t know. Just a spooky feeling. All right, come along. But arm yourself. Joe!”
“Coming!”
“Joe, arm Duke and yourself. Then wait until we get outside. If we don’t come back right away, use your judgment. This situation I hadn’t anticipated. It just can’t be.”
“But it is.”
“So it is, Duke.” Hugh buckled on the pistol, dropped to his knees. Framed in the tunnel’s mouth was still the vision of lush greenness where there should have been blasted countryside and crater glass. He started to crawl.
He stood up and moved away from the mouth, then looked around. “Daddy! Isn’t this lovely!”
Karen was below him on a slope that ran down to a stream. Across it the land rose and was covered with trees. On this side was a semi-clearing. The sky was blue, sunlight warm and bright, and there was no sign of war’s devastation, nor any sign of man-not a building, a road, a path, no contrails in the sky. It was wilderness, and there was nothing that he recognized.
“Daddy, I’m going down to the creek.” “Come here! Where’s Barbara?”
“Up here, Hugh.” He turned and saw her up the slope, above the shelter. “I’m trying to figure out what happened. What do you think?”
The shelter sat cocked on the slope, a huge square monolith. Dirt clung to it save where the tunnel had cracked off and a jagged place where the stairwell had been. The armor door was exposed just above him.
“I don’t think,” he admitted.
Duke emerged, dragging a rifle. He stood up, looked around, and said nothing.
Barbara and Karen joined them. Dr. — Livingstone-I-Presume came bounding up to tag Hugh on the ankle and dash away. Obviously the Persian gave the place full approval; it was just right for cats.
Duke said, “I give up. Tell me.”
Hugh did not answer. Karen said, “Daddy, why can’t I go down to the creek? I’m going to take a bath. I stink.”
“It won’t hurt you to stink. I’m confused. I don’t want to be confused still more by worrying about your drowning — “
“It’s shallow.”
” — or eaten by a bear, or falling in quicksand. You girls go inside, arm yourselves, and then come out if you want to. But stick close and keep your eyes peeled. Tell Joe to come out.”
“Yes, sir.” The girls went. “What do you think, Duke?” “Well…I reserve my opinion.”
“If you have one, it’s more than I have. Duke, I’m stonkered. I planned
for all sorts of things. This wasn’t on the list. If you have opinions, for God’s sake spill them.”
“Well — This looks like mountain country in Central America. Of course that’s impossible.”
“No point in worrying about whether it’s possible. Suppose it was Central America. What would you watch for?”
“Let me see. Might be cougars. Snakes certainly. Tarantulas and scorpions. Malaria mosquitoes. You mentioned bears.”
“I meant bears as a symbol. We’re going to have to watch everything, every minute, until we know what we’re up against.”
Joe came out, carrying a rifle. He kept quiet and looked around. Duke said, “We won’t starve. Off to the left down by the stream.”
Hugh looked. A dappled fawn, hardly waist high, was staring at them, apparently unafraid. Duke said, “Shall I drop it?” He raised his rifle.
“No. Unless you are dead set on fresh meat.” “All right. Pretty thing, isn’t it?”
“Very. But it’s no North American deer I ever saw. Duke? Where are we?
And how did we get here?”
Duke gave a lopsided grin. “Dad, you appointed yourself Fuehrer. I’m not supposed to think.”
“Oh, rats!”
“Anyhow, I don’t know. Maybe the Russkis developed a hallucination
bomb.”
it.”
“But would we all see the same thing?”
“No opinion. But if I had shot that deer, Ill bet we could have eaten
“I think so, too. Joe? Ideas, opinions, suggestions?”
Joe scratched his head. “Mighty pretty country. But I’m a city boy.” “One thing you can do, Hugh.”
“What, Duke?”
“Your little radio. Try it.”
“Good idea.” Hugh crawled inside, caught Karen about to climb down, sent
her back for it. While he waited, he wondered what he had that was suitable for a ladder? Chinning themselves in a six-foot manhole was tedious.
The radio picked up static but nothing else. Hugh switched it off. “We’ll try it tonight. I’ve gotten Mexico with it at night, even Canada.” He frowned. “Something ought to be on the air. Unless they smeared us completely.”
“Dad, you aren’t thinking straight.” “How, Duke?”
“This area did not get smeared.”
“That’s why I can’t understand a radio silence.”
“Yet Mountain Springs really caught it. Ergo, we aren’t in Mountain Springs.”
“Who said we were?” Karen answered. “There’s nothing like this in Mountain Springs. Nor the whole state.”
Hugh frowned. “I guess that’s obvious.” He looked at the shelter-gross, huge, massive. “But where are we?”
“Don’t you read comic books, Daddy? We’re on another planet.” “Don’t joke, baby girl. I’m worried.”
“I wasn’t joking. There is nothing like this within a thousand miles of home-yet here we are. Might as well be another planet. The one we had was getting used up.”
“Hugh,” Joe said, “it sounds silly. But I agree with Karen.” “Why, Joe?”
“Well, we’re someplace. What happens when an H-bomb explodes dead on
you?”
“You’re vaporized.”
“I don’t feel vaporized. And I can’t see that big hunk of concrete sailing a thousand miles or so, and crashing down with nothing to show for it but cracked ribs and a hurt shoulder. But Karen’s idea — ” He shrugged. “Call it the fourth dimension. That last big one nudged us through the fourth dimension.”
“Just what I said, Daddy. We’re on a strange planet! Let’s explore!” “Slow down, honey. As for another planet — Well, there isn’t any rule
saying we have to know where we are when we don’t. The problem is to cope.” Barbara said, “Karen, I don’t see how this can be anything but Earth.” “Why? Spoilsport.”
“Well — ” Barbara chucked a pebble at a tree. “That’s a eucalyptus, and an acacia beyond it. Not at all like Mountain Springs but a normal grouping of tropical and subtropical flora. Unless your ‘new planet’ evolved plants just like Earth, this has to be Earth.”
“Spoilsport,” Karen repeated. “Why shouldn’t plants evolve the same way on another planet?”
“Well, that would be as remarkable as finding the same — “
“Hubert! Hubert! Where are you? I can’t find you!” Grace Farnham’s voice echoed out the tunnel.
Hugh ducked into the tunnel. “Coming!”
They ate lunch under a tree a little distance from the shelter. Hugh decided that the tunnel had been buried so deeply that the chance of its mouth being more radioactive than the interior was negligible. As for the roof, he was not certain. So he placed a dosimeter (the only sort of radiation instrument that had come through the pummeling) on top of the shelter to compare it later with one inside. He was relieved to see that the dosimeters agreed that they had suffered less than lethal dosage-although large-and that they checked each other.
The only other precaution he took was for them to keep guns by them-all but his wife. Grace Farnham “couldn’t stand guns,” and resented having to eat with guns in sight.
But she ate with good appetite. Duke had built a fire and they were blessed with hot coffee, hot canned beef, hot peas, hot canned sweet potatoes, and canned fruit salad-and cigarettes with no worry about air or fire.
“That was lovely,” Grace admitted. “Hubert dear? Do you know what it would take to make it just perfect? You don’t approve of drinking in the middle of the day but these are special circumstances and my nerves are still a teensy bit on edge-so, Joseph, if you will just run back inside and fetch a bottle of that Spanish brandy — “
“Grace.”
“What, dear?– then all of us could celebrate our miraculous escape. You were saying?”
“I’m not sure there is any.”
“What? Why, we stored two cases of it!”
“Most of the liquor was broken. That brings up something else. Duke, you are out of a job as water boss. I’d like you to take over as bartender. There are at least two unbroken fifths. Whatever you find, split it six ways and make it share and share alike, whether it’s several bottles each, or just a part of a bottle.”
Mrs. Farnham looked blank, Duke looked uneasy. Karen said hastily, “Daddy, you know what I said.”
“Oh, yes. Duke, your sister is on the wagon. So hold her share as a medicinal reserve. Unless she changes her mind.”
“I don’t want the job,” said Duke.
“We have to divide up the chores, Duke. Oh yes, do the same with
cigarettes. When they are gone, they’re gone, whereas I have hopes that we can distill liquor later.” He turned to his wife. “Why not have a Miltown, dear?”
“Drugs! Hubert Farnham, are you telling me that I can’t have a drink?” “Not at all. At least two fifths came through. Your share would be about
a half pint. If you want a drink, go ahead.”
“Well! Joseph, run inside and fetch me a bottle of brandy.”
“No!” her husband countermanded. “If you want it, Grace, fetch it yourself.”
“Oh, shucks, Hugh, I don’t mind.”
“I do. Grace, Joe’s ribs are cracked. It hurts him to climb. You can manage the climb with those boxes as steps-and you’re the only one who wasn’t hurt.”
“That’s not true!”
“Not a scratch. Everybody else was bruised or worse. Now about jobs — I want you to take over as cook. Karen will be your assistant. Okay, Karen?”
“Certainly, Daddy.”
“It will keep you both busy. We’ll build a grill and Dutch oven, but it will be cook over a campfire and wash dishes in the creek for a while.”
“So? And will you please tell me, Mr. Farnham, what Joseph is going to do in the meantime? To earn his wages?”
“Will you please tell me how we’ll pay wages? Dear, dear — can’t you see that things have changed?”
“Don’t be preposterous! Joseph will get every cent coming to him and he knows it-just as soon as this mess is straightened out. After all, we’ve saved his life. And we’ve always been good to him, he won’t mind waiting. Will you, Joseph?”
“Grace! Quiet down and listen. Joe is no longer our servant. He is our partner in adversity. We’ll never pay him wages again. Quit acting like a child and face the facts. We’re broke. We’re never going to have any money again. Our house is gone. My business is gone. The Mountain Exchange Bank is gone. We’re wiped out…save for what we stored in the shelter. But we are lucky. We’re alive and by some miracle have a chance of scratching a living out of the ground. Lucky. Do you understand?”
“I understand you are using it as an excuse to bully me!” “You’ve merely been assigned a job to fit your talents.”
“Kitchen drudge! I was your kitchen slave for twenty-five years! That’s long enough. I won’t do it! Do you understand me?”
“You are wrong on both points. You’ve had a maid most of our married life…and Karen washed dishes from the time she could see over the sink. Granted, we had lean years. Now we’re going to have more lean years-and you’re going to help. Grace, you are a fine cook when you want to be. You will cook…or you won’t eat.”
“Oh!” She burst into tears and fled into the shelter.
Her behind was disappearing when Duke got up to follow. His father stopped him. “Duke!”
“Yes.”
“One word and you can join your mother. I’m going exploring, I want you to go with me.”
Duke hesitated. “All right.”
“We’ll start shortly. I think your job should be ‘hunter.’ You’re a better shot than I am and Joe has never hunted. What do you think?”
“Uh — All right.”
“Good. Well, go soothe her down and, Duke, see if you can make her see the facts.”
“Maybe. But I agree with Mother. You were bullying her.” “As may be. Go ahead.”
Duke turned abruptly and left. Karen said quietly, “I think so too,
Daddy. You were bullying.”
“I intended to. I judged it called for bullying. Karen, if I hadn’t tromped on it, she would do no work…and would order Joe around, treat him as a hired cook.”
“Shucks, Hugh, I don’t mind cooking. It was a pleasure to rustle lunch.” “She’s a better cook than you are, Joe, and she’s going to cook. Don’t
let me catch you fetching and carrying for her.”
The younger man grinned. “You won’t catch me.”
“Better not. Or I’ll skin you and nail it to the barn. Barbara, what do you know about farming?”
“Very little.” “You’re a botanist.”
“No, I simply might have been one, someday.”
“Which makes you eight times as much of a farmer as the rest of us. I can barely tell a rose from a dandelion; Duke knows even less and Karen thinks you dig potatoes out of gravy. You heard Joe say he was a city boy. But we have seeds and a small supply of fertilizers. Also garden tools and books about farming. Look over what we’ve got and find a spot for a garden. Joe and I will do the spading and such. But you will have to boss.”
“All right. Any flower seeds?” “How did you know?”
“I just hoped.”
“Annuals and perennials both. Don’t look for a spot this afternoon; I don’t want you girls away from the shelter until we know the hazards. Joe, today we should accomplish two things, a ladder and two privies. Barbara, how are you as a carpenter?”
“Just middlin’. I can drive a nail.”
“Don’t let Joe do what you can do; those ribs have to heal. But we need a ladder. Karen, my little flower, you have the privilege of digging privies.”
“Gosh. Thanks!”
“Just straddle ditches, one as the powder room, the other for us coarser types. Joe and I will build proper Chic Sales jobs later. Then we’ll tackle a log cabin. Or a stone-wall job.”
“I was wondering if you planned to do any work, Daddy.” “Brainpower, darling. Management. Supervision. Can’t you see me
sweating?” He yawned. “Well, a pleasant afternoon, all. I’ll stroll down to the club, have a Turkish bath, then enjoy a long, tall planter’s punch.”
“Daddy, go soak your head. Privies, indeed!” “The Kappas would be proud of you, dear.”
Hugh and his son left a half hour later. “Joe,” Hugh cautioned, “we plan to be back before dark but if we get caught, we’ll keep a fire going all night and come back tomorrow. If you do have to search for us, don’t go alone; take one of the girls. No, take Karen; Barbara has no shoes, just some spike heeled sandals. Damn. Moccasins we’ll have to make. Got it?”
“Sure.”
“We’ll head for that hill-that one. I want to get high enough to get the lay of the land-and maybe spot signs of civilization.” They set out-rifles, canteens, hand ax, machete, matches, iron rations, compasses, binoculars, mountain boots, coveralls. Coveralls and boots fitted Duke as well as Hugh; Duke found that his father had stocked clothes for him.
They took turns, with the man following blazing trail and counting paces, the leader keeping lookout, compass direction, and record.
The high hill Hugh had picked was across the stream. They explored its bank and found a place to wade. Everywhere they flushed game. The miniature deer were abundant and apparently had never been hunted. By man, at least — Duke saw a mountain lion and twice they saw bears.
It seemed to be about three o’clock local time as they approached the
summit. The climb was steep, cluttered with undergrowth, and neither man was in training. When they reached the flattish summit Hugh wanted to throw himself on the ground.
Instead he looked around. To the east the ground dropped off. He stared out over miles of prairie.
He could see no sign of human life. He adjusted his binoculars and started searching. He saw moving figures, decided that they were antelope-or cattle; he made mental note that these herds must be watched. Later, later — “Hugh?”
He lowered his binoculars. “Yes, Duke?”
“See that peak? It’s fourteen thousand one hundred and ten feet high.” “I won’t argue.”
“That’s Mount James. Dad, we’re home!” “What do you mean?”
“Look southwest. Those three gendarmes on that profile. The middle one is where I broke my leg when I was thirteen. That pointed mountain between there and Mount James — Hunter’s Horn. Can’t you see? The skyline is as distinctive as a fingerprint. This is Mountain Springs!”
Hugh stared. This skyline he knew. His bedroom window had been planned to let him see it at dawn; many sunsets he had watched it from his roof.
“Yes.”
“Yes,” Duke agreed. “Damned if I know how. But as I figure it” — he stomped the ground — “we’re on the high reservoir. Where it ought to be. And
— ” His brow wrinkled. “As near as I can tell, our shelter is smack on our lot. Dad, we didn’t go anywhere!”
Hugh took out the notebook in which were recorded paces and compasses courses, did some arithmetic. “Yes. Within the limits of error.”
“Well? How do you figure it?”
Hugh looked at the skyline. “I don’t. Duke, how much daylight do we
have?”
“Well…three hours. The sun will be behind the mountains in two.”
“It took two hours to get here; we should make it back in less. Do you
have any cigarettes?”
“May I have one? Charged against me of course. I would like to rest about one cigarette, then start back.” He looked around. “It’s open up here. I don’t think a bear would approach us.” He placed his rifle and belt on the ground, settled down.
Duke offered a cigarette to his father, took one himself. “Dad, you’re a cold fish. Nothing excites you.”
“So? I’m so excitable that I had to learn never to give into it.” “Doesn’t seem that way to other people.” They smoked in silence, Duke
seated, Hugh sprawled out. He was close to exhaustion and wished that he did not have to hike back.
Presently Duke added, “Besides that, you enjoy bullying.” His father answered, “I suppose so, if you class what I do as bullying. No one ever does anything but what he wants to do — ‘enjoys’ — within the possibilities open to him. If I change a tire, it’s because I enjoy it more than being stranded.”
“Don’t get fancy. You enjoy bullying Mother. You enjoyed spanking me as a kid…until Mother put her foot down and made you stop.”
His father said, “We had better start back.” He reached for his belt and
rifle.
“Just a second. I want to show you something. Never mind your gear, this
won’t take a moment.”
Hugh stood up. “What is it?”
“Just this. Your Captain Bligh act is finished.” He clouted his father. “That’s for bullying Mother!” He clouted him from the other side and harder,
knocking his father off his feet. “And that’s for having that nigger pull a gun on me!”
Hugh Farnham lay where he had fallen. “Not ‘nigger,’ Duke. Negro.” “He’s a Negro as long as he behaves himself. Pulling a gun on me makes
him a goddam nigger. You can get up. I won’t hit you again.” Hugh Farnham got to his feet. “Let’s start back.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say? Go ahead. Hit me. I won’t hit back.”
“I didn’t break my parole. I waited until we left the shelter.” “Conceded. Shall I lead? Better, perhaps.”
“Do you think I’m afraid you might shoot me in the back? Look, Dad, I had to do it!”
“Did you?”
“Hell, yes. For my own self-respect.”
“Very well.” Hugh buckled on his belt, picked up his gun, and headed for the last blaze.
They hiked in silence. At last Duke said, “Dad?” “Yes, Duke?”
“I’m sorry.” “Forget it.”
They went on, found where they had forded the stream, crossed it. Hugh hurried, as it was growing darker. Duke closed up again. “Just one thing, Dad. Why didn’t you assign Barbara as cook? She’s the freeloader. Why pick on Mother?”
Hugh took his time in answering. “Barbara is no more a freeloader than you are, Duke, and cooking is the only thing Grace knows. Or were you suggesting that she loaf while the rest of us work?”
“No. Oh, we all have to pitch in-granted. But no more bullying, no more bawling Mother out in public. Understand me?”
“Duke.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been studying karate three afternoons a week the past year.” “So?”
“Don’t try it again. Shooting me in the back is safer.” “I hear you.”
“Until you decide to shoot me, it would be well to accept my leadership.
Or do you wish to assume the responsibility?” “Are you offering it?”
“I am not in a position to. Perhaps the group would accept you. Your mother would. Possibly your sister would prefer you. Concerning Barbara and Joe, I offer no opinion.”
“How about you, Dad?”
“I won’t answer that; I owe you nothing. But until you decide to make a bid for leadership, I expect the same willing discipline you showed under parole.”
“‘Willing discipline’ indeed!”
“In the long run there is no other sort. I can’t quell a mutiny every few hours-and I’ve had two from you plus an utter lack of discipline from your mother. No leader can function on those terms. So I will assume your willing discipline. That includes no interference should I decide again to use what you call ‘bullying.'”
“Now see here, I told you I would not stand for — “
“Quiet! Unless you make up your mind to that, your safest choice is to shoot me in the back. Don’t come at me with bare hands or risk giving me a chance to shoot first. At the next sign of trouble, Duke, I will kill you. If possible. One of us will surely be killed.”
They trudged along in silence, Mr. Farnham never looking back. At last
Duke said, “Dad, for Christ’s sake, why can’t you run things democratically? I don’t want to boss things, I simply want you to be fair about it.”
“Mmm, you don’t want to boss. You want to be a backseat driver-with a veto over the driver.”
“Nuts! I simply want things run democratically.”
“You do? Shall we vote on whether Grace is to work like the rest of us? Whether she shall hog the liquor? Shall we use Robert’s Rules of Order? Should she withdraw while we debate it? Or should she stay and defend herself against charges of indolence and drunkenness? Do you wish to submit your mother to such ignominy?”
“Don’t be silly!”
“I am trying to find out what you mean by ‘democratically.’ If you mean putting every decision to a vote, I am willing-if you will bind yourself to abide by every majority decision. You’re welcome to run for chairman. I’m sick of the responsibility and I know that Joe does not like being my deputy.”
“That’s another thing. Why should Joe have any voice in these matters?” “I thought you wanted to do it ‘democratically’?”
“Yes, but he is — “
“What, Duke? A ‘nigger’? Or a servant?” “You’ve got a nasty way of putting things.”
“You’ve got nasty ideas. We’ll try formal democracy-rules of order, debate, secret ballot, everything-any time you want to try such foolishness. Especially any time you want to move a vote of no confidence and take over the leadership…and I’m so bitter as to hope that you succeed. In the meantime we do have democracy.”
“How do you figure?”
“I’m serving by consent of the majority-four to two, I think. But that doesn’t suit me; I want it to be unanimous, I can’t put up indefinitely with wrangling from the minority. You and your mother, I mean. I want it to be five to one before we get back, with your assurance that you will not interfere in my efforts to persuade, or cajole, or bully, your mother into accepting her share of the load-until you care to risk a vote of no confidence.”
“You’re asking me to agree to that?”
“No, I’m telling you. Willing discipline on your part…or at the next clash one of us will be killed. I won’t give you the slightest warning. That’s why your safest course is to shoot me in the back.”
“Quit talking nonsense! You know I won’t shoot you in the back.” “So? I will shoot you in the back or anywhere at the next hint of
trouble. Duke, I can see only one alternative. If you find it impossible to give willing disciplined consent, if you don’t think you can displace me, if you can’t bring yourself to kill me, if you don’t care to risk a clash in which one of us will be killed, then there is still a peaceful solution.”
“What is it?”
“Any time you wish, you can leave. I’ll give you a rifle, ammunition, salt, matches, a knife, whatever you find needful. You don’t deserve them but I won’t turn you out with nothing.”
Duke gave a bitter laugh. “Sending me out to play Robinson Crusoe…and leaving all the women with you!”
“Oh, no! Any who wish are free to go. With a fair share of anything and some to boot. All three women if you can sell the idea.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Do. And do a little politicking and size up your chances of winning a vote against me ‘democratically’ — while being extraordinarily careful not to cross wills with me and thereby bring on a showdown sooner than you wish. I warn you, I’m feeling very short-tempered; you loosened one of my teeth.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“That wasn’t the way it felt. There’s the shelter; you can start that
‘willing discipline’ by pretending that we’ve had a lovely afternoon.” “Look, Dad, if you won’t mention — “
“Shut up. I’m sick of you.”
As they neared the shelter Karen saw them and yoo-hooed; Joe and Barbara came crawling out the tunnel. Karen waved her shovel. “Come see what I’ve done!”
She had dug privies on each side of the shelter. Saplings formed frameworks which had been screened by tacking cardboard from liquor cases. Seats had been built of lumber remnants from the tank room. “Well?” demanded Karen. “Aren’t they gorgeous?”
“Yes,” agreed Hugh. “Much more lavish than I had expected.” He refrained from saying that they had cost most of the lumber.
“I didn’t do it all. Barbara did the carpentry. You should hear her swear when she hits her thumb.”
“You hurt your thumb, Barbara?”
“It’ll get well. Come try the ladder.”
“Sure thing.” He started inside; Joe stopped him. “Hugh, while we’ve still got light, how about seeing something?”
“All right. What?”
“The shelter. You’ve been talking about building a cabin. Suppose we do: what do we have? A mud floor and a roof that leaks, no glass for windows and no doors. Seems to me the shelter is better.”
“Well, perhaps,” agreed Hugh. “I had thought we could use it while pioneering, if we had to.”
“I don’t think it’s too radioactive, Hugh. That dosimeter should have gone sky-high if the roof is really ‘hot.’ It hasn’t.”
“That’s good news. But, Joe, look at it. A slant of thirty degrees is uncomfortable. We need a house with a level floor.”
“That’s what I mean. Hugh, that hydraulic jack-it’s rated at thirty tons. How much does the shelter weigh?”
“Oh. Let me think how many yards of mix we used and how much steel.” Hugh pondered it, got out his notebook. “Call it two hundred fifty tons.”
“Well, it was an idea.”
“Maybe it’s a good idea.” Hugh prowled around the shelter, a block twenty feet square and twelve high, sizing up angles, estimating yardages.
“It can be done,” Hugh decided. “We dig under on the uphill side, to the center line, cutting out enough to let that side settle down level. Damn, I wish we had power tools.”
“How long will it take?”
“Two men could do it in a week if they didn’t run into boulders. With no dynamite a boulder can be a problem.”
“Too much of a problem?”
“Always some way to cope. Let’s pray we don’t run into solid rock. As we get it dug out, we brace it with logs. At the end we snag the logs out with block and tackle. Then we put the jack under the downhill side and tilt it into place, shore it up and fill with what we’ve removed. Lots of sweat.”
“I’ll start bright and early tomorrow.”
“You will like hell. Not until your ribs have healed. I will start tomorrow, with two husky girls. Plus Duke, if his shoulder isn’t sore, after he shoots us a deer; we’ve got to conserve canned goods. Reminds me-what was done with the dirty cans?”
“Buried ’em.”
“Dig them up and wash them. A tin can is more valuable than gold; we’ll use them for all sorts of things. Let’s go in. I’ve still to admire the ladder.”
The ladder was two trimmed saplings, with treads cut from boards and notched and nailed. Hugh reflected again that lumber had been used too
lavishly; treads should have been fashioned from limbs. Damn it, there were so many things that could no longer be ordered by picking up a telephone. Those rolls of Scottissue, one at each privy — They shouldn’t be left outdoors; what if it rained? All too soon it would be either a handful of leaves, or do without.
So many, many things they had always taken for granted! Kotex — How long would their supply last? And what did primitive women use? Something, no doubt, but what?
He must warn them that anything manufactured, a scrap of paper, a dirty rag, a pin, all must be hoarded. Caution them, hound them, nag them endlessly.
“That’s a beautiful ladder, Barbara!”
She looked very pleased. “Joe did the hard parts.”
“I did not,” Joe denied. “I just gave advice and touched up the chisel.” “Well, whoever did it, it’s lovely. Now we’ll see if it will take my
weight.”
“Oh, it will!” Barbara said proudly.
The shelter had all lights burning. Have to caution them about batteries, too. Must tell the girls to look up how to make candles. “Where’s Grace, Karen?”
“Mother isn’t well. She’s lying down.”
“So? You had better start dinner.” Hugh went into the women’s bay, saw what sort of not-well his wife suffered. She was sleeping heavily, mouth open, snoring, and was fully dressed. He reached down, peeled back an eyelid; she did not stir. “Duke.”
“Yes?”
“Come here. Everybody else outside.”
Duke joined him. Hugh said, “After lunch, did you give Grace a drink?” “Huh? You didn’t say not to.”
“I wasn’t criticizing. How much?”
“Just a highball. An ounce and a half of Scotch, with water.” “Does that look like one highball? Try to rouse her.”
Duke tried, then straightened up. “Dad, I know you think I’m a fool. But I gave her just one drink. Damn it, I’m more opposed to her drinking than you are!”
left.”
“Take it easy, Duke. I assume that she got at the bottle after you
“Well, maybe.” Duke frowned. “As soon as I found an unbroken bottle I
gave Mother that drink. Then I took inventory. I think I found it all, unless you have some hidden away — “
“No, the cases were together. Six cases.”
“Right. I found thirteen unbroken bottles, twelve fifths and a quart of bourbon. I remember thinking that was two fifths each and the quart I would keep in reserve. I had opened one bottle of King’s Ransom. I made a pencil mark on it. We’ll know if she found it.”
“You hid the liquor?”
“I stashed it in the upper bunk on the other side; I figured it would be hard for her to climb up there — I’m not a complete fool, Dad. She couldn’t see me, she was in her bunk. But maybe she guessed.”
“Let’s check.”
Thirteen bottles were between springs and mattress; twelve were unopened, the thirteenth was nearly full. Duke held it up. “See? Right to the line. But there was another bottle we had a snort from, after that second bombing. What happened to it?”
“Barbara and I had some after you went to sleep, Duke. There was some left. I never saw it again. It was in the tank room.”
“Oh! I did, while we were bailing. Busted. I give up-where did she get
it?”
“She didn’t, Duke.” “What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t liquor.” Hugh went to the medicines drawer, got a bottle with a broken seal. “Count these Seconal capsules. You had two last night.”
“Yeah.”
“Karen had one at bedtime, one later; Joe had one. Neither Barbara nor I had any, nor Grace. Five.”
“Hold it, I’m counting.”
His father began to count as Duke pushed them aside. “Ninety-one,” Duke announced.
“Check.” Hugh put the capsules back. “So she took four.” “What do we do, Dad? Stomach pump? Emetic?”
“Nothing.”
“Why, you heartless — She tried to kill herself!”
“Slow down, Duke. She did nothing of the sort. Four capsules, six grains, simply produces stupor in a healthy person — and she’s healthy as a horse; she had a physical a month ago. No, she snitched those pills to get drunk on.” Hugh scowled. “An alcohol drunk is bad enough. But people kill themselves without meaning to with sleeping pills.”
“Dad, what do you mean, ‘she took them to get drunk on’?” “You don’t use them?”
“I never had one in my life until those two last night.”
“Do you remember how you felt just before you went to sleep? Warm and happy and woozy?”
“No. I just lay down and konked out. Next thing I knew I was against the wall on my shoulders.”
“You haven’t developed tolerance for them. Grace knows what they can do.
Drunk, a very happy drunk. I’ve never known her to take more than one but she’s never been chopped off from liquor before. When a person eats sleeping pills because he can’t get liquor, he’s in a bad way.”
“Dad, you should have kept liquor away from her long ago!”
“How, Duke? Tell her she couldn’t have a drink? Take them away from her at parties? Quarrel with her in public? Fight with her in front of Joe? Not let her have cash, close out her bank account, see that she had no credit?
Would that have stopped her from pawning furs?” “Mother would never have done that.”
“It’s typical behavior in such cases. Duke, it is impossible to keep liquor away from any adult who is determined to have it. The United States Government wasn’t that powerful. I’ll go further. It is impossible for anyone to be responsible for another person’s behavior. I spoke of myself as ‘responsible’ for this group; that was verbal shorthand. The most I can door you, or any leader-is to encourage each one to be responsible for himself.”
Hugh chewed his thumb and looked anguished. “Perhaps my mistake was in letting her loaf. But she considered me stingy because I let her have only a houseboy and a cleaning woman. Duke, do you see anything I could have done short of beating her?”
“Uh…that’s beside the point. What do we do now?”
“So it is, counselor. Well, we keep these pills away from her.” “And I’m damned well going to chop off the liquor completely!” “Oh, I wouldn’t.”
“You wouldn’t, eh? Did I hear correctly when you said I was liquor
boss?”
“The decision is up to you. I simply said that I wouldn’t. I think it’s
a mistake.”
“Well, I don’t. Dad, I won’t go into the matter of whether you could, or should, have stopped Mother from getting the way she is. But I intend to stop it.”
“Very well, Duke. Mmm, she’s going to be cut off anyhow in a matter of days. It might be easier to taper her off. If you decide to, I’ll contribute a bottle from my share. Hell, you can have both of mine. I like a snort as well as the next man. But Grace needs it.”
“That won’t be necessary,” his son said crisply. “I’m not going to let her have any. Get it over with, she’ll be well that much sooner.”
“Your decision. May I offer a suggestion?” “What?”
“In the morning, be up before she is. Move the liquor out and bury it, someplace known only to you. Then have open one bottle at a time and dispense it by the ounce. Tell the others to drink where she can’t see it. You had better ditch the open bottle outdoors, too.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“But that makes it all the more urgent to keep sleeping pills away from
her.”
“Bury them?”
“No. We need them inside, and it’s not just sleeping pills. Demerol.
Hypodermic needles. Several drugs, some poisonous and some addictive and all irreplaceable. If she can’t find Seconal-five bottles of a hundred each, it’s bulky-there’s no telling what she might get into. We’ll use the vault.”
“A little safe let into concrete back of that cupboard. Nothing in it but birth certificates and such, and some reserve ammo, and two thousand silver dollars. Toss the money in with the hardware, we’ll use it as metal. The combo is ‘July 4th, 1776′ — ’74-17-76.’ Better change it, Grace may know it.”
“At once!”
“No rush, she won’t wake up. ‘Reserve ammo — ‘ Duke, you were liquor and cigarette boss and now you are drugs boss. I’m going whole hog, you are rationing officer. Responsible for everything that can’t be replaced: liquor, tobacco, ammunition, nails, toilet tissue, matches, dry cells, Kleenex, needles — “
“Good God! Got any more dirty jobs?”
“Lots of them. Duke, I’m trying to make it each according to his talents. Joe is too diffident-and he missed obvious economies today. Karen doesn’t think ahead. Barbara feels like a freeloader even though she’s not, she wouldn’t crack down. I would, but I’m swamped. You are a natural for it; you don’t hesitate to assert yourself. And you have foresight when you take the trouble to use it.”
“Thank you too much. All right.”
“The hardest thing to drill into them will be saving every scrap of metal and paper and cloth and lumber, things Americans have wasted for years. Fishhooks. Groceries aren’t as important; we’ll replace them, you by hunting, Barbara by gardening. Nevertheless, better note what can’t be replaced. Salt. You must ration salt especially.”
“Salt?”
“Unless you run across a salt lick in hunting. Salt — Damn it, we’re going to have to tan leather. All I used to do with a hide was rub it with salt and give it to the taxidermist. Is salt necessary?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll look it up. Damnation, we’re going to find that I failed to stock endless things we’ll be miserable without.”
“Dad,” Duke admitted, “I think you’ve done mighty well.” “So? That’s pleasant to hear. We’ll manage to — ” “Daddy!”
“Yes?” Hugh went to the tank room. Karen’s head stuck up out of the manhole.
“Daddy, can we please come in? It’s dark and scary and something big chased Doc in. Joe won’t let us until you say.”
“Sorry, Baby. Everybody come in. And we’ll put the lid on.”
“Yes, sir. But Daddy, you ought to look outside. Stars. The Milky Way like a neon sign! And the Big Dipper-so maybe this isn’t another planet? Or would we still see the Big Dipper?”
“I’m not certain.” He recalled that the discovery that they were still in James County, Mountain Springs area, had not been shared. But Duke must tell it; it was his deduction. “Duke, want to take a look before we close up?”
“Thanks, I’ve seen a star.”
“As you wish.” Hugh went outside, waited while his eyes adjusted, saw that Karen was right: Never before had he seen the heavens on a clear mountain night with no other light, nor trace of smog, to dim its glory.
“Beautiful!”
Karen slipped her hand into his. “Yes,” she agreed. “But I could use some streetlights. There are things out there. And we heard coyotes.”
“There are bears and Duke saw a mountain lion. Joe, better keep the cat in at night, and try to keep him close in the daytime.”
“He won’t go far, he’s timid. And something just taught him a lesson.” “And me, too!” announced Karen. “Bears! Come, Barbie, let’s go in.
Daddy, if the Moon comes up, this must be Earth — and I’ll never trust a comic book again.”
“Go ask your brother.”
Duke’s discovery was the main subject at dinner. Karen’s disappointment was offset by her interest in how they had mislaid Mountain Springs. “Duke, are you sure you saw what you thought you saw?”
“No possible mistake,” Hugh answered for him. “If it weren’t for the trees, you could have spotted it. We had to climb Reservoir Hill to get a clear view.”
“You were gone all that time just to Reservoir Hill? Why, that’s only five minutes away!”
“Duke, explain to your sister about automobiles.” “I think the bomb did it,” Barbara said suddenly. “Why, certainly, Barb. The question is how?”
“I mean the enormous H-bomb the Russians claimed to have in orbit. The one they called the ‘Cosmic Bomb.’ I think it hit us.”
“Go on, Barbara.”
“Well, the first bomb was awful and the second one was bad; they almost burned us up. But the third one just hit us whammy! and then no noise, no heat, no rumbling, and the radioactivity got less instead of worse. Here’s my notion:
You’ve heard of parallel worlds? A million worlds side by side, almost alike but not quite? Worlds where Elizabeth married Essex and Mark Anthony hated redheads? And Ben Franklin got electrocuted with his kite? Well, this is one.”
“First automobiles and now Benjamin Franklin. I’ll go watch Ben Casey.” “Like this, Karen. The Cosmic Bomb hits us, dead on — and kicks us into
the next world. One exactly like the one we were in, except that it never had men in it.”
“I’m not sure I like a world with no men. I’d rather have a strange planet, with warlords riding thoats. Or is it zitidars?”
“What do you think of my theory, Hugh?”
“I’m keeping an open mind. I’ll go this far: We should not count on finding other human beings.”
“I go for your theory, Barbara,” Duke offered. “It accounts for the facts. Squeezed out like a melon seed. Pht!”
“And we landed here.”
Duke shrugged. “Let it be known as the Barbara Wells Theory of Cosmic Transportation and stand adopted. Here we are; we’re stuck with it-and I’m going to bed. Who sleeps where, Hugh?”
“Just a second. Folks, meet the Rationing Officer. Take a bow, Duke.” Hugh explained the austerity program. “Duke will work it out but that’s the idea. For example, I noticed a bent nail on the ground in the powder room. That calls for being spread-eagled and flogged. For a serious offense, such as wasting a match, it’s keelhauling. Second offense-hang him at the yardarm!”
“Gee! Do we get to watch?”
“Shut up, Karen. No punishments, just the miserable knowledge that you have deprived the rest of something necessary to life, health, or comfort. So don’t give Duke any back talk. I want to make another assignment. Baby, you know shorthand.”
“That’s putting it strongly. Mr. Gregg wouldn’t think so.” “Hugh, I take shorthand. What do you want?”
“Okay, Barbara, you are historian. Today is Day One. Or start with the calendar we are used to, but we may adjust it; those were winter stars. Every night jot down the events and put it in longhand later. Your title is Keeper of the Flame. As soon as possible, you really will be Keeper of the Flame; we will have to light a fire, then bank it every night. Sorry to have held you up, Duke.”
“I’ll sleep in the tank room, Hugh. You take a bunk.”
“Wait a minute. Buddy, would you stay up ten minutes longer? Daddy, could Barbara and I use the tank room for a spit bath? May we have that much water? A girl who digs privies needs a bath.”
“Sure, Sis,” Duke agreed.
“Water is no problem,” Hugh told her. “But you can bathe in the stream in the morning. Just one thing: Whenever anyone is bathing, someone should stand guard. I wasn’t fooling about bears.”
Karen shivered. “I didn’t think you were. But that reminds me, Daddy — Do we dash out to the powder room? Or hold it all night? I’m not sure I can. But I’ll try-rather than play tag with bears!”
“I feel better. Okay, buddy boy, give Barb and me a crack at the john and you can go to bed.”
“No bath?”
“If we bathe, we can bathe in the girls’ dorm after the rest of you go to bed. Thereby sparing your blushes.”
“I don’t blush.” “You should.”
“Hold it,” interrupted Hugh. “We need a ‘No Blushing’ rule. Here we are crowded worse than a Moscow apartment. Do you know the Japanese saying about nakedness?”
“I know they bathe in company,” said Karen, “and I would be happy to join them. Hot water! Oh, boy!”
“They say, ‘Nakedness is often seen but never looked at.’ I’m not urging you to parade around in skin. But we should quit being jumpy. If you come in to change clothes and find that there is no privacy-why, just change. Or take bathing in the stream. The person available to guard might not be the sex of the person who wants the bath. So ignore it.” He looked at Joseph. “I mean you. I suspect you’re sissy about it.”
Joe looked stubborn. “That’s the way I was brought up, Hugh.”
“So? I wasn’t brought up this way either, but I’m trying to make the best of it. After a sweaty day’s work it might be that Barbara is the one available to stand bear watch for you.”
“I’ll take my chances. I didn’t see any bears.” “Joe, I don’t want any nonsense. You’re my deputy.” “I didn’t ask to be.”
“Nor will you be, if you don’t change your tune. You’ll bathe when you need it and you’ll accept guard service from anybody.”
Joe looked stubborn. “No, thank you.”
Hugh Farnham sighed. “I didn’t expect dam foolishness from you, Joe.
Duke, will you back me? ‘Condition seven,’ I mean.”
“Deelighted!” Duke grabbed the rifle he had carried earlier, started to load it. Joe’s chin dropped but he did not move.
“Hold it, Duke. Guns won’t be necessary. That’s all, Joe. Just the clothes you were wearing last night. Not clothes we stored for you, I paid for those. Nothing else, not even matches. You can change in the tank room; it was your modesty you insisted on saving. But your life is your problem. Get moving.”
Joseph said slowly, “Mr. Farnham, do you really mean that?”
“Were those real bullets in that gun you aimed at Duke? You helped me clamp down on him; you heard me clamp down on my wife. Can I pull on them anything that rough — and let you get away with it? Good God, I’d get it from the girls next. Then the group would fall apart and die. I’d rather it was just you. You have two minutes to say good-bye to Dr. Livingstone. But leave the cat here; I don’t want it eaten.”
Dr. Livingstone was in the Negro’s lap. Joe got slowly to his feet, still holding it. He seemed dazed.
Hugh added, “Unless you prefer to stay.” “I can?”
“On the same terms as the rest.”
Two tears rolled down Joe’s cheeks. He looked down at the cat and stroked it, then answered in a low voice, “I would like to stay. I agree.”
“Good. Confirm it by apologizing to Barbara.”
Barbara looked startled. She appeared to be about to speak, then to think better of it.
“Uh…Barbara. I’m sorry.” “It’s all right, Joe.”
“I’d be…happy and proud to have you guard me. While I take a bath, I mean. If you will.”
“Any time, Joe. Glad to.” “Thank you.”
“And now,” said Hugh, “who’s for bridge? Karen?” “Why not?”
“Duke?”
“Bed for me. Anybody wants the pot, step over me.”
“Sleep on the floor by the bunks, Duke, and avoid the traffic. No, take the upper bunk.”
“You take it.”
“I’ll be last to bed, I want to look up a subject. Joe? Contract?” “I don’t believe, sir, that I wish to play cards.”
“Putting me in my place, eh?” “I didn’t say that, sir.”
“You didn’t have to. Joe, I was offering an olive branch. One rubber, only. We’ve had a hard day.”
“Thank you. I’d rather not.”
“Damn it, Joe, we can’t afford to be sulky. Last night Duke had a much rougher time. He was about to be shoved out into a radioactive hell-not just to frolic with some fun-loving bears. Did he sulk?”
Joe dropped his eyes, scratched Dr. Livingstone’s skull — suddenly looked up and grinned. “One rubber. And I’m going to beat you hollow!”
“In a pig’s eye. Barbie? Make a fourth?” “Delighted!”
The cut paired Joe with Karen and gave him the deal. He riffled the cards. “Now to stack a Mississippi Heart Hand!”
“Watch him, Barbie.” “Want a side bet, Daddy?” “What have you to offer?”
“Well — My fair young body?” “Flabby.”
“Why, you utterly utter! I’m not flabby, I’m just deliciously padded.
Well, how about my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor?” “Against what?”
“A diamond bracelet?”
Barbara was surprised to see how badly Hugh played, miscounting and even revoking. She realized that he was groggy with fatigue-why, the poor darling! Somebody was going to have to clamp down on him, too. Or he would kill himself trying to carry the whole load.
Forty minutes later Hugh wrote an I.O.U. for one diamond bracelet, then they got ready for bed. Hugh was pleased to see that Joe undressed completely and got into the lower bunk, as he had been told to. Duke stretched out on the floor, bare. The room was hot; the mass cooled slowly and air no longer circulated with the manhole cover in place, despite the vents in the tank room. Hugh made a note that he must devise a bear proof-and cat proof-grille in place of the cover. Later, later — He took the camp lamp into the tank room.
Someone had put the books back on shelves but some were open to dry; he fluffed these, hoped for the best. The last books in the world — so it seemed.
He felt sudden grief that abstract knowledge of deaths of millions had not given him. Somehow, the burning of millions of books felt more brutally obscene than the killing of people. All men must die, it was their single common heritage. But a book need never die and should not be killed; books were the immortal part of man. Book burners-to rape a defenseless friendly book.
Books had always been his best friends. In a hundred public libraries they had taught him. From a thousand newsstands they had warmed his loneliness. He suddenly felt that if he had not been able to save some books, it would hardly be worthwhile to live.
Most of his collection was functional: The Encyclopaedia Britannica- Grace had thought the space should be used for a television receiver “because they might be hard to buy afterwards.” He had grudged its bulkiness, too, but it was the most compact assemblage of knowledge on the market. “Che” Guevera’s War of the Guerillas-thank God he wasn’t going to need that! Nor those next to it: “Yank” Leivy’s manual on resistance fighting, Griffith’s Translation of Mao Tse-tung’s On Guerilla Warfare, Tom Wintringham’s New Ways of War, the new TR on special operations-forget ’em! Ain’t a-gonna study war no more!
The Boy Scout Handbook, Eshbach’s Mechanical Engineering, The Radio Repairman’s Guide, Outdoor Life’s Hunting and Fishing, Edible Fungi and How to Know Them, Home Life in the Colonial Days, Your Log Cabin, Chimneys and Fireplaces, The Hobo’s Cook Book, Medicine Without a Doctor, Five Acres and Independence, Russian Self-Taught and English-Russian and Russian-English dictionaries, The Complete Herbalist, the survival manuals of the Navy Bureau of Weapons, The Air Force’s Survival Techniques, The Practical Carpenter-all sound books, of the brown and useful sort. The Oxford Book of English Verse, A Treasury of American Poetry, Hoyle’s Book of Games, Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, a different Burton’s Thousand Nights and a Night, the good old Odyssey with the Wyeth illustrations, Kipling’s Collected Verse, and his Just
So Stories, a one-volume Shakespeare, the Book of Common Prayer, the Bible, Mathematical Recreations and Essays, Thus Spake Zarathustra, T. S. Eliot’s The Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Robert Frost’s Verse, Men Against the Sea
— He wished that he had found time to stock the list of fiction he had started. He wished that he had fetched down his works of Mark Twain regardless of space. He wished — Too late, too late. This was it. All that was left of a mighty civilization. “The cloud-capped towers — “
He jerked awake and found that he had fallen asleep standing up. Why had he come in here? Something important. Oh, yes! Tanning leather — Leather?
Barbara was barefooted, Barbara must have moccasins. Better try the Britannica. Or that Colonial Days volume.
No, thank God, you didn’t have to use salt! Find some oak trees. Better yet, have Barbara find them; it would make her feel useful. Find something that only Joe could do, too; make the poor little bastard feel appreciated.
Loved. Remember to — He stumbled back into the main room, looked at the upper bunk and knew that he couldn’t make it. He lay down on the blanket they had played cards on and fell instantly asleep.
Chapter 5
Grace did not get up for breakfast. The girls quietly fed them, then stayed in to clean up. Duke went hunting, carrying a forty-five and a hunting bow. It was his choice; arrows could be recovered or replaced, bullets were gone forever. Duke tried a few flights and decided that his shoulder was okay.
He checked watches and set out, with an understanding that a smoky fire would be built to home on if he was not back by three.
Hugh told the girls to take outdoors any book not bone-dry, then broke out pick and shovel and started leveling their house. Joe tried to join him; Hugh vetoed it.
“Look, Joe, there are a thousand things to do. Do them. But no heavy
work.”
“Such as what, Hugh?”
“Uh, correct the inventories. Give Duke a hand by starring everything
that can’t be replaced. In the course of that you’ll think of things; write them down. Look up how to make soap and candles. Check both dosimeters. Strap on a gun and keep your eyes open-and see that those girls don’t go outside without guns. Hell, figure out a way to get plumbing and running water, with no pipe and no lead and no water closets and no Portland cement.”
“How in the world could you do that?”
“Somebody did it the first time. And tell this bushy-tailed sidewalk superintendent that I need no help.”
“Okay. Come here, Doc! Come, come, come!”
“And Joe. Speaking of bathrooms, you might offer to stand guard for the girls while they bathe. You don’t have to look.”
“All right, I’ll offer. But I’ll tell them you suggested it. I don’t want them to think — “
“Look, Joe. They are a couple of clean, wholesome, evil-minded American girls. Say what you please, they will still believe you are sneaking a peek. It’s part of their credo that they are so fatally irresistible that a man just has to. So don’t be too convincing; you’ll hurt their feelings.”
“I get it. I guess.” Joe went away, Hugh started digging, while reflecting that he had never missed a chance, given opportunity without loss of face-but that incorrigible Sunday school lad probably would not sneak a peek at Lady Godiva. A good lad-no imagination but utterly dependable. Shame to have been so rough on him last night — Very quickly Hugh knew what his
worst oversight had been: no wheelbarrow.
He had dug only a little before reaching this new appreciation. Digging by muscle power was bad but carrying it away in buckets was an affront to good sense. So he carried and thought about how to build a wheel — with no metal, no heating tools, no machine shop, no foundry, no — Now wait! He had steel bottles. There was strap iron in the bunks and soft iron in the periscope housing. Charcoal he could make and a bellows was simply an animal skin and some branches. Whittle a nozzle. Any damfool who couldn’t own a wheel with all that at his disposal deserved to lift and carry.
He had ten thousand trees, didn’t he? Finland didn’t have a damn thing but trees. Yet Finland was the finest little country in the world.
“Doc, get out from under my feet!” If Finland was still there — Wherever the world was — Maybe the girls would like a Finnish bath. Down where they could plunge in afterwards and squeal and feel good. Poor kids, they would never see a beauty parlor; maybe a sauna would be a “moral equivalent.” Grace might like it. Sweat off that blubber, get her slender again. What a beauty she had been!
Barbara showed up, with a shovel. “Where did you get that? And what do you think you’re going to do?”
“It’s the one Duke was using. I’m going to dig.”
“In bare feet? You’re era — Hey, you’re wearing shoes!”
“Joe’s. The jeans are his, too. The shirt is Karen’s. Where shall I
dig?”
“Just beyond me, here. Any boulder over five hundred pounds, ask for
help. Where’s Karen?”
“Bathing. I decided to stink worse and bathe later.”
“When you like. Don’t try to stick on this job all day. You can’t.”
“I like working with you, Hugh. Almost as much as — ” She let it hang. “As playing bridge?”
“As playing bridge as your partner. Yes, you could mention that. Too.” “Barbie girl.”
He found that just digging was fun. Gave the mind a rest and the muscles a workout. Happy making. Hadn’t tried it for much too long.
Barbara had been digging an hour when Mrs. Farnham came around a corner.
Barbara said, “Good morning,” added a shovelful to a bucket, picked both up half filled, and disappeared around the other corner.
Grace Farnham said, “Well! I wondered where you were hiding. I was left quite alone. Do you realize that?” She was in the clothes she had slept in.
Her features looked puffy.
“You were allowed to sleep, dear.”
“It isn’t pleasant to wake up in a strange place alone. I’m not accustomed to it.”
“Grace, you weren’t being slighted. You were being pampered.”
“Is that what you call it? Then we’ll say no more about it, do you
mind?”
“Not at all.”
“Really?” She seemed to brace herself, then said bleakly, “Perhaps you
can stop long enough to tell me where you have hidden my liquor. My liquor. My share. I wouldn’t think of touching yours-after the way you’ve treated me! In front of servants and strangers, may I add?”
“Grace, you must see Duke.” “What do you mean?”
“Duke is in charge of liquor. I don’t know where he put it.” “You’re lying!”
“Grace, I haven’t lied to you in twenty-seven years.” “Oh! You brutal, brutal man!”
“Perhaps. But I’m not lying and the next time you say I am, it will go hard with you.”
“Where’s Duke? He won’t let you talk to me that way! He told me so, he promised me!”
“Duke has gone hunting. He hopes to be back by three.”
She stared, then rushed back around the corner. Barbara reappeared, picked up her shovel. They went on working.
Hugh said, “I’m sorry you were exposed to that.” “To what?”
“Unless you were at least a hundred yards away, you know what.” “Hugh, it’s none of my business.”
“Under these conditions, anything is everybody’s business. You have formed a bad opinion of Grace.”
“Hugh, I would not dream of being critical of your wife.”
“You have opinions. But I want you to have one in depth. Visualize her as she was, oh, twenty-five years ago. Think of Karen.”
“She would have looked like Karen.”
“Yes. But Karen has never had responsibility. Grace had and took it well. I was an enlisted man; I wasn’t commissioned until after Pearl Harbor. Her people were what is known as ‘good family.’ Not anxious to have their daughter marry a penniless enlisted man.”
“I suppose not.”
“Nevertheless, she did. Barbara, have you any notion what it was to be the wife of a junior enlisted man in those days? With no money? Grace’s parents wanted her to come home — but would not send her a cent as long as she stuck with me. She stuck.”
“Good for Grace.”
“Yes. She had no preparation for living in one room and sharing a bath down the hail, nor for waiting in Navy outpatient clinics. For making a dollar go twice as far as it should. For staying alone while I was at sea. Young and pretty and in Norfolk, she could have found excitement. She found a job instead-in a laundry, sorting dirty clothes. And whenever I was home she was bright and cheerful and uncomplaining.
“Alexander was born the next year — ” “‘Alexander’?”
“Duke. Named for his maternal grandpappy; I didn’t get a vote. Her parents were anxious to make up once they had a grandson; they were even willing to accept me. Grace stayed cool and never accepted a cent-back to work with our landlady minding the baby in weeks.
“Those years were the roughest. I went up fast and money wasn’t such a problem. The War came and I was bucked from chief to j.g. and ended as a lieutenant commander in Seabees. In 1946 I had to choose between going back to chief or becoming a civilian. With Grace’s backing, I got out. So I was on the beach with no job, a wife, a son in grammar school, a three-year-old daughter, living in a trailer, prices high and going higher. We had some war bonds.
“That was the second rough period. I took a stab at contracting, lost our savings, went to work for a water company. We didn’t starve, but scraped icebox and dishrag soup were on the menu. Barbara, she stood it like a trouper-a hardworking den mother, a pillar of the PTA, and always cheerful.
“I was a construction boss before long and presently I tried contracting again. This time it clicked. I built a house on spec and a shoestring, sold it before it was finished and built two more at once. We’ve never been broke since.”
Hugh Farnham looked puzzled. “That was when she started to slip. When she started having help. When we kept liquor in the house. We didn’t quarrel- we never did save over the fact that I tried to raise Duke fairly strictly and Grace couldn’t bear to have the boy touched.
“But that was when it started, when I started making money. She isn’t built to stand prosperity. Grace has always stood up to adversity magnificently. This is the first time she hasn’t. I still think she will.”
“Of course she will, Hugh.” “I hope so.”
“I’m glad to know more about her, Hugh. I’ll try to be considerate.” “Damn it, I’m not asking that. I just want you to know that fat and
foolish and self-centered isn’t all there is to Grace. Nor was her slipping entirely her fault. I’m not easy to live with, Barbara.”
“So?”
“So! When we were able to slow down, I didn’t. I let business keep me away evenings. When a woman is left alone, it’s easy to slip out for another beer when the commercial comes on and to nibble all evening along with the beer. If I was home, I was more likely to read than to visit, anyhow. And I didn’t just let business keep me away; I joined the local duplicate club. She joined but she dropped out. She plays a good social game-but I like to fight for every point. No criticism of her, there’s no virtue in playing as if it were life or death. Grace’s way is better — Had I been willing to take it easy, too, well, she wouldn’t be the way she is.”
“Nonsense!” “Pardon me?”
“Hugh Farnham, what a person is can never be somebody else’s fault, I think. I am what I am because Barbie herself did it. And so did Grace. And so did you.” She added in a low voice, “I love you. And that’s not your fault, nor is anything we did your fault. I won’t listen to you beating your breast and sobbing ‘Mea culpa!’ You don’t take credit for Grace’s virtues. Why take blame for her faults?”
He blinked and smiled. “Seven no trump.” “That’s better.”
“I love you. Consider yourself kissed.”
“Kiss back. Grand slam. But watch it,” she said out of the corner of her mouth. “Here come the cops.”
It was Karen, clean, shining, hair brushed, fresh lipstick, and smiling. “What an inspiring sight!” she said. “Would you poor slaves like a crust of bread and a pannikin of water?”
“Shortly,” her father agreed. “In the meantime don’t carry these buckets too heavily loaded.”
Karen backed away. “I wasn’t volunteering!” “That’s all right. We aren’t formal.”
“But Daddy, I’m clean!” “Has the creek gone dry?”
“Daddy! I’ve got lunch ready. Out front. You’re too filthy to come into my lovely clean house.”
“Yes, baby. Come along, Barbara.” He picked up the buckets.
Mrs. Farnham did not appear for lunch. Karen stated that Mother had decided to eat inside. Hugh let it go at that; there would be enough hell when Duke got back.
Joe said, “Hugh? About that notion of plumbing — ” “Got it figured out?”
“Maybe I see a way to have running water.”
“If we get running water, I guarantee to provide plumbing fixtures.” “Really, Daddy? I know what I want. In colored tile. Lavender, I think.
And with a dressing table built around — ” “Shut up, infant. Yes, Joe?”
“Well, you know those Roman aqueducts. This stream runs uphill that way. I mean it’s higher up that way, so someplace it’s higher than the shelter. As
I understand it, Roman aqueducts weren’t pipe, they were open.”
“I see.” Farnham considered it. There was a waterfall a hundred yards upstream. Perhaps above it was high enough.
“But that would mean a lot of masonry, whether dry-stone, or mud mortar.
And each arch requires a frame while it’s being built.”
“Couldn’t we just split logs and hollow them out? And support them on other logs?”
“We could.” Hugh thought about it. “There’s an easier way, and one that would kill two birds. Barbara, what sort of country is this?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You said that this area is at least semitropical. Can you tell what season it is? And what the rest of the year is likely to bring? What I’m driving at is this: Are you going to need irrigation?”
“Good heavens, Hugh, I can’t answer that!” “You can try.”
“Well — ” She looked around. “I doubt if it ever freezes here. If we had water, we might have crops all year. This is not a tropical rain forest, or the undergrowth would be much more dense. It looks like a place with a rainy season and a dry season.”
“Our creek doesn’t go dry; it has lots of fish. Where were you thinking of having your garden?”
“How about this stretch downstream to the south? Several trees should come out, though, and a lot of bushes.”
“Trees and bushes are no problem. Mmm — Joe, let’s take a walk. I’ll carry a rifle, you strap on your forty-five. Girls, don’t dig so much that it topples down on you. We would miss you.”
“Daddy, I was thinking of taking a nap.” “Good. Think about it while you’re digging.”
Hugh and Joe worked their way upstream. “What are you figuring on,
Hugh?”
“A contour-line ditch. We need to lead water to an air vent on the roof.
If we can do that, we’ve got it made. A sanitary toilet. Running water for cooking and washing. And for gardening, coming in high enough to channel it wherever Barbara wants it. But the luxury that will mean most to our womenfolk is a bath and kitchen. We’ll clear the tank room and install both.”
“Hugh, I see how you might get water with a ditch. But what about fixtures? You can’t just let water splash down through the roof.”
“I don’t know yet, but we’ll build them. Not a flush toilet, it’s too complex. But a constant-flow toilet, a sort that used to be common aboard warships. It’s a trough with seats. Water runs in one end, out the other.
We’ll lead it down the manhole, out the tunnel, and away from the house. Have you seen any clay?”
“There is a clay bank at the stream below the house. Karen complained about how sticky it was. She went upstream to bathe, a sandy spot.”
“I’ll look at it. If we can bake clay, we can make all sorts of things. A toilet. A sink. Dishes. Tile pipe. Build a kiln out of unbaked clay, use the kiln to bake anything. But clay just makes it easier. Water is the real gold; all civilizations were built on water. Joe, we are about high enough.”
“Maybe a little higher? It would be embarrassing to dig a ditch a couple of hundred yards long — “
“Longer.”
” — or longer, and find that it’s too low and no way to get it up to the roof.”
“Oh, we’ll survey it first.”
“Survey it? Hugh, maybe you didn’t notice but we don’t even have a spirit level. That big smash broke its glasses. And there isn’t even a tripod, much less a transit and all those things.”
“The Egyptians invented surveying with less, Joe. Losing the spirit level doesn’t matter. We’ll build an unsplit level.”
“Are you making fun of me, Hugh?”
“Not at all. Mechanics were building level and square centuries before you could buy instruments. We’ll build a plumbbob level. That’s an upside-down T, and a string with a weight to mark the vertical. You can build it about six feet long and six high to give us a long sighting arm-minimize the errors.
Have to take apart one of the bunks for boards. It’s light, fussy work you can do while your ribs heal. ~While the girls do the heavy, unfussy excavating.”
“You draw it, I’ll build it.”
“When we get the building leveled we’ll mount it on the roof and sight upstream. Have to cut a tree or two but we won’t have any trouble running a base line. Intercepts we run with a smaller level. Duck soup, Joe.”
“No sweat, huh?”
“Mostly sweat. But twenty feet a day of shallow ditch and we’ll have irrigation water when the dry season hits. The bathroom can wait-the gals will be cheered just by the fact that there will be one, someday. Joe, it would suit me if our base line cuts the stream about here. See anything?”
“What should I see?”
“We fell those two trees and they dam the creek. Then chuck in branches, mud, and some brush and still more mud and rocks and the stream backs up in a pond.” Hugh added, “Have to devise a gate, and that I do not see, with what we have to work with. Every problem leads straight to another. Damn.”
“Hugh, you’re counting your chickens before the cows come home.”
“I suppose so. Well, let’s go see how much the girls have dug while we loafed.”
The girls had dug little; Duke had returned with a miniature four-point buck. Barbara and Karen had it strung up against a tree and were trying to butcher it. Karen seemed to have as much blood on her as there was on the ground.
They stopped as the men approached. Barbara wiped her forehead, leaving a red trail. “I hadn’t realized they were so complicated inside.”
“Or so messy!” sighed Karen.
“With that size it’s easier on the ground.” “Now he tells us. Show us, Daddy. We’ll watch.”
“Me? I’m a gentleman sportsman; the guide did the dirty work. But — Joe, can you lay hands on that little hatchet?”
“Sure. It’s sharp; I touched it up yesterday.”
Hugh split the breastbone and pelvic girdle and spread the carcass, then peeled out viscera and lungs and spilled them, while silently congratulating the girls on not having pierced the intestines. “All yours, girls. Barbara, if you can get that hide off, you might be wearing it soon. Have you noticed any oaks?”
“There are scrub forms. And sumach, too. You’re thinking of tannin?” “Yes.”
“I know how to extract it.”
“Then you know more about tanning than I do. I’ll bow out. There are books.”
“I know, I was looking it up. Doe! Don’t sniff at that, boy.”
“He won’t eat it,” Joe assured her, “unless it’s good for him. Cats are fussy.”
While butchering was going on, Duke and his mother crawled out and joined them. Mrs. Farnham seemed cheerful but did not greet anyone; she simply looked at Duke’s kill. “Oh, the poor little thing! Duke dear, how did you have the heart to kill it?”
“It sassed me and I got mad.”
“It’s a pretty piece of venison, Duke,” Hugh said. “Good eating.”
His wife glanced at him. “Perhaps you’ll eat it; I couldn’t bear to.” Karen said, “Have you turned vegetarian, Mother?”
“It’s not the same thing. I’m going in, I don’t want that on me. Karen, don’t you dare come inside until you’ve washed; I won’t have you tracking blood in after I’ve slaved away getting the place spotless.” She headed toward the shelter. “Come inside, Duke.”
“In a moment, Mother.”
Karen gave the carcass an unnecessarily vicious cut. “Where did you nail it?” Hugh asked.
“Other side of the ridge. I should have been back sooner.” “Why?”
“Missed an easy shot and splintered an arrow on a boulder. Buck fever.
It has been years since I used a — ‘bow season’ license.”
“One lost arrow, one carcass, is good hunting. You saved the arrowhead?” “Of course. Do I look foolish?”
Karen answered, “No, but I do. Buddy, I cleaned house. If Mother did any cleaning, it was a mess she made herself.”
“I realized that.”
“And I’ll bet when she smells these steaks, she won’t want Spam!” “Forget it.”
Hugh moved away, signaling Duke to follow.
“I’m glad to see Grace looking cheerful. You must have soothed her.”
Duke looked sheepish. “Well — As you pointed out, it’s rough, chopping it off completely.” He added, “But I rationed her. I gave her one drink and told her she could have one more before dinner.”
“That’s doing quite well.”
“I had better go inside. The bottle is there.” “Perhaps you had.”
“Oh, it’s all right. I put her on her honor. You don’t know how to handle her, Dad.”
“That’s true. I don’t.”
Chapter 6
From the Journal of Barbara Wells:
I am hobbled by a twisted ankle, so I am lying down and adding to this. I’ve taken notes every night-but in shorthand. I haven’t transcribed very much.
The longhand version goes in the fly leaves of the Britannica. There are ten blank pages in each volume, twenty-four volumes, and I’ll squeeze a thousand words to a page –240,000 words-enough to record our doings until we reclaim the art of making paper-especially as the longhand version will be censored.
Because I can’t let my hair down to anyone-and sometimes a gal needs to! This shorthand record is a diary which no one can read but me, as Karen is as poor at Gregg as she claimed.
Or perhaps Joe knows Gregg. Isn’t it required in business colleges? But Joe is a gentleman and would not read this without invitation. I am fond of Joseph; his goodness is not a sham. I am sure he is keeping his lip buttoned on many unhappy thoughts; his position is as anomalous as mine and more difficult.
Grace has quit ordering him around-save that she orders all of us. Hugh gives orders, but for the welfare of all. Nor does he give many; we are settled in a routine. I’m the farmer, and plan my own work; Duke keeps meat on the table and gives me a hand when he doesn’t hunt; Hugh hasn’t told either of
us what to do for a long time, and Karen has a free hand with the house. Hugh has about two centuries of mechanical work planned out and Joe helps him.
But Grace’s orders are for her own comfort. We usually carry them out; it’s easier. She gets her own way and more than her share, simply by being difficult.
She got the lion’s share of liquor. Liquor doesn’t matter to me; I rarely “need” a drink. But I enjoy a glow in company and had to remind myself that it was not my liquor, it was Farnham liquor.
Grace finished her share in three days. Duke’s was next to go. And so on. At last all was gone save one quart of bourbon earmarked “medicinal.” Grace spotted where Duke had it and dug it up. When Duke came home, she was passed out and the bottle was dead.
The next three days were horrors. She screamed. She wept. She threatened suicide. Hugh and Duke teamed up and one of them was always with her. Hugh acquired a black eye, Duke got scratches down his handsome face. I understand they put a lot of B1 into her and force-fed her.
On the fourth day she stayed in her bunk; the next day she got up and seemed almost normal.
But during lunch she asserted, as something “everybody knows,” that the Russians had attacked because Hugh insisted on building a shelter.
She didn’t seem angry-more forgiving. She went on to the happy thought that the war would soon be over and we could all go home.
Nobody argued. What good? Her delusion seems harmless. She has assumed her job, at last, as chief cook-but if she is a better cook than Karen I have yet to see it. Mostly she talks about dishes she could prepare if only she had this, or that. Karen works as hard as ever and sometimes gets so mad that she comes out to cry on me and then hoes furiously.
Duke tells Karen that she must be patient.
I should not criticize Duke; he is probably going to be my husband. I mean, who else is there? I could stand Duke but I’m not sure I could stand Grace as a mother-in-law. Duke is handsome and is considerate of both me and his sister. He did quarrel with his father at first (foolishly it seemed to me) but they get along perfectly now.
In this vicinity he is quite a catch.
Myself? I’m not soured on marriage even though I struck out once. Hugh assumes that the human race will go on. I’m willing.
(Polygamy? Of course I would! Even with Grace as senior wife. But I haven’t been asked. Nor, I feel sure, would Grace permit it. Hugh and I don’t discuss such things, we avoid touching the other, we avoid being alone together, and I do not make cow’s eyes at him. Finished.)
The trouble is, while I like Duke, no spark jumps. So I am putting it off and avoiding circumstances where he might pat me on the fanny. It would be a hell of a note if I married him and there came a night when I was so irritated at his mother and so vexed with him for indulging her that I would tell him coldly that he is not half the man his father is.
No, that must not happen. Duke does not deserve it.
Joe? My admiration for him is unqualified-and he doesn’t have a mother problem.
Joe is the first Negro I’ve had a chance to know well-and I think most well of him. He plays better contract than I do; I suppose he’s smarter than I am. He is fastidious and never comes indoors without bathing. Oh, get downwind after he has spent a day digging and he’s pretty whiff. But so is Duke, and Hugh is worse. I don’t believe this story about a distinctive “nigger musk.”
Have you ever been in a dirty powder room? Women stink worse than men.
The trouble with Joe is the same as with Duke: No spark jumps. Since he is so shy that he is most unlikely to court me — Well, it won’t happen.
But I am fond of him-as a younger brother. He is never too busy to be
accommodating. He is usually bear guard for Karen and me when we bathe and it’s a comfort to know that Joe is alert — Duke has killed five bears and Joe killed one while he was actually guarding us. It took three shots and dropped dead almost in Joe’s lap. He stood his ground.
We adjourned without worrying about modesty, which upset Joe more than bears do.
Or wolves, or coyotes, or mountain lions, or a cat which Duke says is a mutated leopard and especially dangerous because it attacks by dropping out of a tree. We don’t bathe under trees and don’t venture out of our clearing without an armed man. It is as dangerous as crossing Wilshire against the lights.
There are snakes, too. At least one sort is poisonous.
Joe and Hugh were starting one morning on the house leveling and Joe jumped down into the excavation. Dr. — Livingstone-I-Presume jumped down with him-and here was this snake.
Doc spotted it and hissed; Joe saw it just as it struck, getting him in the calf. Joe killed it with his shovel and dropped to the ground, grabbing at his leg.
Hugh had the wound slashed and was sucking it in split seconds. He had a tourniquet on quickly and permanganate crystals on the wound soon after as I heard the hooraw and came a-runnin’. He followed that with rattlesnake anti- venom.
Moving Joe was a problem; he collapsed in the tunnel. Hugh crawled over him and pulled, I pushed, and it took three of us-Karen, too-to lift him up the ladder. We undressed him and put him to bed.
Around midnight, when his respiration was low and his pulse uncertain, Hugh moved the remaining bottle of oxygen into the room, put over Joe’s head a plastic sack in which shirts had been stored and gave him oxygen.
By morning he was better.
In three days he was up and well. Duke says it was a pit viper, perhaps a bushmaster, and that a rattlesnake is a pit viper, too, so rattlesnake anti- venom probably saved Joe’s life.
I am not trusting any snakes.
It took three weeks to excavate under the house. Boulders! This area is a wide, flat, saucer-shaped valley, with boulders most anywhere. Whenever we hit a big one, we dug around it and the men would worry it out with crowbar and block and tackle.
Mostly the men could get boulders out. But Karen found one that seemed to go down to China. Hugh looked it over and said, “Fine. Now dig a hole just north of it and deeper.”
Karen just looked at him.
So we dug. And hit another big boulder. “Good,” said Hugh. “Dig another hole north of that one.”
We hit a third oversize boulder. But in three days the last one had been tumbled into a hole next to it, the middle one had been worried into a hole where the last one had been, and the one that started the trouble was buried where the middle one had been.
As fast as any spot had been cut deeply enough Hugh propped it up with pieces of log; he was worried lest the shelter shift and crush someone. So when we finished the shelter had a forest of posts under it.
Hugh then set two very heavy posts under the uphill corners and started removing the inner ones, using block and tackle. Sometimes they had to be dug under. Hugh was nervous during this and did all the rigging and digging himself.
At last the uphill half was supported on these two big chunks. They would not budge.
There was so much weight on those timbers that they sneered at our efforts. I said, “What do we do now, Hugh?”
“Try the next-to-last resort.” “What’s the last resort?”
“Burn them. But it would take roaring fires and we would have to clear grass and bushes and trees for quite a distance. Karen, you know where the ammonia is. And the iodine. I want both.”
I had wondered why Hugh had stocked so much ammonia. But he had, in used plastic Chlorox bottles; the stuff had ridden through the shocks. I hadn’t known that iodine was stocked in quantity, too; I don’t handle the drugs.
Soon he had sort of a chemistry lab. “What are you making, Hugh?” I
asked.
“Ersatz ‘dynamite.’ And I don’t need company,” he said. “The stuff is so
touchy it explodes at a harsh look.” “Sorry,” I said, backing away.
He looked up and smiled. “It’s safe until it dries. I had it in mind in case I ever found myself in an underground. Occupying troops take a sour view of natives having explosives, but there is nothing suspicious about ammonia or iodine. The stuff is safe until you put it together and does not require a primer. But I never expected to use it for construction; it’s too treacherous.”
“Hugh, I just remembered I don’t care whether a floor is level or not.” “If it makes you nervous, take a walk.”
Making it was simple; he combined tincture of iodine and ordinary household ammonia; a precipitate settled out. This he filtered through Kleenex, the result was a paste.
Joe drilled holes into those stubborn posts; Hugh wrapped this mess in two batches, in paper, and packed a bundle into each hole, tamping with his finger. “Now we wait for it to dry.”
Everything that he used he flushed down with water, then took a bath with his clothes on, removed them in the water and left them, weighted down with rocks. That was all that day.
Our armament includes two lovely ladies’ guns…22 magnum rimfires with telescopic sights. Hugh had Duke and Joe sight them in. The sighting-in was done with sandbag rest — heaped-up dirt, that is. Hugh had them expend five bullets each, so I knew he was serious. “One bullet, one bear” is his motto.
When the explosive was dry, everything breakable was removed from the shelter. We women were chased far back, Karen was charged with hanging on to Dr. Livingstone, and I was armed with Duke’s bear rifle, just in case.
Duke and Joe were on their bellies a measured hundred feet from the posts. Hugh stood between them. “Ready for count?”
“Ready, Hugh.” — “Ready, Dad.”
“Deep breath. Let part of it out. Hold it, steady on target, take up the slack. Five…four…three…two…one fire!”
A sound like a giant slammed door and the middle of each post disintegrated. The shelter stuck out like a shelf, then tilted ponderously down, touched, and was level.
Karen and I cheered; Grace started to clap; Dr. Livingstone jumped down to investigate. Hugh turned his head and grinned.
And the shelter tilted back the other way as the ridge crumbled; it started to slide. It pivoted on the tunnel protuberance, picked up speed and tobogganed down the slope. I thought it was going to end up in the creek.
But the slope leveled off; it ground to a stop, with the tunnel choked with dirt and the whole thing farther out of plumb than before!
Hugh picked up the shovel he had used to heap up shooting supports, walked down to the shelter, began to dig.
I ran down, tears bursting from my eyes. Joe was there first. Hugh
looked up and said, “Joe, dig out the tunnel. I want to know if anything is damaged and the girls will want to get lunch.”
“Boss — ” Joe choked out. “Boss! Oh, gosh!”
Hugh said, in a tone you use to a child, “Why are you upset, Joe? This has saved us work.”
I thought he had flipped. Joe said, “Huh?”
“Certainly,” Hugh assured him. “See how much lower the roof is? Every foot it dropped saves at least a hundred feet of aqueduct. And leveling will be simple here; the ground is loam and boulders are few. A week, with everybody pitching in. Then we bring water to the house and garden two weeks early.”
He was correct. The shelter was level in a week, and this time he triggered the end posts with crosspieces; blasting was not needed. Best of all, the armor door cranked back without a murmur and we had air and sunlight inside — It had been stuffy and candles made it pretty rank. Joe and Hugh started the ditch the same day. In anticipation of the glorious day, Karen sketched on the walls of the tank room life-size pictures of a washstand, a bathtub, a pot.
Truthfully, we are comfortable. Two mattress covers Karen filled with dried grass; sleeping on the floor is no worse than the bunks. We sit in chairs and play our evening rubber at the table. It is amazing what a difference level floors make and how much better it is to have a door than to climb down a ladder and crawl out a hole.
We had to cook over a campfire a while as our grill and Dutch oven were smashed. Karen and I have thrown together a make-do because, as soon as water is led to the house, Hugh intends to start on ceramics, not only for a toilet and a sink but also for a stove vented out through the periscope hole. Luxury!
My corn is coming up beautifully. I wonder what I can use to grind corn?
The thought of hot corn bread buttered with deer grease makes me drool.
December 25th-Merry Christmas!
We think it is. Hugh says we are not more than a day off.
Shortly after we got here Hugh picked a small tree with a flat boulder due north of it and sawed it off so that it placed a sharp shadow on the boulder at noon. As “Keeper of the Flame” it has been my duty to sit by that boulder from before apparent noon and note the shortest shadow-follow it down, mark the shortest position and date it.
That shadow had been growing longer and the days shorter. A week ago it began to be hard to see any change and I told Hugh. So we watched together and three days ago was the turning point…so that day became December 22nd and we are celebrating Christmas instead of the Fourth of July. But we got our flag up, as Hugh had planned, to the top of the tallest tree in our clearing, with its branches lopped to make it a pole. As Keeper of the Flame I am charged with raising and lowering it but this was a special occasion; we drew lots and Joe won. We lined up and sang “The Star Spangled Banner” while he hauled it to the peak-and everyone was crying so hard he could hardly sing.
Then we pledged allegiance. Maybe it is sentimental nonsense by ragged castaways but I don’t think so. We are still one nation, under God, free and indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Hugh held divine services and read the Christmas story from the Gospel According to Luke and called on Karen to pray, then we sang carols. Grace has a strong, sure lead; Joe is a bell-like tenor, and Karen, myself, Hugh, and Duke are soprano, contralto, baritone, and bass. I think we sound good. In any case we enjoyed it, even though Grace got taken by the weeps during “White Christmas” and it was contagious.
We would have had services anyhow as today would be Sunday by the old calendar; Hugh holds them every Sunday. Everybody attends, even Duke who is an
avowed atheist. Hugh reads a Psalm or some other chapter; we sing hymns; he prays or invites someone to pray, and ends it with “Bless This House — ” We are back to the days when the Old Man is priest.
But Hugh never uses the Apostles’ Creed and his prayers are so nonsectarian that he does not even end them “In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”
On a rare occasion when he and I spoke in private-waiting out a noon sight last week-I asked him where he stood on matters of faith? (It is important to me to know where my man stands even though he is not my man and can’t be.)
“You could call me an Existentialist.” “You are not a Christian?”
“I didn’t say that. I can’t express it in the negative because it’s affirmative. I shan’t define it; it would only add to the confusion. You are wondering why I hold church since I refuse to assert a creed?”
“Well…yes.”
“It’s my duty. Services should be available to those who need them. If there is no good and no God, this ritual is harmless. If God is, it is appropriate-and still harmless. We are bleeding no peasants, offering no bloody sacrifices, raising no vanities to the skies in the name of religion. Or so I see it, Barbara.”
That had better hold me; it’s all I’ll get out of him. In my past life religion was a nice, warm, comfy thing I did on Sundays; I can’t say it agonized me. But Hugh’s God-less offering to God has become important.
Sundays are important other ways. Hugh discourages work other than barbering and primping or hobby work, and encourages games, or any fun thing. Chess, bridge, Scrabble, modeling in clay, group sings, such like — Or just yakking. Games are important; they mark that we are not just animals trying to stay alive but humans enjoying life and savoring it. That nightly rubber of bridge we never skip. It proclaims that our lives are not just hoeing and digging ditches and butchering.
We keep up our bodies, too. I’ve become pretty good at cutting hair.
Duke grew a beard at first but Hugh shaved every day and presently Duke did, too. I don’t know what they will do when blades are no more. I’ve noticed Joe honing a Gem blade on an oil stone.
It’s still Christmas and I’ll cut back in when the rubber in progress is finished. Dinner was lavish; Grace and Karen spent two days on it-brook trout savory aux herbes, steamed freshwater prawns, steaks and broiled mushrooms, smoked tongue, bouillon Ursine, crackers (quite a treat), radishes, lettuce, green onions, baby beets a la Grace, and best of all, a pan of fudge, as condensed milk, chocolate, and sugar are irreplaceable. Nescafé and cigarettes, two cups and two cigarettes each.
Presents for everybody — All I saved besides clothes I had on was my purse. I was wearing nylons, took them off soon and haven’t worn stockings since; I gave them to Karen. I had a lipstick; Grace got that. I had been plaiting a belt; Joe got that. In my purse was a fancy hanky; I washed it, ironed it by pressing it against smooth concrete-Duke got that.
It was this morning before I figured out anything for Hugh. For years I’ve carried in my purse a little memo book. It has my maiden name in gold and still has half of a filler. Hugh can use it-but it was my name on it that decided me.
I must run; Grace and I are due to attempt to clobber Hugh and Joe. I’ve never had a happier Christmas.
Chapter 7
Karen and Barbara were washing themselves, the day’s dishes, and the week’s laundry. Above them, Joe kept watch. Bushes and then trees had been cut away around the stretch they used for bathing; a predator could not approach without Joe having a clear shot at it. His eyes swung constantly, checking approaches. He wasted no seconds on the Elysian tableau he guarded.
Karen said, “Barbie, this sheet won’t stand another laundering. It’s
rags.”
“We need rags.”
“But what will we use for sheets? It’s this soap.” Karen scooped a
handful from a bowl on the bank. It was soft and gray and harsh and looked like oatmeal mush. “The stuff eats holes.”
“I’m not fretted about sheets but I dread the day when we are down to our last towel.”
“Which will belong to Mother,” Karen stated. “Our rationing officer will have some excellent reason.”
“Nasty, nasty. Karen, Duke has done a wonderful job.”
“I wasn’t bitching. Duke can’t help it. It’s his friend Eddie.” “‘Eddie?'”
“Edipus Rex, dear.”
Barbara turned away and began rinsing a pair of ragged blue jeans. Karen said, “You dig me?”
“We all have faults.”
“Sure, everybody but me. Even Daddy has a shortcoming. His neck pains
him.”
Barbara looked up. “Is Hugh having trouble with his neck? Perhaps it
would help if we massaged it.”
Karen giggled. “Your weakness, sister mine, is that you wouldn’t know a joke if it bit you. Daddy is still-necked and nothing will cure it. He doesn’t have weaknesses and that’s his weakness. Don’t frown. I love Daddy. I admire him. But I’m glad I’m not like him. I’ll take this load up to the thorn bushes. Damn it, why didn’t Daddy stock clothespins? Those thorns are as bad as the soap.”
“Clothespins we can do without. Hugh did an incredible job. Everything from an eight-day clock — “
“Which got busted, right off.”
” — to tools and seeds and books and I don’t know what. Karen! Don’t climb out naked!”
Karen stopped, one foot on the bank. “Nonsense. Old Stone Face won’t look. Humiliating, that’s what it is. I think I’ll yoo-hoo at him.”
“You’ll do no such thing. Joe is being a gentleman under trying circumstances. Don’t make it harder. Let that load wait and we’ll take it all up at once.”
“Okay, okay. I can’t help wondering if he’s human.” “He is. I can vouch for it.”
“Hmm — Barbie, don’t tell me Saint Joseph made a pass at you?” “Heavens, no! But he blushes if I squeeze past him in the house.” “How can you tell?”
“Sort of purple. Karen, Joe is sweet. I wish you had heard him explain about Doc.”
“Explain what?”
“Well, Doc is beginning to accept me. I was holding Doc yesterday and noticed something and said, ‘Joe, Doe is getting terribly fat. Or was he always?’
“That was a time when he blushed. But he answered with sweet seriousness, ‘Barbara, Dr. Livingstone isn’t as much of a boy cat as he thinks he is. Old Doe is more a girl-type cat. That isn’t fat. Uh, you see — Doe is going to have babies.’ He blurted it out. Seemed to think it would upset me.
Didn’t of course, but I was astonished.”
“Barbara, you mean you didn’t know that Dr. — Livingstone-I-Presume is a female?”
“How would I know? Everybody calls him ‘he’ and he-she-has a male name.” “A doctor can be female. Can’t you tell a tomcat?”
“I never thought about it. Doe is pretty fuzzy.”
“Mmm, yes, with a Persian one might not be certain at first glance. But a tomcat’s badges of authority are prominent.”
“Had I noticed, I would have assumed that he had been altered.”
Karen looked shocked. “Don’t let Daddy hear that! He never allows a cat to be spayed or cut. Daddy thinks cats are citizens. However, you’ve surprised me. Kittens, huh?”
“So Joe says.”
“And I didn’t notice.” Karen looked puzzled. “Come to think of it, I haven’t picked him up lately. Just petted him and tried to keep him out of things. Lately it hasn’t been safe to open a drawer; he’s into it. Looking for a place to have kittens of course. I should have twigged.”
“Karen, why do you keep saying ‘he’ and ‘him’?”
“‘Why?’ Joe told you. Doe thinks he is a boy cat-and who am I to argue?
He’s always thought so, he was the feistiest kitten we ever had. 11mm — Kittens. Barbie, the first time Doe came into heat we arranged for Doe to meet a gentleman cat of exalted ancestry. But it wasn’t Doe’s métier and he beat the hell out of the tomcat. So we quit trying. Mmm — Calendar girl, how long have we been here?”
“Sixty-two days. I’ve looked it up; it’s sixty days with a normal range to seventy.”
“So it’s any time now. I’ll bet you two back rubs that we are up all night tonight. Cats never have kittens at a convenient hour.” Karen abruptly changed the subject. “Barbie, what do you miss most? Cigarettes?”
“I’ve quit thinking of them. Eggs, I guess. Eggs for breakfast.”
“Daddy did plan for that. Fertilized eggs and a little incubator. But he hadn’t built it and anyhow, eggs would have busted. Yes, I miss eggs. But I wish cows laid eggs and Daddy had figured out how to bring cow eggs along. Ice cream! Cold milk!”
“Butter,” agreed Barbara. “Banana splits with whipped cream. Chocolate malts.”
“Stop it! Barbie, I’m starving in front of your eyes.”
Barbara pinched her. “You aren’t fading way. Fact is, you’ve put on weight.”
“Perhaps.” Karen shut up and began on the dishes.
Presently she said in a low voice, “Barbie, Doe won’t hand this household half the surprise I’m going to.”
“How, hon?” “I’m pregnant.” “Huh?”
“You heard me. Pregnant. Knocked up, if you insist on the technical
term!”
“Are you sure, dear?”
“Of course I’m sure! I had a test, the froggie winked at me. Hell, I’m
four months gone.” Karen threw herself into the arms of the older girl. “And I’m scared!”
Barbara hugged her. “There, there, dear. It’s going to be all right.” “The hell it is,” Karen blubbered. “Mother’s going to raise hell…and
there aren’t any hospitals…nor doctors. Oh, why didn’t Duke study medicine? Barbie, I’m going to die. I know I am.”
“Karen, that’s silly. More babies have been born without doctors and hospitals than ever were wheeled into a delivery room. You’re not scared of
dying, you’re scared of telling your parents.”
“Well, that, too.” Karen wiped at her eyes and sniffed. “Uh — Barbie, don’t be mad…but that’s why I invited you down that weekend.”
“I figured Mother wouldn’t raise quite so much hell if you were present.
Most girls in our chapter are either squares or sluts, and silly heads besides. But you are neither and I knew you would stand up for me.”
“Thank you, dear.”
“Thank me, hell! I was using you.”
“It’s the finest compliment another woman ever paid me.” Barbara wiped a tear from Karen’s face and tweaked her cheek. “I’m glad I’m here. So you haven’t told your parents?”
“Well, I was going to. But the attack hit…and then Mother went to pieces…and Daddy has been loaded down with worries and there’s never been the right time.”
“Karen, you aren’t scared to tell your father, just your mother.” “Well…Mother mostly. But Daddy, too. Besides being shocked and hurt-
he’ll think it was silly of me to get caught.”
“While he’s certain to be surprised, I doubt the other.” Barbara hesitated. “Karen, you needn’t take this alone. I can share it.”
“That’s what I had hoped. That’s why I asked you to come home with me. I told you.”
“I mean really share it. I’m pregnant, too.” “What?”
“Yes. We can tell them together.”
“Good Lord, Barbara! How did it happen?”
Barbara shrugged. “Careless. How did it happen to you?” Karen suddenly grinned. “How? A bee sprinkled pollen on me; how else? ‘Who’ you mean.”
“‘Who’ I don’t care about. Your business. Well, dear? Shall we go tell them? I’ll do the talking.”
“Wait a minute. You hadn’t planned to tell anybody? Or had you?” “Why, no,” Barbara answered truthfully, “I was going to wait until it
showed.”
Karen looked at Barbara’s waistline. “It doesn’t show. Are you sure?” “I’ve skipped two periods, I’m pregnant. Or I’m ill, which would be
worse. Let’s gather up the laundry and tell them.
“Uh, since you don’t look it-and I do; I’ve been careful not to undress around Mother-since you don’t, let’s hold that back and use it as a whammy if things get sticky.”
“If you like. Karen, why not tell Hugh first? Then let him tell your mother.”
Karen looked relieved. “You think that’s all right?”
“Hugh would rather hear it with your mother not around. Now go find him and tell him. I’ll hang the clothes.”
“All right, I will!”
“And quit worrying. We’ll have our babies and won’t have any trouble and we’ll raise them together and it’ll be fun. We’ll be happy.”
Karen’s eyes lit up. “And you’ll have a girl and I’ll have a boy and we’ll marry them and be grandmothers together!”
“That sounds more like Karen.” Barbara kissed her. “Run tell Hugh.”
Karen found Hugh bricking up the kiln; she told him that she would like a private talk.
“All right,” he agreed. “Let me tell Joe to get this fired up. I should inspect the ditch. Come along and talk?”
He gave her a shovel, carried a rifle. “Now what’s on your mind, baby
girl?”
“Let’s get farther away.” They walked a meandering distance. Hugh
stopped, exchanged rifle for shovel, and built up a stretch of wall. “Daddy? Perhaps you’ve noticed a shortage of men?”
“No. Three men and three women. The usual division.” “Perhaps I should say ‘eligible bachelors.'”
“Then say it.”
“All right, I’ve said it. I need advice. Which is worse? Incest? Or miscegenation? Or should I be an old maid?”
He placed another shovelful, tamped it. “I would not urge you to be an old maid.”
“That settles that, I feel the same way. How do you size up those other fates?”
“Incest,” he answered, “is a bad idea, usually.” “Which leaves just one thing.”
“Wait. I said, ‘Usually.'” He stared at the shovel. “This is not a problem I ever expected-but we are facing many new problems. Brother-and- sister marriages are not uncommon in history. They are not necessarily bad.” He frowned. “But there is Barbara. You might have to accept a polygamous household.”
“Hold it, Daddy. ‘Incest’ isn’t just brothers.”
He stared at her. “You’ve managed to startle me, Karen.” “Shocked you, you mean.”
“No. ‘Startled.’ Were you seriously suggesting what you implied?” “Daddy,” she said soberly, “it’s one subject I can’t joke about. If I
had to choose between you and Duke-as a husband, I mean-I’d take you and no two ways about it.”
Hugh mopped his forehead. “Karen, such a statement can be honored only by taking it seriously — “
“I’m serious!”
“And I so take it. Do I understand that you have eliminated Joseph? Or have you considered him?”
“Certainly I have.” “Well?”
“How could I avoid it, Daddy? Joe is nice. But he’s just a boy, even though he’s older than I am. If I said, ‘Boo!’ he would jump out of his skin. No.”
“Does his skin have something to do with your choice?” “Daddy, you tempt me to spit in your face. I’m not Mother!”
“I wanted to be sure. Karen, you know that color does not matter to me.
I want to know other things about a man. Is his word good? Does he meet his obligations? Does he do honest work? Is he brave? Will he stand up and be counted? Joe is very much a man by all standards that interest me. I think you are being hasty.”
He sighed. “If we were in Mountain Springs, I would not urge you to marry any Negro. The pressures are too great; such a marriage is almost always a tragedy. But those barbaric factors do not obtain here. I urge that you give Joe serious thought.”
“Daddy, don’t you think I have? I may marry Joe. But I wanted you to know that if I had my choice, out of you three I would pick you.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank me, hell! I’m a woman and you are the man I would most like to.
And a fat lot of good it will do me-and you know why. Mother.”
“I know.” He suddenly looked weary. “We do not what we wish, but what we can. Karen, I am dreadfully sorry that you do not have a longer list to choose from.”
“Daddy, if I’ve learned anything from you, it is that it’s a waste of tears to cry over anything that can’t be helped. That’s Mother, not me. And Duke, though not as bad. I’m just like you on this point — You count your
points and play accordingly. You don’t moan about how the cards aren’t fair. Dig me, Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t come here to ask you to marry me. Nor even to seduce you though I might as well say, having said so much, that you can have me if you want me. I think you’ve known that for years. I didn’t come here to say that, either. I simply had to get things out of the way before I told you something else. Something where I’ve counted the points and I’m going set and that’s that. Can’t be helped.”
“What? Perhaps I can help.” “Hardly. I’m pregnant, Daddy.”
He dropped the shovel, took her in both arms. “Oh, wonderful!” Presently she said, “Daddy…I can’t shoot a bear with you hugging me.” He put her down, grabbed the rifle. “Where?”
“Nowhere. But you’re always warning us.”
“Oh. All right, I’ll take over guard duty. Who’s the father, Karen?
Duke? or Joe?”
“Neither. Earlier, at school.” “Oh. Still better!”
“How? Damn it, Daddy, this isn’t going the way it’s supposed to. A girl comes home ruined, her father is supposed to raise hell. All you say is, ‘Just dandy!’ You’ve got me confused.”
“Sorry. Under other circumstances, I might feel that you had been careless — “
“Oh, I was! I took a chance, like the nigguh mammy who said, ‘Oh, hunnuhds of times ain’t nuffin happen at all.’ You know.”
“I’m afraid I do. Under these circumstances I am delighted. I had assumed that you were inexperienced. To learn that, instead, you have gone ahead and given us a child and one whose father is from outside our group — Don’t you see, dear? You have almost doubled the chances of this colony surviving.”
“I have?”
“Figure it out, you’re not stupid. Your child’s father — Good stock?” “Would I have been doing what I most certainly did if I hadn’t thought
pretty well of him, Daddy?”
“Sorry, dear. It was a stupid question.” He smiled. “I don’t feel like working. Let’s go spread the good news.”
“All right. But, Daddy — What do we tell Mother?”
“The truth, and I’ll do the telling. Don’t worry, baby girl. You have that baby and I will take care of all else.”
“Yes, sir. Daddy, I feel real good now.” “That’s fine.”
“I feel so good that I almost forgot something. Did you know that Dr. — Livingstone-I-Presume is going to have babies, too?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You had the same chance to notice that I did.”
“Well, yes. But it’s pretty frowsy, your noticing that Doe is pregnant- and not noticing that I am.”
“I thought you had simply been overeating again.”
“You did, huh? Daddy, sometimes I like you better than other times. But this time I guess I’m going to have to like you anyhow.”
Hugh decided to eat dinner before stirring up Grace.
The decision was justified. From her rantings, it appeared that Karen was an ungrateful daughter, a disgrace, a shameless little tramp, and that Hugh was an unnatural father, a failure, and somehow to blame for his daughter’s pregnancy.
Hugh let her rant until she paused for breath. “Grace. Be quiet.” “What? Hubert Farnham, don’t you dare tell me to shut up! How can you
sit there, when your own daughter has flagrantly dis — ” “Shut up or I will shut you up.”
Duke said, “Pipe down, Mother.”
“You, too? Oh, that I should ever see the day when — ” “Mother, keep still for a while. Let’s hear from Dad.” Grace simmered, then said, “Joseph! Leave the room.” “Joe, sit down,” Hugh ordered.
“Yes, Joe,” agreed Karen. “Please stay.”
“Well! If neither of you has the common decency to — “
“Grace, I am nearer to striking you than I have ever been in all these years. Will you keep quiet and listen?”
She looked at her son; Duke was carefully looking elsewhere. “Very well, I will listen. Not that it can possibly do any good.”
“I hope that it will because it is supremely important. Grace, there is no point in heckling Karen. Besides being cruel, it’s ridiculous. Her pregnancy is the best thing that has happened to us.”
“Hubert Farnham, are you out of your mind?”
“Please. You are reacting in terms of conventional morality, which is foolish.”
“Oh? So morals are foolish, are they? You hymn-singing hypocrite!” “Morals are not foolish; morals must be our bedrock, always. But whether
it was moral for Karen to breed a baby at another time and place, in a society that is no more, is irrelevant; we will not discuss it. The fact is, she did- and it is a blessing to us. Please analyze it. Six of us, four from one family. Genetically that is too small a breeding stock. Yet somehow we must flourish-or saving our own lives is wasted. But now we have a seventh, not here in person. That’s better than we had any reason to hope. I pray that the twins that run in my family will show up in her. It would strengthen the stock.”
“How can you talk about your own daughter as if you were breeding a
cow!”
“She is my daughter whom I love. But more important — her supreme
importance-is that she is a woman and pregnant. I wish that you and Barbara were pregnant, too-by outsiders. We need variety for the next generation.”
“I will not sit here and be insulted!”
“I simply said ‘wish.’ In Karen we do have this miracle; we must cherish it. Grace, Karen must be treated with every consideration during her pregnancy. You must take care of her.”
“Are you insinuating that I wouldn’t? You are the one who cares nothing about her welfare. Your own daughter.”
“It doesn’t matter that she is my daughter. It would apply if it were Barbara, or you, or another woman. No more heavy work for Karen. That laundry she did today-you’ll do that; you’ve loafed long enough. You’ll pamper her.
But most urgent, there will be no more scoldings, no harsh words, no recriminations. You will be sweet and kind and gentle with her. Don’t fail in this, Grace. Or I will punish you.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“I hope I won’t be forced to.” Hugh faced his son. “Duke. Do I have your backing? Speak up.”
“What do you mean by ‘punishment,’ Dad?”
“Whatever we are forced to use. Words. Social sanctions. Physical punishment if we must. Even expulsion from our group if no other choice remained.”
Duke drummed on the table. “That’s putting it brutally, Dad.” “Yes. I want you to think about the extremes.”
Duke glanced at his sister. “I’ll back you. Mother, you’ve got to behave.”
She started to whimper. “My own son has turned against me. Oh, I wish I had never been born!”
“Barbara?”
“My opinion? I agree with you, Hugh. Karen needs kindness. She mustn’t be scolded.”
“You keep out of this!”
Barbara looked at Grace without expression. “I’m sorry but Hugh asked me. Karen asked me to be in it, too. I think you have behaved abominably, Grace. A baby isn’t a calamity.”
“That’s easy for you to say!”
“Perhaps. But you’ve been nagging Karen steadily-and really, you mustn’t.”
Karen said suddenly, “Tell them, Barbara. About yourself.” “You want me to?”
“You’d better. Or now she’ll start on you.”
“Very well.” Barbara bit her lip. “I said that a baby is not a calamity.
I’m pregnant, too-and I’m very happy about it.”
The silence told Barbara that her purpose of taking the heat off Karen had been achieved. As for herself, she was tranquil for the first time since she had begun to suspect that she was pregnant. She had not shed a tear-oh, no! — but she found that a tension she had not been conscious of was gone.
“Why, you tramp! No wonder my daughter went wrong, exposed to influences like — “
“Stop it, Grace!”
“Yes, Mother,” agreed Duke. “Better keep quiet.” “I was just going to say — “
“You’re not going to say anything, Mother. I mean it.”
Mrs. Farnham subsided. Hugh went on: “Barbara, I hope you are not fibbing. Trying to protect Karen.”
Barbara looked at him and could read no expression. “I am not fibbing, Hugh. I am between two and three months pregnant.”
“Well, the rejoicing is now doubled. We will have to relieve you of heavy work, too. Duke, can you take on some farming?”
“Certainly.”
“Joe can do some, too. Mmm — I must push ahead with the kitchen and bathroom. You’ll both need such comforts long before either baby is born. Joe, that bearproof extra room can’t be put off now; nursery space will be essential and we men will have to move out. I think — “
“Hugh — ” “Yes, Barbara?”
“Don’t worry tonight. I can garden, I’m not as far along as Karen and I’ve had no morning sickness. I’ll let you know when I need help.”
He looked thoughtful. “No.”
“Oh, heaven! I like gardening. Pioneer mothers always worked when pregnant. They stopped when the pains came.”
“And it killed them, too. Barbara, we can’t spare either of you. We’ll treat you as the precious jewels you are.” He looked around. “Right?”
“Right, Dad.”
“Sure thing, Hugh!”
Mrs Farnham stood up. “Really, this conversation is making me ill.” “Good night, Grace. No farming for you, Barbara.”
“But I like my farm. I’ll quit in time.”
“You can supervise. Don’t let me catch you using a spading fork. Nor weeding. You might shake something loose. You’re a gentleman farmer now.”
“Does it say in your books how much work a pregnant woman may do?”
“I’ll read up on it. But we’ll err on the conservative side. Some doctors keep patients in bed for months to avoid losing a baby.”
“Daddy, you don’t expect us to stay in bed!”
“Probably not, Karen. But we will be very careful.” He added, “Barbara is right; it can’t all be settled tonight. Bridge, anyone? Or has there been too much excitement?”
“Hell, no!” Karen answered. “I can use pampering but bridge is one thing that can’t cause a miscarriage. I think.”
“No,” agreed her father. “But the way you bid might cause heart failure in someone else.”
“Pooh. Who wants to bid like a computer? Live dangerously, I always
say.”
“You do, dear.”
They got no further than dealing. Dr. Livingstone, who had been sleeping
in the “bathroom,” at that moment came into the main room, walking stiff- legged and almost dragging hindquarters. “Joseph,” the cat announced, “I am going to have these babies right now1~’
The cat’s anguished wailing, its hobbled gait, made its meaning clear as words. Joe was out of his chair at once. “Doe! What’s the matter, Doe?”
He started to pick the cat up. That was not what Dr. Livingstone needed; it wailed louder and struggled. Hugh said, “Joe. Let it be.”
“But old Doe hurts.”
“So let’s take care of the matter. Duke, we’ll use electric lights and the camp lamp. Snuff the candles. Karen, blankets on the table and a clean sheet.”
“Right away.”
Hugh knelt by the cat. “Easy, Doe. It hurts, doesn’t it? Never mind, it won’t be long. We’re here, we’re here.” He smoothed the fur along the spine, then gently felt the abdomen. “Contraction. Hurry up, Karen.”
“Ready, Daddy!” “Lift with me, Joe.”
They placed the cat on the table. Joe said, “What do we do now?” “Give you a Miltown.”
“But Doe hurts.”
“Surely she does. We can’t do anything about it. She’s having a bad time. It’s her first litter and she’s frightened, and she’s older than she should be, for a first. Not good.”
“But we have to do something.”
“You can help by quieting down; you’re communicating your fear to her. Joe, if there were anything I could do, I would. But there isn’t much we can do but stand by and let her know that she is not alone. Keep her from being frightened. Do you want that tranquilizer?”
“Uh, I guess so.”
“Get it, Duke. Don’t leave, Joe; Doe trusts you.”
“Hubert, if you are going to stay up all night over a cat again, I’ll need a sleeping pill. You can’t expect a person to sleep with all this fuss.”
“A Seconal for your mother, Duke. Can anybody think of anything we can use as a kitten bed?” Hugh Farnham searched his memory. Every box, every scrap of lumber, had been used and re-used and re-re-used in endless make-do building. Build a nest of bricks? Not sooner than daylight and this poor animal needed a safe and comforting spot tonight. Take apart some shelves?
“Daddy, how about the bottom wardrobe drawer?”
“Perfect! Pile everything on a bunk. Pad it. Use my hunting jacket.
Duke, rig a frame to support a blanket; she’ll want a little cave she’ll feel safe in. You know.”
“Of course we know,” Karen chided. “Quit jittering, Daddy. This isn’t our first litter.”
“Sorry, baby. We are about to have a kitten. See that, Joe?” Fur rippled from the cat’s middle down toward the tail, then did so again.
Karen hurriedly threw everything out of the lowest wardrobe drawer, placed it against the wall and put the hunting jacket in it, rushed back. “Did I miss it?”
“No,” Hugh assured her. “But right now!”
Doe stopped panting to give one wail and was delivered of a kitten in two quick convulsions.
“Why, it’s wrapped in cellophane,” Barbara said wonderingly.
“Didn’t you know?” asked Karen. “Daddy, it’s gray! Doe, where have you been? Though maybe I shouldn’t bring that up.”
Neither Hugh nor Dr. Livingstone answered. The mother cat started vigorously licking her offspring, broke the covering, and tiny ratlike arms and legs waved helplessly. A squeak so thin and high as to be almost inaudible announced its opinion of the world. Doe bit the cord and went on licking, cleaning off blood and mucus and purring loudly at the same time. The baby didn’t like it and again vented almost silent protest.
“Boss,” demanded Joe, “what’s wrong with it? It’s so skinny and little.” “Its a fine kitten. It’s a pretty baby, Doe. He’s a bachelor, he doesn’t
know.” Hugh spoke cooingly and rubbed the eat between her ears. He went on in normal tones, “And the worst ease of bar sinister I ever saw-smooth-haired, tiger-striped, and gray.”
Doe looked up reprovingly, gave a shudder and delivered the afterbirth, began chewing the bloody mass. Barbara gulped and rushed to the door, fumbled at a bolt. Karen went after her, opened it and steadied her while she threw up.
“Duke!” Hugh snapped. “Bear guard!”
Duke followed them, stuck his head out. Karen said, “Go ‘way! We’re safe. Bright moonlight.”
“Well…leave the door open.” He withdrew.
Karen said, “I thought you weren’t having morning sickness?” “I’m not. Oh!” Retching again hit her. “It was what Doe did.” “Oh, that. Cats always do that. Let me wipe your mouth, dear.” “It’s awful.”
“It’s normal. Good for them. Hormones, or something; you can ask Hugh.
All right now?”
“I think so. Karen! We don’t have to do that? Do we? I won’t, I won’t!” “Huh? Oh! Never thought of it. Oh, I know we don’t-or they would have
told us in Smut One.”
“Lots of things they don’t mention in Smut One,” Barbara said darkly. “When I had to take it, it was taught by an old maid. But I won’t. I’ll resign first, not have this baby.”
“Comrade,” Karen said grimly, “that’s something we both should have thought of earlier. Stand aside, it’s my turn to heave.”
Presently they went inside, pale but steady. Dr. Livingstone had three more kittens and Barbara managed to watch without further rushes for the door. Of the other birthings only the third was notable: a tiny tomcat but large in its tininess. He was a breech presentation, the skull did not pass easily, and Doe in her pain clamped down.
Hugh was busy at once, pulling gently on the little body with his whole hand and sweating like a surgeon. Doe wailed and bit his thumb. He did not let it stop him nor hurry him.
Suddenly the kitten came free; he bent over and blew in its mouth, was rewarded with a thin, indignant squeak. He put the baby down, let Dr.
Livingstone clean it. “That was close,” he said shakily. “Old Doe didn’t mean to,” Joe said softly.
“Of course not. Which of you girls feels like fixing this for me?”
Barbara dressed the wound, while telling herself that she must not, must not, bite when her own time came.
The kittens were, in order, smooth-haired gray, fluffy white, midnight black with white jabot and mittens, and calico. After much argument between Karen and Joe, they were named: Happy New Year, Snow Princess Magnificent, Dr. Ebony Midnight, and Patchwork Girl of Oz-Happy, Maggie, Midnight, and Patches.
By midnight mother and children were bedded in the drawer with food, water, and sandbox near, and everyone went to bed. Joe slept on the floor with his head by the kitten nest.
When everyone was quiet, he raised up, used the flash to look in. Dr.
Livingstone had one kitten in her arms, three more at suck; she stopped cleaning Maggie and looked inquiringly at him.
“They’re beautiful kittens, Doe,” he told her. “The best babies.” She spread her royal whiskers and purred agreement.
Chapter 8
Hugh leaned on his shovel. “That does it, Joe.”
“Let me tidy up around the gate.” They were at the upper end of their ditch where the stream had been dammed against the dry season. It had been on them for weeks; the forest was sere, the heat oppressive. They were extremely careful about fire.
But no longer so careful about bears. It was still standard practice to be armed, but Duke had killed so many carnivores, ursine and feline, they seldom saw one.
The water spilling over the dam was only a trickle but there was water for irrigation and for household needs. Without the ditch they would have lost their garden.
It was necessary every day or so to adjust the flow. Hugh had not built a water gate; paucity of tools, scarcity of metal, and a total lack of lumber had baffled him. Instead he had devised an expedient. The point where water was taken from the pond had been faced with brick and a spillway set of half- round tile. To increase the flow this was taken out, the spill cut deeper, bricks adjusted, and tiles replaced. It was clumsy; it worked.
The bottom of the ditch was tiled all the way to house and garden; a minimum of water was lost. Their kiln had worked day and night; most of their capital gain had come out of the clay bank below the house and it was becoming difficult to dig good clay.
This did not worry Hugh; they had almost everything they needed.
Their bathroom was no longer a joke. Water flowed in a two-stall trough toilet partitioned with deerhide; tile drainpipe “leaded” with clay ran down the manhole, out the tunnel, and to a cesspool.
Forming drainpipe Hugh had found very difficult. After many failures he had whittled a male form in three parts-in parts, because it was necessary to shape the clay over it, let it dry enough to take out the form before it cracked from shrinking over the form.
With practice he cut his failures to about 25 percent in forming, 25 percent in firing.
The damaged water tank he had cut painfully, mallet and chisel, lengthwise into tubs, a bathtub indoors and a washtub outdoors. The seams he had calked with shaved hide; the tubs did not leak-much.
A brick fireplace-oven filled one corner of the bath-kitchen. It was not in use; days were long and hot; they cooked outdoors and ate under an awning of empty bears-but it was ready against the next rainy season.
Their house now had two stories. Hugh had concluded that an addition
strong enough to stop bears and tight enough to discourage snakes would have to be of stone, and solidly roofed. That he could do-but how about windows and doors? Glass he would make someday if he solved the problems of soda and lime. But not soon. A stout door and tight shutters he could manage, but such a cabin would be stuffy.
So they had built a shed on the roof, a grass shack. With the ladder up, a bear faced a twelve-foot wall. Unsure that a wall would stop all their neighbors, Hugh had arranged trip lines around the edge so that disturbing them would cause an oxygen bottle to fall over. Their alarm was tripped the first week, scaring off the intruder. It had also, Hugh admitted, scared the bejasus out of him.
Anything that could not be hurt by weather had been moved out and the main room was rearranged into a women’s dormitory and nursery. Hugh stared downstream while Joe finished fussing. He could make out the roof of his penthouse. Good enough, he mused. Everything was in fair shape and next year would be better. So much better that they might take time to explore. Even Duke had not been as much as twenty miles away. Nothing but feet for travel and too busy scratching to live — Next year would be soon enough.
“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” They had started with neither pot nor window. This year a pot — Next year a window? No hurry — Things were going well. Even Grace seemed contented. He felt certain that she would settle down and be a happy grandmother. Grace liked babies, Grace did well with babies — How well he remembered.
Not long now. Baby Karen was fuzzily vague but her guesses seemed to show that D-day was about two weeks off, and her condition matched her guess, as near as he could tell.
The sooner the better! Hugh had studied everything in his library on pregnancy and childbirth; he had made every preparation he could. His patients seemed to be in perfect health, both had satisfactory pelvic measurements, both seemed unafraid, and they helped each other with friendly nagging, not to gain too much weight. With Barbara to hold Karen’s hand, with Karen to hold Barbara’s hand, with Grace’s motherly experience to bolster them, Hugh could see no trouble ahead.
It would be wonderful to have babies in the house.
With a warm wave of euphoria Hugh Farnham realized that he had never been so happy in his life.
“That’s it, Hugh. Let’s catch those tiles on the way back.” “Okay. Take the rifle, I’ll carry the tools.”
“I think,” Joe said, “we ought to — “
His words chopped off at a gunshot; they froze. It was followed by two more. They ran.
Barbara was in the door. She held up a gun and waved, went inside. She came out before they reached the house, stepping carefully down off the stoop and moving slowly; she was very gravid. Her belly bulged huge in shorts made from wornout jeans that had belonged to Duke; she wore a man’s shirt altered to support her breasts. She was barefooted and no longer carried the gun.
Joe outdistanced Hugh, met her near the house. “Karen?” he demanded. “Yes. She’s started.”
Joe hurried inside. Hugh arrived, stood panting. “Well?”
“Her bag of waters burst. Then the pains started. That was when I fired.”
“Why didn’t you — Never mind. What else?” “Grace is with her. But she wants you.”
“Let me catch my breath.” Hugh wiped his face, tried to control his trembling. He took a deep breath, held it, let it out slowly. He went inside, Barbara following.
The bunks near the door had been taken down. A bed stuck out into the doorway but space cleared by removing shelves left passage. One bunk was now a cot in the living corner. The bed was padded with a grass mattress and a bear rug; a calico cat was on it.
Hugh squeezed past, felt another eat brush his ankles. He went into the other bay. The bunks there had been rebuilt into a bed across the end; Karen was in bed, Grace was seated, fanning her, and Joe stood by with an air of grave concern.
Hugh smiled at his daughter. “Hi, Fatty!” He stooped and kissed her. “How are you? Hurting?”
“Not now. But I’m glad you’re here.” “We hurried.”
A cat jumped up, landing on Karen. “Unh! Damn you, Maggie!”
“Joe,” said Hugh, “round up the cats and put them in Coventry.” The tunnel mouth had been bricked up, but with air holes, and a cat door which could be filled with a large brick. The cats had a low opinion of this but it had been built after Happy New Year had become missing and presumed dead.
Karen said, “Daddy, I want Maggie with me!”
“Joe, make that all but Maggie. When we get busy, grab Maggie and shut her up, too.”
“Can do, Hugh.” Joe left, passing Barbara coming in.
Hugh felt Karen’s cheeks, took her pulse. He said to his wife, “Is she shaved?”
“There hasn’t been time.”
“You and Barbara get her shaved and washed. Punkin’, when did your bowels move?”
“Just did. I was on the pot when it happened. Just sitting there minding my own business-and all of a sudden I’m Niagara Falls!”
“But your bowels moved?” “Oh, yes!”
“That’s one less thing to worry about.” He smiled. “Not that there’s anything to worry about, you’ll play bridge most of the night. Like kittens, babies show up in the wee, sma’ hours.”
“All night? I want to have this little bastard and get it over with.” “I want it over with, too, but babies have minds of their own.” He
added, “You’ll be busy a while and so will I. I’m dirty.” He started to leave. “Daddy, wait a minute. Do I have to stay back here? It’s hot.”
“No. The light is better by the door. Especially if young Tarzan has the decency to arrive during daylight. Barbara, turn that used bear over; it’ll be cooler. Put this sheet on it. Or a clean one if there is one.”
“The sterilized one?”
“No. Don’t unpack the boiled sheet until the riot starts.” Hugh patted his patient’s hand. “Try not to have a pain until I’m clean.”
“Daddy, you should have been a doctor.”
“I am a doctor. The best doctor in the world.”
As he left the house he encountered Duke, soaked from a long run. “I heard three shots. Sis?”
“Yes. No hurry, labor just started. I’m about to take a bath. Want to join me?”
“I want to say hello to Sis first.”
“Hurry up; they’re about to bathe her. And grab Joe; he’s incarcerating cats. They’ll want us out of the way.”
“Shouldn’t we be boiling water?”
“Do so, if it will calm you. Duke, my O.B. kit, such as it is, has been ready for a month. There are six jars of boiled water, for this and that. Go kiss your sister and don’t let her see that you’re worried.”
“You’re a cold fish, Dad.”
“Son, I’m scared silly. I can list thirteen major complications-and I’m not prepared to cope with any of them. Mostly I pat her hand and tell her that everything is dandy-and that’s what she needs. I examine her, solemn as a judge, and don’t know what to look for. It’s just to reassure her…and I’ll thank you to help out.”
Duke said soberly, “I will, sir. I’ll kid her along.”
“Don’t overdo it. Just let her see that you share her confidence in old Doe Farnham.”
“I will.”
“If Joe gets the jitters, get him out. He’s the worst. Grace is doing fine. Hurry up or they won’t let you in.”
Later, bathed and calmed down, Hugh climbed out of the stream ahead of Joe and Duke, walked back carrying his clothes and letting the air dry him. He paused outside, put on clean shorts. “Knock, knock!”
“Stay out,” Grace called. “We’re busy.” “Then cover her. I want to scrub.”
“Don’t be silly, Mother. Come in, Daddy.”
He went in, squeezing around Barbara and Grace, and on into the bathroom. He trimmed his nails very closely, scrubbed his hands with ditch water-then again with boiled water, and repeated it. He shook them dry and went into the main room, being careful not to touch anything.
Karen was on the bed at the door, a ragged half sheet over her. Her shoulders were swaddled in a grayish garment that had been the shirt Hugh had worn the night of the attack. Grace and Barbara were seated on the bed, Duke stood outside the door, and Joe sat mournfully on the bunk beyond the bed.
Hugh smiled at her. “How is it going? Any twinges?”
“Nary a twinge, damn it. I want to have him before dinner.” “You will. Because you don’t get any dinner.”
“Beast. My daddy is a beast.”
“Doctor Beast, please. Skedaddle, friends, I want to examine my patient.
Everyone but Grace. Barbara, go lie down.” “I’m not tired.”
“You may be awake most of the night. Take a nap. I don’t want to cope with a seven-month preemie.”
He folded back the sheet, looked Karen over, and palpated her swollen belly. “Has he been kicking?”
“Has he! I’m going to sign him up with the Green Bay Packers. I think he’s wearing shoes.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised. Did you have shoes on when you started him?” “What? Daddy, you are a nasty man. Yes.”
“Prenatal influence. Next time take them off.” He tried to judge whether the child was in the head-down position, or whether it was-God forbid! — a breech presentation. He was unable to decide. So he smiled at Karen and lied. “Shoes won’t bother us, as he is head down, just as he should be. It’s going to be an easy birth.”
“How can you tell, Daddy?”
“Put your hand where mine is. That’s his little pointy head, all set to take the dive. Feel it?”
“I guess so.”
“You could see, if you were where I am.” He tried to see if she was dilated. There was a little blood and he decided against a tactile examination-he did not know how it should feel and handling the birth canal would increase danger of infection. He knew that a rectal exploration should tell him something but be did not know what-so there was no point in submitting Karen to that indignity.
He looked up, caught his wife’s eye and thought of asking her opinion, decided not to. Despite having borne children, Grace knew no more about it
than he did; the only result would be to shake Karen’s confidence. —
Instead he got his “stethoscope” (three end papers from his encyclopaedia, rolled into a tube) and listened for fetal heartbeat. He had often heard it lately. But he got only a variety of noises which he lumped in his mind as “gut rumble.”
“Ticking like a metronome,” he ‘announced, putting the tube down and covering her. “Your baby’s in fine shape, baby girl, and so are you. Grace, did you start a log when the first pain showed?”
“Barbara did.”
“Will you keep it, please? But first tell Duke to take the ropes off the other bed and rig them here.”
“Hubert, are you sure she should pull on ropes? Neither of my doctors had me do anything of the sort.”
“It’s the latest thing,” he reassured her. “All hospitals use them now.” Hugh had read somewhere that midwives often had their patients pull on ropes while bearing down. He had looked for this in his books, could not find it.
But it struck him as sound mechanics; a woman should be able to bear down better.
Grace looked doubtful but dropped the matter and left the shelter. Hugh started to get up. Karen grabbed his hand. “Don’t go ‘way, Daddy!”
“Pain?”
“No. Something to tell you. I asked Joe to marry me. Last week. And he accepted.”
“I’m glad to hear it, dear. I think you are getting a prize.”
“I do, too. Oh, it’s Hobson’s choice but I do love him, quite a lot. But we won’t get married until I’m up and around and strong. I couldn’t face the row with Mother, not now.”
“I won’t tell her.”
“Better not tell Duke, either. Barbara knows., she thinks it’s swell.” A contraction hit Karen while Duke war adjusting ropes. She yelped,
chopped it off and gritted her teeth, reached for the ropes as Duke hastily handed them to her. Hugh put his hand on her belly, felt her womb harden as increasing pain showed in her face. “Bear down, baby,” he told her. “And pant; it helps.” .
She started to pant, it turned into a scream.
Endless seconds later she relaxed, forced a smile and said, “They went that a-way! Sorry about the sound effects, Daddy.”
“Yell if you want to. But panting does more good. Now rest while you can. Let’s get this organized. Joe, you’re drafted as cook. I want Barbara to rest and Grace to nurse-so you cook dinner, please. Fix some cold supper, too. Grace, did you log it?”
“Yes.”
“Did you time the contraction?”
“I did,” Barbara answered. “Forty-four seconds.”
Karen looked indignant. “Barb, you are out of your mind! It was over an
hour.”
“Call it forty-five seconds,” Hugh said. “I want the time of each pain
and how long it lasts.”
Seven minutes later the next one hit. Karen managed to pant, screamed only a little. But she did not feel like joking afterwards; she turned her face away. The contraction had been long and severe. Though shaken by his daughter’s agony, Hugh felt encouraged; it seemed certain that labor was going to be short.
It was not. All that hot and weary day the woman brought to bed fought to void herself of her burden-white-faced and shrieking, belly hardening with each attempt, muscles in arms and neck standing out as she strained-then fell back limp as the contraction died away, tired and trembling, not speaking,
uninterested in anything but the ordeal.
It got steadily worse. Contractions became only three minutes apart, each one longer and seeming to hurt more. Once Hugh told her not to use the ropes; he could not see that they helped. Quickly she asked for them and seemed not to have heard him. She did seem slightly less uncomfortable braced against them.
At nine that night there was bleeding. Grace became frantic; she had heard many stories of the dangers of hemorrhage. Hugh assured her that it was normal and showed that the baby would arrive soon. He believed it, as it was not massive and did not continue-and it did not seem possible that birth could be far away.
Grace looked angry and got up; Barbara slipped into the chair she vacated. Hugh hoped that Grace would rest-the women had been taking turns.
But Grace returned a few minutes later. “Hubert,” she said in a high, brittle voice. “Hubert, I’m goi1~g to call a doctor.”
“Do that,” he agreed, his eyes on Karen.
“You listen to me, Hubert Farnham. You should have called a doctor at once. You’re killing her, you hear me? I’m going to call a doctor-and you are not going to stop me.”
“Yes, Grace. The telephone is in there.” He pointed into the other wing.
Grace looked puzzled, then turned suddenly and went away. “Duke!” His son hurried in. “Yes, Dad?”
Hugh said forcefully, “Duke, your mother has decided to telephone for a doctor. You go help her. Do you understand?”
Duke’s eyes widened. “Where are the needles?”
“In the smaller bundle on the table. Don’t touch the large bundle; it’s sterile.”
“Got it. What dosage?”
“Two c.c. Don’t let her see the needle, or she’ll jerk.” Hugh’s head jerked; he realized that he was groggy. “Make that three c.c.; I want her to go out like a light and sleep until morning. She can tolerate it.”
“Right away.” Duke left.
Karen had been lying quiet between contractions, apparently in semi- coma. Now she whispered, “Poor Daddy. Your women give you a lot of grief.”
“Rest, dear.”
“I — Oh, God, here it comes again!”
Then she was saying between screams: “It hurts! Make it stop! Oh, Daddy, I do want a doctor! Please, Daddy! Get me a doctor!”
“Bear down, darling. Bear down.”
It went on and on, far into the night, no respite and getting worse. It stopped being worth while to log contractions; they almost overlapped. Karen no longer could be said to talk; she screamed incoherent demands for relief when she strained, spoke unresponsively or did not answer in the brief periods between contractions.
Around dawn-it seemed to Hugh that the torture had been going on for weeks but his watch showed that Karen had been in labor eighteen hours-Barbara said urgently, “Hugh, she can’t take any more.”
“I know,” he admitted, looking at his daughter. She was at the peak of a pain, face gray and contorted, mouth squared in agony, high sobbing moans coming out between her teeth.
“Well?”
“I suppose she should have had a Caesarean. But I’m no surgeon.” “I wonder.”
“I don’t. I’m not.”
“You know more about it than the first man who ever did one! You know how to keep it sterile. We have sulfa drugs and you can load her up with Demerol.” She did not try to keep Karen from hearing; their patient was beyond
caring.
“Hugh, you must. She’s dying.”
“I know.” He sighed. “But it’s too late for a Caesarean, even ill knew how. To save Karen with one, I mean. We might save her baby.” He blinked and swayed. “Only it would not. Who’s to wet-nurse? You can’t, not yet. And cows we don’t have.”
He took a deep breath, tried to get a grip on himself. “Only one thing left. Try to get it out Eskimo style.”
“What’s that?”
“Get her up and let gravity help. Maybe it’ll work. Call the boys, we’ll need them. I’ve got to scrub again; I might have to do an episiotomy. Oh, God.”
Five minutes and two contractions later they were ready to try it. When Karen lay back exhausted after the second one, Hugh tried to explain what they were going to do. It was hard to get her attention. At last she nodded slightly and whispered, “I don’t care.”
Hugh went to the table where his equipment was now opened out, got his one scalpel, took the camp lamp in his other hand. “All right, boys. As soon as she starts, pick her up.”
They had only seconds to wait. Hugh saw the contraction start, nodded to Duke. “Now!”
“With me, Joe.” They started to lift her, each with an arm under her back, a hand under a thigh.
Karen screamed and fought them off. “No, no! Don’t touch me-I can’t stand it! Daddy, make them stop! Daddy!”
They stopped. Duke said, “Dad?” “Lift her up! Now!”
They got her high in a squatting position, thighs pulled open. Barbara got behind Karen, arms around her, and pressed down on the girl’s tortured belly. Karen screamed and struggled; they held her fast. Hugh got hurriedly to the floor, shined the light up. “Bear down, Karen, bear down!”
“Ooooooh!”
Suddenly he saw the baby’s scalp, gray-blue. He started to lay the knife aside; the head retreated. “Try again, Karen!”
He readjusted the lamp. He wondered whether he was supposed to make the incision in front? Or in back? Or both? He saw the scalp show again and stop; with his hand suddenly rock steady and with no conscious decision he reached up and made one small cut.
He barely had time to drop the knife before he had both hands full of wet, slippery, bloody baby. He knew there was something else he should do now but all he could think of was to get it by both feet in his left hand, lift it and slap its tiny bottom.
It let out a choked wail.
“Get her on the bed, boys-but easy! It’s still fastened by the cord.”
They made it, Hugh on his knees and burdened with a feebly wiggling load. Once they had Karen down, Hugh started to put her baby in her arms-but saw that Karen was not up to it. She seemed to be awake-her eyes were open. But she was in total collapse.
Hugh was close to collapse. He looked dazedly around, handed the baby to Barbara. “Stay close,” he told her, unnecessarily.
“Dad?” said Duke. “Aren’t you supposed to cut the cord?”
“Not yet.” Where was that knife? He found it, rubbed it quickly with iodine-hoped that it was sterile. Placed it by two boiled lengths of cotton string-turned and felt the cord to see if it was pulsing.
“He’s beautiful,” Joe said softly.
“She,” Hugh corrected. “The baby is a girl. Now, Barbara, if you — “
He broke off. Suddenly everything happened too fast. The baby started to choke; Hugh grabbed it, turned it upside down, dug into its mouth, scooped out a plug of mucus, handed the baby back, started again to check the cord-saw that Karen was in trouble.
With a nightmare feeling that he needed to be twins he got one of the strings, tied a square knot around the cord near the baby’s belly, trying to control his trembling so as not to tie it too hard-started to tie the second, saw that it was not needed; Karen suddenly delivered the placenta and was hemorrhaging. She moaned.
With one slash Hugh cut the cord, snapped at Barbara, “Get a bellyband on it!” — turned to take care of the mother.
She was flowing like a river; her face was gray and she seemed unconscious. Too late to attempt to take stitches in the cut he had made and the tears that followed; he could see that this flood was from inside, not from the damaged portal. He tried to stop it by packing her inside with their last roll of gauze while shouting to Joe and to Duke to get a bellyband and compress on Karen herself to put pressure on her uterus.
Some agonized time later the belly compress was in place and the gauze was backed by a dam of sanitary napkins-one irreplaceable, Hugh thought tiredly, they hadn’t needed much. He raised his eyes and looked at Karen’s face-then in sudden panic tried to find her pulse.
Karen had survived the birth of her daughter by less than seven minutes.
Chapter 9
Katherine Josephine survived her mother by a day. Hugh baptized her with that name and a drop of water an hour after Karen died; it was clear that the baby might not last long. She had trouble breathing.
Once when the baby choked, Barbara started her up again by mouth-to- mouth suction, getting a mouthful of something she spat out hastily. Little Jodie seemed better then for quite a while.
But Hugh knew that it was only a reprieve; he could see no chance of keeping the baby alive long enough-two months-to let Barbara feed it. Only two cans of Carnation milk were left in their stores.
Nevertheless they worked grimly around the clock.
Grace mixed a formula from memory-evaporated milk, boiled water, a hoarded can of white Karo. They had no food cells, not even a nipple. An orphaned baby was a crisis for which Hugh had not planned. In hindsight it seemed the most glaring of probable emergencies. He tried not to brood over his failure, dedicated himself to keeping Karen’s daughter alive.
A plastic-barreled eyedropper was the nearest to a nipple they could find. They used it to pick up the formula, try to match the pressure with the infant’s attempts to suck.
It did not work well. Little Jodie continued to have trouble breathing and tended to choke every time they tried to feed her; they spent as much time trying to clear her throat and get her cranked up again as they did in feeding her. She seemed reluctant to suck on the harsh substitute and if they squirted food into her mouth anyway, she always choked. Twice Grace was able to coax her into taking almost an ounce. Both times she threw it up. Barbara and Hugh had even less luck.
Before dawn following her birthday Hugh was awakened by Grace screaming.
The child had choked to death.
During the long day in which three of them battled to save the baby, Duke and Joe dug a grave, high up the hill in a sunny spot. They dug deep and stocked a pile of boulders; both held concealed horror that a bear or coyotes
might dig up the grave.
Grave dug, boulders waiting, Joe said in a strained voice, “How are we going to build a casket?”
Duke sighed and wiped sweat from his eyes. “Joe, we can’t.” “We’ve got to.”
“Oh, we could cut trees and split them and adz out some lumber-we’ve done that when we had to. That kitchen counter. But how long would it take? Joe, this is hot weather-Karen can’t wait!”
“We’ve got to tear down something and build out of it. A bed, maybe.
Bookcases.”
“Taking the wardrobe apart would be easiest.” “Let’s start.”
“Joe. The ‘only things we could use to build a coffin are in the house.
Do you think Hugh will let us go in there now and start ripping and tearing and banging? If anybody woke that baby or startled it when they were trying to get it to feed, Dad would kill him. If Barbara or Mother didn’t kill him first. No, Joe. No coffin.”
They settled for a vault, using all their stock of bricks; these they used to build a box in the bottom of the grave, then cut down their dining canopy to line it, and cut timbers to cover it. Poor as it was, they felt comforted by it.
Next morning the grave received mother and daughter.
Joe and Duke placed them in it, Duke having insisted that his father stay behind and take care of Grace and Barbara. Duke had visualized how awkward it would be, getting the bodies into the grave and arranging them; he would not have had Joe along had not an assistant been necessary. He suggested that his mother not come ‘to the grave at all.
Hugh shook his head. “I thought of that. You try to convince her. I can’t budge her.”
Nor could Duke. But when he sent Joe down for the others, his sister and her daughter were decently at rest with their winding sheet neatly arranged, and no trace remained of the struggle it had been to place ‘them there, the rebuilding of part of the brick box that had been necessary, or-worst-the moment when the tiny corpse had fallen out of the sheet when they tried to get them both down as one. Karen’s face looked peaceful and her daughter was cuddled in her arm as if sleeping.
Duke balanced with a foot on each brick wall, knelt over her. “Good-bye, Sis,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.” He covered her face and got carefully out of the grave. A little procession was coming up the hill, Hugh ‘assisting his wife, Joe helping Barbara. Beyond the shelter ‘their flag flew at half-mast.
They arranged themselves at the grave, Hugh at the head, his wife on his right, his son on his left, Barbara and Joe at the foot. To Duke’s relief no one asked that faces be uncovered nor did his mother seem disturbed at the arrangements.
Hugh took a small black book from his pocket, opened it to a marked
page:
“‘I am the Resurrection and the Life…
“‘We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can take
nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken — ‘”
Grace sobbed and her knees started to fail Hugh shoved the book into Duke’s hands, moved to support his wife. “Take over, Son!”
“Take her back down, Dad!”
Grace said brokenly, “No, no! I must stay.” “Read it, Duke. I’ve marked the passages.”
“‘…he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them. “‘For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers
were.
“‘0 spare me a little, that I may recover my strength.
“‘Man, that is born of woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery.
“‘Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our sister — of our sisters- and we commit their bodies to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust — ‘”
Duke paused, dropped the tiniest of clods into the grave. He looked back at the book, closed it and said suddenly, “Let us pray.”
They took Grace back and put her to bed; Joe and Duke returned to close the grave. Hugh, seeing that his wife appeared to be resting, started to snuff candles in the rear bay. She opened her eyes. “Hubert — “
“Yes, Grace?”
“I told you. I warned you. You wouldn’t listen to me.” “About what, Grace?”
“I told you she had to have a doctor! You wouldn’t call one. You were too proud. You sacrificed my daughter on the altar of your pride. My baby. You killed her.”
“Grace, there are no doctors here. You know that.”
“If you were even half a man, you wouldn’t make excuses!”
“Grace, please. May I get you something? A Miltown? Or would you like a
hypo?”
“No, no!” she said shrilly. “That’s how you tricked me when I was going
to get a doctor anyway. In spite of you. You’ll never again trick me with your drugs. And you’ll never touch me again, either. Murderer.”
“Yes, Grace.” He turned and left.
Barbara was on the stoop, sitting with her head in her hands. Hugh said, “Barbara, the flag must be two-blocked. Do you want me to do it?”
“So soon, Hugh?” “Yes. We go on.”
Chapter 10
They went on. Duke hunted, Duke and Joe farmed, Hugh worked harder than ever. Grace worked too, and her cooking improved-and her eating; she got fatter. She never mentioned her conviction that her husband had been responsible for the death of their daughter.
She did not speak to him at all. When a problem had to be discussed she spoke to Duke. She quit attending church services.
In the last month of Barbara’s pregnancy, Duke sought out his father privately. “Dad, you told me that any time I wanted to leave-or any of us-we could.”
Hugh was startled. “Yes.”
“A pro-rata share, you said. Ammo, tools, and so forth.”
“Better than that; we’re a going concern. Duke, you are leaving?”
“Yes-but not just myself. Mother wants to. She’s the one who’s dead set on it. I’ve got reasons, but Mother’s wishes are the deciding factor.”
“Mmm — Let’s talk about your reasons. Are you dissatisfied with the way I’m running things? I will gladly step aside. I feel sure that I can get Joe and Barbara to go along, so that you will have unanimous support.” He sighed. “I am anxious to turn over the burden.”
Duke shook his head. “That’s not it, Dad. I don’t want to be boss and you’ve done a good job. Oh, I won’t say I liked the high-handed way you started in. But results count and you got results. I’d rather not discuss my reasons except to say that they don’t have to do with you-and wouldn’t be enough to make me leave if Mother weren’t hipped on it. She wants to leave.
She’s going to leave. I can’t let her leave alone.” “Can you tell me why Grace wants to leave?”
Duke hesitated. “Dad, I don’t see that it matters; she’s made up her mind. I pointed out that I couldn’t make things as safe for her-nor as comfortable-as it is here. But she’s adamant.”
Hugh pondered it. “Duke, if that’s how your mother feels, I won’t try to persuade her; I’ve long since lost my influence over her. But I have two ideas. You may find one of them practical.”
“I doubt it.”
“Hear me. You know we have copper tubing; we used some in the kitchen.
We have everything for a still; I stocked the items to build one if a war came along-not just for us but because liquor is money in any primitive society.
“I haven’t built it for reasons we both know. But I could and I know how to make liquor.” He smiled slightly. “Not book knowledge. While I was in the South Pacific, I bossed a still, with the shut-eye connivance of my C.O. I learned how to turn corn or potatoes or most anything into vodka, or fruit into brandy. Duke, your mother might be happy if she had liquor.
“She would drink herself to death!”
“Duke, Duke! If she is happy doing it, who are we to stop her? What does she have to live for? She loved television, she enjoyed parties, she could spend a happy day at the hairdresser’s, followed by a movie, then drinks with one of her friends. That was her life, Duke. Now where is it? Gone, gone!
There is just this we can give her to make up for what she has lost. Who are you to decided that you mother must not drink herself to death?”
“Dad, that’s not the situation!” “So?”
“You know I don’t-didn’t-approve of Mother’s excessive drinking. But I might go along with letting her drink all she wants now. If you build that still, we might be customers. But we would still leave. Because that won’t solve Mother’s problem.”
“Well, Duke, that leaves only my other idea. I’ll get out instead. Only
— ” Hugh frowned. “Duke, tell her that I will leave as soon as Barbara has her baby. I can’t walk out on my patient. You can give Grace my assur — “
“Dad, that won’t solve a thing!” “I don’t understand.”
“Oh, Christ, I might as well spill it. It’s Barbara. She’s — Well, hell, Mother is nuts on the subject. Can’t stand her. Ever since Karen died. She said to me, ‘Duke, that woman is not going to have her child in my home! Her bastard. I won’t have it. You tell your father that he has got to get her out of here.’ That’s what she said, Dad.”
“Good Lord!”
“Yeah. I tried to reason with her. I told her that Barbara couldn’t leave. I gave her both barrels, Dad; I said there wasn’t a chance that you would ever force Barbara to leave. But as for making her leave now, or even letting her, you would no more do it than you would have driven Karen out. I told her that I wouldn’t, either, and that Joe and I would fight you to stop it, stipulating that you were crazy enough to try. Which you aren’t, of course.”
“Thank you.”
“That did it. She believes me when I lay it on the line. So she decided to leave. I can’t stall her any longer. She’s leaving. I’m going with her, to take care of her.”
His father rubbed his temples. “I guess there is no situation so bad but what it can get worse. Duke, even with you, she hasn’t ‘anywhere to go.”
“Not quite, Dad.” “Eh?”
“I can swing it, with your help. Do you remember that cave up Collins
Canyon, the one they tried to make a tourist attraction? It’s still there. Or its twin, I mean. I was hunting up that way that first week. The canyon looked so familiar that I climbed up and looked for the cave. Found it. And Dad, it’s habitable and defensible.”
“The door? The mouth?”
“No problem. If you can spare that steel plate that blocked off the tunnel.”
“Certainly.”
“The cave has a vent, higher up. No smoke problem. It has a spring that hasn’t failed all this dry weather. Dad, it’s as comfortable as the shelter; all it needs is outfitting.”
“I capitulate. You can take almost anything now. Beds, of course.
Utensils. Your pick of the canned goods. Matches, ammunition, guns. Make a list, I’ll help you move.”
Duke colored under his tan. “Dad, a few things are up there already.” “So? Did you think I would be pinchpenny?”
“Uh…I don’t mean the past few days. I moved some things up the first days we were here. You see…well, you and I had that row-and then you made me rationing officer. That gave me the idea, and for a week or more I always left here loaded, leaving when no one was watching.”
“Stealing.”
“I didn’t figure it so. I never took as much ‘as one-sixth of anything…and just stuff I would have to have in a pinch. Matches. Ammo. That rifle you couldn’t find. One blanket. A knife. A little food. Some candles.
You see…well, look at it from my side. There was always the chance that I would get you sore and either have to fight-one of us killed is the way you put it-or run and not be able to stop for anything. I decided not to fight. So I made preparations. But I didn’t steal it; you said I could have it. Say the word and I’ll fetch it all back.”
Hugh Farnham peeled a callus, then looked up. “One man’s stealing is another man’s survival, I suppose. Just one thing — Duke, in that food you took: Were there any cans of milk?”
“Not one. Dad, don’t you think, if there had been, I would have beaten all records getting up there and back when Karen died?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I asked.”
“I was sorry I hadn’t snitched a few cans; then they wouldn’t have been used up.”
“The baby didn’t last out the milk we had, Duke. All right, it calls for quick surgery-but don’t forget that you can come back, any time. Duke, women sometimes get unreasonable at about your mother’s age…then get over it and are nice old ladies. Maybe we’ll have the family together again. I hope we’ll see you occasionally. You’re~ welcome to all the vegetables you can eat, of course.”
“I was going to mention that. I can’t farm up there. Suppose I still hunt for all of us…and when I bring in a load of meat I take away a load of green stuff?”
His father smiled. “We have reinstituted commerce. And we can supply you with pottery and there’s no need to do your own tanning. Duke, I suggest you sort out what you want, and tomorrow you and I and Joe will start packing it to your cave. Be lavish. Just one thing — “
“What?”
“The books are mine! Anything you want to look up, you’ll have to come here. This is not a circulating library.”
“Fair enough.”
“I mean it. You can have my razor, you can have my best knife. But snitch one book and I’ll skin you alive and bind that book in human skin. There are limits. All right, I’ll tell Joe, and get Barbara out of the house
and we’ll stay away until dark. Good luck, and tell Grace no hard feelings. There are, but tell her that. But I’m not too groused. It takes two to create a heaven…but hell can be accomplished by one. I can’t say that I’ve been happy lately and Grace may be smarter than we think.”
“That’s a polite way of telling us to go to hell, Dad.” “Possibly.”
“Whatever you mean, the same to you. It was no accident that I moved away from home as soon as I could.”
“Touché! Well, get on with it.” His father turned and walked away.
Joe made no comment. He simply said that he had better get on with the irrigating. Barbara said nothing until they were alone.
Hugh took a picnic lunch-chunks of corn pone, some strings of jerky, two tomatoes, plus a canteen of water. He fetched a rifle and a blanket. They went up the hill above the grave and picked the shade of a detached tree. Hugh noticed fresh flowers on the grave and wondered if Barbara had been trudging up there. The climb was difficult for her; they had taken it very slowly. Or had Grace been doing it? It seemed still less likely. Then he thought of the obvious: Joe.
Once Barbara had her heavy body comfortable, on her back with knees up, Hugh said, “Well?”
She was silent a long time. “Hugh, I’m dreadfully sorry. It’s my fault.
Isn’t it?”
“Your fault? Because a woman sick in her mind fixes on you to hate? You told me once not to blame myself for another person’s defect. You should take your own advice.”
“That wasn’t what I meant, Hugh. I mean: losing your son. Grace could not leave if Duke did not. Did he say anything? About me?”
“Nothing but this ridiculous set that Grace has taken. What should he have said?”
“I wonder if I am free to say? In any case I am going to. Hugh, after Karen died, Duke asked me to marry him. I refused. He was hurt. And surprised. You see — You knew about Karen and Joe?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know whether Karen had told you. When she decided to marry Joe, I made up my mind that I would have to marry Duke. Karen took it for granted and I admitted that I intended to. She may have told Duke. In any case, he expected me to say Yes. I said No. And he was hurt. I’m sorry, Hugh. If you want me to, I’ll tell him I’ve changed my mind.”
“Hold on! I think you made a mistake. But I won’t have you correcting it to please me. What do you want to do? Do you plan to marry Joe, now?”
“Joe? I never planned to marry Joe. Although I would marry him as readily as Duke. Hugh, I want to do what I always want to do. Whatever you want.” She turned on her side and faced him. “You know that. If you want me to marry Joe, I will. If you want me to marry Duke, I will. You say it, I’ll do it.”
“Barbara, Barbara!”
“I mean it, Hugh. Or anything more, or anything less. You’re my boss.
Not just some, but all. Haven’t I done so, all the time we’ve been together? I play by the book.”
“Stop talking nonsense.”
“If it’s nonsense, it’s true nonsense.”
“As may be. I want you to marry whom you want to marry.” “That’s the one thing I can’t do. You are already married.” “Huh?”
“Are you surprised? No, I’ve surprised you only by saying it-when we’ve kept silent so long. That’s how it is and that’s how it’s always been. Since I can’t marry you, I’ll marry whom you say. Or never marry.”
“Barbara, will you marry me?” “What did you say?”
“Will you marry me?” “Yes.”
He leaned over and kissed her. She kissed him back, lips open, full surrender.
Presently he straightened up. “Would you like some corn pone?” “Not yet.”
“I thought we might have some to celebrate. It calls for champagne. But corn pone is what we have.”
“Oh. Then I’ll have a nibble. And a sip of water. Hugh, Hugh my beloved, what are you going to do about Grace?”
“Nothing. She’s divorcing me. In fact she divorced me more than a month ago, the day-the day we buried Karen. That she is still here is just housing shortage. It doesn’t take a judge to grant a divorce here, any more than it will take a license for me to marry you.”
Barbara spread her hands over her swollen belly. “I have my marriage license, right here!” Her voice was light and happy.
“The child is mine?”
She looked at him. “Look over to the east.” “At what?”
“Do you see Three Wise Men approaching?” “Oh. Idiot!”
“It is yours, my beloved. A thing a woman can never prove but can be utterly sure of.”
He kissed her again. When he stopped she caressed his cheek. “I’d like corn pone now, lots of it. I’m hungry. I feel very full of life and anxious to live.”
“Yes! Tomorrow our honeymoon starts.”
“Today. It has started, Hugh. I’m going to enter it in our journal.
Darling, may I sleep on the roof tonight? I can manage the ladder.” “You want to sleep with me? Lecherous little girl!”
“That wasn’t what I meant. I’m not lecherous now, my hormones are all keyed against it. No passion, dear. Just love. I won’t be any good for a honeymoon. Oh, I’ll happily sleep with you; you could have slept with me all these months. No, dear, I meant that I don’t want to sleep in the same room with Grace. I’m afraid of her-afraid for the baby at least. Perhaps that’s silly.”
“No, it’s not. It may not be necessary but it’s a precaution we’ll take.
Barbara, what do you think of Grace?” “Must I say?”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t like her. That’s apart from being afraid of her; I didn’t like her long before I became uneasy about her. I don’t like the way she treats me, I don’t like the way she treats Joseph, I didn’t like the way she treated Karen, I have always resented the way she treats you-and had to pretend not to see it-and I despise what she has done to Duke.”
“I don’t like her, either-not for years. I’m glad she’s leaving.
Barbara, I would be glad even if you were not here.”
“Hugh, I’m relieved to hear that. You know I’m divorced.” “Yes.”
“When my marriage broke up I swore a solemn oath that I would never break up anyone else’s marriage. I’ve felt guilty ever since the night of the attack.”
He shook his head. “Forget it. The marriage was already long dead. All that was left were duties and obligations. Mine, for she didn’t feel any.
Beloved, had my marriage been a reality, you could have come into my arms that
night, and cuddle and comfort would have been ‘all. As it was, we were dying- so we thought-and I was at least as hungry for love as you were. I was parched for love-you gave me yourself.”
“Beloved, I will never let you be parched again.”
About nine the next morning, ‘they all were outside where chattels for the new household were piled.
Hugh looked over ‘his ex-wife’s selections with wry amusement. Grace had taken literally the invitation to “take almost anything”; she had gutted the place-the best blankets, almost all utensils including the teakettle and the one skillet, three of four foam-rubber mattresses, nearly all the remaining canned goods, all the sugar, the lion’s share of other irreplaceables, all the plastic dishes.
Hugh made only one objection: salt. When he noted that Grace had grabbed all the salt he insisted on a division. Duke agreed and asked if there was anything else Hugh objected to?
Hugh shook his head. Barbara would not mind making-do. “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is — “
Duke had shown restraint, taking one shovel, one ax, a hammer, less than half the nails, and no tool not stocked in duplicate. Instead, Duke remarked that he might want to borrow tools someday. Hugh agreed and offered his services on any two-man job. Duke thanked him. Both men found the situation embarrassing, both covered it by being unusually polite.
A delay in starting was caused by the steel plate for the cave door. Its weight was not too great for a man as husky as Duke, but it was awkward. A pack had to be devised, rugged enough for the trek, comfortable in padding and straps, and so rigged that Duke could fire a rifle.
This resulted in sacrificing the one intact bear hide, the covering of the bed Karen had died in. Hugh minded only the loss of time. It would take six trips by three men to move the plunder Grace had picked; Duke thought that two trips a day would be maximum. If they did not start soon, only one trip could be made that day.
At last they got it on Duke’s back with a fur pad protecting his spine. “Feels right,” Duke decided. “Let’s get packs on you two and get going.”
“In a jiffy,” Hugh agreed and bent over to pick up his load. “My God!”
“Trouble, Duke?” “Look!”
A shape had appeared over the eastern rise. It slanted through the air on a course that would have missed them, but, as it neared the point of closest approach, it stopped dead, turned and headed for them.
It passed majestically overhead. Hugh was unable to guess its size at first; there was nothing to which to relate it-a dark shape proportioned like a domino tile. But as it passed about five hundred feet up, it seemed to him that it was around a hundred feet wide and three times that in length. He could make out no features. It moved swiftly but made no noise.
It swept past, turned, circled-stopped, turned again and came toward them at lower altitude.
Hugh found that he had an arm around Barbara. When the object had appeared, she had been some distance away, putting clothes to soak in the outside tub. Now she was circled by his left arm and he could feel her trembling.
“Hugh, what is it?” “People.”
The thing hovered above their flag. Now they could see people; heads showed above its sides.
A corner detached itself, splitting off sharply. It dove, stopped by the
peak of the flagpole. Hugh saw that it was a car about nine feet long and three wide, with one passenger. No details could he see, no clue to motive power; the car enclosed the man’s lower body; his trunk projected above.
The man removed the flag, rejoined the main craft. His vehicle blended back in.
The rectangle disintegrated.
It broke into units like that which had filched their flag. Most cars remained in the air; some dozen landed, three in a triangle around the colonists. Duke yelled “Watch it!” and dived for his gun.
He never made it. He leaned forward at an extreme angle, pawed the air with a look of amazement, and was slowly pulled back to vertical.
Barbara gasped in Hugh’s ear. “Hugh, what is it?”
“I don’t know.” He did not need to ask what she meant; he had felt, at the instant his son was stopped, that he seemed to be waist deep in quicksand. “Don’t fight it.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Grace shrilled, “Hubert! Hubert, do some — ” Her cries cut off. She seemed to faint but did not fall.
Four cars were about eight feet in the air, lined up abreast, and were cruising over Barbara’s farm. Where they passed, everything underneath, cornstalks, tomato plants, beans, squash, lettuce, potato hills, everything including branching ditches was pressed flat into a macadam.
The raw end of the main ditch spilled water over this pavement. One car whipped around, ran a new ditch around the raped area in a wide sweep which allowed the water to circle the destroyed garden and reach the stream at a lower point.
Barbara buried her face against Hugh. He patted her.
That car then went upstream along the old ditch. Soon water ceased to
flow.
As the garden was leveled, other cars landed on it. Hugh was ‘unable to
figure out what they did, but a large pavilion, glossy black, and ornate in red and gold, grew up in seconds in the clearing.
Duke called out, “Dad! For God’s sake, can’t you get at your gun?” Hugh was wearing a forty-five, the weapon he had picked for the hike.
His hands were only slightly hampered by whatever held them. But he answered, “I shan’t try.”
“Are you going to just stand there and let — “
“Yes. Duke, use your head. If we hold still, we may live longer.”
Out of the pavilion strode a man. He seemed seven feet tall but some of this was a helmet, plumed and burnished. He wore a flowing skirt of red embroidered in gold and was bare to the waist save that an end of the skirt thrown across one shoulder covered part of his broad chest. He was shod in black boots.
All others were dressed in black coveralls with a red and gold patch at the right shoulder. Hugh felt an impression that this man (there was no slightest doubt that he was master) — that the commander had taken time to change into formal clothes. Hugh felt encouraged. They were prisoners-but if the leader took the trouble to dress up before interviewing them, then they were prisoners of importance and a parley might be fruitful. Or did that follow?
But he was encouraged by the man’s face, too. He had an air of good- natured arrogance and his eyes were bright and merry. His forehead was high, his skull massive; he looked intelligent and alert. Hugh could not place his race. His skin was dark brown and shiny. But his mouth was only slightly Negroid; his nose, though broad, was arched, and his black hair was wavy.
He carried a small crop.
He strode up to them, stopped abruptly when he reached Joseph. He gave a
curt order to their nearest captor.
Joe stretched and bent his legs. “Thanks.”
The man spoke to Joe. Joe answered, “Sorry, I don’t understand.”
The man spoke again. Joe shrugged helplessly. The man grinned and patted him on the shoulder, turned away, picked up Duke’s rifle. He handled it clumsily, making Hugh flinch.
Nevertheless, he seemed to understand guns. He worked the bolt, ejecting one cartridge, then put it to his shoulder, aimed upstream and fired.
The blast was deafening, he had fired past Hugh’s ear. He grinned broadly, tossed the rifle to a subordinate, walked up to Hugh and Barbara, reached out to touch Barbara’s child swollen belly.
Hugh knocked his hand away.
With a gesture almost negligent, certainly without anger, the big man brushed Hugh’s hand aside with the crop he carried. It was not a blow, it would not have swatted a fly.
Hugh gasped in agony. His hand burned like fire and his arm was numb to the armpit. “Oh, God!”
Barbara said urgently, “Don’t, Hugh. He isn’t hurting me.”
Nor was he. With a manner of impersonal interest such as a veterinarian might take in feeling a pregnant mare or bitch, the big man felt out the shape of the child she carried, then lifted one of her breasts-while Hugh writhed in that special humiliation of a man unable to protect his woman.
The man finished his palpation, grinned at Barbara and patted her head.
Hugh tried to ignore the pain in his hand and dug into his memory for a language imperfectly learned. “Vooi govoriti’yeh po-Russki, Gospodin?”
The man glanced at him, made no answer.
Barbara said, “Sprechen Sie deutsch, mein Herr?”
That got her a smile. Hugh called out, “Duke, try him in Spanish!” “Okay. ~Habla usted Español, Señor?” No response — Hugh sighed. “We’ve
shot our wad.”
“M’sieur?” Joe said. “Est-ce que vous parlez la langue française?” The man turned. “Tiens?”
“Non, non! Je suis américain. Nous sommes tous amencams.” “Vraiment? Impossible!”
“C’est vrai, monsieur. Je vous en assure.” Joe pointed to the empty flagpole. “Les Etats-Unis de l’Amérique.”
The conversation became hard to follow as both sides stumbled along in broken French. At last they paused and Joe said, “Hugh, he asked me-ordered me-to come into his tent and talk. I’ve asked him to let you all loose first. He says No. ‘Hell, no!’ it amounts to.”
“Ask him to let the women loose.”
“I’ll try.” Joe spoke at length with the big man. “He says the enceinte femme-that’s Barbara-can sit down where she is. The ‘fat one’ — Grace he means-is to come with us.”
“Good work, Joe. Get us a deal.”
“I’ll try. I don’t understand him very well.”
The three went into the pavilion. Barbara found that she could sit down, even stretch out. But the invisible web held Hugh as clingingly as ever.
“Dad,” Duke said urgently, “this is our chance, while nobody is around who understands English.”
“Duke,” Hugh answered wearily, “can’t you see they hold trumps? It’s my guess that we are alive as long as he isn’t annoyed-not one minute longer.”
“Aren’t you even going to try to fight? Where’s that crap you used to spout about how you were a free man and planned to stay free?”
Hugh rubbed his hurt hand. “Duke, I won’t argue. You start anything and
you’ll get us killed. That’s how I size it up.”
“So it was just crap,” Duke said scornfully. “Well, I’m not making any promises.”
“All right. Drop it.”
“I’m not making promises. Just tell me this, Dad. How does it feel to be shoved around? Instead of shoving?”
“I don’t like it.”
“Neither did I. I’ve never forgotten it. I hope you get your bellyful.” Barbara said, “Duke, for heaven’s sake, stop talking like a fool!”
Duke looked at her. “I’ll shut up. Just one thing. Where did you get that baby in you?”
Barbara did not answer. Hugh said quietly, “Duke, if we get out of this, I promise you a beating.”
“Any time, old man.”
They quit talking. Barbara reached out and patted Hugh’s ankle. Five men gathered around the pile of household objects, looking them over. A man came up and gave them an order; they dispersed. He looked at the chattels himself, then peered into the shelter and went inside.
Hugh heard a sound of water, saw a brown wave rushing down the stream bed. Barbara raised her head. “What’s that?”
“Our dam is gone. It doesn’t matter.”
After a long time, Joe came out of the pavilion alone. He came up to Hugh and said, “Well, here’s the scoop, as nearly as I got it. Not too near, maybe; he speaks a patois and neither of us is fluent. But here it is. We’re trespassers, this is private land. He figured we were escaped prisoners-the word is something else, not French, but that’s the idea. I’ve convinced him-I think I have-that we are innocent people here through no fault of our own.
“Anyhow, he’s not sore, even though we are technically criminals- trespass, and planting things where farms aren’t supposed to be and building a dam and a house and things like that. I think everything is going to be all right-as long as we do as we’re told. He finds us interesting-how we got here and so forth.”
Joe looked at Barbara. “You remember your theory about parallel universes?”
“I guess I was right. No?”
“No. This part is as confused as can be. But one thing is certain.
Barbara, Hugh-Duke-get this! This is our own world, right here.” Duke said, “Joe, that’s preposterous.”
“You argue with him. He knows what I mean by the United States, he knows where France is. And so forth. No question about it.”
“Well…” Duke paused. “As may be. But what about this? Where’s my mother? What’s the idea of leaving her with that savage?”
“She’s all right, she’s having lunch with him. And enjoying it. Let it run easy, Duke, and we’re going to be okay, I think. Soon as they finish lunch we’ll be leaving.”
Somewhat later Hugh helped Barbara into one of the odd flying machines, then mounted into one himself, behind the pilot. He found the seat comfortable and, in place of a safety belt, a field of that quicksand enclosed his lower body as he sat down. His pilot, a young Negro who looked remarkably like Joe, glanced back, then took off without noise or fuss and joined the re-forming rectangle in the air. Hugh saw that perhaps half the cars had passengers; they were whites, the pilots were invariably colored, ranging from as light brown as a Javanese to as sooty black as a Fiji Islander.
The car Hugh was in was halfway back in the outside starboard file. He looked around for the others and was only mildly surprised to see Grace riding behind the boss, in the front rank, center position. Joe was behind them, rather buried in cats.
Off to his right, two cars had not joined up. One hovered over the pile of household goods, gathered them up in a nonexistent cargo net, moved away. The second car was over the shelter.
The massive block lifted straight up without disturbing the shack on its roof. The small car and its giant burden took position fifty feet off the starboard side. The formation moved forward and gathered speed but Hugh felt no wind of motion. The car flanking them seemed to have no trouble keeping up. Hugh could not see the other loaded car but assumed that it was on the port side.
The last he saw of their home was a scar where the shelter had rested, a larger scar where Barbara’s farm had been, and a meandering track that used to mark an irrigation ditch.
He rubbed his sore hand, reflecting that the whole thing had been a gross abuse of coincidence. It offended him the way thirteen spades in a putatively honest deal would offend him. He pondered a remark Joe had made before they loaded: “We were incredibly lucky to have encountered a scholar. French is a dead language — ‘une langue perdue,’ he called it.”
Hugh craned his neck, caught Barbara’s eye. She smiled.
Chapter 11
Memtok, Chief Palace Domestic to the Lord Protector of the Noonday Region, was busy and happy-happy because he was busy, although he was not aware that he was happy and was given to complaining about how hard he had to work, because, as he put it, although he commanded eighteen hundred servants there were not three who could be trusted to empty a slop jar without supervision.
He had just completed a pleasant interview chewing out the head chef; he had suggested that the chef himself, old and tough as he was, nevertheless would make a better roast than the meat the chef had sent in to Their Charity the evening before. One of the duties that Memtok assumed personally was always to sample what his lord ate, despite risk of poison and despite the fact that Their Charity’s tastes in cuisine were not his own. It was one of the innumerable ways in which Memtok gave attention to details, diligence that had brought him, still in his prime, to his present supreme eminence.
The head chef had grumbled and Memtok had sent him away with a taste of the lesser whip to remind him that cooks were not that hard to find. Then he had turned happily to his paper work.
There were stacks of it, as he had just completed moving the household from the Palace to the Summer Palace-thirty-eight of the Chosen but only four hundred and sixty-three servants; the summer residence was run with a skeleton staff. The twice-yearly move involved a wash of paper work-purchase orders, musters, inventories, vouchers, shipping lists, revisions of duty rosters, dispatches-and he considered advising his patron to have some likely youngster muted and trained as his clerk. But he rejected the idea; Memtok did not trust servants who could read and write and add, it gave them ideas even if they could not talk.
The truth was, Memtok loved his paper work and did not want to share it. His hands flew over the papers, checking figures, signing his symbol, okaying payments. He held his pen in an odd fashion, nested between the first three fingers of his right hand-this because he had no thumbs.
He did not miss them, could barely remember what it had been like to have them. Nor did he need them. He could handle a spoon, a pen, and a whip without them, and he had no need ever to handle anything else.
Far from missing his thumbs, he was proud of their absence; they proved
that he had served his lord in both major capacities, at stud when he was younger and now these many years as a tempered domestic. Every male servant over fourteen (with scarce special exceptions) showed one alteration or the other; very few could exhibit both, only a few hundred on the entire Earth. Those few spoke as equals only to each other, they were an elite.
Someone scratched at the door. “Come!” he called out, then growled, “What do you want?” The growl was automatic but he really did dislike this servant for the best of reasons; he was not subject to Memtok’s discipline. He was of a different caste, huntsmen, wardens, keepers, and beaters, and was subject to the Majordomo of the Preserve. The Majordomo considered himself to be of the same rank as the Chief Domestic, and nominally was. However, he had thumb€.
Memtok’s greatest objection to the Summer Palace was that it put him in contact with these servants who had the unpardonable fault of not being under his orders. While it would take only a word to Their Charity to crack down on one of them, he disliked to ask, and while he could touch one of them without real fear of reprimand, the louse would be sure to complain to his boss.
Memtok did not believe in friction between executive servants. Bad for morale. “Message from Boss. Rayed to tell you Their Charity on his way back.
Says four savages with escort. Says you better tear up to the roof, take care of them. All.”
“‘All’? Damn you, what do you mean ‘All’? Why four savages? And in the Name of Uncle when are they arriving?”
“All,” the servant insisted. “Message came in twenty minutes ago. I been looking all over for you.”
“Get out!” The important part of the message was that Their Charity was arriving home instead of staying away overnight. Chef, Receptionist, Musical Director, Housekeeper, Groundskeeper, all heads of departments-he was phoning orders even as he thought. Four savages? Who cared about savages?
But he was on the roof and accepted their custody. He would have been there anyway, with the Lord Protector arriving.
When they arrived, Hugh had no chance to see Barbara. When he was released from the restraint of the “seat belt,” he was confronted by a little baldheaded white man with a waspish face, an abrupt manner, and a whip. He was dressed in a white robe which reminded Hugh of a nightshirt, save that it had on the right shoulder the red and gold patch which Hugh had tentatively identified as the insigne of the big man, the boss. The emblem was repeated in rubies and gold on the chest of the little man as a medallion supported by a heavy gold chain.
The man looked him over with obvious, distaste, then turned him and Duke over to another white man in a nightshirt. This man wore no medallion but did carry a small whip. Hugh rubbed his hand and resolved not to test whether this whip was as potent as the ornate one carried by the big boss.
Duke tested it. The angry little man gave instructions to his straw boss, and left. The straw boss gave an order; Hugh interpreted the tone and gesture as: “All right, you guys, get going” — and got going.
Duke didn’t. The straw boss barely touched him on his calf; Duke yelped. He limped the rest of the way-down a ramp, into a very fast lift, then into a windowless, light, white-walled room which whiffed of hospitals.
Duke understood the order to strip without needing to be stimulated; he cursed but complied. Hugh merely complied. He was beginning to understand the system. The whips were used as spurs are used by a good rider, to exact prompt obedience but not to damage.
From there they were herded into a smaller room, where they were hit from all sides by streams of water. The operator was in a gallery above. He shouted at them, then indicated in pantomime that they were to scrub.
They scrubbed. The jets cut off, they were doused in liquid soap. They scrubbed again and were rinsed and were required to scrub still again, all to gestures that left no doubt as to how thorough a bath was expected. The jets got very hot and harsh, changed to cold and still harsher, were replaced by blasts of hot air.
It was too much like an automatic dishwasher, Hugh’ felt, but they ended up cleaner than they had been in months. An assistant to the bath master then plastered strips over their eyebrows, rubbed an emulsion on their scalps, into their scratchy beards (neither had shaved that day), over their backs and chests and arms and legs, and finally into their pubic hair. Duke got another lesson in obedience before he submitted to this last. When, thereafter, they were subjected willy-nilly to enemas, he gritted his teeth and took it. The water closet was a whirlpool set in the floor. Their finger — and toenails were cut short.
After that they were bathed again. The eyebrow patches washed away. So did their hair. When they came out, they were both bald all over, save for eyebrows.
The bath master made them gargle, showing them what he wanted and spitting into the whirlpool. They gargled three times-a pleasant, pungent liquid-and when it was over, Hugh found that his teeth seemed cleaner than they had ever been in his life. He felt utterly clean, lively, glowing with well being-but humiliated.
They were taken to another room and examined.
Their examiner wore the conventional white nightshirt and a small insigne on a thin gold chain but he needed no diplomas on the wall to show his profession. His bedside manner would never make him rich, Hugh decided; he had the air of military surgeons Hugh had known-not unkind but impersonal.
He seemed surprised by and interested in a removable bridge he found in Hugh’s mouth. He examined it, looked in Hugh’s mouth at the gaps it had filled, gave it to one of his assistants with instructions. The assistant went away and Hugh wondered if his chewing was going to be permanently hampered.
The physician took an hour or more over each of them, using instruments Hugh did not recognize-weight, height, and blood pressure were the only familiar tests. Things were done to them, too, none of them really unpleasant- no hypodermic needles, no knives. During this, Hugh’s bridge was returned and he was allowed to put it back in.
But the tests and/or treatments often seemed to be indignities even though not painful. Once, when Hugh was stretched out on a table from which Duke had just been released, the younger man said, “How do you like it, Dad?”
“Restful.” Duke snorted.
The fact that both men had appendicitis scars seemed to interest the physician as much as the removable bridge. By acting he indicated a bellyache, then jabbed a thumb into McBurney’s point. Hugh conveyed agreement-with difficulty, as nodding the head seemed to be a negative.
An assistant came in and handed the physician a contrivance which turned out to be another dental bridge. Hugh was required to open his mouth; the old one was again taken and the new one seated. It felt to Hugh’s tongue as if he again had natural teeth there. The physician probed cavities, cleaned them and filled them-without pain but without anesthesia so far as Hugh was aware.
After that Hugh was suddenly “strapped” (an invisible field) to a table, supine, and his legs were elevated. Another table was wheeled up and Hugh realized that he was being prepared for surgery-and with horror he was sure what sort. “Duke! Don’t let them grab you! Get that whip!”
Duke hesitated too long. The therapist did not carry a whip; he merely kept one at hand. Duke lunged for it, the physician got it first. Moments later Duke was on his back, still gasping his agony at the punishment he had
taken and having his knees elevated and spread. They both went on protesting.
The physician looked at them thoughtfully and the straw boss who had fetched them was called in. Presently the waspish little man with the big medallion strode in, looked the situation over, stormed out.
There was a long wait. The boss therapist filled in the time by having his assistants complete preparations for surgery and there was no longer the slightest doubt in Hugh’s mind, or Duke’s, as to what they were in for. Duke pointed out that it would have been better if they had fought-and died-earlier in the day, rather than wind up like this. As they would have fought, he reminded his father, if Hugh hadn’t turned chicken.
Hugh didn’t argue, he agreed. He tried to tell himself that his docility in being captured was on account of the women. It afforded him little comfort. True, he hadn’t used his own much in recent years…and might never need them again. But, damn it, he was used to them. And it would be rough for Duke, young as he was.
After a long time the little man stormed back in, angrier than ever. He snapped an order; Hugh and Duke were released.
That ended it, save that they were rubbed all over with a fragrant cream. They were given a white nightshirt apiece, conducted through long bare passages and Hugh was shoved into a cell. The door was not locked but he could not open it.
In one corner was a tray, with dishes and a spoon. The food was excellent and some of it unidentifiable; Hugh ate with good appetite, scraping the dishes and drinking the thin beer with it. Then he slept on a soft part of the floor, having blanked his mind of worry.
He was prodded awake by a foot.
He was taken to another plain, windowless room, which turned out to be a schoolroom. Two short white men in nightshirts were there. They were equipped with props, the equivalent of a blackboard (it could be cleared instantly by some magic), patience-and a whip, for the lessons were “taught to the tune of a hickory stick.” No error went unnoted.
They both could draw and both were imaginative pantomimists; Hugh was taught to speak.
Hugh discovered that his memory was sharpened by the stimuli of pain; he had little tendency to repeat a mistake. At first he was punished only for forgetting vocabulary, but as he learned, he grew to expect flicks of pain for errors in inflection, construction, idiom, and accent.
This Pavlovian treatment continued-if his mental records were correct- for seventeen days; he did nothing else and saw no one but his teachers. They worked in shifts; Hugh worked every possible minute, about sixteen hours a day. He was never allowed quite enough sleep although he never felt sleepy-he didn’t dare-during lessons. Once a day he was bathed and given a clean nightshirt, twice a day he was fed, tasty food and plentiful, three times a day he was policed to the toilet. All other minutes were spent learning to speak, with ever-sharp awareness that any bobble would be punished.
But he learned how to duck punishment. A question, quickly put, would sometimes do. “Teacher, this one understands that there are protocol modes for each status rising and falling, but what this one in its ignorance lacks is knowledge of what each status is-being wholly without experience through the inscrutable ways of Uncle the Mighty-and also is sometimes not aware of the status assumed for teaching purposes by my charitable teacher and of the status this humble one is expected to assume in reply. More than that, this one does not know its own status in the great family. May it please its teacher.”
The whip was put down and for the next hour he was lectured. The problem was more involved than Hugh’s question showed. The lowest status was stud. No, there was one lower: servant children. But since children were expected to
make mistakes, it did not matter. Next higher was slut, then tempered servant- a category with subtle and unlimited gradations of rank so involved that speech of equals was used if the gradient was not clearly evident. High above all servants were the Chosen, with unlimited and sometimes changing variations of rank, including those ritual circumstances in which a lady takes precedence over a lord. But that was not usually a worry; always use protocol rising mode. However –“If two of the Chosen speak to you at once, which one do you answer?”
“The junior,” Hugh answered. “Why?”
“Since the Chosen do not make mistakes, this one’s ears were at fault.
The senior did not actually speak, for his junior would never have interrupted.”
“Correct. You are a tempered gardener and you encounter a Chosen of the same rank as your lord uncle. He speaks. ‘Boy, what sort of a flower is that?'”
“As Their Charity knows much better than this one can ever know, if this one’s eyes are not mistaken, that plant may be a hydrangea.”
“Good. But drop your eyes when you say it. Now about your status — ” The teacher looked pained. “You haven’t any.”
“Please, teacher?”
“Uncle! I’ve tried to find out. Nobody knows but our Lord Uncle and they have not ruled. You’re not a child, you’re not a stud, you’re not a tempered, you don’t belong anywhere. You’re a savage and you don’t fit.”
“But what protocol mode must I use?”
“Always the rising. Oh, not to children. Nor to sluts, no need to overdo
it.”
Except for changes in inflection caused by status, Hugh found the
language simple and logical. It had no irregular verbs and its syntax was orderly; it probably had been tidied up at some time. He suspected, from words that he recognized — “simba,” “bwana,” “wazir,” “étage,” “trek,” “oncle” — that it had roots in several African languages. But that did not matter; this was “Speech” and, according to his teachers, the only language spoken anywhere.
In addition to protocol modes, quite a chunk of vocabulary was double, one word being used down, its synonym although different in root used up. He had to know both-be able to recognize one and to use the other.
The pronunciation gave him trouble at first, but by the end of the week he could lip smack, click, make the fast glottal stop, and hear and say vowel distinctions he had never suspected existed. By the sixteenth day he was chattering freely, beginning to think in it, and the whip was rarely used.
Late next day the Lord Protector sent for him.
Chapter 12
Although he had been bathed that day, Hugh was rushed through another bath, rubbed down with fragrant cream, and issued a fresh robe, before being whizzed to the lord’s private apartments. There he was bounced past a series of receptionists close on Memtok’s heels, and into a large and very sumptuous retiring room.
The lord was not there; Joseph and Dr. — Livingstone-I-Presume were. Joe called out, “Hugh! Wonderful!” and added to the Chief Domestic, “You may go.”
Memtok hesitated, then backed away and left. Joe ignored him, slipped his arm in Hugh’s, and led him to a divan. “Gosh, it’s good to see you! Sit
down, we’ll talk until Ponse gets here. You look well.” Doctor Livingstone checked Hugh’s ankles, purred and stropped against them.
“I am well. ‘Ponse’?” Hugh scratched the cat’s ears.
“Don’t you know his name? The Lord Protector, I mean. No, I guess you wouldn’t. That’s one of his names, one he uses en famille. Never mind, have they been treating you right?”
“I suppose so.”
“They had better. Ponse gave orders for you to be pampered. Look, if you aren’t treated okay, you tell me. I can fix it.”
Hugh hesitated. “Joe, have you had one of those odd whips used on you?” “Me?” Joe seemed astonished. “Of course not. Hugh, have they been
abusing you? Peel off that Mother Hubbard and let me have a look.”
Hugh shook his head. “There are no marks on me. I haven’t been hurt. But I don’t like it.”
“But if you’ve been stroked for no reason — Hugh, that’s one thing that Ponse does not tolerate. He’s a very humane sort of guy. All he wants is discipline. If anybody-anybody at all, even Memtok-has been cruel to you, somebody is going to catch it.”
Hugh thought about it. He rather liked his teachers. They had worked hard and patiently and had been sparing of him once it became possible to talk instead of using the whip. “I haven’t been hurt. Just reminded.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Actually, Hugh, I didn’t see how you could be.
That quirt Ponse carries-you could kill a man with it at a thousand feet; it takes skill to use it gently. But those toys the upper servants carry, all they do is tingle and that’s all they are supposed to do.”
Hugh decided not to argue over what constituted a tingle; he had urgent things on his mind. “Joe, how are the others? Have you seen them?”
“Oh, they’re all right. You heard about Barbara?” “I haven’t heard a damn thing! What about Barbara?” “Slow down. Having her babies, I mean.”
“She had her baby?”
“‘Babies.’ Twin boys, identical. A week ago.” “How is she? How is she?”
“Easy, man! She’s fine, couldn’t be better. Of course. They are way ahead of us in medicine; losing a mother, or a baby, is unheard of.” Joe suddenly looked sad. “It’s a shame they didn’t run across us months back.” He brightened. “Barbara told me that she had intended to name it Karen, if it was a girl. When it turned out to be twin boys, she named one-the one five minutes the elder — ‘Hugh’ and the other ‘Karl Joseph.’ Nice, eh?”
“I’m flattered. Then you’ve seen her. Joe, I’ve got to see her. Right away. How do I arrange it?”
Joe looked astonished. “But you can’t, Hugh. Surely you know that.” “Why can’t I?”
“Why, you’re not tempered, that’s why. Impossible.” “Oh.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.” Joseph suddenly grinned. “I understand that you were almost made eligible by accident. Ponse laughed his head off at how close you came and how you and Duke yelped.”
“I don’t see the humor of it.”
“Oh, Hugh, he simply has a robust sense of humor. He laughed when he told me about it. I didn’t laugh and he decided that I have no sense of humor. Different people laugh at different things. Karen used to use a fake Negro dialect that set my teeth on edge, the times I overheard it. But she didn’t mean any harm. Karen — Well, they just don’t come any better, and you and I know it and I’ll shut up about it. Look, if the vet had gone ahead, without orders, it would have cost him his hands; Ponse sent that word to him. Might have suspended the sentence-good surgeons ‘are valuable. But his assumption
was only natural, Hugh; both you and Duke are too tall and too big for stud. However, Ponse doesn’t tolerate sloppiness.”
“All right, all right. I still don’t see the harm in my calling on Barbara and seeing her babies. You saw her. And you’re not tempered.”
Joe looked patiently exasperated. “Hugh, it’s not the same thing. Surely you know it.”
“Why isn’t it?”
Joe sighed. “Hugh, I didn’t make the rules. But I’m Chosen and you’re not, and that’s all there is to it. It’s not my fault that you’re white.”
“All right. Forget it.”
“Let’s be glad that one of us is in a position to get us some favors. Do you realize that all of you would have been executed? If I hadn’t been along?”
“The thought has crossed my mind. Lucky you knew French. And that he knows French.”
Joe shook his head. “French didn’t enter into it, it merely saved time.
The point was that I was there…and the rest of you were excused of any responsibility on that account. What had to be settled then was the degree of my criminality, my neck was in a noose.” Joe frowned. “I’m still not in the clear. I mean, Ponse is convinced but my case has to be re viewed by the Supreme Lord Proprietor; it’s his preserve — Ponse is just custodian. I could be executed yet.”
“Joe, what in the world is there about it to cause you to talk about being executed?”
“Plenty! Look, if you four ofays-whites-had been alone, Ponse would have tried you just by looking at you. Two capital crimes and both self-evident.
Escapees. Servants who had run away from their lord. Destructive trespass in a personal domain of the Supreme Proprietor. Open-and-shut on both counts and death for each of them. Don’t tell me that wasn’t the way it was because I know it and it took me long enough to make Ponse see it, using a language neither one of us knows too well. And my neck is still in jeopardy. However — ” He brightened. “Ponse tells me that the Supreme Proprietor is years behind in reviewing criminal cases and that it has been more years since he last set foot on this preserve or even cruised over it…and that long before my case can come up there won’t be a trace of destruction. They are putting the trees back and there’s never an accurate count of bears and deer and other game. He tells me not to worry.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“But maybe you think I haven’t done some sweating over it! Just letting your shadow fall across the Supreme Lord Proprietor means your neck and sneezing in his presence is even worse-so you can figure for yourself that trespassing on land that is his personally is nothing to take lightly. But I shan’t worry as long as Ponse says not to. He’s been treating me as a guest, not as a prisoner. But tell me about yourself. I hear you’ve been studying the language. So have I-a tutor every day I’ve had time for it.”
Hugh answered, “May it meet with their approval, this one’s time has, as they know, been devoted to nothing else.”
“Whoo! You speak it better than I do.”
“I was given incentive,” Hugh said, relapsing into English. “Joe, have you seen Duke? Grace?”
“Duke, no. I haven’t tried to. Ponse has been away most of the time and took me along; I’ve been terribly busy. Grace, yes. It’s possible that you might see Grace. She’s often in these apartments. That’s the only way you could see her, of course. Right here. And in the presence of Ponse. Might happen. He’s not a stickler for protocol. In private, I mean; he keeps up appearances in public.”
“Hmm — Joe, in that case, couldn’t you ask him to let me see Barbara and the twins? Here? In his presence?”
Joe looked exasperated. “Hugh, can’t you understand that I’m just a guest? I’m here on sufferance. I don’t have a single servant of my own, no money, no title. I said you might see Grace; I did not say you would. If you did, it would be because he had sent for you and it suited him not to send her out-not for your convenience. As for asking him to let you see Barbara, I can’t. And that’s that! I advise you not to, either. You might learn that his quirt doesn’t just tingle.”
“All I meant was — ” “Watch it! Here he comes.”
Joe went to meet his host. Hugh stood with head bowed, eyes downcast, and waited to be noticed. Ponse came striding in, dressed much as Hugh had seen him before save that the helmet was replaced by a red skullcap. He greeted Joe, sat heavily down on a large divan, stuck out his legs. Doctor Livingstone jumped up into the lord’s lap; he stroked it. Two female servants appeared from nowhere, pulled off his boots, wiped his feet with a hot towel, dried them, massaged them, placed slippers on them, and vanished.
While this was going on, the Lord Protector spoke to Joe of matters Hugh could not follow other than as words, but he noticed that the noble used the mode of equals to Joe and that Joe talked in the same fashion to him. Hugh decided that Joe must be in as solid as Doctor Livingstone. Well, Joe did have a pleasing personality.
At last the big man glanced at him. “Sit down, boy.”
Hugh sat down, on the floor. The lord went on, “Have you learned Language? We’re told that you have.”
“May it please Their Charity, ‘this one’s time has been devoted singly to that purpose, with what inadequate resultsknown to them far better than their servant would dare venture to estimate.”
“Not bad. Accent could be crisper. And you missed an infix. How do you like the weather we’ve been having?”
“Weather is as Uncle the Mighty ordains it. If it pleases His favorite nephew, it cannot fail to make joyful one so humble as this servant.”
“Quite good. Accent blurry but understandable. Work on it. Tell your teachers we said it. Now drop that fancy speech, I haven’t time to listen to it. Equals speech, always. In private, I mean.”
“All right. I — ” Hugh broke off; one of the female servants had returned, to kneel in front of her lord with a drink on a tray.
Ponse glanced sharply at Hugh, then looked at the girl. “It? Doesn’t count, it’s a deaf mute. You were saying?”
“I was about to say that I couldn’t have an opinion about weather because I haven’t seen any since I got here.”
“I suppose not. I gave orders for you to learn Language as quickly as possible and servants are inclined to follow instructions literally. No imagination. All right, you will walk outdoors an hour each day. Tell whoever is in charge of you. Any petition? Are you getting enough to eat? Are you being treated well?”
“The food is good, I’m used to eating three times a day but — “
“You can eat four times a day if you wish. Again, tell the one in charge of you. All right, now to other matters. Hugh — That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Their Charity.”
“Can’t you hear? I said, ‘Use equals mode.’ My private name is Ponse.
Use it. Hugh, if I had not picked you people up myself, were I not a scholar, and had I not seen with my own eyes the artifacts in that curious structure, your house, I would not have believed it. As it is, I must. I’m not a superstitious man. Uncle works in mysterious ways, but He doesn’t use miracles and I would not hesitate to repeat that in any temple on Earth, unorthodox as it sounds. But — How long does it come to, Joe?”
“Two thousand one hundred and three years.”
“Call it two thousand. What’s the matter, Hugh?” “Uh, nothing, nothing.”
“If you’re going to throw up, go outside; I picked these rugs myself. As I was saying, you’ve given my scientists something to think about-and a good thing, too; they haven’t turned out anything more important than a better mousetrap in years. Lazy scoundrels. I’ve told them to come up with a sensible answer, no miracles. How five people-or six-and a building of some mass could hurdle twenty centuries and never break an egg. Exaggeration. Joe tells me it broke some bones and other things. Speaking of bones, Joe tells me this won’t please you-and it didn’t please him-but I ordered my scientists to disturb some bones. Strontium sampling, that sort of thing; I suppose you’ve never heard of it. Clear proof that the cadaver had matured before the period of maximum radioactivity — Look, I warned you about these rugs. Don’t do it!” Hugh gulped. (“Karen! Karen! Oh, my darling!”)
“Better now? Perhaps I should have told you that a priest was present, proper propitiations were made-exactly as if it had been one of the Chosen. Special concession, my orders. And when the tests were completed every atom was returned and the grave closed with proper rites.”
“That’s true, Hugh,” Joseph said gravely. “I was there. And I put on fresh flowers. Flowers that will stay fresh, I’m told.”
“Certainly they will,” Ponse confirmed, “until they wear out from sheer erosion. I don’t know why you use flowers but if there are any other rites or sacrifices necessary to atone for what may seem to you a desecration, just name it. I’m a broadminded man; I’m aware that other times had other customs.”
“No. No, best let it be.”
“As you wish. It was done from scientific necessity. It seemed more reasonable than amputating one of your fingers. Other tests also kept my scientists from wiggling out of the obvious. Foods preserved by methods so ancient that I doubt if any modem food expert would know how to duplicate same
— and yet the foods were edible. At least some servants were required to eat them; no harm resulted. A fascinating radioactivity gradient between upper and inner sides of the roof structure-I gave them a hint on that. Acting on information received from Joe, I ordered them to look for evidence that this event took place at the beginning of the East-West War that destroyed the Northern Hemisphere.
“So they found it. Calculations lead them to believe that the structure must have been near the origin of an atom-kernel explosion. Yet it was unhurt. That produced a theory so wild that I won’t tire your ears with it; I’ve told them to go on working.
“But the best thing is the historical treasure. I am a man of history, Hugh; history, properly interpreted, tells everything. The treasure, of course, are those books that came along. I am not exaggerating when I say that they are my most precious possessions. There are only two other copies of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the world today-and those are not this edition and are in such poor shape that they are curiosities rather than something a scholar can work with; they weren’t cared for during the Turmoil Ages.”
Ponse leaned back and looked happy. “But mine is in mint condition!”
He added, “I’m not discounting the other books. Treasures, all of them.
Especially the Adventures of Odysseus, which is known only by reputation. I take it that the pictures date from the time of Odysseus too?”
“I’m afraid not. The artist was alive in my time.”
“Too bad. They’re interesting, nevertheless. Primitive art, stronger than we have now. But I exaggerated when I said that the books were my dearest possession.”
“Yes?”
“You are! There! Doesn’t that please you?”
Hugh barely hesitated. “Yes. If true.” (If it’s true that I am your
chattel, you arrogant bastard, I prefer being a valuable one!)
“Oh, quite true. If you had been speaking in protocol mode, you wouldn’t have been able to phrase a doubt. I never lie, Hugh; remember that. You and — That other one, Joe?”
“Duke.”
“‘Duke.’ Although Joe speaks highly of your scholarship, not so highly of its. But let me explain. There are other scholars who read Ancient English. None in my household, true; since it is not a root language to any important degree, few study it. Nevertheless, scholars could be borrowed. But none such as yourself. You actually lived then; you’ll be able to translate knowledgeably, without these maddening four and five interpretations of a single passage that disfigure most translations from ancient sources, all because the scholar doesn’t really know what the ancient author was talking about. Lack of cultural context, I mean. And no doubt you will be able to supply explanations for things obscure to me and commonplace to you.
“Right? Right! So you see what I want. Start with the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Get busy today, translate it. Just scribble it out quickly, sloppy but fast. Someone else will pretty it up for my eyes. Understand? All right, go do it.”
Hugh gulped. “But, Ponse, I can’t write Language.” “What?”
“I was taught to speak; I haven’t been taught to read and write.” Ponse blinked. “Memtok!”
The Chief Palace Domestic arrived with such speed that one might suspect that he was just outside the door. And so he had been-listening in on private conversation by means Memtok was certain were not known to the Lord Protector
inasmuch as Memtok was still breathing. Such measures were risky but he found them indispensable to efficient performance of his duties. At worst, it was safer than planting a slut in there who was not quite a deaf mute.
“Memtok, I told you it was to be taught to speak, read, and write Language.”
Hugh listened, eyes downcast, while the Chief Domestic tried to protest that the order had never been given (it had not) but nevertheless had been carried out (obviously false), all without contradicting the Lord Protector (impossible to reconcile, inconceivable to attempt).
“Garbage,” Ponse remarked. “I don’t know why I don’t put you up for adoption. You would look good in a coal mine. That pale skin would be improved by some healthy coal dust.” He twitched his quirt and Memtok paled still more. “Very well, let it be corrected. It is to spend half of each day in learning to read and write, the other half in translating and in dictating same into a recorder. I should have thought of that; writing takes too long. Nevertheless, I want it to be able to read and write.” He turned to Hugh. “Anything you can think of? That you need?”
Hugh started to phrase a request in the involved indirection which presumed nothing, as required by protocol mode, rising.
Ponse chopped him off. “Speak directly, Hugh. Memtok, close your ears.
No ceremony needed in Memtok’s presence, he is a member of my inner family, my nephew in spirit if not in the eyes of my senior sister. Spit it out.”
Memtok relaxed and looked as beatific as his vinegar features permitted. “Well, Ponse, I need room to work. My cell is the size of that divan.”
“Describe your needs.”
“Well, I’d like a room with natural light, one with windows, say a third the size of this one. Working tables, bookshelves, writing materials, a comfortable chair-yes, and access to a toilet without having to wait; it interferes with my thinking otherwise.”
“Don’t you have that?”
“No. And I don’t think it helps my thinking to be touched up with a
whip.”
been?”
“Memtok, have you been whipping it?” “No, my uncle. I swear.”
“You would swear if you were caught with cream on your lip. Who has
Hugh dared to interrupt. “I’m not complaining, Ponse. But those whips
make me nervous. And I never know who can give me orders. Anybody, apparently. I haven’t been able to find out my status.”
“Mmm — Memtok, where do you have it in the Family?” The head servant barely conceded that he had not been able to solve that problem.
“Let’s solve it. We make it a department head. Mmm — Department of Ancient History. Title: Chief Researcher. Senior head of department, just below you. Pass the word around. I’m doing this to make clear how valuable this servant is to me…and anyone who slows up its work is likely to wind up in the stew. I suppose it will really be a one-servant department but you fill it out, make it look good, by transferring its teachers, and whoever looks out for its recorder and prepares the stuff for me, a cleaner or two, an assistant to boss them — I don’t want to take up its valuable time on routine. A messenger. You know. There must be dozens of idlers around this house, eating their silly heads off, who would look well in the Department of Ancient History. Now have fetched a lesser whip and a lesser badge. Move.”
In moments Hugh was wearing a medallion not much smaller than Memtok’s. Ponse took the whip and removed something from it. “Hugh, I’m not giving you a charged whip, you don’t know how to use it. If one of your loafers need spurring, Memtok will be glad to help. Later, when you know how, we’ll see.
Now — Are you satisfied?”
Hugh decided that it was not the time to ask to see Barbara. Not with Memtok present. But he was beginning to hope.
He and Memtok were dismissed together. Memtok did not object when Hugh walked abreast of him.
Chapter 13
Memtok was silent while he led Hugh back down to servants’ country; he was figuring out how to handle this startling development to his own advantage.
This savage’s status had troubled the Chief Domestic from arrival. He didn’t fit-and in Memtok’s world everything had to fit. Well, now the savage had an assigned status; Their Charity had spoken and that was that. But the situation was not improved. The new status was so ridiculous as to make the whole belowstairs structure (the whole world, that is) a mockery.
But Memtok was shrewd and practical. The bedrock of his philosophy was: You can’t fight City Hall, and his basic strategy in applying it was the pragmatic rule: When you can’t beat ’em, you join ’em.
How could this savage’s preposterous promotion be made to appear necessary and proper-and a credit to the Chief Domestic?
Uncle! The savage wasn’t even tempered. Nor would he be. At least not yet. Later, possibly-it would make everything so much more tidy. Memtok had been amazed when Their Charity had postponed the obvious. Memtok hardly recalled his own tempering; his emotions and drives before that time were a thin memory-of someone else. There was no reason for the savage to have kicked up a fuss about it; tempering marked promotion into real living. Memtok looked forward to another half century of activity, power, gracious living — what stud could claim that?
But there it was. How to make it look good?
A Curiosity! — that’s what the savage was. All great lords possessed Curiosities; there had been times when visiting in his own caste that he had been embarrassed by the fact that his own lord took no interest in Curiosities; there were not even Siamese twins nor a two-headed freak in the whole household. Not even a flipper-armed dwarf. Their Charity was-let’s admit it-too simple in his tastes for his high rank; sometimes Memtok was a little ashamed of him. Spending his time on scrolls and such when he should be upholding the pride of the house.
That lord in Hind — What title? Prince something or other silly. Never mind, he had that big cage where studs and sluts lived and mated with great apes, talked the same jabber-it wasn’t Language-and you couldn’t tell which was which save that some were hairy and some were smooth. There was a Curiosity worthy of a great household! That lord’s chief domestic had declared by the Uncle that there were live crossbreeds from the experiment, hidden away where the priests couldn’t object. It might be true, since it was a fact that despite official denial crossbreeds between servants and Chosen were possible- and did happen, even though designated bedwarmers were always sterile. But these accidents were never allowed to see the light of day.
A Curiosity, that was the angle. An untempered who was nevertheless a servant executive. A Famous Scholar who had not even been able to speak Language when he was almost as old as Memtok. A man out of nowhere. From the stars. Everybody knew that there were men somewhere in the stars.
Probably a miracle…and the temples were investigating and any year now this household would be famous for its unique Curiosity. Yes. A word here, a word there, a veiled hint –“Hugh,” Memtok said cordially. “May I call you ‘Hugh’?” “What? Why, certainly!” “You must call me ‘Memtok.’ Let’s stroll a bit and pick out space for your departmental headquarters. You would like a sunny place, I understand. Perhaps rooms facing the gardens? And do you want your personal quarters opening off your headquarters? Or would you rather have them elsewhere so that you can get away from it all?” The latter, Memtok decided. Roust out the head gardener and the studmaster and give the savage both their quarters-that would make everyone understand how important this Curiosity was…and get both of them sore at the savage, too. He’d soon realize who was his friend. Memtok, namely, and nobody else. Besides, the gardener had been getting uppity, implying that his work didn’t come under the Chief Domestic. A touching up was what he needed.
Hugh said, “Oh, I don’t need anything fancy.”
“Come, come! We want you to have every facility. I wish 1 could get away from it all sometimes. But I can’t-problems, problems, problems, every minute of the day; some people have to have all their thinking done for them. It will be a treat to have a man of the mind among us. We’ll find you cozy quarters, plenty of room for you and your valet. But separate.” Valet? Was there a tempered young buck around, well housebroken and biddable, who could be depended on to report everything and keep his mouth shut? Suppose he had his sister’s eldest son tempered now, would the lad shape up in time? And would his sister see the wisdom in it? He had great hopes for the boy. Memtok was coldly aware that he would have to go someday-though not for many years-and he was determined that his heir should succeed to his high office. But it would take planning, and planning could never start too soon. If his sister could be made to see it — Memtok led Hugh through crowded passageways; servants scurried out of the way wherever they went-save one who stumbled and got tingled for his awkwardness.
“My!” said Hugh. “This is a big building.”
“This? Wait till you see the Palace-though no doubt it is falling to rack and ruin, under my chief deputy. Hugh, we use only a quarter of the staff here. There is no formal entertaining, just garden parties. And only a handful of guests. In the city the Chosen are always coming and going. Many a time I
am rooted out of bed in the night to open apartments for some lord and his ladies without a moment’s warning. And that is where planning counts. To — be able to open the door of a guest-wing flat and know-know, mind you, without looking-that beds are freshly perfumed, refreshments waiting, everything spotless, music softly playing.”
“That must take real staff work.”
“Staff work!” Memtok snorted. “I wish I could agree. What it takes is for me to inspect every room, every night, no matter how tired I am, before I go to bed. Then stay up to see that mistakes are corrected, not depend on their lies. They’re all liars, Hugh. Too much ‘Happiness.’ Their Charity is generous; he never cuts down on the ration.”
“I’ve found the food ample. And good.”
“I didn’t say food, I said ‘Happiness.’ I control the food and I don’t believe in starving them, not even as punishment. A tingle is better. They understand that. Always remember one thing, Hugh; most servants don’t really have minds. They’re as thoughtless as the Chosen-not referring to Their Charity of course; I would never criticize my own patron. I mean Chosen in general. You understand.” He winked and gave Hugh a dig in the ribs.
“I don’t know much about the Chosen,” Hugh admitted. “I’ve hardly laid eyes on them.”
“Well…you’ll see. It takes more than a dark skin to make brains no matter what they teach in temple. Not that I expect you to quote me nor would I admit it if you did. But — Who do you think runs this household?”
“I haven’t been here long enough to express opinions.”
“Very shrewd. You could go far if you had ambition. Let me put it this way. If Their Charity goes away, the household goes on smoothly as ever. If I am away, or dare to fall sick — Well, I shudder to think of it.” He gestured with his whip. “They know. You won’t find them scurrying that fast to get out of his way.”
Hugh changed the subject. “I did not understand your remark about a ‘ration of Happiness.'”
“Haven’t you been receiving yours?” “I don’t know what it is.”
“Oho! One bullock gets you three that it has been issued but never got as far as you. Must look into that. As to what it is, I’ll show you.” Memtok led him up a ramp and out onto a balcony. Below was the servants’ main dining hail, crowded with three queues. “This, is issue time-studs at a different hour, of course. They can have it as drink, in chewing form, or to smoke. The dosage is the same but some say that smoking it produces the keenest happiness.”
Memtok used words not in Hugh’s vocabulary; Hugh told him so. Memtok said, “Never mind. It improves the appetite, steadies the nerves, promotes good health, enhances all pleasures-and wrecks ambition. The trick is to be able to take it or leave it alone. I never took it regularly even when I was at stud; I had ambition. I take it now only on feast days or such-in moderation.” Memtok smiled. “You’ll find out tonight.”
“I will?”
“Didn’t I tell you? Banquet in your honor, just after evening prayer.”
Hugh was hardly listening. He was searching the far queue, trying to spot Barbara.
Memtok sent the Chief Veterinarian and the Household Engineer as an escort of honor for Hugh. Hugh was mildly embarrassed at this attention from the physician and surgeon in view of the helpless posture he had been in the last time he had seen the man. But the veterinarian was most cordial.
Memtok headed the long table with Hugh on his right. Twenty department heads were seated; there was one lower servant standing behind each guest and endless streams coming in and out from kitchen and pantry. The banquet room
was beautiful, its furnishings lavish, and the feast was sumptuous and endless; Hugh wondered what a meal of the Chosen must be like if their upper servants ate this way.
He soon found out, in part. Memtok was served twice, once from the tasty dishes everyone shared, again from another menu. These dishes he sampled, using separate plates, but rarely did more than taste. Of the regular menu he ate sparingly and sometimes passed up dishes.
He noticed Hugh’s glance. “The Lord Protector’s dinner. Try it. At your own risk, of course.”
“What risk?”
“Poison, naturally. When a man is over a hundred years old his heir is certain to be impatient. To say nothing of business competitors, political rivals, and subverted friends. Go ahead; the taster tries it half an hour before Their Charity — or I-touches it, and we’ve lost only one taster this year.”
Hugh decided that his nerve was being tested; he tried a spoonful. “Like it?” asked the Chief Domestic.
“Seems greasy to me.”
“Hear that, Gnou? Our new cousin is a man of taste. Greasy. Someday you’ll be fried in your own grease, I fear. The truth is, Hugh, that we eat better than the Chosen do…although courses are served more elaborately in the Grand Hall, of course. But I am a gourmet who appreciates artistry; Their Charity doesn’t care what it is as long as it doesn’t squeal when he bites it. If the sauces are too elaborate, the spices too exotic, he’ll send it back with a demand for a slice of roast, a hunk of bread, and a pitcher of milk.
True, Gnou?”
“You have said it.” “And frustrating.”
“Very,” admitted the chef.
“So Cousin Gnou’s best cooks work for us, and the Chosen struggle along with ones whose chief skill lies in getting a bird’s skin back on without ruffling the feathers. Cousin Hugh, if you will excuse me, I must lift up to the Grand Hall and attempt by proper ceremony to make Cousin Gnou’s pièce de résistance seem better than it is. Don’t believe what they tell you about me while I’m gone-regrettably it’s all true.” He exposed his teeth in what must have been a smile and left.
No one spoke for a while. Finally someone-Hugh thought it was the transportation master but he had met too many — said, “Chief Researcher, what household were you with before you were adopted, may one ask?”
“One may. House of Farnham, Freeholder Extraordinary.”
“So. I am forced to admit that the title of your Chosen is new to me. A new title, perhaps?”
“Very old,” Hugh answered. “Extremely ancient and granted directly by Uncle the Mighty, blessed be His Name. The rank is roughly that of king, but senior to it.”
“Really?”
Hugh decided to drop that shovel for a wider one. In earlier conversation he had learned that Memtok knew a great deal about many things- but almost nothing about such trivia as history, geography, and matters outside the household. And from his Language lessons he knew that a servant who could read and write was rare, even among executives, unless the skill was necessary to his duties. Memtok had told him proudly that he had petitioned the opportunity while he was still at stud and had labored at it to the amusement of the other studs. “I had my eyes on the future,” he had told Hugh. “I could have had five more years, probably ten, at stud-but as soon as I could read, I petitioned to be tempered. So I had the last laugh-for where are they now?”
Hugh decided on the very widest shovel; a big lie was always easier to sell. “The title is unbroken for three thousand years in House Farnham. The line remained intact by direct intervention of the Uncle right through Turmoil and Change. Because of its Divine origin its holder speaks to the Proprietor as an equal, ‘thee’ and ‘thou.'” Hugh drew himself up proudly. “And I was factotum-in-chief to Lord Farnham.”
“A noble house indeed. But ‘factotum-in-chief’? We don’t use that designation here. A domestic?”
“Yes and no. The chief domestic works under the factotum.”
The man almost gasped. “And so,” Hugh went on, “do all servant executives, domestic or not-business, political, agrarian, everything. The responsibility is wearing.”
“So I should imagine!”
“It is. I was growing old and my health was failing-I suffered a temporary paralysis of my lower limbs. Truthfully I never liked responsibility, I am a scholar. So I petitioned to be adopted and here I am- scholar to a Chosen of similar scholarly ‘tastes…a fitting occupation for my later years.” Hugh realized that he had stretched one item too far; the veterinarian looked up. “This paralysis, I noted no signs of it.” (Damn it, doctors never cared about anything but their specialty!) “It came on me suddenly one morning,” Hugh said smoothly, “and I haven’t been troubled by it since. But to a man of my years it was a warning.”
“And what are your years? Professional interest, of course. One may
ask?”
Hugh tried to make the snub as direct as some he had heard Memtok pass
out. “One may not. I’ll let you know when I need your services. But,” he added, to sooth the smart, “it would be fair to say that I was born some years earlier than Their Charity.”
“Astonishing. From your physical condition-quite good, I thought-I would have judged you to be no more than sixty, at most.”
“Blood will tell,” Hugh said smugly. “I am not the only one of my bloodline to live a very long time.”
He was saved from further evasions by the return of Memtok. Everyone stood up. Hugh didn’t notice in time, so he remained seated and brazened it out. If Memtok resented it, he did not let it show. He clapped Hugh on the shoulder as he sat down. “No doubt they’ve told you how I eat my own young?”
“I was given the impression of a happy family presided over by a beloved uncle.”
“Liars, all of them. Well, I’m through for the evening — until some emergency. Their Charity knows that we are welcoming you; he commanded me not to return to the Grand Hall. So now we can relax and be merry.” The Chief Domestic tapped his goblet with a spoon. “Cousins and nephews, a toast to our newest cousin. Possibly you heard what I said-the Lord Protector is pleased at our modest effort to make Cousin Hugh feel at home in Their Family. But I am sure that you already guessed that…since one cannot miss that Cousin Hugh carries, not a least whip, but a lesser whip exactly like mine!” Memtok smiled archly. “Let us trust that he will never need to use it.”
Loud applause greeted the boss’s brilliant sally. He went on solemnly, “You all know that not even my chief deputy carries such authority, much less the ordinary department head
and from that I am sure you conclude that a hint from Cousin Hugh, Chief Researcher and Aide in Scholarship to Their Charity by direct appointment-a hint from him is an order from me-so don’t let me have to make it a direct order.
“And now the toasts! All cousins together and let Happiness flow freely…so let the junior among us give the first toast. Who claims it, who claims it?”
The party got rowdy. Hugh noted that Memtok drank sparingly. He remembered the warning and tried to emulate him. It was impossible. The Chief Domestic could drop out of any toast, merely raise his glass, but Hugh as guest of honor felt compelled to drink them all.
Some unknown time later Memtok led him back to his newly acquired, luxurious quarters. Hugh felt drunk but not unsteady-it was just that the floor was so far away. He felt illuminated, possessed of the wisdom of the ages, floating on silvery clouds, and soaked through with angelic happiness. He still had no idea what was in Happiness drinks. Alcohol? Maybe. Betel nut? Mushrooms? Probably. Marijuana? It seemed certain. He must write down the formula while it was fresh in his mind. This was what Grace should have had! He must — But of course, she did have it now. How very nice! Poor old Grace –
He had never understood her-all she needed was a little Happiness.
Memtok took him into his bedroom. Sleeping across the foot of his lovely new bed was a female creature, blond and cuddly.
Hugh looked down at her from about a hundred-foot elevation and blinked. “Who she?”
“Your bedwarmer. Didn’t I say?” “But — “
“It’s quite all right. Yes, yes, I know you are technically a stud. But you can’t harm her; this is what she is for. No danger. Not even altered. A natural freemartin.”
Hugh turned around to discuss it, wheeling slowly because of his great width and high sail area. Memtok was gone. Hugh found that he could just make it to the bed. “Move over, Kitten,” he muttered, and fell asleep.
He overslept but the kitten was still there; she had his breakfast waiting. He looked at her with unease-not because he had a hangover; he did not. Apparently Happiness did not exact such payments. He felt physically strong, mentally alert, and morally straight-and very hungry. But this teen- ager was an embarrassment.
“What’s your name, kitten?”
“May it please them, this one’s name is of such little importance that whatever they please to call it will be a boon.”
“Cut it, cut it! Use equals speech.”
“I don’t really have a name, sir. Mostly they just say, ‘Hey, you.'” “All right, I’ll call you ‘Kitten.’ Does that suit you? You look like a
kitten.”
She dimpled. “Yes, sir. It’s ever so much nicer than ‘Hey, you.'” “All right, your name is ‘Kitten.’ Tell everybody and don’t answer to
‘Hey, you.’ Tell them that is official because the Chief Researcher says so and if anybody doubts it, tell them to check with the Chief Domestic. If they dare.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Kitten, Kitten, Kitten,” she repeated as if memorizing it, then giggled. “Pretty!”
“Good. Is that my breakfast?” “Yes, sir.”
He ate in bed, offering her bits, and discovered that she expected to be fed, or at least allowed to eat. There was enough for four; between them they ate enough for three. Then he learned that she expected to assist him in the bathroom; he put a stop to that.
Later, ready to go to his assigned duties, he said to her, “What do you do now?”
“I go back to sluts’ quarters, sir, as soon as you release me. I come back at bedtime-whatever time you say.”
He was about to tell her that she was charming and that he almost regretted passing .out the night before but that he did not require her services on future — He stopped. An idea had hit him. “Look. Do you know a
tall slut named Barbara? Oh, this much taller than you are. She was adopted something over two weeks ago and she had babies, twin boys, about a week ago.”
“Oh, yes, sir. The savage.”
“That’s the one. Do you know where’ she is?”
“Oh, yes, sir. She’s still in lying-in quarters. I like to go in there and look at the babies.” She looked wistful. “It must be nice.”
“Uh, yes. Can you take a message to her?”
Kitten looked doubtful. “She might not understand. She’s a savage, she can’t talk very well.”
“Mmm — Damn. No, maybe it’s a help. Wait a moment.” His quarters were equipped with a desk; he went to it, got one of those extraordinary pens-they didn’t stain and didn’t wear out and appeared to be solid-found a piece of paper. Hastily he wrote a note, asking Barbara about herself and the twins, reporting his odd promotion, telling her that soon, somehow, he would see her- be patient, dear-and assuring her of his undying devotion.
He added a P.S. “The bearer of this note is ‘Kitten’ — if the bearer is short, blond, busty, and about fourteen. She is my bedwarmer-which means nothing and you’ve got an evil mind, wench! I’m going to hang onto her because she is a way-the only way, it would appear-for me to communicate with you.
I’ll try to write every day, I’ll darn well expect a note from you every day. If you can. And if anybody does anything you don’t like, tell me and I’ll send you his head on a platter. I think. Things are looking up. Plenty of paper and a pen herewith. Love, love, love-H.
“PPS-go easy on ‘Happiness.’ It’s habit-forming.”
He gave the girl the note and writing materials. “You know the Chief Domestic by sight?”
“You mean because he’s tempered? Oh, but several of the executives like to have a bedwarmer anyhow. I like it better than being sent upstairs; it’s less trouble and you get lots more sleep. The ‘Chief Domestic doesn’t usually send for a bedwarmer, though-it’s just that he checks us and teaches us manners before we are allowed to serve upstairs.” She added, “You see, he knows all about it; he used to be a stud, you know.” She looked at Hugh with innocent curiosity. “Is it true what they say about you? May one ask?”
“Uh…one may not.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” She looked crushed. “I didn’t mean any harm.” She glanced fearfully at his whip, dropped her eyes.
“Kitten.”
“Yes, sir.”
“See this whip?” “Uh, yessir!”
“You will never, never, never feel my whip. That’s a promise. Never.
We’re friends.”
Her face lit up and she looked angelically beautiful instead of pretty. “Oh, thank you, sir!”
“Another thing. The only whip you need fear from now on is the Chief Domestic’s-so stay out of his way. Anyone else-any ‘least whip’ — you tell him, or her, that this lesser whip is what he’ll get if he touches you. Tell him to check with the Chief Domestic. Understand me?”
“Yes, sir.” She looked smugly happy.
Too smug, Hugh decided. “But you stay out of trouble. Don’t do anything to deserve a tingle-or I might turn you over to the Chief Domestic for a real tingling, the sort he is famous for. But as long as you work for me, don’t allow anyone but him to tingle you. Now git and deliver that. I’ll see you
tonight, about two hours after evening prayer. Or come earlier if you are sleepy, and go to bed.” Must remember to have a little bed put here for her, he reminded himself.
Kitten touched her forehead and left. Hugh went to his office and spent a happy day learning the alphabet and dictating three articles from the Britannica. He found his vocabulary inadequate, so he sent for one of his teachers and used the man as a dictionary. Even so, he found it necessary to explain almost endlessly; concepts had changed.
Kitten went straight to the Chief Domestic’s office, made her report, turned over the note and writing materials. Memtok was much annoyed that he held in his hand what might be important evidence-and no way to read it. It did occur to him that that other one-Duke? Juke? Some such-might be able to read these hen scratches. But not likely, of course, and even under tingling there would be no certainty that Juke would translate honestly, and no way to check on him.
Asking Joe never crossed his mind. Nor did asking Their Charity’s new bedwarmer. But the impasse had one intriguing aspect. Was it possible that this savage slut actually could read? And perhaps even essay to write a reply?
He stuck the note in his copier, gave it back to the girl. “All right, your name is Kitten. And do exactly as he tells you about not letting yourself be tingled-and be sure to gossip about it; I want it known all over. But get this — ” He gave Kitten the gentlest of reminders; she jumped. “This whip is waiting for you, if you make any mistakes.”
“This one hears and obeys!”
Hugh returned from the executives’ dining room rather late; he had sat around and gossiped. He found Kitten asleep in his bed and remembered that he had forgotten to ask for another bed for her.
‘Clutched in her hand was a folded paper. Gently he worked it out without waking her:
Darling!
How utterly wonderful to see your handwriting! I knew from Joe that you were safe, hadn’t heard about your promotion, didn’t know whether you knew about the twins. First about them — They are thriving, they both look like their papa, both have his angelic disposition. Six pounds each at birth is my guess, but, although they were weighed, weights here mean nothing to me. Me? I’m a prize cow, dearest, no trouble at all-and the care I received (and am receiving) is fantastically good. I started to labor, was given something to drink, never hurt again although I remember all details of having two babies- as if it had happened to somebody else. So trouble free and actually pleasant that I’d be willing to do it every day. And would, if the rewards were as nice as little Hugh and Karl Joseph.
As for the rest, boring except for our fine boys, but I’m learning the language as fast as I can. And somebody should tell the Borden Company about me-which is good, as our scamps are greedy eaters. I’m even able to help out the girl in the next bed, who is short on milk. Just call me Elsie.
I’ll be patient. I’m not surprised at your new honors; I expect that you’ll be bossing the place in a month. I have confidence in my man. My husband. Such a beautiful word — As for Kitten, I don’t believe your Boy Scout assertions, my lecherous darling; your record shows that you take advantage of innocent young girls. And she’s awfully cute.
Seriously, dearest, I know how noble you are and I didn’t have an evil- minded thought. But I would not blame you if your nobility slipped-especially as I’ve picked up enough words to be aware of her odd category in this strange place. I mean, Kitten is not vulnerable and can’t go set. If you did slip, I would not be jealous-not much, anyhow-but I would not want it to become a habit. Not to the exclusion of me, at least; my hormones are rearranging
themselves very rapidly. But I don’t want you to get rid of her when she is our only way of communicating. Be nice to her; she’s a nice kid. But you’re always nice to everyone.
I will write every day-and I will cry into my pillow and be worried to death any day I don’t hear from you.
My love forever and forever, B
P.S. The smear is little Hugh’s right footprint.
wake.
Hugh kissed the letter, then got into bed, clutching it. Kitten did not.
Chapter 14
Hugh found learning to read and write Language not difficult. Spelling was phonetic, a sign for every sound. There were no silent letters and never any question about spelling or pronunciation. Accent was on the penultima unless marked; the system was as free from traps as Esperanto. He could sound out any word as soon as he had learned the 47-letter alphabet, and, with thought, he could spell any word he could pronounce.
Writing and printing were alike, cursive, and a printed page looked like one written by a skilled penman. He was not surprised to find that it looked like Arabic and a search in the Britannica confirmed that the alphabet must have derived from Arabic of his time. Half a dozen letters had not changed; some were similar although changed. There were many new letters to cover the expansion into a system of one sound, one sign-plus letters for sounds XXth century Arabic had never used. Search in the Britannica convinced him that Arabic, French, and Swahili were the main roots of Language, plus Uncle alone knew what else. He could not confirm this; a dictionary with derivations, such as he had been used to for English, apparently did not exist-and his teachers seemed convinced that Language had always been just as they knew it. The concept of change baffled them.
It was only of intellectual interest; Hugh knew neither Arabic, French, nor Swahili. He had learned a little Latin and less German in high school, and had struggled to learn Russian in his later years. He was not equipped to study the roots of Language, he was merely curious.
Nor did he dare spend time on it; he wanted to please Their Charity, butter him up so that he might, eventually, petition the boon of seeing Barbara-and that meant a flood of translated articles. Hugh worked very hard.
The second day after his elevation, Hugh asked for Duke, and Memtok sent for him. Duke was rather worn down-there were lines in his face-but he spoke Language. Duke spoke it not as well as his father and apparently had tangled more with his teachers; his mood seemed to oscillate between hopelessness and rebellion, and he limped badly.
Memtok made no objection to transferring Duke to the Department of Ancient History. “Glad to get rid of him. He’s too monstrous big for stud, yet he doesn’t seem to be good for anything else. Certainly, put him to work. I can’t bear to see a servant lying around, eating his head off, doing nothing.”
So Hugh took him. Duke looked over Hugh’s private apartment and said, “Christ! You certainly managed to come up smelling like a rose. How come?”
Hugh explained the situation. “So I want you to translate legal articles and related subjects-whatever you can do best.”
Duke shoved his fists together and looked stubborn. “You can stuff it.” “Duke, don’t take that attitude. This is an opportunity.”
“For you, maybe. What are you doing about Mother?”
“What can I do? I’m not allowed to see her, neither are you. You know that. But Joe assures me that she is not only comfortable and well treated, but happy.”
“So he says. Or so you say he says. I want to see it myself. I damn well insist on it.”
“Very well, insist on it. Go see Memtok about it. But I must warn you, I can’t protect you from him.”
“Rats. I know what that slimy little bastard would say-and what he would do.” Duke scowled and rubbed his injured leg. “It’s up to you to arrange it.
You’ve got such an unholy drag around here, the least you can do is use it to protect Mother.”
“Duke, I don’t have that sort of drag. I’m being pampered for the reason a race horse is pampered…and I have just as little to say about it as a race horse has. But I can cut you in on pampering if you cooperate-decent quarters, immunity from mistreatment, a pleasant place to work. But I can no more get you into women’s quarters, or have Grace sent here, than I can go to the Moon. They have harem rules here, as you know.”
“And you are content to sit here and be a trained seal for that ape, and neglect Mother? Count me out!”
“Duke, I won’t argue. I’ll assign you a room and send you a volume of the Britannica each day. Then it’s up to you. If you won’t work, I’ll try to keep Memtok from knowing it. But I think he has spies all over the place.”
Hugh let it go at that. At first he got no help out of Duke. But boredom worked where argument failed; Duke could not stand to be shut up in a room with nothing to do. He was not locked up but he did not venture out much because there was always the chance that he might run into Memtok, or some other whip-carrying upper servant, who might want to know what he was doing, and why-servants were expected to look busy even if they weren’t, from morning prayer to evening prayer.
Duke began to produce translations and, with them, a complaint that he was short on vocabulary. Hugh was able to have assigned to him a tempered clerk who had worked in Their Charity’s legal affairs.
But he rarely saw Duke-it seemed to be the only way they could stay out of arguments. Duke’s output speeded up after the first week but fell off in quality-Duke had discovered the sovereign power of “Happiness.”
Hugh considered warning Duke about the drug, decided against it. If it kept Duke contented, who was he to deny him this anodyne? The quality of Duke’s translations did not worry Hugh; Their Charity had no way to judge- unless Joe rendered an opinion, which seemed unlikely. He himself was not trying too hard to turn out good translations; “not good, but Wednesday” was the principle he used: Give the boss lucid copy in great quantity-and leave out the hard parts.
Besides, Hugh found that a couple of drinks of Happiness at dinner topped off the day. It allowed him to read Barbara’s daily letter in a warm glow, write a cheerful answer for Kitten to carry back, then to bed and sound sleep.
But Hugh did not use much of it; he was afraid of the stuff. Alcohol, he reasoned, had the advantage of being a poison. It gave fair warning if one started drinking heavily. But this stuff exacted no such price; it merely turned anxiety, depression, worry, boredom, any unpleasant emotion, into an uncritical happy glow. Hugh wondered if it was principally methyl meprobamate? But he knew little chemistry and that little was two thousand years behind times.
As a member of the executive servants’ mess Hugh could have all he wanted. But he noted that Memtok was not the only boss who used the stuff abstemiously; a man did not fight his way up in the servants’ hierarchy by
dulling himself with drugs-but sometimes a servant did get high up, then skidded to the bottom, unable to stand prosperity in the form of unrationed Happiness. Hugh never learned what became of them.
Hugh could even keep a bottle in his rooms-and that solved the problem of Kitten.
Hugh had decided not to ask for a bed for Kitten; he did not want to rub Memtok’s nose in the fact that he was using the child only as a go-between to women’s quarters. Instead he required the girl to make up a bed each night on the divan in his living room.
Kitten was very hurt by this. By now she was sure that Hugh could make better use of a bedwarmer and she regarded it as rebuke to her in her honorable capacity as comfort and solace-and it scared her. If her master did not like her, she might lose the best job she had ever had. (She did not dare report to Memtok that Hugh had no use for her as a bedwarmer; she gave reports on every point but that.)
She wept.
She could not have done better; Hugh Farnham had been a sucker for women’s tears all his life. He took her on his knee and explained that he liked her very much (true), that it was a sad thing but he was too old to appreciate a female bedmate (a lie), and that he slept badly and was disturbed by having anyone in bed with him (a half-truth) — and that he was satisfied with her and wanted her to go on serving him. “Now wipe your eyes and have a drink of this.”
He knew that she used the stuff; she chewed her ration like bubble gum- chewing gum it was in fact; the powder was added to chicle. Most servants preferred gum because they could go dreamily through the day, chewing it while they worked. Kitten passed her empty days chewing it and chewed the played-out cud in Hugh’s quarters after she learned he did not mind. So he did not hesitate to give her a drink.
Kitten went happily to bed and right to sleep, no longer worried that her master might get rid of her. That set a precedent. Each evening, half an hour before Hugh wanted the lights out, he would give her a short drink of it.
For a while he kept track of the level in the bottle. Kitten was often in his quarters when he was not, he knew how much she enjoyed it, and there were no locks in his quarters-his rank entitled him to locks but Memtok had carefully not told him.
He quit bothering when he was convinced that Kitten was not snitching it. In fact, Kitten would have been terrified at the thought of stealing from her master. Her ego was barely big enough for a mouse; she was less than nothing and knew it and had never owned anything, not even a name, until Hugh gave her one. Under his kindness she was beginning to be a person, but it was still the faintest flicker, anything could blow it out. She would no more have risked stealing from him than she would have risked killing him.
Hugh, half by intent, encouraged her confidence. She was a trained bath girl; he gave in and let her scrub his back and handle the nozzles for his bath, dress him, and take care of his clothes. She was a masseuse, too; he sometimes found it pleasant to have his head and neck rubbed after a day spent poring over the fine print or following the lines in a scroll reader-and she was pathetically anxious to do anything to make herself necessary.
“Kitten, what do you do in the daytime?”
“Why, nothing mostly. Sluts of my subcaste mostly don’t have to work if they have night duty. Since I’m having duty every night I’m allowed to stay in the sleep room until midday. So I do, even if I’m not sleepy, because the slutmaster is likely to put one to work if he catches one just wandering around. Afternoons — Well, mostly I try to stay out of sight. That’s best.
Safest.”
“I see. You can hide out in here if you like. Or can you?”
Her face lit up. “If you give me a pass, I can.”
“All right, I will. You can watch television — No, it’s not on at that hour. Mmm, you don’t know how to read. Or do you?”
“Oh, no, sir! I wouldn’t dare petition.”
“Hmm — ” Hugh knew that permission to learn to read could not be granted even by Memtok; it required Their Charity’s permission and was granted only after investigation of the necessity. Furthermore, anything he did that was out of line jeopardized his thin chances of reunion with Barbara.
But — Damn it, a man had to be a man! “There are scrolls in here and a reader. Do you want to learn?”
“Uncle protect us!”
“Don’t swear. If you want to-and can keep your pretty little mouth shut- I’ll teach you. Don’t look so damned scared! You don’t have to decide now.
Tell me later. Just don’t talk about it. To anyone.”
Kitten did not. It scared her not to report it, but she had a reflex for self-preservation and felt without knowing why that to report this would endanger her happy setup.
Kitten became substitute family life for Hugh. She sent him to work cheerful, greeted him with a smile when he came back, talked if he wanted to talk and never spoke unless spoken to. Most evenings she curled up ‘in front of the television-Hugh thought of it as “the television” and it was in fact closed-circuit television under principles not known to him, in color, in three dimensions, and without lines.
It played every evening in the servants’ main hall, from evening prayer until lights-out, to a packed house, and there were outlets in the apartments of executive servants. Hugh had watched it several evenings, expecting to gain insight into this strange society he must learn to live in.
He decided that one might as well try to study the United States by watching Gunsmoke. It was blatant melodrama, with acting as stylized as Chinese theater, and the favorite plot seemed to be that of the faithful servant who dies gloriously that his lord may live.
But it was only second in importance to Happiness in the morale of life belowstairs. Kitten loved it.
She would watch it, snapping her gum, and suppressing squeals of excitement, while Hugh read-then sigh happily when the program ended, accept her little drink of Happiness with profuse thanks and a touch of her forehead, and go quietly to sleep. Hugh sometimes went on reading.
He read a great deal-every evening (unless Memtok stopped in to visit) and half of every day. He begrudged the time he spent translating for Their Charity but never neglected it; it was the hopeful key to better things. He had found it necessary to study modern culture if he was to translate matters of ancient history intelligibly. The Summer Palace had a fair library; he was given access when he claimed necessity for his work-Memtok arranged it.
But his true purpose was not translation but to try to understand what had happened to his world to produce this world.
So he usually had a scroll in the reader, in his office, or in his living room. The scroll system of printing he found admirable; it mechanized the oldest form of book into a system far more efficient than bound leaves- drop the double cylinder into the reader, flip it on, and hold still. The letters raced across in front of his eyes several hundred feet at a whack, to the end of the scroll. Then the scroll flipped over and chased back the following line, which was printed upside down to the one just scanned.
The eye wasted no time flipping back and forth at stacked lines. But a slight pressure speeded the gadget up to whatever the brain could accept. As Hugh got used to the phonetics, he acquired speed faster than he had ever managed in English. But he did not find what he was looking for.
Somewhere in ‘the past the distinctions between fact, fiction, history,
and religious writings seemed to have been rubbed out. Even when he got it clear that the East-West War that had bounced him out of his own century was now dated 703 B.C. (Before the Great Change), he still had trouble matching the world he had known with the “history” set forth in these scrolls.
The war itself he didn’t find hard to believe. He had experienced only a worm’s-eye view of the first hours but what the scrolls related matched the possibilities: a missile-and-bomb holocaust that had escalated in its first minutes into “brilliant first strike” and “massive retaliation” and smeared cities from Peiping to Chicago, Toronto to Smolensk; fire storms that had done ten times the damage the bombs did; nerve gas and other poisons that had picked up where fire left off; plagues that were incubating when the shocked survivors were picking themselves up and beginning to hope-plagues that were going strong when fallout was no longer deadly.
Yes, he could believe that. The bright boys had made it possible, and the dull boys they worked for had not only never managed to make the possibility unlikely but had never really believed it when the bright boys delivered what the dull boys ordered.
Not, he reminded himself, that he had believed in “Better red than dead”
— or believe in it now. The aggression had been one-sided as hell-and he did not regret a megaton of the “massive retaliation.”
But there it was. The scrolls said that it had killed off the northern
world.
But how about the rest of it? It says here that the United States, at
the time of the war, held its black population as slaves. Somebody had chopped out a century. On purpose? Or was it honest confusion and almost no records?
There had been, he knew, a great book burning for two centuries during the Turmoil, and even after the Change.
Was it lost history, like Crete? Or did the priests like it better this
way?
And since when were the Chinese classed as “white” and the Hindus as
“black”? Yes, purely on skin color Chinese and Japanese were as light as the average “white” of his time, and Hindus were certainly as dark as most Africans-but it was not the accepted anthropological ordering of his day.
Of course, if all they meant was skin shade-and apparently that was what they did mean-he couldn’t argue. The story maintained that the whites, with their evil ways, destroyed each other almost to the last man…leaving the innocent, charitable, merciful dark race-beloved by Uncle the Mighty-to inherit the Earth.
The few white survivors, spared by Uncle’s mercy, had been succored and cherished as children and now again were waxing numerous under the benevolent guidance of the Chosen. So it read.
Hugh could see that a war which smeared North America, Europe, all of Asia except India, could kill off most whites and almost all Chinese. But what had happened to the white minority in South America, the whites of the Union of South Africa, and the Australians and New Zealanders?
Search as he would, Hugh could not find out. All that seemed certain was that the ‘Chosen were dark whereas servants were pale faces-and usually small. Hugh and his son towered over the other servants. Contrariwise, the few Chosen he had seen were big men.
If present-day whites were descended from Australians, mostly-No, couldn’t be, Aussies had not been runts. And those “Expeditions of Mercy” — were they slave raids? Or pogroms? Or, as the scrolls said, rescue missions for survivors?
The book burnings might account for these discrepancies. It wasn’t clear to Hugh whether all books had been put to the torch, or possibly technical books had been spared-for it was clear that the Chosen had technology superior to that of his time; it seemed unlikely that they had started from scratch.
Or was it unlikely? All the technology of his own time that had amounted to a damn had been less than five hundred years old, most of it less than a hundred, and the most amazing parts less than a generation. Could the world have gone back to a dark ages, then pulled out of it and more, in two thousand years? Of course it could!
Either way, the Koran had been the only book officially exempt from the torch-and Hugh harbored a suspicion that the Koran had not been spared either. He ‘had owned a translation of the Koran, had read it several times.
He wished now that he had put it into the shelter, for the Koran as he now read it in “Language” did not match his memory. For one thing, he had thought that Mahomet was a redheaded Arab; this “Koran” mentioned his skin color repeatedly, as black. And he was sure that the Koran was free of racism. This “improved” version was rabid with it.
Furthermore, this Koran had a new testament with a martyred Messiah. He had taught and had been hanged for it — religious scrolls were all marked with a gallows. Hugh did not object to a new testament; there had been time for a new revelation and religions had them as naturally as a cat has kittens. What he objected to was some revisionist working over the words of the Prophet, apparently to make them fit this new book. That wasn’t fair, that was cheating.
The social organization Hugh found almost as puzzling. He was beginning to get a picture of a complex culture, stable, even static-high technology, few innovations, smooth, efficient-and decadent. Church and State were one — “One Tongue, One King, One People, One God.” The Lord Proprietor was sovereign and supreme pontiff and owned everything under Uncle’s grant, and the Lords Protector such as Ponse were his bishops and held only fiefs. Yet there were plenty of private citizens (Chosen, of course-a white was not a person), shopkeepers, landowners, professional men, etc. A setup for an absolute totalitarian communism yet streaked through with what appeared to be private enterprise — Hell, there were even corporations if he understood what he was reading.
The most interesting point to Hugh (aside from the dismal fact that his own status was fixed by law and custom at zero) was the inheritance system.
Family was everything, yet marriage was almost nothing-present but not important. Descent was through the female line-but power was exercised by males.
This confused Hugh until it suddenly fell into place. Ponse was Lord Protector because he was eldest son of an eldest daughter-whose oldest brother had been Lord Protector before Ponse. Ponse’s heir therefore was his oldest sister’s oldest son-title went down through mother and daughter endlessly, with power vested in the oldest brother of each female heir. It did not matter who Ponse’s father was and it mattered even less what sons he had; none of them could inherit. Ponse inherited from his mother’s brother; his heir was his sister’s son.
Hugh could see that, under this system, marriage would never be important-bastardy might be a concept so abstract as to be unrecognized-but family would be more important than ever. Women (of the Chosen) could never be downgraded; they were more important than males even though they ruled through their brothers-and Religion recognized this; the One God, Uncle the Mighty, had an elder sister, the Eternal Mamaloi…so sacred that she was not prayed to and her name was never used in cursing. She was just there, the Eternal Female Principle that gave all life and being.
Hugh had a feeling that he had read about this sort of descent before, uncle to nephew through the female line, so he searched the Britannica. He was surprised to discover that the setup had prevailed at one time or another in every continent and many cultures.
The Great Change had been when Mamaioi had at last succeeded-working
indirectly, as always-in uniting all Her children under one roof and placing their Uncle in charge. Then She could rest.
Hugh’s comment was: “And God help the human race!”
Hugh kept expecting Their Charity to send for him. But two months passed and he did not, and Hugh was beginning to fret that he would never have a chance to ask to see Barbara-apparently Ponse had no interest in him as long as he kept on grinding out translations. Translating the Britannica looked like a job for several lifetimes; he resolved to stir things up, so he sent one day’s batch with a letter to Their Charity.
A week later the Lord Protector sent for him. Memtok came for Hugh, dancing with impatience but insisting that Hugh wash his armpits, rub himself with deodorant, and put on a clean robe.
The Lord Protector did not seem to care how Hugh smelled; he let him wait while he did something else. Hugh stood in silence…although Grace was present. She was lounging on a divan, playing with cats and chewing gum. She glanced at Hugh, then ignored him, save that her face took on a secret smile that Hugh knew well — He called it “canary that ate the cat.”
Dr. — Livingstone-I-Presume greeted Hugh, jumping down, coming over and rubbing against his ankles. Hugh knew that he should ignore it, wait for the lord to recognize his presence-but this cat had been his friend a long time; he could not snub it. He bent down and stroked the cat.
The skies did not split, Their Charity ignored the breach.
Presently the Lord Protector said, “Boy, come here. What’s this about making money from your translations? What in Uncle gave you the notion I needed money?”
Hugh had got the notion from Memtok. The Chief Domestic had growled about how difficult it was to run things, with penny-pinching from on high getting worse every year.
“May it please Their Charity, this one’s opinions are of no value, it is true, but — “
“Cut the flowery talk, damn you!”
“Ponse, back where-when-I came from there never was a man so rich but what he needed more money. Usually, the richer he was, the more he needed.”
The lord grinned. “‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.’ Hugh, you aren’t just sniffing Happiness. Things are the same now. Well? What’s your idea? Spit it out.”
“It seems to me that there are things in your encyclopaedia which might be turned to a profit. Processes and such that have been lost in the last two thousand years-but might be worth money now.”
“All right, do it. The stuff you send up is satisfactory, what I’ve had time to read. But some of it is trivial. ‘Smith, John, born and died-a politician who did nothing much and did that little poorly.’ Know what I mean?”
“I think so, Ponse.”
“All right, skip that garbage and dig me up four or five juicy ideas I can cash in on.”
Hugh hesitated. Ponse said, “Well? Didn’t you understand?”
“I think I need help. You see, I don’t know anything really, except what goes on belowstairs. I thought Joe might help.”
“How?”
“I understand that he has traveled with you, seen things. He is more likely to be able to pick out subjects that merit study. He could pick the articles, I will translate them, and you can judge whether there is anything to exploit. I can synopsize them, so that you needn’t waste time wading through details if the subject doesn’t merit it.”
“Good idea. I’m sure Joe will be happy to help. All right, send up the encyclopaedia. All.”
Hugh was dismissed so abruptly that he had no chance to mention Barbara.
But, he reflected, he could not have risked it with Grace present.
He considered digging out Duke, telling him that his mother was fat and happy-both literally-but decided against it. He wasn’t sure how pleased Duke would be with a truthful report. They didn’t see eye to eye and that was that.
Chapter 15
Joe sent down a volume every day for many days, with pages marked; Hugh slaved to keep up and to make useful translations. After two weeks Hugh was again sent for.
He expected a conference over some business idea. What he found was Ponse, Joe, and a Chosen he had never seen. Hugh instantly prepared to speak protocol mode, rising.
The Lord Protector said, “Come here, Hugh. Cut the cards. And don’t start any of that tiresome formality, this is family. Private.”
Hugh hesitantly approached. The other Chosen, a big dark man with a permanent scowl, didn’t seem pleased. He was carrying his quirt and twitched it. But Joe looked up and smiled. “I’ve been teaching them contract, Hugh, and our fourth had to be away. I’ve been telling Ponse that you are the best player any where or when. So don’t let me down.”
“I’ll try not to.” Hugh recognized one deck of cards, they had once been his. The other deck appeared to be hand painted and were beautiful. The card table was not from the shelter; fabulous hand craftsmanship had gone into it.
The cut made Hugh partner of the strange Chosen. Hugh tried not to show how nervous it made him, as his partner clearly did not like it. But the Chosen grunted and accepted it.
His partner’s contract, at three spades-by a fluke distribution ‘they made four. His partner growled, “Boy, you underbid, you wasted game. Don’t let it happen again.”
Hugh kept quiet and dealt.
On the next hand Joe and Ponse made five clubs. Hugh’s partner was furious-at Hugh. “If you had led diamonds, we would have set them! And you washed out our leg. I warned you. Now I’m — “
“Mrika!” Ponse said sharply. “This is contract. Play it as such. And put that tickler down. The servant played correctly.”
“It did not! And I’m damned if I care for letting it in the game anyhow.
I can smell the rank, sharp stink of a buck servant no matter how much it’s scrubbed. I don’t think this one is scrubbed at all.”
Hugh felt sweat breaking out in his armpits and flinched. But Ponse said evenly, “Very well, we excuse you. You may leave.”
“That suits me!” The ‘Chosen stood up. “Just one thing before I do — If you don’t quit staffing, Their Mercy will let the North Star Protectorate — “
“Are you planning to put up the money?” Their Charity said sharply. “Me? It’s a Family matter. Not but what I wouldn’t jump at the chance!
Forty million hectares and most of it in prime timber? Of course I would! But I hardly have one bullock to jingle against another-and you know why.”
“Certainly we know. You gamble.”
“Oh, come now! A businessman has to take chances. You can’t call it gambling when — “
“We do call it gambling. We do not object to gambling but we have a vast distaste for losing. If you must lose, you will do it with your own bullocks.”
“But this isn’t gambling, it’s a sure thing-as well as getting us in solid with Their Mercy. The Family — “
“We decide what is good for the Family. Your turn will come soon enough.
In the meantime we are as anxious to please the Lord Proprietor as you are. But not with bullocks the Family doesn’t have in the treasury.”
“You could borrow it. The interest would only come to — . — “
“You wanted to leave, Mrika. We note that you have left.” Ponse picked up cards and began to shuffle.
The younger Chosen snorted and left.
Ponse laid out a solitaire game, started to play. Presently he said to Joe, “Sometimes that young man gets me so annoyed that I would happily change my will.”
Joe looked puzzled. “I thought you could not disinherit him?”
“Oh, no!” Their Charity looked shocked. “Not even a peasant can do that.
Where would we be if there were no stability here on Earth? I wouldn’t dream of it, even if the law permitted it; he’s my heir. I was just thinking of the servants.”
Joe said, “I don’t follow you.”
“Why, you know — No, perhaps you don’t. I keep forgetting that you didn’t grow up among us. My will disposes of things personally mine. Not much- jewelry, scrolls, such. Value probably less than a million. Trivia. Except household servants. Just the household, I’m not talking about servants in mines or on ranches, or in our shipping lines. It’s customary to list all household servants in a will-otherwise they escort their uncle.” He grinned. “It would be a good joke on Mrika if he found that he was going to have to raise the money to adopt fifteen hundred, two thousand servants-or shut the house and live in a tent. I can just see that. Why, the lad can’t take a pee without four servants to shake it. I doubt if he knows how to put on his boots. Hugh, if you tell me to put the black lady on the red lord, I’ll tingle you. I’m not in a good mood.”
Hugh said hastily, “Did you miss a play? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Then why were you staring at the cards?” Hugh had indeed been staring at the game, trying to be invisibie. He had been made very nervous by witnessing a quarrel between Ponse and his nephew. But he had missed not a word, he found it extremely interesting.
Ponse went on, “Which would you prefer, Hugh? To escort me to Heaven? Or stay here and serve Mrika? Don’t answer too quickly. If you stay here, I venture you may be eating your own toes to stay your hunger before I’m gone a year…whereas Heaven is a nice place, so the Good Scroll tells.”
“It’s a hard choice.”
“Well, you don’t have to make it, nor will you know. A servant should never know, it keeps him on his toes. That scoundrel Memtok keeps praying me for the honor of being in my escort. If I thought he was sincere, I would dismiss him for incompetence.” Ponse swept the cards together. “Damn that lad! He’s poor company but I had my liver set on a few good, hard rubbers. Joe, we’ve got to teach more people to play. Being left without a fourth is annoying.”
“Certainly,” agreed Joe. “Right now?”
“No, no. I want to play, damn it, not watch some beginner’s bumbles. I’m growing addicted. Takes a man’s worries off his mind.”
Hugh was hit by inspiration. “Ponse, if you don’t mind having another servant in the game…”
Joe brightened up. “Why, of course! He — “
“Barbara,” Hugh cut in fast, before Joe could mention Duke.
Joe blinked. Then he smoothly picked it up. “He-Hugh, I mean-was about to mention a servant named Barbara. Good bridge player.”
“Well! You’ve been teaching this game belowstairs, Hugh?” Ponse added, “‘Barbara’? A name I don’t recognize. Not one of the upper servants.”
“You remember her,” Joe said. “She was with us when you picked us up.
The tall one.”
“Oh, yes. Bigging, it was. Joe, are you telling me that a slut can play this game?”
“She’s a top player,” Joe assured him. “Plays better than I do. Heavens, Ponse, she can play rings around you. Isn’t that right, Hugh?”
“Barbara is an excellent player.” “This I must see to believe.”
A few minutes later Barbara, freshly bathed and scared, was fetched in. She glanced at Hugh, looked startled silly, opened her mouth, closed it, and stood mute.
Ponse came up to her. “So this is the slut who is supposed to be able to play contract. Stop trembling, little one; nobody’s going to eat you.” In bluff words he convinced her that she was there only to play bridge and that she was expected to relax and be informal-no fancy talk. “Just behave as if you were downstairs, having a good time with other servants. Hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just one thing.” He tapped her on her chest. “When you’re my partner, I shan’t be angry if you make mistakes-after all, you’re only a slut and it’s surprising that you can play an intellectual game at all. But” — he paused — “when you are playing against me, if you fail to fight for every trick, if I even suspect that you are trying to let me win, I guarantee you’ll tingle when you leave. Understand?”
“That’s right,” agreed Joe. “Their Charity expects it. Just play by the book, and play your best.”
“‘By the book,’ ” Ponse repeated. “I’ve never seen this book but that’s the way Joe says he has taught me to play. So do it. All right, let’s cut the cards.”
Hugh hardly listened, he was drinking in the sight of Barbara. She looked well and healthy although it was startling to see her slender again-or almost, he corrected; she was still largish in the fanny and certainly in the bust. She had lost most of her tan and was dressed in the shapeless short robe all female servants wore belowstairs, but ‘he was delighted to see that she had not had her hair removed. It was cropped but could grow back.
He noticed that his own appearance seemed to startle her, realized why.
He said, smiling, “I comb my hair with a washrag now, Barbie. No matter, I didn’t have enough to matter. Now that I’m used to being hairless, I like it.”
“You look distinguished, Hugh.”
“He’s ugly as sin,” said Ponse. “But are we chatting? Or playing bridge?
Your bid, Barba.”
They played for hours. As it progressed, Barbara seemed to relax and enjoy it. She smiled a great deal, usually at Hugh, but also at Joe and even at Their Charity. She played by the book and Ponse never found fault. Hugh decided that their host was a good player, not yet perfect but he remembered what cards had been played and usually bid accurately. Hugh found him a satisfactory partner and an adequate opponent; it was a good game.
But once, with Barbara as Ponse’s partner and contract in her hand, Hugh saw when Ponse laid down the dummy that Ponse had overbid in his answer. So he contrived to lose one sure trick, thereby letting Barbara make contract, game, and rubber.
It got him a glance with no expression from Barbara and Joe gave him a look that had a twinkle in it, but Joe kept his mouth shut. Ponse did not notice. He gave a bass roar, reached across and patted Barbara’s head. “Wonderful, wonderful! Little one, you really can play contract. Why, I doubt if I could have made that myself.”
Nor did Ponse complain when, on the next rubber, Barbara and Hugh gave him and Joe a trouncing. Hugh decided that Ponse had the inborn honesty called “sportsmanship” — plus a good head for cards.
One of the little deaf-mutes trotted in, knelt, and served Their Charity
a tumbler of something cold, then another to Joe. Ponse took a swig, wiped his mouth and said, “Ah, that hits the spot!”
Joe made a whispered suggestion to him. Ponse looked startled and said, “Oh, certainly. Why not?”
So Hugh and Barbara were served. Hugh was pleased to discover ‘that it was apple juice; he wasn’t sure of his ability to play tight bridge had it been Happiness.
During this rubber Hugh noticed that Barbara was squirming a little and seemed to have trouble in concentrating. When the hand ended he said quietly, “Trouble, hon?”
She glanced at Ponse and whispered, “Some. I was about to feed the boys when I was sent for.”
“Oh.” Hugh turned to his host. “Ponse, Barbara needs to stop.,,
Ponse looked up from shuffling. “Plumbing call? One of the maids can show it, I suppose. They must go somewhere.”
“Not that. Well, maybe that, too. What I meant was, Barbara has twins.” “Well? Sluts usually have twins, they have two breasts.”
“That’s the point, she’s nursing them and she’s hours past time. She has to leave.”
Ponse looked annoyed, hesitated, then said, “Oh, garbage. Its milk won’t cake from so short a delay. Here, cut the cards.”
Hugh did not touch them. Ponse said, “Didn’t you hear me?” Hugh stood up~ His heart was pounding and he felt a shudder of fear. “Ponse, Barbara hurts. She needs to nurse her twins right now. I can’t force you to let her- but if you think I’ll play cards while you don’t let her, you’re crazy.”
For long moments the big man stared, without expression. Then suddenly he grinned. “Hugh, I like you. You did something like this once before, didn’t you? The slut is your sister, I suppose.”
“Then you are the one who is crazy. Do you know how close you came to being cold meat?”
“I can guess.”
“I doubt it, you don’t look worried. But I like spunk, even in a servant. Very well, I’ll have its brats fetched. They can suck while we play.”
The twins were fetched and Hugh saw at once that they were the handsomest, healthiest, and loveliest babies that had ever been born; he told Barbara so. He did not immediately get a chance to touch them as Ponse took one in each arm, laughed at them, blew in their faces, and jiggled them. “Fine boys!” he roared. “Fine boys, Barba! Holy little terrors, I’ll bet. Go on, swing that fist, kid! Sock Uncle in the nose again. What do you call them, Barba? Do they have names?”
“This one is Hugh — “
“Eh? Does Hugh have something to do with them? Or thinks he has, perhaps?”
“He’s ‘their father.”
“Well, well! Hugh, you may be ugly, but you have other qualities. If Barba knows what she’s talking about. What’s this one’s name?”
“That one is little Joe. Karl Joseph.”
Ponse lifted an eyebrow at Joe. “So you have sluts naming brats for you, Joe? I’ll have to watch you, you’re a sly one. What did you give Barba?”
“Beg pardon?”
“Birthing present, you idiot. Give her that ring you’re wearing. So many brats in this house named after me that I have to order trinkets by the basket load; they know it obliges me to make them a present. Hugh is lucky, he has nothing to give. Hey, Hughie has teeth!”
Hugh got to hold them while they settled down for combined bridge and nursing. Barbara took them one at a time and played cards with her free hand.
The little maids fussed over the one not nursing and, in due time, took them away. In spite of the handicap Barbara played well, even brilliantly; the long session ended with Ponse top scorer, Barbara close behind, and Joe and Hugh tied for last. Hugh had cheated very little to make it come out that way; the cards had favored Ponse and Barbara when they were partners; they had made two small slams.
Ponse was feeling very jovial about it. “Barba, come here, little one. You tell the slutmaster I said to find a wet nurse for your brats and that I want the vet to dry you up as soon as possible. I want you available as my bridge partner. Or opponent-you give a man a tough fight.”
“Yes, sir. May one speak?” “One may.”
“I would rather nurse them myself. They’re all I have.”
“Well — ” He shrugged. “This seems to be my day for balky servants. I’m afraid you are both still savages. A tingling wouldn’t do you any harm, slut. All right, but you’ll have to play ‘one-handed sometimes; I won’t have brats stopping the game.” He grinned. “Besides, I’d like to see the little rascals occasionally, especially that one that bites. You may go. All.”
Barbara was dismissed so suddenly that Hugh barely had time to exchange smiles with her; he had hoped to walk down with her, steal a private visit.
But His Charity did not dismiss him, so he stayed-with a warm glow in his heart; it had been the happiest time in a long time.
Ponse discussed the articles he had been translating, why none of them offered practical business ventures. “But don’t fret, Hugh; keep plugging and we’ll strike ore yet.” He turned the talk to other matters, still kept Hugh there. Hugh found him a knowledgeable conversationalist, interested in everything, as willing to listen as he was to talk. He seemed to Hugh the epitome of the perfect decadent gentleman-urbane, cosmopolitan, disillusioned, and cynical, a dilettante in arts and sciences, neither merciful nor cruel, unimpressed by his own rank, not racist-he treated Hugh as an intellectual equal.
While they were talking, the little maids served dinner to Ponse and to Joe. Nothing was offered to Hugh, nor did he expect it-nor want it, as he could have meals served in his rooms if he was not on time in the executive servants’ dining room and he had long since decided, from samplings, that Memtok was right: the upper servants ate better than the master.
But when Ponse had finished, he shoved his dishes toward Hugh. “Eat.”
Hugh hesitated a split second; he did not need to be told that he was being honored-for a servant. There was plenty, at least three times as much left as Ponse had eaten. Hugh could not recall that he had ever eaten someone’s leavings, and certainly not with a used spoon. He dug in.
As usual, Their Charity’s menu did not especially please Hugh-somewhat greasy and he had no great liking for pork. Pork was hardly ever served belowstairs but was often part of the menus Memtok sampled, Hugh had noticed. It surprised him, as the revised Koran still contained the dietary laws and the Chosen did follow some of the original Muslim customs. They practiced circumcision, did not use alcohol other than a thin beer, and observed Ramadan at least nominally and called it that. Mahomet would have been shocked by the revisions to his straightforward monotheistic teachings but he would have recognized some of the details.
But the bread was good, the fruits were superb, and so were the ices and many other things; it wasn’t necessary to dine solely on roast. Hugh kept intact his record for enjoying the inevitable.
Ponse was interested in what the climate had been in this region in Hugh’s time. “Joe tells me you sometimes had freezing temperatures. Even snow.”
“Oh, yes, every winter.”
“Fantastic. How cold did it get?”
Hugh had to think. He had not had occasion to learn how these people marked temperatures. “If you consider the range from freezing of water to boiling, it was not unusual for it to get one third of that range lower than freezing.”
Ponse looked surprised. “Are you sure? We call that range, freezing to boiling, one hundred. Are you telling me that it sometimes got as much as thirty-three degrees below freezing?”
Hugh noted with interest that the centigrade scale had survived two millennia-but no reason why not; they used the decimal system in arithmetic and in money. He had to do a conversion in his head. “Yes, that’s what I mean. Nearly cold enough to freeze mercury, and cold enough for that, up in those mountains.” Hugh pointed out a view window.
“Cold enough,” Joe agreed, “to freeze your teeth! Only thing that ever made me long for Mississippi.”
“Where,” asked Ponse, “is Mississippi?”
“It’s not,” Joe told him. “It’s under water now. And good riddance.”
This led to discussion of why the climate had changed and Their Charity sent for the last volume of the Britannica, containing ancient maps, and for modern maps. They poured over them together. Where the Mississippi Valley had been, the Gulf now reached far north. Florida and Yucatan were missing and ‘Cuba was a few small islands. California had a central sea and most of northern Canada was gone.
Similar shrinkages had taken place elsewhere. The Scandinavian Peninsula was an island, the British isles were several small islands, part of the Sahara was under water. What had been lowlands anywhere were missing-Holland, Belgium, Northern Germany could not be found. Nor Denmark-the 3altic was a gulf of the Atlantic.
Hugh looked at it with odd sorrow and had never felt so homesick. He had known it was so, from reading; this was the first map he had seen of it.
“The question,” said Ponse, “is whether the melting of ice ~vas triggered by the dust of the East-West War, or was it a natural change that was, at most, speeded up a little by artificial events? Some of my scientists say one thing, some the other.”
“What do you think?” asked Hugh.
The lord shrugged. “I’m not foolish enough to hold opinions when I have insufficient data; I’ll leave that folly to scientists. I’m simply glad that Uncle saw fit ‘to let me live in an age in which I can go outdoors without freezing my feet. I visited the South Pole once-I have some mines there. Frost on the ground. Dreadful. The place for ice is in a drink.”
Ponse went to the window and stood looking out at the silhouette of mountains against darkening sky. “However, if it got that cold up there now, we would root them out in a hurry. Eh, Joe?”
“Back they would come with their tails between their legs,” Joe agreed.
Hugh looked puzzled. “Ponse means,” Joe explained, “the runners hiding up in the mountains. What they thought you were when we were found.”
“Runners and a few aborigines,” Ponse supplemented. “Savages. Poor creatures who have never been rescued by civilization. It’s hard to save them, Hugh. They don’t stand around waiting to be picked up the way you did. They’re crafty as wolves. The merest shadow in the sky and they freeze and you can’t see them-and they are very destructive of game. Of course we could smoke them out any number of ways. But that would kill the game, can’t have that. Hugh, you’ve lived out there; you must have acquired some feel for it. How would you go about rescuing those critters? Without killing game.”
Mr. Hugh Farnham hesitated only long enough to phrase his reply. “Their Charity knows that this one is a servant. This one’s ears must be at fault in thinking that it heard its humble self called on to see the problem as it
might appear to the Chosen.”
“Why, damn your impudence! Come, come, Hugh, I want your opinion.” “You got my opinion, Ponse. I’m a servant. My sympathies are with the
runaways. And the savages. I didn’t come here willingly. I was dragged.” “Surely you aren’t resenting that now? Of course you were captured, even
Joe was. But there was language difficulty. Now you’ve seen the difference. You know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Then you know how much your condition has improved. Don’t you sleep in a better bed now? Aren’t you eating better? Uncle! When we picked you up, you were half starved and infested with vermin. You were barely staying alive with the hardest sort of work, I could see. I’m not blind, I’m not stupid; there isn’t a member of my Family down to ‘the lowest cleaner that works half as ‘hard as you had to, or sleeps in as poor a bed-and in a stinking little sty; I could hardly bear the stench before we fumigated it-and as for the food, if that is the word, any servant in this house would turn up his nose at what you ate. Isn’t all that true?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“I prefer freedom.”
“‘Freedom!'” Their Charity snorted. “A concept without a referent, like ‘ghosts.’ Meaningless. Hugh, you should study semantics. Modern semantics, I mean; I doubt if they really had such a science in your day. We are all free- to walk our appointed paths. Just as a stone is free to fall when you toss it into the air. No one is free in the abstract meaning you give the word. Do you think 1 am free? Free to change places with you, say? Would I if I could? You bet I would! You have no concept of the worries I have, the work I do.
Sometimes I lie awake half the night, worrying which way to turn next-you won’t find that in servants’ hall. They’re happy, they have no worries. But I have to carry my burden as best I can.”
Hugh looked stubborn. Ponse came over and put his arm around Hugh’s shoulders. “Come, let’s talk this over judicially-two civilized beings. I’m not one of those superstitious persons who thinks a servant can’t think because his skin is pale. Surely you know that. Haven’t I respected your intellect?”
“Well…yes.”
“That’s better. Let me explain some things-Joe has seen them-and you can ask questions, and we’ll arrive at a rational understanding. First-Joe, you’ve seen Chosen here and there who are what our friend Hugh would no doubt describe as ‘free.’ Tell him.”
Joe snorted. “Hugh, you should see-and you would be glad to be privileged to live in Ponse’s household. There is just one phrase I can think of to describe them. Po’ black trash. Like the white trash there used to be in Mississippi. Poor black trash, not knowing where their next meal is.”
“I follow you.”
“I think I do, too,” agreed Their Charity. “A pungent phrase. I look forward to the day when every man will have servants. It can’t come overnight, they’ll have to lift themselves up. But a day when all the Chosen will be served-and all servants as well cared for as they are in my own Family. That’s my ideal. In the meantime I do the best I can. I look after their welfare from birth until they’re called Home by Uncle. They have nothing to fear, utter security-which they wouldn’t have out in those mountains as I’m sure you know better than I. They are happy, they are never overworked — which I am-and they have plenty of fun, which is more than I can say! This bridge game today- the first real fun I’ve had in a month. And they are never punished, only just enough to remind them when they err. Have to do that, you’ve seen how stupid most of them are. Not that I am inferring that you are — No, I tell you
honestly that I think you are smart enough to take care of servants yourself, despite your skin. I’m speaking of the ordinary run. Honestly, Hugh, do you think they could take care of themselves as well as I look out for them?”
“Probably not.” Hugh had heard all this before, only nights ago, and in almost the same words-from Memtok. With the difference that Ponse seemed to be honestly fond of his servants and earnest about their welfare-whereas the Chief Domestic had been openly contemptuous of them, even more strongly so than his veiled contempt for the Chosen. “No, they couldn’t, most of them.”
“Ah! You agree with me.” “No.”
Ponse looked pained. “Hugh, how can we have a rational discussion if you say one thing and contradict it in the next breath?”
“I didn’t contradict myself. I agreed that you took fine care of the welfare of your servants. But I did not agree that I prefer it to freedom.”
“But why, Hugh? Give me a reason, not a philosophical abstraction. If you’re not happy, I want to know why. So that I can correct it.”
“I can give you one reason. I’m not allowed to live with my wife and children.”
“Eh?”
“Barbara. And the twins.”
“Oh. Is that important? You have a bedwarmer. Memtok told me, and I congratulated him on having used initiative in an odd situation. Not much gets past that sly old fox. You have one and she is sure to be more expert at her specialty than the ordinary run of breeding slut. As for the brats, no reason why you can’t see them-just order them fetched to you whenever you like. But who wants to live with brats? Or with a wife? I don’t live with my wife and children, you can bet on that. I see them on appropriate occasions. But who would want to live with them?”
“I would.”
“Well — Uncle! I want you to be happy. It can be arranged.” “It can?”
“Certainly. If you hadn’t put up such a fuss over being tempered, you could have had them with you all along — though I confess I don’t see why. Do you want to see the vet?”
“Uh…no.”
“Well, there’s another choice. I’ll have the slut spayed.” “No!”
Ponse sighed. “You’re hard to please. Be practical, Hugh; can’t change a scientific breeding system to pamper one servant. Do you know how many servants are in this family? Here and at the Palace? Around eighteen hundred, I believe. Do you know what would happen if I allowed unrestricted breeding?
In ten years there would be twice that number. And what would happen next? They would starve! I can’t support them n unlimited breeding. Would if I could, but it’s wishing for the Moon. Worse, for we can go to the Moon any time it’s worth while but nobody can cope with the way servants will breed if left to their own devices. So which is better? To control it? Or let them starve?”
Their Charity sighed. “I wish you were a head shorter, we would work something out. You’ve been in studs’ quarters?”
“I visited it once, with Memtok.”
“You noticed the door? You had to stoop; Memtok walked straight in-he used to be a stud. The doors are that height in ~very studs’ barracks in the world-and no servant is chosen Lf he can’t walk in without stooping. And the slut in this case Ls too tall, too. A wise law, Hugh. I didn’t make it; it was handed down a long time ago by Their Mercy of that time. If they are allowed to breed too tall they start needing to be tingled too often and that’s not good, for master or servant. No, Hugh. Anything within reason. But don’t ask
for the impossible.” He moved from the divan where he had been sitting ~tête –
à — tête with Hugh and sat down at the card table, picked
a deck. “So we’ll say no more about it. Do you know how ~o play double solitaire?”
“Yes.”
“Then come see if you can beat me and let’s be cheerful. A man gets upset when his efforts aren’t appreciated.”
Hugh shut up. He was thinking glumly that Ponse was not a villain. He was exactly like the members of every ruling class in history: honestly convinced of his benevolence and hurt if it was challenged.
They played a game; Hugh lost, his mind was not on it. They started to lay out another. Their Charity remarked, “I must have more cards painted.
These are getting worn.”
Hugh said, “Couldn’t it be done more quickly, using a printer such as we use for scrolls?”
“Eh? Hadn’t thought about it.” The big man rubbed one of the XXth century cards. “This doesn’t seem much like printing. Were they printed?”
“Oh, yes. Thousands at a time. Millions, I should say, figuring the enormous numbers that used to be sold.”
“Really? I wouldn’t have though! that bridge, with its demand on the intellect, would have attracted many people.”
Hugh suddenly put down his cards. “Ponse? You wanted a way to make money.”
“Certainly.”
“You have it in your hand. Joe! Come here and let’s talk about this. How many decks of cards were sold each year in the United States?”
“Gosh, Hugh, I don’t know. Millions, maybe.”
“So I would say. At a gross profit of about ninety percent. Mmm — Ponse, bridge and solitaire aren’t the only games that can be played with these cards. The possibilities are unlimited. There are games simple as solitaire but played by two or three or more players. There are games a dozen people can play at once. There are hard games and easy games, there is even a form of bridge — ‘duplicate,’ it’s called-harder than contract. Ponse, every family-little family-kept one or two or even dozens of decks on hand; it was a rare home that didn’t own a deck. I couldn’t guess how many were sold.
Probably a hundred million decks in use in the United States alone. And you’ve got a virgin market. All it needs is to get people interested.”
“Ponse, Hugh is right,” Joe said solemnly. “The possibilities are unlimited.”
Ponse pursed up his lips. “If we sold them for a bullock a deck, let us say…mmm — “
“Too much,” Joe ‘objected. “You would kill your market before you got started.”
Hugh said, “Joe, what’s that formula for setting a price to maximize profits rather than sales?”
“Works only in a monopoly.”
“Well? How is that done here? Patents and copyrights and such? I haven’t seen anything about it in what I’ve read.”
Joe looked troubled. “Hugh, the Chosen don’t use such a system, they don’t need to. Everything is pretty well worked out, things don’t change much.”
Hugh said, “That’s bad. Two weeks after we start, the market will be flooded with imitations.”
Ponse said, “What are you two jabbering about? Speak Language.” Hugh’s question had necessarily been in English; Joe had answered in English.
Joe said, “Sorry, Ponse,” and explained the ideas behind patent rights, copyright, and monopoly.
Ponse relaxed. “Oh, that’s simple. When a man gets an inspiration from Heaven, the Lord Proprietor forbids anyone else to use it without his let.
Doesn’t happen often, I recall only two cases in my lifetime. But Mighty Uncle has been known to smile.”
Hugh was not surprised to learn how scarce invention was. It was a static culture, with most of what they called “science” in the hands of tempered slaves-and if patenting a new idea was that difficult, there would be little incentive to invent. “Would you say that this idea is an inspiration from Heaven?”
Ponse thought about it. “An inspiration is whatever Their Mercy, in Their wisdom, recognizes as an inspiration.” Suddenly he grinned. “In my opinion, anything that will stack bullocks in the Family coffers is an inspiration. The problem is to make the Proprietor see it. But there are ways. Keep talking.”
Joe said, “Hugh, the protection should extend not only over playing cards but over the games themselves.”
“Of course. If they don’t buy Their Charity’s cards, they must not play his games. Hard to stop, since anybody can fake a deck of cards. But the monopoly should make it illegal.”
“And not just cards like these, but any sort of playing cards. You could play bridge with cards just with numbers on them.”
“Yes.” Hugh pondered. “Joe, there was a Scrabble set in the shelter.” “It’s still around. Ponse’s scientists saved everything. Hugh, I see
what you’re driving at, but nobody here could learn Scrabble. You have to know English.”
“What’s to keep us from inventing Scrabble all over again — in Language? Let me set my staff to making a frequency count of the alphabet as it appears in Language and I’ll have a set of Scrabble, board and tiles and rules, suited to Language, the following day.”
“What in the name of Uncle is Scrabble?”
“It’s a game, Ponse. Quite a good one. But the point is that it’s a game that we can charge more for than we can for a deck of cards.”
“That’s not all,” said Hugh. He began ticking on his fingers. “Parcheesi, Monopoly, backgammon, Old Maid for kids-call it something else- dominoes, anagrams, poker chips and racks, jigsaw puzzles-have you seen any?”
“No.”
“Good for young and old, and all degrees of difficulty. Tinker Toy.
Dice-lots of games with dice. Joe, are there casinos here?”
“Of sorts. There are places to gamble and lots of private gambling.” “Roulette wheels?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“It gets too big to think about. Ponse, you are going to have to sit up nights, counting your money.”
“Servants for such chores. I wish I knew what you two are talking about.
May one ask?”
“Sorry, sir. Joe and I were talking about ancient games.. and not just games but all sorts of recreations that we used to have and have now been lost. At least I think they have been. Joe?”
“The only one I’ve seen that looks familiar is chess.”
“Chess would hold up if anything would. Ponse, the point is that every one of these things has money in it. Surely, you have games now. But these will be novelties. So old they are new again. Ping-Pong…bowling alleys! Joe, have you seen — “
“No.”
“Billiards. Pocket pool. I’ll stop, we’ve got a backlog. Ponse, the first problem is to get a protection from Their Mercy to cover it all-and I see a theory that makes it an inspiration from on high. It was a miracle.”
“What? Garbage. I don’t believe in miracles.”
“You don’t have to believe in it. Look, we were found on the Proprietor’s personal land-and you found us. Doesn’t that look as if Uncle intended for the Proprietor to know about this? And for you as Lord Protector to protect it?”
Ponse grinned. “An argument could be made for such a theory. Might be expensive. But you can’t boil water without feeding the fire, as my aunt used to say.” He stood up. “Hugh, let’s see that Scrabble game. Soon. Joe, we’ll find time for you to explain these other things. We excuse you both. All.”
Kitten was asleep when Hugh returned but she was clutching a note:
Oh, darling, it was so wonderful to see you! ! ! I can’t wait until Their Charity asks us to play bridge again! Isn’t he an old dear? Even if he was thoughtless at one point. He corrected his mistake and that’s the mark of a true gentleman.
I’m so excited at seeing you that I can hardly write, and Kitten is waiting to take this to you.
The twins send you kisses, slobbery ones. Love, love, love!
Your own B.
Hugh read Barbara’s note with mixed feelings. He shared her joy in their reunion, limited as it had been, and eagerly looked forward to the next time Ponse’s pleasure would permit them to be together. As for the rest — Better get her out of here before she acquired a slave mentality! Surely, Ponse was a gentleman within the accepted meaning of the term. He was conscientious about his responsibilities, generous and tolerant with his inferiors. A gentleman.
But he was a revolving son of a bitch, too! And Barbara ought not to be so ready to overlook the fact. Ignore it, yes — one had to. But not forget it.
He must get her free. But how?
He went to bed.
An aching hour later he got up, went into his living room, stood at his window. He could make out against black sky the blacker blackness of the Rocky Mountains.
Somewhere out there, were free men.
He could break this window, go toward the mountains, be lost in them before daylight-find free companions. He need not even break the window-just slip past a nodding watchman, or use the authority symbolized by his whip to go out despite the watch. No real effort was made to keep house servants locked up. A watch was set more to keep intruders out. Most house servants would no more run away than a dog would.
Dogs — One of the studmaster’s duties was keeper of the hounds.
If necessary, he could kill a dog with his hands. But how do you run when burdened with two small babies?
He went to a cupboard, poured himself a stiff drink of Happiness, gulped it down, and went back to bed.
Chapter 16
For the next many days Hugh was busy redesigning the game of Scrabble, translating Hoyle’s Complete Book of Games, dictating rules and descriptions of games and recreations not in Hoyle (such as Ping-Pong, golf, water skiing), attending conferences with Ponse and Joe-playing bridge.
The last was by far the best. With Joe’s help he taught several Chosen
the game, but most sessions were play, with Joe, Ponse, and always Barbara. Ponse had the enthusiasm of a convert; when he was in residence he played bridge every minute he could spare, and always wanted the same four, the best players available.
It seemed to Hugh that Their Charity was honestly fond of Barbara, as fond as he was of the cat he called “Doklivstnipsoom” — never “Doc.” Ponse extended to cats the courtesy due equals, and Doc, or any cat, was free to jump into his lap even when he was bidding a hand. He extended the same courtesy and affection to Barbara as he knew her better, always called her “Barba,” or “Child,” and never again referred to her as “it.” Barbara called him “Ponse,” or “Uncle,” and clearly felt happy in his company.
Sometimes Ponse left Barbara and Hugh alone, once for twenty minutes. These were jewels beyond price; they did not risk losing such a privilege by doing more than hold hands.
If it was time to nurse the boys, Barbara said so and Ponse always ordered them fetched. Once he ordered them fetched when it wasn’t necessary, said that he had not seen them for a week and wanted to see how much they had grown. So the game waited while their “Uncle” Ponse got down on the rug and made foolish noises at them.
Then he had them taken away, five minutes of babies was enough. But he said to Barbara, “Child, they’re growing like sugar cane. I hope I live to see them grow up.”
“You’ll live a long time, Uncle.’!
“Maybe. I’ve outlived a dozen food tasters, but that salts no fish.
Those brats of ours will make magnificent matched footmen. I can see them now, serving in the banquet hail of the Palace-the Residence, I mean, not this cottage. Whose deal is it?”
Hugh saw Grace a few times, but never for more than seconds. If he showed up when she was there, she left at once, displeasure large on her face. If Barbara arrived before Hugh did, Grace was always out of sight. It was clear that she was an habituée of the lord’s informal apartments; it was equally clear that she resented Barbara as much as ever, with bile left over for Hugh. But she never said anything and it seemed likely that she had learned not to cross wills with Their Charity.
It was now official that Grace was bedwarmer to Their Charity. Hugh learned this from Kitten. The sluts knew when the lord was in residence (Hugh often did not) by whether Grace was downstairs or up. She was assigned no other duties and was immune to all whips, even Memtok’s. She was also, the times Hugh glimpsed her, lavishly dressed and bejeweled.
She was also very fat, so fat that Hugh felt relieved that he no longer had even a nominal obligation to share a bed with her. True, all bedwarmers were fat by Hugh’s standards. Even Kitten was plump enough that had she been a XXth century American girl, she would have been at least pretending to diet — Kitten fretted that she was unable to put on weight — and did Hugh like her anyhow?
Kitten was so young that her plumpness was somewhat pleasing, as with a baby. But Hugh found Grace’s fatness another matter-somewhere in that jiggling mass was buried the beautiful girl he had married. He tried not to think about it and could not see why Ponse would like it-if he did. But in truth, Hugh admitted, he did not know that Grace was anything more than nominally Ponse’s bedwarmer. After all, Ponse was alleged to be more than a century old. Would Ponse have any more use for one than Memtok had? Hugh did not know-nor care.
Ponse looked to be perhaps sixty-five and still strong and virile. But Hugh held a private opinion that Grace’s role was odalisque, not houri.
While the question did not matter to him, it did to Duke. Hugh’s first son came storming into Hugh’s office one day and demanded a private interview; Hugh led him to his apartment. He bad not seen Duke for a month. Translations
had been coming in from him; there had been no need to see him.
Hugh tried to make the meeting pleasant. “Sit down, Duke. May I offer you a drink of Happiness?”
“No, thanks! What’s this I hear about Mother?”
“What do you hear, Duke?” (Oh, Lord! Here we go — ) “You know damned well what I mean!”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
Hugh made him spell it out. Duke had his facts correct and, to Hugh’s surprise, had learned them just that day. Since more than four hundred servants had known all along that one of the slut savages-the other one, not the tail skinny one-lived upstairs with Their Charity more than she lived in sluts’ quarters, it seemed incredible that Duke had taken so long to find out. However, Duke had little to do with the other servants and was not popular-a “troublemaker,” Memtok had called him.
Hugh neither confirmed nor denied Duke’s story.
“Well?” Duke demanded. “What are you going to do about it?”
“About what, Duke? Are you suggesting that I put a stop to servants’ hall gossip?”
“I don’t mean that at all! Are you going to sit there like a turd on a rock while your wife is being raped?”
“Probably. You come in here with some story you’ve picked up from a second assistant dishwasher and expect me to do something. I would like to know, first, why do you think this gossip is true? Second, what has what you have told me got to do with rape? Third, what would you expect me to do about it? Fourth, what do you think I can do about it? Take them in ‘order and be specific. Then we may talk about what I will do.”
“Quit twisting things.”
“I’m not twisting anything. Duke, you had an expensive education as a lawyer-I know, I picked up the tab. You used to lecture me about ‘rules of evidence.’ Now use that education. Take those questions in order. Why do you think this gossip is true?”
“Uh…I heard it and checked around. Everybody knows it.”
“So? Everybody knew the Earth was flat, at one time. But what is the allegation? Be specific.”
“Why, I told you. Mother is assigned as that bastard’s bedwarmer.” “Who says so?”
“Why, everybody!”
“Did you ask the slutmaster?” “Do you think I’m crazy?”
“I’ll take that as rhetorical. To shorten this, what ‘everybody knows,’ as you put it, is that Grace is assigned duties upstairs. This could be verified, if true. Possibly in attendance on Their Charity, possibly waiting on the ladies of the household, or perhaps other duties. Do you want an appointment with the slutmaster, so that you can ask him what duties your mother has? I do not know her duties.”
“Uh, you ask him.”
“I shan’t. I feel sure that Grace would regard it as snooping. Let’s assume that you have asked him and that he has told you, as you now suspect only from gossip, that her assignment is as bedwarmer. To Their Charity. On this assumption, made solely for the sake of argument since you haven’t proved it — on this assumption, where does rape come in?”
Duke looked astonished. “I would not have believed it, even of you. Do you mean to sit there and say baldly that you think Mother would do such a thing voluntarily?”
“I long ago gave up trying to guess what your mother would do. But I haven’t said she is doing anything. You have. I don’t know that her assignment is bedwarmer other than through gossip you have repeated without proof. If
true, I still would not know if she had ever carried out the assignment by actually getting into his bed, voluntarily or otherwise-I’ve never seen his bed nor even heard gossip on this point…just your evil thoughts. But if those thoughts are correct, I still would have no opinion as to whether or not anything other than sleep had taken place. I have shared beds with females and done nothing but sleep; it can happen. But even stipulating sexual activity- your assumption, not mine-I doubt that Their Charity has ever raped any female in his life. I doubt it especially now.”
“Crap. There never was a nigger bastard who wouldn’t rape a white woman if he had the chance.”
“Duke! That’s poisonous, insane nonsense. You almost persuade me that you are crazy.”
“I — ,’
“Shut up! You know that Joseph, to give one example, had endless opportunity to rape any of three white women for nine long months. You also know that his behavior was above reproach.”
“Well…he didn’t have a chance to.”
“I told you to shut up this poison. He had endless chance. While you were hunting, any day. He was alone with each of them, many times. Drop it! Slandering Joseph, I mean, even by innuendo. I’m ashamed of you.”
“And I’m ashamed of you. Fat cat for a nigger king.”
“Very well, the shame is mutual. Speaking of fat cats, I don’t really need you. if you want to quit being a fat cat, you can wash dishes or whatever they assign you to.”
“Doesn’t matter to me.”
“Let me know when you wish to be relieved. It will lose you your private cubicle but such luxury is a fat cat privilege. Never mind. I see only one way to get at the facts, if any, underlying these foul suspicions in your mind.
Ask the Lord Protector.”
“Go right ahead! First sensible thing you’ve said.”
“Oh, not me, Duke. I don’t suspect him of rape. But you can ask him. See the Chief Domestic. He’ll see any Palace servant who wants to see him. At the servant’s risk, but I doubt if he’ll tingle anyone in my department without good cause; I do have some fat cat privileges. Tell him you want an audience with the Lord Protector. I think that is all it will take, although you may have to wait a week or two. If Memtok turns you down, tell me. I fancy I can get him to arrange it. Then, when you see the Lord Protector, simply ask him, point-blank.”
“And be lied to. If I ever get that close to that black ape, I’m going to kill him!”
Mr. Farnham sighed. “Duke, I don’t see how one man can be so wrong- headed so many different ways. If you are granted an audience, Memtok will be at your side. With his whip. The Lord Protector will be about fifty feet away. And the whip he carries doesn’t just tingle; it’s a deadly weapon. The old man has lived a long time, he’s not easy to kill.”
“I can try!”
“So you can. If a grasshopper tries to fight a lawnmower, one may admire his courage but not his judgment. But you are equally silly in thinking that Their Charity would lie about it. If he has done what you think he has-raped your mother, forced her to submit-he would feel not the slightest shame, not in any way reluctant to answer you honestly. Duke, he would no more bother to lie to you than it would occur to him to step aside if you were in his way.
However-would you believe your mother?” “Of course I would.”
“Then tell him also that you would like to see her. I am almost certain that he would grant the request. For a few minutes and in his presence. The harem rules he can break if he chooses. If you have the guts to tell him that
you want to hear her confirm whatever he tells you, I think he would be astonished. But I think he would then laugh and grant the petition. If you want to see your mother, assure yourself personally of her welfare and safety, that’s all I can suggest. You can’t see her otherwise. It’s so irregular that your only chance is to spring it on him, face to face.”
Duke looked baffled. “Look, why the devil don’t you ask him? You see him almost every day, so I hear.”
“Me? Yes, I see him fairly often. But ask him about rape? Is that what you mean?”
“Yes, if you choose to put it that way.”
“‘Rape’ is what you claim to be worried about. But I don’t suspect him of rape. I won’t be a front for your evil suspicions. If it is to be done, you must have the guts to do it yourself.” Hugh stood up. “We’ve wasted enough time. Either get back to work, or go see Memtok.”
“I’m not through.”
“Oh, yes, you are. That was an order, not a suggestion.” “If you think I’m scared of that whip — “
“Heavens, Duke, I wouldn’t tingle you myself. If you force me to it, I’ll ask Memtok to chastise you. He’s reputed to be expert. Now get out.
You’ve wasted half my morning.”
Duke left. Hugh stayed, trying to compose himself. A row with Duke always left him shaking; it had been so when the lad was only twelve. But something else troubled him, too. He had used every sophistry he could think of to divert Duke from a hopeless course. That did not worry him, nor did he share Duke’s basic worry. Whatever had happened to Grace, he felt sure that rape was not a factor.
But he was sourly aware of something ‘that Duke, in his delusions, apparently did not realize-the oldest Law of the Conquered, that their women eventually submit-willingly.
Whether his ex-wife had or had not was a matter almost academic. He suspected that she had never been offered opportunity. Either way, she was obviously contented with her lot-smug about it. That troubled him little; he had tried to do his duty by her, she had long since withdrawn herself from him. But he did not want Barbara ever to feel the deadening load of hopelessness that could-and had, all through history-turned chaste women into willing concubines. Much as he loved her, he had no illusions that Barbara was either angel or saint; the Sabine women had stood no chance and neither would she. “Death before dishonor!” was a slogan that did not wear well. In time, it changed to happy cooperation.
He got out his bottle of Happiness, looked at it-put it back. He would never solve his problems that way.
Hugh made no effort to learn if Duke had gone to see Memtok. He got back to work at his endless task of buttering up Their Charity in every way available, whether by good bridge, moneymaking ideas, or simply translating.
He no longer had any hope that the boss would eventually permit him to move Barbara and the twins into his apartment; old Ponse had seemed adamant on that. But favor at court could be useful, even indispensable, no matter what happened-and in the meantime it let him see Barbara occasionally.
He never gave up his purpose of escape. As the summer wore on he realized that the chances were slim of escaping — all four of them escaping, twins in arms-that year. Soon the household would move to the city, and so far as he knew the only possible time to escape was when they were near mountains. No matter. A year, two years, even longer, perhaps wait until the boys could walk. Hard enough even then, but nearly impossible with babies in arms. He must tell Barbara, with whispered urgency, the next time they were left alone even for a minute, what he had in mind-urge her to keep her chin up, and wait.
He didn’t dare write it to her. Ponse could get it translated-other
scholars somewhere understood English, even though Joe would never give him away. Would Grace? He hoped not, but couldn’t guess. Probably Ponse knew all about those notes, had them translated every day, chuckled over them, and did not care.
Perhaps he could work out a code-something as simple as first word, first line, then second line, second word, and so on. Might risk it.
He had figured out one thing in their favor, an advantage that might overcome their lack of sophistication in this society. Runaways rarely succeeded simply because of their appearance. A white skin might be disguised- but servants averaged many inches shorter and many pounds lighter than the Chosen.
Both Barbara and Hugh were tail; they were big enough to pass in that respect for Chosen. Features? The Chosen were not uniform in feature; Hindu influence mixed with Negroid and with other things. His baldness was a problem, he would have to steal a wig. Or make one. But with stolen clothes, squirreled food, weapons of some sort (his two hands!), and makeup-they might be able to pass for “poor black trash” and take to the road.
If it wasn’t too far. If the hounds did not get them. If they did not make some ridiculous bumble through ignorance. But servants, marked by their complexion, were not allowed to go one step outside the household, farm, ranch, or whatever was their lawful cage-without a pass from their patron.
Perhaps he could learn what a pass looked like, forge one. No, Barbara and he could not travel as servants on a forged pass for the very reason that made it dimly possible for them to disguise as Chosen: Their size was distinctive, they would be picked up on sight.
The more Hugh thought about it the more it seemed that he would have to wait at least until next summer.
If they were among the servants picked for the Summer Palace next year –
If they both were — If all four were — He had not thought of that. Christ! Their little family might never be all under this one roof again! Perhaps they would have to run for it now, in the short time left before the move-run and take a chance on hounds, on bears, on those nasty little leopards…with two nursing babies to protect. God! Was ever a man faced with poorer chances for saving his family?
Yes. He himself-when he built that shelter.
Prepare every way he could…and pray for a miracle. He started saving food from meals served in his rooms, such sorts as would keep a while. He kept his eyes open to steal a knife — or anything that could be made into a knife. He kept what he was doing from Kitten’s eyes.
Much sooner than he had hoped he got a chance to acquire makeup. A feast day always meant an orgy of Happiness in servants’ hall; one came that featured amateur theatricals. Hugh was urged to clown the part of Lord Protector in a comic skit. He did not hesitate to do so, Memtok himself had pointed out that his size made him perfect for the part. Hugh roared through it, brandishing a quirt three times as big as Their Charity ever carried.
He was a dramatic success. He saw Ponse watching from the balcony from which Hugh had first seen Happiness issued, watching and laughing. So Hugh ad- libbed, calling out, “Hey, less noise in the balcony! Memtok! Tingle that critter!”
Their Charity laughed harder than ever, the servants were almost hysterical and, at bridge the following day, Ponse patted him and told him that he was the best Lord of Nonsense the pageant had ever had.
Result: one stolen package of pigment which needed only to be mixed with the plentiful deodorant cream to make him the exact shade of the Lord Protector; one wig which covered his baldness with black wavy hair. It was not the wig he had worn in the skit; he had turned that one back to the chief housekeeper, picking a time under Memtok’s eyes and urging Memtok to try it
on. No, it was a wig he had tried on out of several saved from year to year- and which had fitted him just as well. He tried it on, dropped it, kicked it into a corner, recovered it in private-and kept it under his robe for several days until it seemed certain that it hadn’t been missed. It wound up under a file case in his outer office one night when he chose to work later than his clerks.
He was still looking for something he could grind into a knife. He did not see Duke during the three weeks following their row.
Sometimes Duke’s translations came in, sometimes he skipped a day or two; Hugh let him get away with it. But when Hugh could not recall having seen any scrolls come through of the sort Duke was concerned with for a full week, Hugh decided to check up.
Hugh walked to the cubicle that was Duke’s privilege for being a “researcher in history.” He scratched on the door — no answer.
He scratched again, decided that Duke was sleeping, or not in; he slid the door up and looked in.
Duke was not asleep but he was out of this world. He was sprawled naked on his bunk in the most all-out Happiness jag Hugh had ever seen. Duke looked up when the door opened, giggled foolishly, made a gesture, and said, “Hiyah, y’ole bas’ard! How’s tricks?”
Hugh stepped closer for a better look at what he thought he saw, and felt sick at his stomach. “Son, son!”
“Still crepe-hanging, Hughie? Old hooey Hugh, the fake fart!” Gulping, Hugh started to back out, and backed almost into the Chief
Veterinarian. The surgeon smiled and said, “Visiting my patient? He hardly needs it.” He moved past Hugh with a muttered apology, leaned over Duke, peeled an eyelid back, examined him in other ways, said to him jovially, “You’re doing fine, cousin. Let’s give you another little treatment, then I’ll send you in another big meal. How does that sound?”
The vet set a dial on a little instrument, pressed it against Duke’s thigh, waited a moment, and came out. He smiled at Hugh. “Practically recovered. He’ll dream a few hours now, wake up hungry, and not know any time has passed. Then we’ll feed him and give him another dose. A fine patient, he’s raffled beautifully. Doesn’t know what’s happened-and by the time we’re ready to taper him off, he won’t be interested.”
“Who ordered this?”
The surgeon looked surprised. “The Chief Domestic, of course. Why?” “Why wasn’t I told?”
“I don’t know, better ask him. I got it as a routine order, we carried it out in the routine fashion. Sleeping powder in his evening meal, I mean, then surgery that night. Followed by post-surgical care and the usual massive dosage to keep him tranquil. It tends to make some of them a little nervous at first, we vary it to suit the patient. But, as you can see, this patient has taken it as easily as pulling a tooth. By the way, that bridge I installed in your mouth. Satisfactory?”
“What? Yes. Never mind that! I want to know — “
“May it please you, the Chief Domestic is the one to see. Now, if this one may be excused, I’m overdue to hold sick call. I merely stopped by to make sure my patient was happy.”
Hugh went to his apartment and threw up. Then he went looking for Memtok.
Memtok received him into his office at once, invited him to sit down.
Hugh had begun to value the Chief Domestic as a friend, or as the nearest thing he had to a friend. Memtok had formed a habit of dropping in on Hugh in the evenings occasionally and, despite the boss servant’s vinegary approach to life and the vast difference in their backgrounds and values, Hugh found him
shrewd and stimulating and well informed within his limits. Memtok seemed to have the loneliness that a ship’s captain must endure; he seemed pleased to relax and enjoy friendship.
Since the other upper servants were correctly polite with the Chief Researcher rather than warm, Hugh, lonesome himself, had enjoyed Memtok’s unbending and had thought of him as his friend. Until this — Hugh told Memtok bluntly, without protocol, what was on his mind. “Why did you do this?”
Memtok looked surprised. “Such a question! Such a very improper question. Because the Lord Protector ordered it.”
“He did?”
“My dear cousin! Tempering is always by the lord’s order. Oh, I recommend, to be sure. But orders for alterations must come from above. However, if it is any business of yours, in this case I made no recommendation. I was given the order, I had it carried out. All.”
“Certainly it was my business! He works for me.”
“Oh! But he had already been transferred before this was done. Else I would have made a point of telling you. Propriety, cousin, propriety in all things. I hold subordinates strictly accountable. So I never undercut them. Can’t run a taut household if one does. Fair is fair.”
“I wasn’t told he was transferred. Don’t you count that as undercutting?”
“Oh, but you were.” The Chief Domestic glanced at the rack of pigeonholes backing his desk, searched briefly, pulled out a slip. “There it is.” Hugh looked at it. DUTY ASSIGNMENT, CHANGE IN-ONE SERVANT, MALE (savage, rescued & adopted), known as Duke, description — Hugh skipped on down.– relieved of all duties in the Department of Ancient History and assigned to the personal service of Their Charity, effective immediately. BILLETING & MESSING ASSIGNMENTS: Unchanged until further –“I never saw this!”
“It’s my file copy. You got the original.” Memtok pointed at the lower left corner. “Your deputy clerk’s sign. It always pleases me when my executives can read and write, it makes things so much more orderly. With an ignoramus like the Chief Groundskeeper, one can tell him until one’s throat is raw and later the stupid lout will claim that wasn’t the way he heard it-yet a tingling improves his memory only for that day. Disheartening. One can’t be forever tingling an upper servant, it doesn’t work.” Memtok sighed. “I’d recommend a change, if his assistant wasn’t even stupider.”
“Memtok, I never saw this.”
“As may be. It was delivered, your deputy receipted for it. Look around your office. One bullock gets you three you’ll find it. Perhaps you’d like me to tingle your deputy? Glad to.”
“No, no.” Memtok was almost certainly right, the order was probably on his own desk, unread. Hugh’s department had grown to two or three dozen people; there seemed to be more every day. Most of them seemed to be button sorters, all of them wanted to take up his time. Hugh had long since told the earnest, fairly literate clerk who was his deputy that he was not to be bothered-otherwise Hugh would have accomplished no translating after the first week; Parkinson’s Law had taken over. The clerk had obeyed and routine matters stacked up. Every week or so Hugh would go through the stack rapidly, shove it back at his deputy for file or burning or whatever they did with useless papers.
Probably the order transferring Hugh was in the current accumulation. If he had seen it in time — Too late, too late! He put his elbows on his knees and covered his face. Too late! Oh, my son!
Memtok touched his shoulder almost gently. “Cousin, take hold of yourself. Your prerogatives were not abridged. You see ‘that, do you not?”
“Yes. Yes, I see it,” Hugh mumbled through his hands. “Then why are you overwrought?”
“He was-he is-my son.”
“He is? Then why are you behaving as if he were your nephew?” Memtok used the specific form, meaning “your eldest sister’s oldest son” and he was honestly puzzled by the savage’s odd reaction. He could understand a mother being interested in her son-her oldest son, at least. But a father? Uncle!
Memtok had sons, he was certain, throughout the household — “One-Shot Memtok” the former slutmaster used to call him. But he didn’t know who they were and could not imagine wanting to know. Or caring.
“Because — ” Hugh started. “Oh, forget it. You did your duty.
Conceded.”
“Well — You still seem upset. I’ll send for a bottle of Happiness. I’ll join you, this once.”
“No. No, thank you.”
“Oh, come, come! You need it. A tonic is excellent, it is excess that one must avoid.”
“Thanks, Memtok, but I don’t want it. Right now I must be sharp. I want to see Their Charity. Right away if possible. Will you arrange it for me?”
“I can’t do that.”
“Damn it, I know that you can. And I know he will see me if you ask
him.”
“Cousin, I didn’t say that I would not; I said ‘I can’t.’ Their Charity
is not in residence.”
“Oh.” Then he asked to have word sent to Joe. But the Chief Domestic told him that the young Chosen had left with the Lord Protector. He promised to let Hugh know when either of them returned — Yes, at once, cousin.
Hugh skipped dinner, went to his rooms and brooded. He could not avoid tormenting himself with the thought that it was, in part at least, his own fault-no, no, not for failing to read every useless paper that came into his office the instant it arrived; no, that was sheer bad luck. Even if he checked his “junk mail” each morning, it probably would have been too late; the two orders had probably gone out at the same time.
What did anguish his soul was fear that he had pushed the first domino in that quarrel with Duke. He could have lied to the boy, told him that his mother was, to Hugh’s certain knowledge, a maid-in-waiting or some such, to the Lord Protector’s sister, safe inside the royal harem and never seen by a man. Pampered, living the life of Riley, and happy in it — and that other tale was just gossip servants talk to fill their idle minds.
Duke would have believed it because Duke would have wanted to believe
it.
As it was — Perhaps Duke had gone to see Their Charity. Perhaps Memtok
had arranged it, or perhaps Duke had simply tried to bull his way in and the row had reached Ponse’s ears. It was more than possible, he saw now, that his advice to Duke to see the head man might well have resulted in a scene that would have caused Ponse to order the tempering as casually as he would order his air coach. All too likely — He tried to tell himself that no one is ever responsible for another person’s actions. He believed it, he tried to live by it. But he found that cold wisdom no comfort.
At last he quit brooding, got writing materials, and got to work on a letter to Barbara. He had had not even a moment’s chance to tell her his plans for them to escape, no chance to work up a code. But she must be ready at no notice; he must tell her, somehow.
Barbara knew German, he had a smattering from one high school year of it. He knew enough Russian to stumble through a simple conversation, Barbara had picked up a few words from him during their time in the wilderness-a game that they could share without giving Grace cause for jealousy.
He wrote a draft, then painfully translated ‘the letter into a mishmash of German, Russian, colloquial English, beatnik jive, literary allusions, pig
Latin, and special idioms. In the end he had a message that he was sure Barbara could puzzle out, but he was certain that no student of ancient languages could translate it into Language, even in the unlikely event that the scholar knew English, German, and Russian.
He was not afraid that it might be translated by anyone else. If Grace saw it, she would pronounce it gibberish; she knew no Russian, no German. Duke was off in a drug-ridden dream world. Joe might guess at the meaning-but he trusted Joe not to give him away. Nevertheless, he tried to conceal the meaning even from Joe, hashing the syntax and using deliberate misspellings.
The draft read:
My darling,
I have been planning our escape for some time. I do not know how I will manage it but I want you to be ready, day or night, to grab the twins and simply follow ‘me. Steal food ii you can, steal some stout shoes, steal a knife. We’ll head for the mountains. I had intended to wait until next summer, let the boys grow some first. But something has happened to change my mind: Duke has been tempered. I don’t know why and I’m too heartbroken to talk about it. But it could happen to me next. Worse than that — You remember Ponse’s saying that he wanted to see our twins as matched footmen? Darling, studs do not serve in the Banquet Hall. Nor is there any other fate in store for them; they are both going to be tall. It must not happen!
And we can’t wait. The capital city of the Protectorate is somewhere near where St. Louis used to be; we can’t run all the way to the Rocky Mountains carrying our two boys-and we have no way of knowing (and no reason to expect) that all four of us will be sent to the Summer Palace next year.
Be brave. Don’t touch any Happiness drug in any form from here on; our chance is likely to be a split-second one, with no warning.
I love you, Hugh
Kitten came in; he told her to watch the show, not bother him. The child obeyed.
The final draft read:
Luba,
Ya bin smoking komplott seit Hector was weaned. The Count of Monte
Cristo bit, dig? Kinder too klein machs nix-ya hawchoo! Goldiocks’ troubles machs nix-as the fellow said, it’s the only game in town. Good Girl Scouts always follow the Boy Scout motto. Speise, schuhen, messer-what Fagin taught Oliver, nicht? Da! Schnell is die herz von duh apparat; Berlin is too far from the Big Rock Candy and Eliza would never make the final curtain.
Em ander jahr, nyet. It takes two to tango and four to play bridge, all in em kainmer, or the trek is dreck. A house divided is for the vogelen, like doom. Mehr, ya haben schrecken. Mein Kronprinz now rules ‘only the Duchy of Abelard. Page Christine Jorgenson, he answers-I kid you not. Spilt milk butters no parsnips after the barn is burned so weep no more, my lady-but falsetto is not the pitch for detski whose horoscope reads Gemini. Borjemoi! Old King Coal is a Merry Old Soul but he’ll get no zwilhing keilneren from thee. Better a bonny bairn beards bären y begegn Karen-is ratification unanimous? Igday eemay?
Verb. Sap.: I don’t drink, smoke, nor chew, nor run around with twists who do. Cloud nine is endsvffle for this bit. Write soon, even if it’s only five dollars utbay swing the jive; the dump is bugged and the Gay Pay Oo is eager.
Forever-H.
Kitten was long asleep before Hugh finished composing this jargon. He tore the draft into bits and dropped it down the whirlpool, went to bed. After a long time haunted by Duke’s giggling, foolish, happy, drug-blurred face he got up and broke his own injunction to Barbara, dosed his sorrows and his fears with bottled Happiness.
Chapter 17
Barbara’s answer read: Darling,
When you bid three no-trump, my answer is seven no-trump, without hesitation. Then it’s a grand slam-or we go set and don’t cry. Any time you can get four together we’ll be ready to play.
Love always-B.
Nothing else happened that day. Nor the next-or the next. Hugh doggedly dictated translations, his mind not on his work. He was very careful what he ate or drank, since he now knew the surgeon’s humane way of sneaking up on a victim; he ate only from dishes Memtok had eaten from, tried to be crafty by never accepting a fruit or a roll that was closest to him when a servant offered him such, avoided drinking anything at the table-he drank only water which he himself had taken from the tap. He continued to have breakfast in his room, but he started passing up many foods in favor of unpeeled fruits and boiled eggs in the shell.
He knew that these precautions were futile-no Borgia would have found them difficult to outwit-and in any case, if orders came to temper him, they need only grab him after subduing him with a whip if it proved difficult to drug him. But he might have time to protest, to demand that he be taken before the Lord Protector.
As for whips — He resumed karate practice, alone in his rooms. A karate blow delivered fast enough would cause even a whip wielder to lose interest.
There was no real hope behind any of it; he simply intended not to go peacefully. Duke had been right; it would have been better to have fought and died.
He made no attempt to see Duke.
He continued to hide food from his breakfast tray-sugar, salt, hard bread. He assumed that such food must be undrugged even though he ate none of it at the time, because it did not affect Kitten.
He had been going barefoot most of the time but wearing felt slippers for his daily exercise walks in the servants’ garden. Now he complained to Memtok that the gravel hurt his feet through these silly slippers-didn’t the household afford anything better?
He was given heavy leather sandals, wore them thereafter in the garden.
He cultivated the household’s chief engineer, telling him that, in his youth, he had been in charge of construction for his former lord. The engineer was flattered, being not only one of the junior executive servants but also in the habit of hearing mostly complaints rather than friendly interest. Hugh sat with him after dinner and managed to appear knowledgeable largely by listening.
Hugh was invited to look around the plant, and spent a tiring morning crawling over pipes and looking at plans-the engineer could not write but could read a little and understood drawings. It would have been an interesting day in itself if Hugh had been free from worries; Hugh’s background made engineering interesting to him. But he concentrated on trying to memorize
every drawing he saw, match it in his mind with the passageways and rooms he was taken through. He had a deadly serious purpose: Despite having lived most of a summer in this big building, he knew only small pieces of it inside and only a walled garden outside. He needed to know all of it; he needed to know every possible exit from servants’ quarters, what lay behind the guarded door to sluts’ quarters, and most particularly, where in that area Barbara and the twins lived.
He got as far as the meander door that led into the distaff side. The engineer hesitated when the guard suddenly became alert. He said, “Cousin Hugh, I’m sure it’s all right for you to go in here, with me-but maybe we had better go up to the Chief Domestic’s office and have him write you out a pass.”
“Whatever you say, cousin.”
“Well, there really isn’t anything of interest in here. Just the usual appointments of a barracks-water, lights, air service, plumbing, baths, such things. All the interesting stuff, power plant, incinerator, air control, and so forth, is elsewhere. And you know how the boss is-likely to fret over any variation from routine. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll make my inspection in there later.”
“However you want to arrange things,” Hugh answered with a suggestion of affronted dignity.
“Well…everybody knows you’re not one of those disgusting young studs.” The engineer looked embarrassed. “Tell you what — You tell me flatly that you want to see everything
in my department that is-and I’ll trot up to Memtok and tell him you said so. He knows-Uncle! we all know — that you enjoy the favor of Their Charity. You understand me? I don’t mean to presume. Memtok will write out a pass and I’ll be in the clear and so will the guard and the head guard. You wait here and be comfortable. I’ll hurry.”
“Don’t bother. There’s nothing in there I want to see,” Hugh lied. “You’ve seen one bath, you’ve seen ’em all, I always say.”
The engineer smiled in relief. “That’s ‘a good one, I’ll remember that. ‘You’ve seen one bath, you’ve seen ’em all!’ Ha ha! Well, we’ve still got the carpentry shop and the metal shop.”
Hugh went on with him, arm in arm and jovial, while fuming inside. So close! Yet letting Memtok suspect that he had any interest in sluts’ quarters was the last thing he wanted.
But the morning was well spent. Not only did Hugh acquire a burglar’s insight as to weak points of the building (that delivery door to ‘the unloading dock; if it was merely locked at night, it should be possible to break out) but also he picked up two prizes.
The first was a piece of spring steel about eight inches long. Hugh palmed it from some scrap in the metal shop; it wound up taped to his arm, after an unneeded plumbing call, for he had gone prepared to steal.
The second was even more of a prize: a printed drawing of the lowest level, with engineering installations shown boldly — but with every door and passage marked-including sluts’ quarters.
Hugh had admired it. “Uncle, but that’s a beautiful drawing! Your own
work?”
The engineer shyly admitted that it was. Based on architect’s plans, you
understand-but changes keep having to be added.
“Beautiful!” Hugh repeated. “It’s a shame there isn’t more than one
copy.”
“Oh, plenty of copies, they wear out. Would you like one?”
“I would treasure it. Especially if the artist would inscribe it.” When
‘the man hesitated, Hugh moved in fast and said, “May I suggest a wording? Here, I’ll write it out and you copy it.”
Hugh walked away with the print, inscribed: To my dear Cousin Hugh, a fellow craftsman who appreciates beautiful work.
That night he showed it to Kitten. The child was awestruck. She had no concept of maps and was fascinated by the idea that it was possible to put down, just on a piece of paper, the long passages and twisty turns of her world. Hugh showed her how one went from his quarters to the ramp leading up to the executive servants’ dining room, where the servants’ main hall was, how the passage outside led, by two turns, to the garden. She confirmed the routes slowly, frowning in unaccustomed mental effort.
“You must live somewhere over here, Kitten. That is sluts’ quarters.” “It is?”
“Yes. See if you can find where you live. I won’t show you, you know how. I’ll just sit back.”
“Oh. Uncle help me! Let me see. First, I have to come down this ramp — ” She paused to think while Hugh kept his face impassive. She had confirmed what he had almost stopped suspecting; the child was a planted spy. “Then…this is the door?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I walk straight ahead past the slutmaster’s office, clear to the end, and I turn, and…I must live right there!” She clapped her hands and giggled.
“Your billet is across from your mess hail?” “Yes.”
“Then you got it right, first time! That’s wonderful! Now let’s see what else you can figure out.”
For the next quarter hour she took him on a tour of sluts’ quarters- junior and senior common rooms, messes, virgins’ dormitory, bedwarmers’ sleep room, nursery, lying-in, children’s hall, service stalls, baths, playground door, garden door, offices, senior matron’s apartment, everything-and Hugh learned that Barbara was no longer billeted in lying-in. Kitten volunteered it.
“Barbra-you know, the savage slut you write to-she used to be there, and now she’s right there.”
“How can you tell? Those rooms all look alike.”
“I can tell. It’s the second one of the four-mother rooms on this side, when you walk away from the baths.”
Hugh noted with deep interest that a maintenance tunnel ran under the baths, with an access manhole in the passage Barbara’s room was on-and with even deeper interest that this seemed to connect with another that ran clear across the building. Could it be that here was a wide-open unguarded route between all three main areas of servants’ land? Surely not, as the lines seemed to show that any stud with initiative need only crawl a hundred yards to let himself into sluts’ quarters.
Yet it might be true-for how would any stud know where those tunnels
led?
And why would a stud risk it if he guessed? With the ratio of intact
males to breeding sluts about that of bulls to cows on a cattle ranch. And could thumbless hands handle the fastenings?
For that matter, could those trap doors be opened from below?
“You’re a fast learner, Kitten. Now try a part you don’t know as well. Figure out, on the drawing, how to get from our rooms here to my offices. And if you solve that one, here’s a harder one. What turns you would take and what ramp you would use if I told you to take a message to the Chief Domestic?”
She solved the first one after puzzling, the second she traced without hesitation.
At lunch next day, with Memtok at his elbow, Hugh called down the table to the engineer. “Pipes, old cousin! That beautiful drawing you gave me
yesterday — Do you suppose one of your woodworkers could frame it for me? I’d like to hang it over my desk where people can admire it.”
The engineer flushed and grinned widely. “Certainly, Cousin Hugh! How about a nice piece of mahogany?”
“Perfect.” Hugh turned to his left. “Cousin Memtok, our cousin is wasted on pipes and plumbing; he’s an artist. As soon as I have it hung, you must stop by and see what I mean.”
“Glad to, cousin. When I find time. If I find time.”
More than a week passed with no word about Their Charity, nor about Joe- a week of no bridge, and no Barbara. At last, one day at lunch, Memtok said, “By the way, I had been meaning to tell you, the young Chosen Joseph has returned. Do you still want to see him?”
“Certainly. Is Their Charity also in residence?”
“No. Their Gracious sister believes that he may not return until after we go home. Ah, you must see that, cousin. Not a cottage like this. Great doings night and day-and this humble servant wifi be lucky to get three meals in peace all winter. Run, run, run, worry, worry, worry, problems popping right and left,” he said with unctuous satisfaction. “Be glad you’re a scholar.”
Word came a couple of hours later that Joe expected Hugh. He knew his way, having been to Joe’s guest rooms to help teach bridge to Chosen, so he went up alone.
Joe greeted him enthusiastically. “Come in, Hugh! Find a seat. No protocol, nobody here but us chickens. Wait till you hear what I’ve done. Boy, have I been busy! One shop ready to go as a pilot plant before Their Charity finished the wangling for the protection, all on the Q.T. But so organized that we were in production the day protection was granted. Not bad terms, either. Their Mercy takes half, Their Charity hangs onto half and floats the financing, and out of Their Charity’s half I’m cut in for ten percent and manage the company. Of course as we branch out and into other lines-the whole thing is called ‘Inspired Games’ and the charter is written to cover almost any fun you can have out of bed-as we branch out, I’ll need help and that’s a problem; I’m scared old Ponse is going to want to put some of his dull-witted relatives in. Hope not, there’s no place for nepotism when you’re trying to hold down costs. Probably best to train servants for it-cheaper in the long run, with the right sort. How about you, Hugh? Do you think you could swing the management of a factory? It’s a big job; I’ve got a hundred and seven people working already.”
“I don’t see why not. I’ve employed three times that many and never missed a payroll-and I once bossed two thousand skilled trades in the Seabees. But, Joe, I came up here with something on my mind.”
“Uh, all right, spill it. Then I want to show you the plans.” “Joe, you know about Duke?”
“What about Duke?” “Tempered. Didn’t you know?”
“Oh. Yes, I knew. Happened just about as I left. He’s not hurt, is he?
Complications?”
“‘Hurt?’ Joe, he was tempered. You act as if he had merely had a tooth pulled. You knew? Didn’t you try to stop it?”
“In the name of God, why not?”
“Let me finish, can’t you? I don’t recall that you tried to stop it, either.”
“I never had the chance. I never knew.”
“Neither did I. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, but you keep jumping down my throat. I learned about it after it happened.”
“Oh. Sorry. I thought you meant you just stood by and let it happen.”
“Well, I didn’t. Don’t know what I could have done if I had known. Maybe asked Ponse to call you in first, I suppose. Wouldn’t have done any good, so I guess we were both better off not having to fret about it. Maybe all for the best. Now about our plans — If you’ll look at this schematic layout, you’ll see — “
“Joe!”
“Huh?”
“Can’t you see that I’m in no shape to talk about playingcard factories?
Duke is my son.”
Joe folded up his plans. “I’m sorry, Hugh. Let’s talk, if it will make you feel better. Get it off your chest-I suppose you do feel bad about it.
Looking at it from one angle.”
Joe listened, Hugh talked. Presently Joe shook his head. “Hugh, I can set your mind at rest on one point. Duke never did see the Lord Protector. So your advice to Duke-good advice, I think-could not have had anything to do with his being tempered.”
“I hope you’re right. I’d feel like cutting my throat if I knew it was my fault.”
“It’s not, so quit fretting.”
“I’ll try. Joe, whatever possessed Ponse to do it? He knew how we felt about it, from that time it almost happened through a misunderstanding. So why would he? I thought he was my friend.”
Joe looked embarrassed. “You really want to know?” “I’ve got to know.”
“Well…you’re bound to find out. Grace did it.”
“What? Joe, you must be mistaken. Sure, Grace has her faults. But she wouldn’t have that done-to her own son.”
“Well, no, not exactly. I doubt if she knew what it was until after it was done. But just the same, she set it off. She’s been wheedling Ponse almost from the day we got here that she wanted her Dukie with her. She was lonesome. ‘Ponsie, I’m lonesome. Ponsie, you’re being mean to Gracie. Ponsie, I’m going to tickle you until you say Yes. Ponsie, why won’t you?’ — all in that baby whine she uses. Hugh, I guess you didn’t see much of it — “
“None of it.”
“I would have wrung her neck. Ponse just ignored her, except when she tickled him. Then he would laugh and they would roll on the floor and he would tell her to shut up, and make her sit quiet for a while. Treated her just like one of the cats. Honest, I don’t think he ever — I mean, it doesn’t seem likely, from what I saw, that he was interested in her as a — “
“And I’m not interested. Didn’t anybody tell Grace what it would entail, for her to have her son with her?”
“Hugh, I don’t think so. It would never occur to Ponse that explanation was required…and certainly I never discussed it with her. She doesn’t like me, I take up too much of her Ponsie’s time.” Joe wrinkled his nose. “So I doubt if she knew. Of course she should have figured it out; anybody else would have. But, excuse me, since she’s your wife, but I’m not sure she’s bright enough.”
“And hopped up on Happiness, too-every time I caught sight of her. No, she’s not bright. But she’s not my wife, either. Barbara is my wife.”
“Well…legally speaking, a servant can’t have a wife.”
“I wasn’t speaking legally, I was speaking the truth. But even though Grace is no longer my wife, I’m somewhat comforted to know that she probably didn’t know what it would cost Duke.”
Joe looked thoughtful. “Hugh, I don’t think she did but I don’t think she really cares, either…and I’m not sure that you can properly say that it cost Duke anything.”
“You might explain. Perhaps I’m dense.”
“Well, if Grace minds that Duke has been tempered, she doesn’t show it.
She’s pleased as punch. And he doesn’t seem to mind.” “You’ve seen them? Since?”
“Oh, yes. I had breakfast with Their Charity yesterday morning. They were there.”
“I thought Ponse was away?”
“He was back and now he’s gone out to the West Coast. Business. We’re really tearing into it. He was here only a couple of days. But he had this birthday present for Grace. Duke, I mean. Yes, I know it wasn’t her birthday, and anyhow birthdays aren’t anything nowadays; it’s nameday that counts. But she told Ponse she was about to have a birthday and kept wheedling hiin — . –
and you know Ponse, indulgent with animals and kids. So he set it up as a surprise for her. The minute he was back, he made a present of Duke to her. Shucks, they’ve even got a room off Ponse’s private quarters; neither of them sleeps belowstairs, they live up here.”
“Okay, I don’t care where they sleep. You were telling me how Grace felt about it. And Duke.”
“Oh, yes. Can’t say just when she found out what had been done to Duke, all I can say is that she is so happy about it all that she was even cordial with me-telling me what a dear Ponsie was to arrange it and doesn’t Dukie look just grand? In his new clothes? Stuff like that. She’s got him dressed in the fancy livery the servants wear up here, not a robe like that you’re wearing.
She’s even put jewelry on him. Ponse doesn’t mind. He’s an outright gift, a servant’s servant. I don’t think he does a lick of work, he’s just her pet. And she loves it that way.”
“But how about Duke?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you, Hugh; Duke hasn’t lost by it. He’s snug as a bug in a rug and he knows it. He was almost patronizing to me. You might have thought that I was the one wearing livery. With Grace in solid with the big boss and with her wound around his finger, Duke thinks he’s got it made. Well, he has, Hugh. And I didn’t mind his manner; I could see he was hopped on this tranquilizer you servants use.”
“You call it ‘got it made’ when a man is grabbed and drugged and tempered and then kept drugged so that he doesn’t care? Joe, I’m shocked.”
“Certainly I call it that! Hugh, put your prejudices aside and look at it rationally. Duke is happy. If you don’t believe it, let me take you in there and you talk to him. Talk to both of them. See for yourself.”
“No, I don’t think I could stomach it. I’ll concede that Duke is happy. I’m well aware that if you feed a man enough of that Happiness drug, he’ll be happy as a lark even if you cut off his arms and legs and then start on his head. But you can be that sort of ‘happy’ on morphine. Or heroin. Or opium.
That doesn’t make it a good thing. It’s a tragedy.”
“Oh, don’t be melodramatic, Hugh. These things are all relative. Duke was certain to be tempered eventually. It’s not lawful for a servant as big as he is to be kept for stud, I’m sure you know that. So what difference does it make whether it’s done last week, or next year, or when Ponse dies? The only difference is that he is happy in a life of luxury, instead of hard manual labor in a mine, or a rice swamp, or such. He doesn’t know anything useful, he could never hope to rise very high. High for a servant, I mean.”
“Joe, do you know what you sound like? Like some whitesupremacy apologist telling how well off the darkies used to be, a-sittin’ outside their cabins, a-strummin’ their banjoes, and singin’ spirituals.”
Joe blinked. “I could resent that.”
Hugh Farnham was angry and feeling reckless. “Go ahead and resent it! I can’t stop you. You’re a Chosen, I’m a servant. Can I fetch your white sheet for you, Massah? What time does the Klan meet?”
“Shut up!”
Hugh Farnham shut up. Joe went on quietly, “I won’t bandy words with you. I suppose it does look that way to you. If so, do you expect me to weep? The shoe is on the other foot, that’s all-and high time. I used to be a servant, now I’m a respected businessman-with a good chance of becoming a nephew by marriage of some noble family. Do you think I would swap back, even if I could? For Duke? Not for anybody, I’m no hypocrite. I was a servant, now you are one. What are you beefing about?”
“Joe, you were a decently treated employee. You were not a slave.”
The younger man’s eyes suddenly became opaque and his features took on an ebony hardness Hugh had never seen in him before. “Hugh,” he said softly, “have you ever made a bus trip through Alabama? As a ‘nigger’?”
“Then shut up. You don’t know what you are talking about.” He went on, “The subject is closed and now we’ll talk business. I want you to see what I’ve done and am planning to do. This games notion is the best idea I ever had.”
Hugh did not argue whose idea it had been; he listened while the young man went on with eager enthusiasm. At last Joe put down his pen and sat back. “What do you think of it? Any suggestions? You made some useful suggestions when I proposed it to Ponse-keep on being useful and there will be a good place in it for you.”
Hugh hesitated. It seemed to him that Joe’s plans were too ambitious for a market that was only a potential and a demand that had yet to be created.
But all he said was, “It might be worth while to package with each deck, no extra charge, a rule book.”
“Oh, no, we’ll sell those separately. Make money on them.”
“I didn’t mean a complete Hoyle. Just a pamphlet with some of the simpler games. Cribbage. A couple of solitaire games. One or two others. Do that and the customers start enjoying them at once. It should lead to more sales.”
“Hmm — I’ll think about it.” Joe folded up his papers, set them aside. “Hugh, you got so shirty a while ago that I didn’t tell you one thing I have in mind.”
“Yes?”
“Ponse is a grand old man, but he isn’t going to live forever. I plan to have my own affairs separate from his by then so that I’ll be financially independent. Trade around interests somehow, untangle it. I don’t need to tell you that I’m not anxious to have Mrika as my boss-and I didn’t tell you, so don’t repeat it. But I’ll manage it, I’m looking out for number one.” He grinned. “And when Mrika is Lord Protector I won’t be here. I’ll have a household of my own, a modest one-and I’ll need servants. Guess whom I plan to adopt when I staff it.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Not you-although you may very well be a business servant to me, if it turns out you really can manage a job. No, I had in mind adopting Grace and Duke.”
“Huh?”
“Surprised? Mrika won’t want them, that’s certain. He despises Grace because of her influence over his uncle, and it’s a sure thing he’s not going to like Duke any better. Neither of them is trained and it shouldn’t be expensive to adopt them if I don’t appear too eager. But they would be useful to me. For one thing, since they speak English, I’d be able to talk to them in a language nobody else knows, and that could be an advantage, especially when other servants are around. But best of all — Well, the food here is good but sometimes I get a longing for some plain old American cooking, and Grace is a good cook when she wants to be. So I’ll make her a cook. Duke can’t cook but he can learn to wait on table and answer the door and such. Houseboy, in other
words. How about that?”
Hugh said slowly, “Joe, you don’t want them because Grace can cook.”
Joe grinned unashamedly. “No, not entirely. I think Duke would look real good as my houseboy. And Grace as my cook. Tit for tat. Oh, I’ll treat them decently, Hugh, don’t you worry. They work hard and behave themselves and they won’t get tingled. However, I don’t doubt but what it will take a few tingles before they get the idea.” He twitched his quirt. “And I won’t say I won’t enjoy teaching them. I owe them a little. Three years, Hugh. Three years of Grace’s endless demands, never satisfied with anything-and three years of being treated with patronizing contempt by Duke whenever he was around.”
Hugh said nothing. Joe said, “Well? What do you think of my plan?”
“I thought better of you, Joe. I thought you were a gentleman. It seems I was wrong.”
“So?” Joe barely twitched his quirt. “Boy, we excuse you. All.”
Chapter 18
Hugh came away from Joe’s rooms feeling utterly discouraged. He knew that he had been foolish-no, criminally careless ! — in letting Joe get his goat. He needed Joe. Until he had Barbara and the twins safely hidden in the mountains, he needed every possible source of favor. Joe, Memtok, Ponse, anyone he could find-and probably Joe most of all. Joe was a Chosen, Joe could go anywhere, tell him things he didn’t know, give him things he could not steal. He had even considered, as a last resort, asking Joe to help them to escape.
Not now! Idiot! Utter fool! To risk Barbara and the boys just because you can’t hold your bloody temper.
It seemed to him that things were as bad as they could get-and part of it his own folly.
He did not stand around moping; he looked up Memtok. It had become more urgent than ever to set up some way to communicate with Barbara secretly-and that meant that he had to talk to her-and that meant at least one bridge game in the Lord Protector’s lounge and a snatch of talk even if he had to talk English in front of Ponse. He had to force matters.
Hugh found the Chief Domestic leaving his office. “Cousin Memtok, could you spare me a word?”
Memtok’s habitual frown barely relaxed. “Certainly, cousin. But walk along with me, will you? Trouble, trouble, trouble — you would think that a department head could run his department without someone to wipe his nose, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong. The freezer flunky complains to the leading butcher and he complains to the chef, and it’s a maintenance matter, and you would think that Gnou would take it up directly with engineering and between them they would settle it. Oh, no! They both come to me with their troubles. You know something about construction, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Hugh admitted, “but I’m not up-to-date in the subject. It has been some years.” (About two thousand, my friend! But we won’t speak of that.)
“Construction is construction. Come along, give me the benefit of your advice.”
(And find out that I’m faking. Chum, I’ll double-talk you to death.) “Certainly. If this humble one’s opinion is worth anything.”
“Damned chill room. It’s been a headache every summer. I’m glad we’ll be back in the Palace soon.”
“Has the date been set? May one ask?”
“One may. A week from tomorrow. So it’s time to think about packing up your department and being ready to move.”
Hugh tried to keep his face calm and his voice steady. “So soon?”
“Why are you looking worried? A few files, some office equipment. Have you any idea how many thousands of items 1 have on inventory? And how much gets stolen, or lost, or damaged simply because you can’t trust any of these fools? Uncle!”
“It must be terribly wearing,” agreed Hugh. “But that brings to mind something. I petitioned you to let me know when Their Charity was next in residence. I learned from the young Chosen, Joseph, that Their Charity returned a day or two ago and is now gone again.”
“Are you criticizing?”
“Uncle forbid! I was just asking.”
“It is true that Their Charity was physically present for a short time. But he was not officially in residence. Not in the best of health, it seemed to me-Uncle protect him.”
“Uncle protect him well!” Hugh answered sincerely. “Under the circumstances naturally you did not ask him to grant me an audience. But could I ask of you the small favor, next time — “
“We’ll talk later. Let’s see what these two helpless ones have to offer.” Head Chef Gnou and the Chief Engineer met them at the entrance to Gnou’s domain, they went on through the kitchen, through the butcher shop, and into the cold room. But they lingered in the butcher shop, Memtok impatient, while parka-like garments were fetched, the Chief Domestic having refused the ones offered on the legitimate grounds that they were soiled.
The butcher shop was crowded with live helpers and dead carcasses-birds, beeves, fish, anything. Hugh reflected that thirty-eight Chosen and four hundred and fifty servants ate a lot of meat. He found the place mildly depressing even though he himself had cleaned and cut and trimmed many an animal.
But only his habitual tight control in the presence of Memtok and his “cousins” in service kept him from showing shock at something he saw on the floor, trimmed from a carcass almost cut up on one block.
It was a dainty, plump, very feminine hand.
Hugh felt dizzy, there was a roaring in his ears. He blinked. Itwas still there. A hand much like Kitten’s — He breathed carefully, controlled the retching within him, kept his back turned until he had command over himself. There had suddenly flooded over him the truth behind certain incongruities, certain idioms, some pointless jokes.
Gnou was making nervous conversation while his boss waited. He moved to the chopping block, unintentionally kicking the dainty little hand underneath into a pile of scraps and said, “Here’s one you won’t have to bother to taste, Chief Domestic. Unless the old one returns unexpectedly.”
“I always bother to taste,” Memtok said coldly. “Their Charity expects his table to be perfect whether he is in residence or not.”
“Oh, yes, surely,” Gnou agreed. “That’s what I always tell my cooks. But
— Well, this very roast illustrates one of my problems. Too fat. You’ll feel that it’s greasy-and so it wifi be. But that’s what comes of using sluts. Now, in my opinion, you can’t find a nicer piece of meat, marbled but firm, than a buck tempered not older than six, then hung at twice that age.”
“No one asked your opinion,” Memtok answered. “Their Charity’s opinion is the only one that counts. They think that sluts are more tender.”
“Oh, I agree, I agree! No offense intended.”
“And none taken. In fact I agree with your opinion. I was simply making clear that your opinion-and mine in this matter-is irrelevant. I see they’ve fetched them. Did they stop to make them?”
The party put on heavy garments, went on inside. The engineer had said nothing up to then, effacing himself other than a nod and a grin to Hugh. Now he explained the problem, a cranky one of refrigeration. Hugh tried to keep
his eyes on it, rather than on the contents of the meat storage room.
Most of the meat was beef and fowl. But one long row of hooks down the center held what he knew he would find — human carcasses, gutted and cleaned and frozen, hanging head down, save that the heads were missing. Young sluts and bucks, he could see, but whether the bucks were tempered or not was no longer evident. He gulped and thanked his unlucky stars that that pathetic little hand had given him warning, at least saved him from fainting.
“Well, Cousin Hugh, what do you think?” “Why, I agree with Pipes.”
“That the problem can’t be solved?”
“No, no.” Hugh had not listened. “His reasoning is correct and he implied the answer. As he says, the problem can’t be solved-now. The thing to do is not to try to patch it up, now. Wait a week. Tear it out. Put in new equipment.”
Memtok looked sour. “Expensive.”
“But cheaper in the long run. Good engineering isn’t accomplished by grudging a few bullocks. Isn’t that right, Pipes?”
The engineer nodded vigorously. “Just what I always say, Cousin Hugh!
You’re absolutely right.”
Memtok still frowned. “Well — Prepare an estimate. Show it to Cousin Hugh before you bring it to me.”
“Yes, sir!”
Memtok paused on the way out and patted the loin of a stripling buck carcass. “That’s what I would call a nice piece of meat. Eh, Hugh?”
“Beautiful,” Hugh agreed with a straight face. “Your nephew, perhaps? Or just a son?”
There was frozen silence. Nobody moved except that Memtok seemed to grow taller. He raised his whip of authority most slightly, no more than tightening his thumbless grip.
Then he grimaced and gave a dry chuckle. “Cousin Hugh, your well-known wit will be the death of me yet. That’s a good one. Gnou, remind me to tell that this evening.”
The Chef agreed and chuckled, the engineer roared. Memtok gave his cold little laugh again. “I’m afraid I can’t claim the honor, Hugh. All of these critters are ranch bred, not one of them is a cousin of ours. Yes, I know how it is in some households, but Their Charity considers it unspeakably vulgar to serve a house servant, even in cases of accidental death — . — And besides, it makes the servants restless.”
“Commendable.”
“Yes. It is gratifying to serve one who is a stickler for propriety.
Enough, enough, time is wasting. Walk back with me, Hugh.”
Once they were clear of the rest Memtok said, “You were saying?” “Excuse me?”
“Come, come, you’re absentminded today. Something about Their Charity not being in residence.”
“Oh, yes. Memtok, could you, as a special favor to me, let me know the minute Their Charity returns? Whether officially in residence or not? Not petition anything for me. Just let me know.” Damn it, with time pouring away like life through a severed artery his only course might be a belly-scraping apology to Joe, then get Joe to intercede.
“No,” said Memtok. “No, I don’t think I can.” “I beg your pardon? Has this one offended you?”
“You mean that witticism? Heaven, no! Some might find it vulgar and one bullock gets you three that if you had told it in sluts’ quarters some of them would have fainted. But if there is one thing I pride myself on, Hugh, it’s my sense of humor — and any day I can’t see a joke simply because I am the butt of it, I’ll petition to turn in my whip. No, it was simply my turn to have a
little joke at your expense. I said, ‘I don’t think I can.’ That is a statement of two meanings-a double-meaning joke, follow me? I don’t think I can tell you when Their Charity returns because he has sent word to me that he is not returning. So you’ll see him next at the Palace…and I promise I’ll let you know when he’s in residence.” The Chief Domestic dug him in the ribs. “I wish you had seen your own face. My joke wasn’t nearly as sharp as yours.
But your jaw dropped. Very comical.”
Hugh excused himself, went to his rooms, took an extra bath, a most thorough one, then simply thought until dinnertime. He braced himself for the ordeal of dinner with a carefully measured dose of Happiness-not enough to affect him later, strong enough to carry him through dinner, now that he knew why “pork” appeared so often on the menu of the Chosen. He suspected that the pork served to servants was really pork. But he intended to eat no more bacon nevertheless. Nor ham, nor pork chops, nor sausage. In fact he might turn vegetarian-at least until they were free in the mountains and it was eat game or starve.
But with a shot of Happiness inside him he was able to smile when Memtok tasted the roast for upstairs and to say, “Greasy?”
“Worse than usual. Taste it.”
“No, thanks. I knew it would be. I would cook up better than that-though no doubt I would be terribly stringy. And tough. Though perhaps Cousin Gnou could tenderize me.”
Memtok laughed until he choked. “Oh, Hugh, don’t ever be that funny while I’m swallowing! You’ll kill me yet.”
“This one hopes not.” Hugh toyed with the beef on his plate, pushed it aside and ate a few nuts.
He was very busy that evening, writing long after Kitten was asleep. It had become utterly necessary to reach Barbara secretly, yet his only means was the insecure route through Kitten. The problem was to write to Barbara in a code that only she could read, and which she would see as a code without having been warned and without the code being explained to her-and yet one which was safe from others. But the double-talk mixture he had last sent her would not do; he was now going to have to give her detailed instructions, ones where it really mattered if she missed a word or failed to guess a concealed meaning.
His last draft was: Darling,
If you were here, I would love a literary gabfest, a good
one. You know what I mean, I am sure. Let’s consider Edgar Allan Poe, for example. Can you recall how I claimed that Poe was the best
writer both to read and to reread of all the mystery writers before or since, and that this was true because he never could be milked
dry on one reading? The answer or answers in The Gold Bug, or certainly that little gem The Murders in the Rue Morgue, or take The Case of
the Purloined Letter, or any of them; same rule will apply to them all, when you consider the very subtle way he always had of
slanting his meaning so that one reaches a full period in his sentences only after much thought. Poe is grand fun and well worth study. Let’s have our old literary talks by letter. How about Mark Twain next? Tired-must go to bed!
Love — Since Hugh had never discussed Edgar Allan Poe with Barbara at any time, he was certain that she would study the note for a hidden message. The only question was whether or not she would find it. He wanted her to read it as:
“If
you
can
read
this
answer
the
same
way
period”
Having done his best he put it aside, first disposing of all trial work, then prepared to do something else much more risky. At that point he would have given his chances of immortal bliss, plus 10 percent, for a flashlight, then settled for a candle. His rooms were lighted, brilliantly or softly as he wished, by glowing translucent spheres set in the upper corners. Hugh did not know what they were save that they were not any sort of light he had ever known. They gave off no heat, seemed not to require wiring, and were controlled by little cranks.
A similar light, the size of a golf ball, was mounted on his scroll reader. It was controlled by twisting it; he had decided tentatively that twisting these spheres polarized them in some way.
He tried to dismount the scroll reader light.
He finally got it loose by breaking the upper frame. It was now a featureless, brilliantly shining ball and nothing he could do would dim it- which was almost as embarrassing as no light at all.
He found that he could conceal it in an armpit under his robe. There was still a glow but not much.
He made sure that Kitten was asleep, turned out all lights, raised his corridor door, looked out. The passageway was lighted by a standing light at an intersection fifty yards away. Regrettably he had to go that way. He had expected no lights at this hour.
He felt his “knife” taped to his left arm-not much of a knife, but patient whetting with a rock picked up from a garden path had put an edge on it, and tape had made a firm grip. It needed hours more work and he could work on it only after Kitten was asleep or in time stolen from working hours. But it felt good to have it there and it was the only knife, chisel, screwdriver, or burglar’s jimmy that he had.
The manhole to the engineering service tunnels lay in the passage to the right after he had to pass the lighted intersection. Any manhole would do but that one was on the route to the veterinary’s quarters; if caught outside his rooms but otherwise without cream on his lip, he planned to plead a sudden stomachache.
The manhole cover swung back easily on a hinge, it was fastened by a clasp that needed only turning to free it. The floor of the tunnel, glimpsed with his shiny sphere, lay four feet below the corridor floor. He started to let himself down and ran into his first trouble.
These manholes and tunnels had been intended for men a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter than Hugh Farnham, and proportionately smaller in shoulders, hips, hands-and-knees height, and so forth.
But he could make it. He had to.
He wondered how he would make it, crawling and carrying at least one baby. But that he had to do, too. So he would.
He almost trapped himself. Barely in time he found that the underside of the steel door was smooth, no handle, and that it latched automatically by a spring catch.
That settled why no one worried that the studs might gain unplanned access to sluts. But it also settled something else. Hugh had considered snatching this very chance, if he found things quiet at the other end: Wake
Barbara, bring all four of them back via the tunnel-then outside and away, by any of a dozen weak points, away and off to the mountains on foot, reach them before light, find some stream and ford it endwise to throw off hounds. Go, go, go! With almost no food, with nothing but a makeshift knife, with no equipment, a “nightshirt” for clothing, and no hope of anything better. Go!
And save his family, or die with them. But die free!
Perhaps someday his twin sons, wiser in the new ways than himself and toughened by a life fighting nature, could lead an uprising against this foul thing. But all he planned to do, all he could hope for, was get them free, keep them free, alive and free and ungelded, until they were grown and strong.
Or die.
Such was still his plan. He wasted not a moment sorrowing over that spring catch. It merely meant that he must communicate with Barbara, set a time with her, because she would have to open the hatch at the far end.
Tonight he could only reconnoiter.
He found that tape from his knife handle would hold the spring catch back. He tested it from above; the lid could now be swung back without turning the clasp.
But his wild instincts warned him. The tape might not hold until he was back. He might be trapped inside.
He spent a sweating half hour working on that spring catch, using knife and fingers and holding the light ball in his teeth.
At last he managed to get at and break the spring. He removed the catch entirely. The manhole, closed, now looked normal, but it could be opened from underneath with just a push.
Only then did he let himself down inside and close it over him.
He started out on knees and elbows with the light in his mouth, and stopped almost at once. The damned skirt of his robe kept him from crawling! He tried bunching it around his waist. It slid down.
He inched back to the manhole shaft, took the pesky garment off entirely, left it under the manhole, crawled away without it, naked save for the knife strapped to his arm and the light in his teeth. He then made fair progress, although never able to get fully on hands and knees. His elbows had to be bent, his thighs he could not bring erect, and there were places where valves and fittings of the pipes he crawled past forced him almost to his belly.
Nor could he tell how far he was going. However, there were joints in the tunnel about every thirty feet; he counted them and tried to match them in his mind with the engineering drawing. Pass under two manholes…sharp left turn into another tunnel at next manhole…crawl about a hundred and fifty feet and under one manhole — Something more than an hour later he was under a manhole which had to be the one closest to Barbara.
If he had not lost himself in the bowels of the palace — If he had correctly remembered that complex drawing — If the drawing was up to date — (Had two thousand years made any difference in the lag between engineering changes and revisions of prints to match?) If Kitten knew what she was talking about in locating Barbara’s billet by a method so novel to her — If it was still Barbara’s billet — He crouched in the awkward space and tried to press his ear against the shaft’s cover.
He heard a baby cry.
About ten minutes later he heard hushed female voices. They approached, passed over him, and someone stepped on the lid.
Hugh unkinked himself, prepared to return. The space was so tight that the obvious way was to back up the way he had come, so he found himself trying to crawl backward through the tunnel.
That worked so poorly that he came back to the shaft and, with contortions and loss of skin, got turned around.
What seemed hours later he was convinced that he was lost. He began to wonder which was the more likely: Would he starve or die of thirst? Or would some repairman get the shock of his life by finding him?
But he kept on crawling.
His hands found his robe before his eyes saw it. Five minutes later he was in it; seven minutes later (he stopped to listen) he was up and out and had the lid closed. He forced himself not to run back to his rooms.
Kitten was awake.
He wasn’t aware of it until she followed him into the bath. Then she was saying with wide-eyed horror, “Oh, dear! Your poor knees! And your elbows, too.”
“I stumbled and fell down.”
She didn’t argue it, she simply insisted on bathing him and salving and taping the raw places. When she started to pick up his dirty robe, he told her sharply to go to bed. He did not mind her touching his robe but his knife had been on top of it and only by maneuvering had he managed to keep himself between her and it long enough to flip a fold of cloth over the weapon.
Kitten went silently to bed. Hugh hid the knife in its usual place (much too high for Kitten), then went into his living room and found the child crying. He petted her, soothed her, said he had not meant to sound harsh, and fed her a bonus dose of Happiness-sat with her while she drank it, watched her go happily to sleep.
Then he did not even try to get along without it himself. Kitten had gone to sleep with one hand outside her cover. It looked to Hugh exactly like a forlorn little hand he had seen twelve hours earlier on the floor of a butcher shop.
He was exhausted and the drink let him go to sleep. But not to rest. He found himself at a dinner party, black tie and dressy. But he did not like the menu. Hungarians goulash…French fries…Chinese noodles…p0′ boy sandwich…breast of peasant…baked Alaskans-but it was all pork. His host insisted that he taste every dish. “Come, come!” he chided with a wintry smile. “How do you know you don’t like it? One bullock gets you three you’ll learn to love it.”
Hugh moaned and could not wake up.
Kitten did not chatter at breakfast, which suited him. Two hours of nightmare-ridden sleep was not enough, yet it was necessary to go to his office and pretend to work. Mostly he stared at the print framed over his desk while his scroll reader clicked unnoticed. After lunch he sneaked away and tried to nap. But the engineer scratched at his door and apologetically asked him to look over his estimates on refitting the meat cooler. Hugh poured his guest a dollop of Happiness, then pretended to study figures that meant nothing to him. After a decent time he complimented the man, then scrawled a note to Memtok, recommending that the contract be let.
Barbara’s note that night applauded the idea of a literary discussion club by mail and discussed Mark Twain. Hugh was interested only in how it read diagonally:
“Did
I
read
it
correctly
darling
question
mark”
Chapter 19
“Darling we must escape next six days or sooner be ready night after letter has phrase Freedom is a lonely thing — “
For the next three days Hugh’s letters to Barbara were long and chatty and discussed everything from Mark Twain’s use of colloquial idiom to the influence of progressive education on the relaxation of grammar. Her answers were lengthy, equally “literary,” and reported that she would be ready to open the hatch, confirmed that she understood, that she had a little stock of food, had no knife, no shoes-but that her feet were very calloused-and that her only worry was that the twins might cry or that her roommates might wake up, especially as two of them were stifi giving night feedings to their babies.
But for Hugh not to worry, she would manage.
Hugh drew a fresh bottle of Happiness, taped it near the top of the shaft closest to her billet, instructed her to tell her roommates that she had stolen it, then use it to get them so hopped up on the drug that they would either sleep or be so slaphappy that if they did wake, they would do nothing but giggle-and, if possible, get enough of the drug into the twins that the infants would pass out and not cry no matter how they were handled.
Making an extra trip through the tunnels to plant the bottle was a risk Hugh hated to take. But he made it pay. He not only timed himself by the clock in his rooms and learned beyond any possibility of mistake the rat maze he must follow but also he carried a practice load, a package of scrolls taped together to form a mass bigger and heavier, he felt sure, than one of his infant sons would be. This he tied to his chest with a sling made of stolen cloth; it had been a dust cover for the scroll printer in his offices. He made two such slings, one for Barbara, and tore and tied them so they could be shifted to the back later to permit the babies to be carried papoose style.
He found that it was difficult but not impossible to carry a baby in this fashion through the tunnels, and he spotted the places where it was necessary to inch forward with extreme care not to place any pressure on his dummy “precious burden” and still not let the ties on his back catch on engineering fittings above him.
But it could be done and he got back to his rooms without waking Kitten- he had increased her evening bonus of Happiness. He replaced the scrolls, hid his knife and spherical lamp, washed his knees and elbows and anointed them, then sat down and wrote a long P.S. to the letter he had written earlier to tell Barbara how to find the bottle. This postscript added some afterthoughts about the philosophy of Hemingway and remarked that it seemed odd that a writer would in one story say that “freedom is a lonely thing” and in another story state that-and so on.
That night he gave Kitten her usual amplified nightcap, then said, “Not much left in this bottle. Finish it off and I’ll get a fresh one tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’d get terribly silly. You wouldn’t like me.”
“Go ahead, drink it. Have a good time, live it up. What else is life
for?”
Half an hour later Kitten was more than willing to be helped to bed.
Hugh stayed with her until she was snoring heavily. He covered her hands, stood looking down at her, suddenly knelt and kissed her good-bye.
A few minutes later he was down the first manhole.
He took off his robe, piled on it a bundle of what he had collected for survival-food, sandals, wig, two pots of deodorant cream into which he had blended brown pigment. He did not expect to use disguise and h~d little faith in it, but if they were overtaken by daylight before they were in the
mountains, he intended to darken all four of them, tear their robes into something resembling the breechclout and wrap-around which he had learned were the working clothes of free peasant farmers among the Chosen — “poor black trash” as Joe called them-and try to brazen it out, keeping away from people if possible, until it was dark again.
He tied one baby sling to him with the other inside it and started. He hurried, as time was everything. Even if Barbara managed to pass out her roommates promptly, even if he had no trouble breaking out at his preferred exit, even if the crawl back through the tunnels could be made in less than an hour — doubtful, with the kids-they could not be outdoors earlier than midnight, which allowed them five hours of darkness to reach wild country.
Could he hope for three miles an hour? It seemed unlikely, Barbara barefooted and both carrying kids, the country unknown and dark-and those mountains seen from his window seemed to be at least fifteen miles away. It would be a narrow squeak even if everything broke his way.
He made fast time to sluts’ quarters, punishing his knees and elbows.
The bottle was missing, he could feel the tacky places where he had fastened it. He settled himself as comfortably as possible and concentrated on quieting his pounding heart, slowing his breathing, and relaxing. He tried to make his mind blank.
He dozed off. But he was instantly alert when the lid over him was raised.
Barbara made no sound. She handed him one of their sons, he stuffed the limp little body as far down the tunnel as he could reach. She handed him the other, he placed it beside the first, then added a pitiful little bundle she had.
But he did not kiss her until they were down inside-only seconds after he had wakened-and the lid had clicked into place over them.
She clung to him, sobbing; he whispered to her fiercely not to make a sound, then added last-minute instructions into her ear. She quieted instantly; they got busy.
It was agonizingly difficult to get ready for the crawl in a space too small for one and nearly impossible for them both. They did it because they had to. First he helped her get out of the shorter garment sluts wore, then he had her lie down with her legs back in the other reach of the tunnel while he tied a baby sling to her, then a baby was stuffed into each sling and knots tightened to keep each child slung as high in its little hammock as possible. Hugh then knotted the skirt of her garment together, stuffed her hoarded food into the sack thus formed, tied the sleeves around his left leg, and let it drag behind. He had planned to tie it around his waist, but the sleeves were too short.
That done (it seemed to take hours), he had Barbara back up into the far reach of the tunnel, then managed painfully to turn himself and get headed the right way without banging little Hughie’s skull. Or was it Karl Joseph? He had forgotten to ask. Either one, the baby’s warm body against his, its lightly sensed breathing, gave him fresh courage. By God, they would make it! Whatever got in his way would die.
He set out, with the light in his teeth, moving very fast wherever clearance let him do so. He did not slow down for Barbara and had warned her that he would not unless she called out.
She did not, ever. Once her baggage worked loose from his leg. They stopped and he had her tie it to his ankle; that was their only rest. They made good time but it seemed forever before he reached the little pile of plunder he had cached when he set out.
They unslung the babies and caught their breaths.
He helped Barbara back into her shift, rearranged her sling to carry one baby papoose fashion, and made up their luggage into one bundle. All that he
held out was his knife taped to his arm, his robe, and the light. He showed her how to hold the light in her mouth, then spread her lips and let the tiniest trickle leak out between her teeth. She tried it.
“You look ghastly,” he whispered, “Like a jack-o’ — lantern. Now listen carefully. I’m going up. You be ready to hand me my robe instantly. I may reconnoiter.”
“I could help you get it on, right here.”
“No. If I’m caught coming out, there will be a fight and it would slow me down. I won’t want it, probably, until we reach a storeroom that is our next stop. If it’s all clear above, I’ll want you to hand out everything fast, including the baby not on your back. But you will have to carry him as well as the bundle and my robe; I’ve got to have my hands free. Darling, I don’t want to kill anybody but if anyone gets in our way, I will. You understand that, don’t you?”
She nodded. “So I carry everything. Can do, my husband.”
“You follow me, fast. It’s about two city blocks to that storeroom and we probably won’t see anyone. I jiggered its lock this afternoon, stuffed a wad of Kitten’s chewing gum into it. Once inside we’ll rearrange things and see if you can wear my sandals.”
“My feet are all right. Feel.”
“Maybe we’ll take turns wearing them. Then I have to break a lock on a delivery door but I spotted some steel bars a week ago which ought still to be there. Anyhow, I’ll break out. Then away we go, fast. It should be breakfast before we are missed, sometime after that before they are sure we are gone, still longer before a chase is organized., We’ll make it.”
“Sure we will.”
“Just one thing — If I reach for my robe and then close the lid on you, you stay here. Don’t make a sound, don’t try to peek out.”
“I won’t.”
“I might be gone an hour. I might fake a bellyache and have to see the vet, then come back when I can.”
“All right.”
“Barbara, it might be twenty-four hours, if anything goes wrong. Can you stay here and keep the twins quiet that long? If you must?”
“Whatever it takes, Hugh.”
He kissed her. “Now put the light back in your mouth and close your lips. I’m going to sneak a peek.”
He raised the lid an inch, lowered it. “In luck,” he whispered. “Even the standing light is out. Here I go. Be ready to hand things up. Joey first. And don’t show a light.”
He pushed the lid up and flat down without a sound, raised himself, got his feet to the corridor floor, stood up.
A light hit him. “That’s far enough,” a dry voice said, “Don’t move.” He kicked the whip hand so fast that the whip flew aside as he closed.
Then this-and that! — and sure enough! The man’s neck was broken, just as the book said it would be.
Instantly he knelt down. “Everything out! Fast!”
Barbara shoved baby and baggage up to him, was out fast as he took her hand. “Some light,” he whispered. “His went out and I’ve got to dispose of him.” She gave him light. Memtok — Hugh quelled his surprise, stuffed the body down the hole, closed the lid. Barbara was ready, baby on back, baby in left arm, bundle in right. “We go on! Stay close on my heels!” He set out for the intersection, holding his course in the dark by fingertips on the wall.
He never saw the whip that got him. All he knew was the pain.
Chapter 20
For a long time Mr. Hugh Farnham was aware of nothing but pain. When it eased off, he found that he was in a confinement cell like the one in which he had lived his first days under the Protectorate.
He was there three days. He thought it was three days, as he was fed six times. He always knew when they were about to feed him-and to empty his slop jar, for he was not taken outside for any purpose. He would find himself restrained by invisible spider web, then someone would come inside, leave food, replace the slop jar, and go. It was impossible to get the servant who did this to answer him.
After what may have been three days he found himself unexpectedly caught up by that prisoning field (he had just been fed) and his old colleague and “cousin” the Chief Veterinary came in. Hugh had more than a suspicion as to why; his feeling amounted to a conviction, so he pleaded, demanded to be taken to the Lord Protector, and finally shouted.
The surgeon ignored it. He did something to Hugh’s thigh, then left. To Hugh’s limited relief he did not become unconscious, but he found,
when the tanglefoot field let up, that he could not move anyhow and felt lethargic. Shortly two servants came in, picked him up, placed him in a box like a coffin.
Hugh found that he was being shipped somewhere. His shipping case was given casual but not rough handling; once he felt a lift surge and then surge to a stop; his box was placed in something; and some minutes, hours, or days later it was moved again; and presently he was dumped into another confinement room. He knew it was a different one; the walls were light green instead of white. By the time they fed him he had recovered and was again “tangled” while food was placed inside.
This went on for one hundred and twenty-two meals. Hugh kept track by biting a chunk out of his fingernails and scratching the inside of his left arm. This took him less than five minutes each day; he spent the rest of his time worrying and sometimes sleeping. Sleeping was worse than worrying because he always reenacted his escape attempt in his sleep and it always ended in disaster-although not necessarily at the same point. He did not always kill his friend the Chief Domestic and at least twice they got all the way to the mountains before they were caught. But, long or short, it ended the same way and he would wake up sobbing and calling for Barbara.
He worried most about Barbara-and the twins, although the boys were not as real to him. He had never heard of a slut being severely punished for anything. However, he had never heard of a slut being involved in an attempted escape and a killing, either; he just did not know. But he did know that the Lord Protector preferred slut meat for his table.
He tried to tell himself that old Ponse would do nothing to a slut while she was still nursing babies-and that would be a long time yet; among servants, according to Kitten, mothers nursed babies for at least two years.
He worried about Kitten, too. Would the child be punished for something she had had nothing to do with? A completely innocent bystander? Again he did not know. There was “justice” here; it was a major branch of religious writings. But it resembled so little the concept “justice” of his own culture that he had found the stuff almost unreadable.
He spent most of his time on what he thought of as “constructive” worry, i.e., what he should have done rather than what he had done.
He saw now that his plans had been laughably inadequate. He should never have let himself be panicked into moving too soon. It would have been far better to have built up his connection with Joe, never disagreed with him, tickled his vanity, gone to work for him and, in time, prevailed on him to adopt Barbara and the kids. Joe was an accommodating person and old Ponse was
so openhanded that he might simply have made Joe a present of these three useless servants instead of demanding cash. The boys would have been in no danger for years (and perhaps never in danger if Joe owned them), and, in time, Hugh could have expected to become a trusted business servant, with a broad pass allowing him to go anywhere on his master’s business-and Hugh
.would have acquired sophisticated knowledge of how this world worked that a house servant could never acquire.
Once he had learned exactly how it ticked, he could have planned an escape that would work.
Any society man has ever devised, he reminded himself, could be bribed- and a servant who handles money can find ways to steal some. Probably there was an “underground railroad” that ran to the mountains. Yes, he had been far too hasty.
He considered, too, the wider aspects-a slave uprising. He visualized those tunnels being used not for escape but as a secret meeting place-classes in reading and writing, taught in whispers; oaths as mighty as a Mau Mau initiation binding the conspirators as blood brothers with each Chosen having marked against his name a series of dedicated assassins, servants patiently grinding scraps of metal into knives.
This “constructive” dream he enjoyed most-and believed in least. Would these docile sheep ever rebel? It seemed unlikely. He had been classed with them by accident of cornplexion but they were not truly of his breed.
Centuries of selective breeding had made them as little like himself as a lap dog is like a timber wolf.
And yet, and yet, how did he know? He knew only the tempered males, and the few studs he had seen had all been dulled by a liberal ration of Happiness-to~ say nothing of what it might do to a man’s fighting spirit to
lose his thumbs at an early age and be driven around with whips-that-weremore- than-whips.
This matter of racial differences-or the nonsense notion of “racial equality” — had never been examined scientifically; there was too much emotion on both sides. Nobody wanted honest data.
Hugh recalled an area of Pernambuco he had seen while in the Navy, a place where rich plantation owners, dignified, polished, educated in France, were black, while their servants and field hands-giggling, shuffling, shiftless knuckleheads “obviously” incapable of better things-were mostly white men. He had stopped telling this anecdote in the States; it was never really believed and it was almost always resented-even by whites who made a big thing of how anxious they were to “help the American Negro improve himself.” Hugh had formed the opinion that almost all of those bleeding hearts wanted the Negro’s lot improved until it was almost as high as their own — and no longer on their consciences-but the idea that the tables could ever be turned was one they rejected emotionally.
Hugh knew that the tables could indeed be turned. He had seen it once, now he was experiencing it.
But Hugh knew that the situation was still more confused. Many Roman citizens had been “black as the ace of spades” and many slaves of Romans had been as blond as Hitler wanted to be-so any “white man” of European ancestry was certain to have a dash of Negro blood. Sometimes more than a dash. That southern Senator, what was his name? — the one who had built his career on “white supremacy.” Hugh had come across two sardonic facts: This old boy had died from cancer and had had many transfusions-and his blood type was such that the chances were two hundred to one that its owner had nnt inst a tnnch nf thn tarhriish hut nraetk~a1lv thp. whn1~ tar barrel. A navy surgeon had gleefully pointed this out to Hugh and had proved both points in medical literature.
Nevertheless, this confused matter of races would never be straightened
out-because almost nobody wanted the truth.
Take this matter of singing — It had seemed to Hugh that Negroes of his time averaged better singers than had whites; most people seemed to think so. Yet the very persons, white or black, who insisted most loudly that “all races were equal” always seemed happy to agree that Negroes were superior, on the average, in this one way. It reminded Hugh of Orwell’s Animal Farm, in which “AU Animals Are Equal But Some Are More Equal Than Others.”
Well, he knew who wasn’t equal here-despite his statistically certain drop of black blood. Hugh Farnham, namely. He found that he agreed with Joe: When things were unequal, it was much nicer to be on top!
On the sixty-first day in this new place, if it was the sixtyfirst, they came for him, bathed him, cut his nails, rubbed him with deodorant cream, and paraded him before the Lord Protector.
Hugh learned that he still could be humiliated by not being given even a nightshirt as clothing, but he conceded that it was a reasonable precaution in handling a prisoner who killed with his bare hands. His escort was two young Chosen, in uniforms which Hugh assumed to be military, and the whips they carried were definitely not “lesser whips.”
The route they followed was very long; it was clearly a huge building.
The room where he was delivered was very like in spirit to the informal lounge where Hugh had once played bridge. The big view window looked out over a wide tropical river.
Hugh hardly glanced at it; the Lord Protector was there. And so were Barbara and the twins!
The babies were crawling on the floor. But Barbara was breast deep in that invisible quicksand, a trap that claimed T4iwh as snnui as he was halted She smiled at him hut did not speak. He looked her over carefully. She seemed unhurt and healthy, but was thin and had deep circles under her eyes.
He started to speak; she gestured warningly with eyes and head. Hugh then looked at the Lord Protector-and noticed only then that Joe was lounging near him and that Grace and Duke were playing some card game over in a corner, both of them chewing gum and ostentatiously not seeing that Hugh was there. He looked back at Their Charity.
Hugh decided that Ponse had been ill. Despite the fact that Hugh felt comfortably warm in skin, Ponse was wearing a full robe with a shawl over his lap and he looked, for once, almost his reputed age.
But when he spoke, his voice was still resonant. “You may go, Captain.
We excuse you.”
The escort withdrew. Their Charity looked Hugh over soberly. At last he said, “Well, boy, you certainly made a mess of things, didn’t you?” He looked down and played with something in his lap, caught it and pulled it back to the middle of the shawl. Hugh saw that it was a white mouse. He felt sudden sympathy for the mouse. It didn’t seem to like where it was, but if it did manage to escape, the cats would get it. Maggie was watching with deep interest.
Hugh did not answer, the remark seemed rhetorical. But it had startled him very much. Ponse covered the mouse with his hand, looked up. “Well? Say something!”
“You speak English!”
“Don’t look so silly. I’m a scholar, Hugh. Do you think I would let myself be surrounded by people who speak a language I don’t understand? I speak it, and I read it, silly as the spelling is. I’ve been tutored daily by skilled scholars-plus conversation practice with a living dictionary.” He jerked his head toward Grace. “Couldn’t you guess that I would want to read those books of mine? Not be dependent on your hitor-miss translations? I’ve read the Just So Stories twice — charming ! — and I’ve started on the
Odyssey.”
He shifted back to Language. “But we are not here to discuss literature.” Their Charity barely gestured. Four slut servants came running in with a table, placed it in front of the big man, placed things on it. Hugh recognized them-a homemade knife, a wig, two pots for deodorant cream, a bundle, an empty Happiness bottle, a little white sphere now dull, a pair of sandals, two robes, one long, one short, mussed and dirty, and a surprisingly high stack of paper, creased and much written on.
Ponse put the white mouse on the table, stirred the display, said broodingly, “I’m no fool, Hugh. I’ve owned servants all my life. I had you figured out before you had yourself figured out. Doesn’t do to let a man like you mingle with loyal servants, he corrupts them. Gives them ideas they are better off without. I had planned to let you escape as soon as I was through with you, you could have afforded to wait.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?~’
“Doesn’t matter whether you do or don’t. I could not afford to keep you very long-one bad apple rots the rest, as my uncle was fond of saying. Nor could I put you up for adoption and let some unwitting buyer pay good money for a servant who would then corrupt others elsewhere in my realm. No, you had to escape.”
“Even if that is so, I would never have escaped without Barbara and my
boys.”
“I said I am not a fool. Kindly remember it. Of course you would not. I
was going to use Barba-and these darling brats-to force you to escape. At my selected time. Now you’ve ruined it. I must make an example of you. For the benefit of the other servants.” He frowned and picked up the crude knife. “Poor balance. Hugh, did you really expect to make it with this pitiful tackle? Not even shoes for that child by you. If only you had waited, you would have been given opportunity to steal what you needed.”
“Ponse, you are playing with me the way you’ve been playing with that mouse. You weren’t planning to let us escape. Not really escape at least. I would have wound up on your table.”
“Please!” The old man made a grimace of distaste. “Hugh, I’m not well, someone has again been trying to poison me — my nephew, I suppose-and this time almost succeeded. So don’t talk nasty, it upsets my stomach.” He looked Hugh up and down. “Tough. Inedible. An old stud savage is merely garbage. Much too gamy. Besides that, a gentleman doesn’t eat members of his own family, no matter what. So let’s not talk in bad taste. There’s no cause for you to bristle so. I’m not angry with you, just very, very provoked.” He glanced at the twins, said, “Hughie, stop pulling Maggie’s tail.” His voice was neither loud nor sharp; the baby stopped at once. “Admittedly those two would make tasty appetizers were they not of my household. But even had they not been, I would have planned better things for them; they are so cute and so much alike. Did plan better things at first. Until it became clear that they were necessary to forcing you to run.”
Ponse sighed. “You still do not believe a word I’m saying. Hugh, you don’t understand the system. Well, servants never do. Did you ever grow apples?”
“A good eating apple, firm and sweetly tart, is never a product of nature; it is the result of long development from something small and sour and hard and hardly fit for animal fodder. Then it has to be scientifically propagated and protected. On the other hand, too highly developed plants-or animals-can go bad, lose their firmness, their flavor, get mushy and soft and worthless. It’s a two-horned problem. We have it constantly with servants. You must weed out the troublemakers, not let them breed. On the other hand these very troublemakers, the worst of them, are invaluable breeding stock that must
not be lost. So we do both. The run-of-thecrop bad ones we temper and keep. The very worst ones — such as you-we encourage to run. If you live-and some of you do-we can rescue you, or your strong get, at a later time and add you in, judiciously, to a breeding line that has become so soft and docile and stupid that it is no longer worth its keep. Our poor friend Memtok was a result of such pepping up of hrppg~I fln~ niiartc~r ~v~,ap h~’ w~z he never knew it of course-and a good stud that added strength to a line. But far too dangerous and ambitious to be kept too long at stud; he had to be made to see the advantages of being tempered. Most of my upper servants have a recent strain of savage in them; some of them are Memtok’s sons. My engineer, for example. No, Hugh, you would not have wound up on anybody’s table. Nor tempered. I would like to have kept you as a pet, you’re diverting-and a fair bridge hand in the bargain. But I could not let you stay in contact with loyal servants, even as insulated as you were by your fancy title. Presently you would have been put in touch with the underground.”
Hugh opened his mouth and closed it.
“Surprised, eh? But there is always an underground wherever there is a ruling class and a serving class. Which is to say, always. If there were not one, it would be necessary to invent one. However, since there is one, we keep track of it, subsidize it-and use it. In the upper servants’ mess its contact is the veterinary-trusted by everyone and quite shamelessly free of sentiment;
1 don’t like him. If you had confided in him, you would have been guided, advised, and helped. I would have used you to cover about a hundred sluts, then sent you on your way. Don’t look startled, even Their Mercy uses studs who have to stoop a bit to get through the studs’ door when a
freshening of the line is indicated-and there was always the danger that you might get yourself, and those dear boys, killed, and thereby have wasted a fine potential.”
Their Charity picked up the pile of Kitten-delivered mail. “These things
— All my Chief Domestic was expected to do was to thwart you from doing something silly; he never knew the veterinary’s second function. Why, I even had to crack down on Memtok a bit to turn his copies of these over to me — when anyone could have guessed that a stud like you would find a way to get in touch with his slut. I deduced that it would happen that time that you stood up to me about her, our first bridge game. Remember? Perhaps you don’t. But I sent for Memtok, and sure enough, you had already started. Although he was reluctant to admit it. since he had not renorted it.”
Hugh was hardly listening. He was turning over in his mind the glaring fact that he was hearing things told only to dead men. None of the four was going to leave this mom alive. No, perhaps the twins would. Yes, Ponse wanted the breeding line. But he-and Barbara-would never have a chance to talk.
But Ponse was saying, “You still have a chance to correct your mistakes.
And you made lots of them. One note you wrote my scholars assured me was gibberish, not English at all. So I knew it was a secret message whether we could read it or not. Thereafter all your notes were subjected to careful analysis. So of course we found the key-rather naïve to be considered a code, rather clever considering the handicaps. And useful to me. But confound it, Hugh, it cost me! Memtok was naïve about savages, he did not realize that they fight when cornered.”
Ponse scowled. “Damn you, Hugh, your recklessness cost me a valuable property. I wouldn’t have taken ten thousand bullocks for Memtok’s adoption- no, not twenty. And now your life is forfeit. The charge of attempting to run we could overlook, a tingling in front of the other servants would cover that. Destroying your master’s property we could cover up if it had been done secretly. Did you know that that bedwarmer I lent you knew most of what you were up to? Saw much of it? Sluts gossip.”
“She told you?”
“No, damn it, it didn’t tell the half; we had to tingle it out of it.
Then it turned out it knew so much that we could not afford to have it talking and the other servants putting one and one together. So it had to go.”
“You had her killed.” Hugh felt a surge of disgust and said it, knowing that nothing he said could matter now.
“What’s it to you? Its life was forfeit, treason to its master. However, I’m not a spiteful man, the little critter has no moral sense and didn’t know what it was doing-you must have hypnotized it, Hugh-and I am a frugal man; I don’t waste property. It’s adopted so far away that it’ll have trouble under
Hugh sighed. “I’m relieved.”
“Choice about the slut, eh? Was it that good?” “She was innocent. I didn’t want her hurt.”
“As may be. Now, Hugh, you can repair all this costly mess. Pay me back the damage and do yourself a good turn at the same time.”
“How?”
“Quite simple. You’ve cost me my key executive servant, I’ve no one of his caliber to replace him. So you take his place. No scandal, no fuss, no upset belowstairs-every servant who saw any piece of it is already adopted away. And you can tell any story you like about what happened to Memtok. Or even claim you don’t know. Barba, can you refrain from gossip?”
“I certainly can where Hugh’s welfare is concerned!”
“That’s a good child. I would hate to have you muted, it would hamper our bridge game. Although Hugh will be rather busy for bridge. Hugh, here’s the honey that trapped the bear. You take over as Chief Domestic, do the kind of a job I know you can do once you learn the details-and Barba and the twins live with you. What you always wanted. Well, that’s the choice. Be my boss servant and have them with you. Or your lives are forfeit. What do you say?”
Hugh Farnham was so dazed that he was gulping trying to accept, when Their Charity added, “Just one thing. I won’t be able to let you have them with you right away.”
“No?”
“No. I still want to breed a few from you, before you are tempered.
Needn’t be long, if you are as spry as you look.” Barbara said, “No!”
But Hugh Farnham was making a terrible decision. “Wait, Barbara. Ponse.
What about the boys? Will they be tempered, too?”
“Oh.” Ponse thought about it. “You drive a hard bargain, Hugh. Suppose we say that they will not be. Let’s say that I might use them at stud a bit- but not take their thumbs; it would be a dead giveaway for so private a purpose with studs as tall as they are going to be. Then at fourteen or fifteen I let them escape. Does that sult you?” The old man stopped to cough; a spasm racked him. “Damn it, you’re tiring me.”
Hugh pondered it. “Ponse, you may not be alive fourteen or fifteen years from now.”
“True. But it is very impolite for you to say so.” “Can you bind this bargain for your heir? Mrika?”
Ponse rubbed his hair and grinned. “You’re a sharp one, Hugh. What a Chief Domestic you will make! Of course I can’t-which is why I want some get from you, without waiting for the boys to mature. But there is always a choice, just as you have a choice now. I can see to it that you are in my heavenly escort. All of you, the boys, too. Or I can have you all kept alive and you can work out a new bargain, if any. ‘Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi’ — which was the ancients’ way of saying that when the protector leaves there is always a new protector. Just tell me, I’ll do it either way.”
Hugh was thinking over the grim choices when Barbara again spoke up. “Their Charity — “
“Yes, child?”
“You had better have my tongue cut out. Right now, before you let me leave this room. Because I will have nothing to do with this wicked scheme. And I will not keep quiet. No!”
“Barba, Barba, that’s not being a good girl.”
“I am not a girl. I am a woman and a wife and a mother! I will never call you ‘uncle’ again-you are vile! I wifi not play bridge with you ever again, with or without my tongue. We are helpless…but I will give you nothing. What is this you offer? You want my husband to agree to this evil thing in exchange for a few scant years of life for me and for our sons-for as long as God lets that evilness you call your body continue to breathe. Then what? You cheat him even then. We die. Or we are left to the mercy of your nephew who is even worse than you are. Oh, I know! The bedwarmers all hate him, they weep when they are called to serve him-and weep even harder when they come back. But I would not let Hugh make this choice even if you could promise us all a lifetime of luxurv. No! I won’t. I won’t! You trv to do it I’ll kill my babies! Then myself. Then Hugh wifi kill himself I know! No matter what you have done to him!” She stopped, spat as far as she could in the old man’s direction, then burst into tears.
Their Charity said, “Hughie, I told you to stop teasing that cat. It will scratch you.” Slowly he stood up, said, “Reason with them, Joe,” and left the room.
Joe sighed and came over close to them. “Barbara,” he said gently, “take hold of yourself. You aren’t acting in Hugh’s interests even if you think you are. You should advise him to take it. After all, a man Hugh’s age doesn’t have much to lose by it.”
Barbara looked at him as if she had never seen him before in her life.
Then she spat again. Joe was close, she got him in the face.
He jumped and raised his hand. Hugh said sharply, “Joe, if you hit her and I ever get loose, I’ll break your arm!”
“I wasn’t going to hit her,” Joe said slowly. “I was just going to wipe my face. I wouldn’t hit Barbara, Hugh; I admire her. I just don’t think she has good sense.” He took a kerchief to the smear of saliva. “I gu~ss there is no use arguing.”
“None, Joe. I’m sorry I spit on you.”
“That’s all right, Barbara. You’re upset…and you never treated me as a nigger, ever. Well, Hugh?”
“Barbara has decided it. And she always means what she says. I can’t say that I’m sorry. Staying alive here just isn’t worth it, for any of us. Even if I was not to be tempered.”
“I hate to hear you say that, Hugh. All in all, you and I always got along pretty well. Well, if that’s your last word, I might as well go tell Their Charity. Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, Joe.”
“Well — Good-bye, Barbara. Good-bye, Hugh.” He left.
The Lord Protector came back in alone, moving with the slow caution of a man old and sick. “So that’s what you’ve decided,” he said, sitting down and gathering the shawl around him I-fr reached mit fnr the mouise still crnuichinc, on the table top; servants came in and cleared off the table. He went on, “Can’t say that I’m surprised — I’ve played bridge with both of you. Well, now we take up the other choice…Your lives are forfeit and I can’t let you stay here, other than on those terms. So now we send you back.”
“Back where, Ponse?”
“Why, back to your own time, of course. If you make it. Perhaps you will.” He stroked the mouse. “This little fellow made it. Two weeks at least. And it didn’t hurt him. Though one can only guess what two thousand years would do.”
The servants were back and were piling on the table a man’s watch, a Canadian dime, a pair of much worn mountain boots, a hunting knife, some badly made moccasins, a pair 2 of Levis, some ragged denim shorts with a very large waistline, a .45 automatic pistol with belt, two ragged and faded shirts, one somewhat altered, a part of a paper of matches, and a small notebook and pencil.
Ponse looked at the collection. “Was there anything else?” He slid the loaded clip from the pistol, held it in his hand. “If not, get dressed.”
The invisible field let them loose.
Chapter 21
“I don’t see what there is to be surprised about,” Ponse told them. “Hugh, you will remember that I told my scientists that I wanted to know how you got here. No miracles. I told them rather firmly. They understood that I would be most unhappy-and vexed-if the Protectorate’s scientists could not solve it when they had so many hints, so much data. So they did. Probably. At least they were able to move this little fellow. He arrived today, which is why I sent for you. Now we will find out if it works backwards in time as well as forwards-and if the big apparatus works as well as the bench model. I understand it is not so much the amount of power-no atom-kernel bombs necessary — as the precise application of power. But we’ll soon know.” Hugh asked, “How will you know? We will know-if it works. But how will you know?”
“Oh, that. My scientists are clever, when they have incentive. One of them will explain it.”
The scientists were called in, two Chosen and five servants. There was no introduction; Hugh found himself treated as impersonally as the little white mouse who still tried to meet his death on the floor. Hugh was required to take off his shirt and two servant-scientists taped a small package to Hugh’s right shoulder. “What’s that?” It seemed surprisingly heavy for its size.
The servants did not answer; the leading Chosen said, “You will be told.
Come here. See this.”
“This” turned out to be Hugh’s former property, a U. S. Geodetic Survey map of James County. “Do you understand this? Or must we explain it?”
“I understand it.” Hugh used the equals mode, the Chosen ignored it while continuing to speak in protocol mode, falling.
“Then you know that here is where you arrived.”
Hugh agreed, as the man’s finger covered the spot where Hugh’s home had once stood. The Chosen nodded thoughtfully and added, “Do you understand the meaning of these marks?” He pointed to a tiny x-mark and very small figures beside it.
“Certainly. We call that a ‘bench mark.’ Exact location and altitude.
It’s a reference point for all the rest of the map.”
“Excellent.” The Chosen pointed to a similar mark at the summit of Mount James as shown by the map. “Now, tell us, if you know-but don’t lie about it; it will not advantage you-how much error there would be, horizontally and vertically, between these two reference points.”
Hugh thought about it, held up his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. The Chosen blinked. “It would not have been that accurate in those primitive times. We assume that you are lying. Try again. Or admit that you don’t know.”
“And I suggest that you don’t know what you are talking about. It would be at least that accurate.” Hugh thought of telling him that he had bossed surveying parties in the Seabees and had done his own surveying when he was
getting started as a contractor-and that while he did not know how accurate a geodetic survey was, he did know that enormously more accurate methods had been used in setting those bench marks than were ever used in the ordinary survey.
He decided that explanation would be wasted.
The Chosen looked at him, then glanced at Their Charity. The old man had been listening but his face showed nothing. “Very well. We will assume that the marks are accurate, each to the other. Which is fortunate, as this one is missing” — he pointed to the first one, near where Hugh’s home had been — “whereas this one” — he indicated the summit of Mount James — “is still in place, in solid rock. Now search your memory and do not lie again, as it will matter to you…and it will matter to Their Charity, as a silly lie on your part could waste much effort and Their Charity would be much displeased, we are certain. Where, quite near this reference mark and the same height- certainly no higher! — is-was, I mean, in those primitive times-a flat, level place?”
Hugh thought about it. He knew exactly where that bench mark had been: in the cornerstone of the Southport Savings Bank. It was, or had been, a small brass plate let into the stone beside the larger dedication plate, about eighteen inches above the sidewalk at the northeast corner of the building. It had been placed there shortly after the Southport shopping center had been built. Hugh had often glanced at it in passing; it had always given him a warm feeling of stability to note a bench mark.
The bank had sided on a parking lot shared by the bank, a Safeway Supermarket, and a couple of other shops. “It is level and flat nif this way fnr a distance nf — ” (I-Iiwh estimated the width of that ancient parking lot in feet, placed the figure in modern units.) “Or a little farther. That’s just an estimate, not wholly accurate.”
“But it is flat and level? And no higher than this point?” “A little lower and sloping away. For drainage.”
“Very well. Now place your attention on this configuration.” Again it was Hugh’s property, a Conoco map of the state. “That object fastened to your back you may think of as a clock. We will not explain it, you could not understand. Suffice to say that radiation decay of a metal inside it measures time. That is why it is heavy; it is cased in lead to protect it. You will take it to here.” The Chosen pointed to a town on the map; Hugh noted that it was the home of the state university.
At a gesture the Chosen was handed a slip of paper. To Hugh he said, “Can you read this? Or must it be explained?”
“It says ‘University State Bank,'” Hugh told him. “I seem to recall that there was an institution of that name in that town. I’m not sure, I don’t recall doing business with it.”
“There was,” the Chosen assured him, “and its ruins were recently uncovered. You will go to it. There was, and still is, a strong room, a vault, in its lowest part. You will place this clock in that vault. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“By Their Charity’s wish, that vault has not yet been opened. After you have gone, it will be opened. The clock will be found and we will read it. Do you understand why this is crucial to the experiment? It will not only tell us that you made the time jump safely but also exactly how long the span was-and from this our instruments will be calibrated.” The Chosen looked very fierce. “Do this exactly. Or you will be severely punished.”
Ponse caught Hugh’s eye at this point. The old man was not laughing but his eyes twinkled. “Do it, Hugh,” he said quietly. “That’s a good fellow.”
Hugh said to the Chosen scientist. “I will do it. I underc~t~ind ” The Chosen said, “May it please Their Charity, this one is ready to
weigh them now, and then leave for the site.”
“We’ve changed our mind,” Ponse announced. “We will see this.” He added, “Nerve in good shape, Hugh?”
“Quite.”
“All of you who made the first jump were given this opportunity, did I tell you? Joe turned it down flatly.” The old man glanced over his shoulder. “Grace! Changed your mind, little one?”
Grace looked up. “Ponsie!” she said reproachfully. “You know I would never leave you.”
“Duke?”
The tempered servant did not even look up. He simply shook his head.
Ponse said to the scientist, “Let’s hurry and get them weighed. We intend to sleep at home tonight.”
The weighing was done elsewhere in the Palace. Just before the four were placed on the weighing area the Lord Protector held up the cartridge clip he had removed from the pistol Hugh now wore. “Hugh? Will you undertake not to be foolish with this? Or should I have the pellets separated from the explosives?”
“Uh, I’ll behave.”
“Ah, but how will you behave? If you were impetuous, you might succeed in killing me. But consider what would happen to Barba and our little brats.”
(I had thought of that, you old scoundrel. I’ll still do what seems best to me.) “Ponse, why don’t you let Barbara carry the clip in a pocket? That would keep me from loading and firing very fast even if I did get ideas.”
“A good plan. Here, Barba.”
The boss scientist seemed unhappy at the total weight of his experimental package. “May it please Their Charity, this one finds that body weights of both adults must have lessened markedly since the time of the figures on which the calculations were made.”
“Oh, nothing, nothing, may it please Their Charity. Just a slight delay.
The mass must be exact.” Hurriedly the Chosen started piling metal discs on the platform.
It gave Hugh an idea. “Ponse, you really expect this to work?”
“If I knew the answer, it would not be necessary to try it. I hope it will work.”
“If it does work, we’ll need money right away. Especially if I’m to travel half across the state to bury this clock device.”
“Reasonable. You used gold, did you not? Or was it silver? I see your idea.” The old man gestured. “Stop that weighing.”
“We used both, sometimes, but it had to have our own protectorate’s stamp. Ponse, there were quite a number of American silver dollars in my house when you took it away from me. Are they available?”
They were available and in the Palace and the old man had no objection to using them to make up the missing weight. The boss scientist was fretted over the delay-he explained to his lord that the adjustments were set for an exact time span as well as exact mass in order to place these specimens at a time before the East-West War had started, plus a margin for error-but that delay was reducing the margin and might require recalculation and long and painful recalibration. Hugh did not follow the technicalities.
Nor did Ponse. He cut the scientist off abruptly. “Then recalculate if necessary. All.”
It took more than an hour to locate the man who could locate the man who knew where these particular items of the savage artifacts were filed, then dig them out and fetch them. Ponse sat brooding and playing with his mouse.
Barbara nursed the twins, then changed them with the help of slut servants; Hugh petitioned plumbing calls for each of them-granted, under guard-and all
this changed all the body weights and everything was started over again.
The silver dollars were still in, or had been replaced in, the $100 rolls in which Hugh had hoarded them. They made quite a stack, and (on the happy assumption that the time jump would work) Hugh was pleased that he had lost while imprisoned the considerable paunch he had regrown during his easy days as “Chief Researcher.” However, less than three hundred silver dollars were used in bringing them up to calculated weight-plus a metal slug and some snips of foil.
“If it suits the Lord Protector, this one believes that the specimens should be placed in the container without delay.”
“Then do it! Don’t waste our time.”
The container was floated in. It was a box, metallic, plain, empty, and with no furnishings of any sort, barely high enough for Hugh to stand upright in, barely large enough for all of them. Hugh got into it, helped Barbara in, the babies were handed to them and Hughie started to squawl and set off his brother.
Ponse looked annoyed. “My sluts have been spoiling those brats. Hugh, I’ve decided not to watch it, I’m weary. Goodbye to both of you-and good riddance; neither of you would ever have made a loyal servant. But I’ll miss our bridge games. Barba, you must bring those brats back into line. But don’t break their spunk doing it; they’re fine boys.” He turned and left abruptly.
The hatch was closed down on them and fastened; they were alone. Hugh at once took advantage of it to kiss his wife, somewhat hampered by each of them holding a baby.
“I don’t care what happens now,” Barbara said as soon as her mouth was free. “That’s what I’ve been longing for. Oh, dear, Joey is wet again. How about Hughie?”
“It’s unanimous, Hughie also. But I thought you just said you didn’t care what happens now?”
“Well, I don’t, really. But try explaining that to a baby. I would gladly swap one of those rolls of dollars for ten new diapers.”
“My dear, do you realize that the human race lasted at least a million years with no diapers at all? Whereas we may not last another hour. So let’s not spend it talking about diapers.”
“I simply meant — Wups! They’re moving us.”
“Sit flat on the floor and brace your feet against the wall. Before we have scrambled babies. You were saying?”
“I simply meant, my darling, that I do not care about diapers, I don’t care about anything-now that I have you with me again. But if we aren’t going to die-if this thing works — I’m going to have to be practical. And do you know of anything more practical than diapers?”
“Yes. Kissing. Making love.”
“Well, yes. But they lead to diapers. Darling, could you hold Hughie in your other arm and put this one around me? Uh, they’re moving us again. Hugh, is this thing going to work? Or are we going to be very suddenly dead? Somehow I can imagine time travel frontwards-and anyhow we did it. But I can’t imagine it backwards. I mean, the past has already happened. That’s it. Isn’t it?”
“Well, yes. But you haven’t stated it correctly. The way I see it, there are no paradoxes in time travel, there can’t be. If we are going to make this time jump, then we already did; that’s what happened. And if it doesn’t work, then it’s because it didn’t happen.”
“But it hasn’t happened yet. Therefore, you are saying that it didn’t happen, so it can’t happen. That’s what I said.”
“No, no! We don’t know whether it has already happened or not. If it did, it will. If it didn’t, it won’t.”
“Darling, you’re confusing me.”
“Don’t worry about it. ‘The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves
on’ — and only then do you find out if it goosed you in passing. I think we’ve straightened out on a course; we’re steady now, just the faintest vibration. If they are taking us where I think they are, James County I mean, then we’ve got at least an hour before we need worry about anything.” He tightened his arm around her. “So let’s be happy that hour.”
She snuggled in. “That’s what I was saying. Beloved, we’ve come through so many narrow squeaks together that I’m not ever going to worry again. If it’s an hour, I’ll be happy every second of it. If it’s forty years, I’ll be happy every second of that, too. If it’s together. And if it’s not together, I don’t want it. But either way, we go on. To the end of our day.”
“Yes. ‘To the end of our day.'”
She sighed happily, rearranged a wet and sleeping infant, snuggled into his shoulder and murmured, “This feels like our very first day. In the tank room of the shelter, I mean. We were just as crowded and even warmer-and I was never so happy. And we didn’t know whether we were going to live through that day, either. That night.”
“We didn’t expect to. Else we wouldn’t have twin boys now.”
“So I’m glad we thought we were going to die. Hugh? It isn’t any more crowded than it was that night in the tank room.”
“Woman, you are an insatiable lecher. You’ll shock the boys.”
“I don’t think once in more than a year is being insatiable. And the boys are too young to be shocked. Aw, come on! You said yourself we might be dead in an hour.”
“Yes, we might and you have a point and I’m theoretically in favor of the idea. But the boys do inhibit me and there actually isn’t quite as much room even if we weren’t cluttered up with eight or nine wet babies and I don’t see how it’s mechanically possible. The act would be a tesseract, at least.”
“Well — I guess you’re right. I don’t see any way either; we would probably squash them. But it does seem a shame, if we’re going to die.”
“I refuse to assume that we’re going to die. I won’t ever make that assumption again. All my figuring is based on the assumption that we are going to live. We go on. No matter what happens-we go on.”
“All right. Seven no trump.” “That’s better.”
“Doubled and redoubled. Hugh? Just as soon as the boys are big enough to hold thirteen cards in their pudgy little hands, we’re going to start teaching them contract. Then we’ll have a family four of our own.”
“Suits. And if they can’t learn to play, we’ll temper them and try again.”
“I don’t want ever to hear that word again!” “Sorry.”
“And I don’t want to hear that language again, either, dear. The boys should grow up hearing English.”
“Sorry again. You’re right. But I may slip; I’ve gotten in the habit of thinking in it-all that translating. So allow me a few slips.”
“I’ll always allow you a few slips. Speaking of slips — Did you? With Kitten?”
“No.”
“Why not? I wouldn’t have minded. Well, not much anyhow. She was sweet.
She would baby-sit for me any time I would let her. She loved our boys.”. “Barbara, I don’t want to think about Kitten. It makes me sad. I just
hope whoever has her now is good to her. She didn’t have any defenses at all- like a kitten before it has its eyes open. Helpless. Kitten means to me everything that is utterly damnable about slavery.”
She squeezed his hand. “I hope they’re good to her, too. But, dear, don’t hurt yourself inside about it; there is nothing we can do for her.”
“I know it and that’s why I don’t want to talk about her. But I do miss
her. As a daughter. She was a daughter to me. ‘Bedwarmer’ never entered into it.”
“I didn’t doubt it, dear. But — Well, look here, my good man, maybe this place is too cramped. All right, we’re going to live through it; we go on. Then don’t let me catch you treating me like a daughter! I intend to keep your bed very warm indeed!”
“Mmm — You want to remember that I’m an old man.”
“‘Old man’ my calloused feet! We’ll be the same age for all practical purposes-namely something over four thousand years, counting once each way. And my purposes are very practical, understand me?”
“I understand you. I suppose ‘four thousand years’ is one way to look at it. Though perhaps not for ‘practical purposes.'”
“You won’t get out of it that easily,” she said darkly. “I won’t stand for it.”
“Woman, you’ve got a one-track mind. All right, I’ll do my best. I’ll rest all the time and let you do all the work. Hey, I think we’re there.”
The box was moved several times, then remained stationary a few minutes, then surged straight up with sickening suddenness, stopped with another stomach twister, seemed to hunt a little, and then was perfectly steady.
“You in the experimental chamber,” a voice said out of nowhere. “You are warned to expect a short fall. You are advised to stand up, each of you hold one brat, and be ready to fall. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Hugh answered while helping Barbara to her feet. “How much of a
fall?”
There was no answer. Hugh said, “Hon, I don’t know what they mean. A
‘short fall’ could be one foot, or fifty. Protect Joey with your arms and better bend your knees a little. If it’s quite a fall, then go ahead and go down; don’t try to take it stiff-legged. These jokers don’t give a hoot what happens to us.”
“Bent knees. Protect Joey. All right.” They fell.
Chapter 22
Hugh never did know how far they fell but he decided later that it could not have been more than four feet. One instant they were standing in a well- lighted, cramped box; the next instant they were outdoors, in the dark of night, and falling.
His boots hit, he went down, landing on the right side his rump and on two very hard rolls of silver dollars in hip pocket-rolled with the fall and protected the baby in arms.
Then he rolled to a sitting position. Barbara was near h on her side.
She was not moving. “Barbara! Are you hui
“No,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t think so. Just knoc] the breath out of me.”
“Is Joey all right? Hughie is, but I think he’s more ti wet now.” “Joey is all right.” Joey confirmed this by starting to y his brother
joined him. “He had the breath knocked out of h too, I think. Shut up, Joey; Mother is busy. Hugh, where we?”
He looked around. “We are,” he announced, “in a park lot in a shopping center about four blocks from where I I And apparently somewhere close to our own proper time. least that’s a ‘sixty-one Ford we almost landed on.” The was empty save for this one car. It occurred to him that tl arrival might have been something else than a bump-an plosion, perhaps? — if they had been six feet to the right. he dropped the thought; enough narrow squeaks and one m
didn’t matter.
He stood up and helped Barbara up. She winced and in dim light that came from inside the bank he noticed “Trouble?”
“I turned my ankle when I hit.” “Can you walk?”
“I can walk.”
“I’ll carry both kids. It’s not far.” “Hugh, where are we going?”
“Why, home, of course.” He looked in the window of bank, tried to spot a calendar. He saw one but the stand light was not shining on it; he couldn’t read it. “I wish I ki the date. Honey, I hate to admit it but it does look as if t travel has some paradoxes-and I think we are about to give somebody a terrible shock.”
“Who?”
“Me, maybe. In my earlier incarnation. Maybe I ought to phone him first, not shock him. No, he-I, I mean-wouldn’t believe it. Sure you can walk?” “Certainly.”
“All right. Hold our monsters for a moment and let me set my watch.” He glanced back into the bank where a clock was visible even though the calendar was shadowed. “Okay. Gimine. And holler if you need to stop.”
They set off, Barbara limping but keeping up. He discouraged talk, because he did not have his thoughts in order. To see a town that he had thought of as destroyed so quiet and peaceful on a warm summery night shook him more than he dared admit. He carefully avoided any speculation as to what he might find at his home-except one fleeting thought that if it turned out that his shelter was not yet built, then it never would be and he would try his hand at changing history.
He adjourned that thought, too, and concentrated on being glad that Barbara was a woman who never chattered when her man wanted her to be quiet.
Presently they turned into his driveway, Barbara limping and Hugh beginning to develop cramps in both arms from being unable to shift his double load. There were two cars parked tandem and facing out in the drive; he stopped at the first one, opened the door and said, “Slide in, sit down, and take the load off that ankle. I’ll leave the boys with you and reconnoiter.” The house was brightly lighted.
“Hugh! Don’t do it!” “Why not?”
“This is my car. This is the night!”
He stared at her for a long moment. Then he said quietly, “I’m still going to reconnoiter. You sit here.”
He was back in less than two minutes, jerked open the car door, collapsed onto the seat, let out a gasping sob.
Barbara said, “Darling! Darling!”
“Oh, my God!” He choked and caught his breath. “She’s in there! Grace.
And so am I.” He dropped his face to the steering wheel and sobbed. “Hugh.”
“What? Oh, my God!”
“Stop it, Hugh. I started the engine while you were gone. The keys were in the ignition, I had left them there so that Duke could move it and get out. So let’s go. Can you drive?”
He sobered down. “I can drive.” He took ten seconds to check the instrument board, adjusted the seat backwards, put it in gear, turned right out of his drive. Four minutes later he turned west on the highway into the mountains, being careful to observe the stop sign; it had occurred to him that this was no night to get stopped and pulled off the road for driving without a license.
As he made the turn a clock inthe distance bonged the half hour; he
glanced at his wrist watch, noted a one-minute difference. “Switch on the radio, hon.”
“Hugh, I’m sorry. The durn thing quit and I couldn’t afford to have it repaired.”
“Oh. No matter. The news doesn’t matter, I mean; time is all that matters. I’m trying to estimate how far we can go in an hour. An hour and some minutes. Do you recall what time the first missile hit us?”
“I think you told me it was eleven-forty-seven.”
“That’s my recollection, too. I’m certain of it, I just wanted it confirmed. But it all checks. You made crêpes Suzettes, you and Karen fetched them in just in time to catch the end of the ten o’clock news. I ate pretty quickly-they were wonderful — this booney old character rang the doorbell.
Me, I mean. And I answered it. Call it ten-twenty or a little after. So we just heard half-past chime and my watch agrees. We’ve got about seventy-five minutes to get as far from ground zero as possible.”
Barbara made no comment. Moments later they passed the city limits; Hugh put the speed up from a careful forty-five to an exact sixty-five.
About ten minutes later she said, “Dear? I’m sorry. About Karen, I mean.
Not about anything else.”
“I’m not sorry about anything. No, not about Karen. Hearing her merry laugh again shook me up, ~yes. But now I treasure it. Barbara, for the first time in my life I have a conviction of immortality. Karen is alive right now, back there behind us-and yet we saw her die. So somehow, in some timeless sense, Karen is alive forever, somewhere. Don’t ask me to explain it, but that’s how it is.”
“I’ve always known it, Hugh. But I didn’t dare say so.”
“Dare say anything, damn it! I told you that long ago. So I no longer feel sorrow over Karen. I can’t feel any honest sorrow over Grace. Some people make a career of trying to get their own way; she’s one of them. As for Duke, I hate to think about him. I had great hopes for my son. My first son. But I never had control over his rearing and I certainly had no control over what became of him. And, as Joe pointed out to me, Duke’s not too badly off-if welfare and security and happiness are sufficient criteria.” Hugh shrugged without taking his hands from the wheel. “So I shall forget him. As of this instant I shall endeavor never to think about Duke again.”
Presently he spoke again. “Hon, can you, in spite of being smothered in babies, get at that clock thing on my shoulder and get it off?”
“I’m sure I can.”
“Then do it and chuck it into the ditch. I’d rather throw it away inside the circle of total destruction-if we’re still in it.” He scowled. “I don’t want those people ever to have time travel. Especially Ponse.”
She worked silently for some moments, awkwardly with one hand. She got the radiation clock loose and threw it out into the darkness before she spoke. “Hugh, I don’t think Ponse intended us to accept that offer. I think he made the terms such that he knew that I would refuse, even if you were indlined to sacrifice yourself.”
“Of course! He picked us as guinea pigs-his white mice –.~fl6 and chivvied us into ‘volunteering.’ Barbara, I can stand-and somewhat understand but not forgive-a straight-out son of a bitch. But Ponse was, for my money, much worse. He had good intentions. He could always prove why the hotfoot he was giving you was for your own good. I despise him.”
Barbara said stubbornly, “Hugh, how many white men of today could be trusted with the power Ponse had and use it with as much gentleness as he did use it?”
“Huh? None. Not even yours truly. And that was a low blow about ‘white men.’ Color doesn’t enter into it.”
“I withdraw the word ‘white.’ And I’m sure that you are one who could be
trusted with it. But I don’t know any others.”
“Not even me. Nobody can be trusted with it. The one time I had it I handled it as badly as Ponse. I mean that time I caused a gun to be raised at Duke. I should simply have used karate and knocked him out or even killed him. But not humiliated him. Nobody, Barbara. But Ponse was especially bad. Take Memtok. I’m really sorry that I happened to kill Memtok. He was a man who behaved better than his nature, not worse. Memtok had a streak of meanness, sadism, wide as his back. But he held it closely in check so that he could do his job better. But Ponse — ~ Barbie hon, this is probably a subject on which you and I will never agree. You feel a bit soft toward him because he was sweet to you most of the time and always sweet to our boys. But I despised him because of that-because he was always showing ‘king’s mercy’ — being less cruel than he could have been, but always reminding his victim of how cruel he could be if he were not such a sweet old guy and such a prince of a fellow. I despised him for it. I despised him long before I found out about his having young girls butchered and served for his dinner.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you know? Oh, surely, you must have known. Ponse and I discussed it in our very last talk. Weren’t you listening?”
“I thought that was just heavy sarcasm, on the part of each of you.” “Nope, Ponse is a cannibal. Maybe not a cannibal, since he doesn’t
consider us human. But he does eat us-they all do. Ponse always ate girls. About one a day for his family table, I gathered. Girls about the age and plumpness of Kitten.”
“But — But — Hugh, I ate the same thing he did, lots of times. I must have — I must have — “
“Sure you did. So did I. But not after I knew. Nor did you.” “Honey…you better stop the car. I’m going to be sick.”
“Throw up on the twins if you must. This car doesn’t stop for anything.”
She managed to get the window open, got it mostly outside. Presently he said gently, “Feeling better?”
“Some.”
“Sweetheart, don’t hold what he ate too much against Ponse. He honestly did not know it was wrong-and no doubt cows would feel the same way about us, if they knew. But these other things he knew were wrong. Because he tried to justify them. He rationalized slavery, he rationalized tyranny, he rationalized cruelty, and always wanted the victim to agree and thank him. The headsman expected to be tipped.”
“I don’t want to talk about him, dear. I feel all mixed up inside.” “Sorry. I’m half drunk without a drop and babbling. I’ll shut up. Watch
the traffic behind, I’m going to make a left turn shortly.”
She did so and after they had turned off on a state road, narrower and not as well graded, he said, “I’ve figured out where we’re going. At first I was just putting distance behind us. Now we’ve got a destination. Maybe a safe one.”
“Where, Hugh?”
“A shutdown mine. I had a piece of it, lost some money in it. Now maybe it pays off. The Havely Lode. Nice big tunnels and we can reach the access road from this road. If I can find it in the dark. If we can get there before the trouble starts.” He concentrated on herding the car, changing down on the grades both climbing and on the occasional downhill piece, braking hard before going into a curve, then cornering hard with plenty of throttle in the curves.
After a particularly vicious turn with Barbara on the hairraising outside, she said, “Look, dear, I know you’re doing it to save us. But we can be just as dead from a car crash as from an H-bomb.”
He grinned without slowing. “I used to drive jeeps in the dark with no headlights. Barbie, I won’t kill us. Few people realize how much a car will do
and I’m delighted that this has a manual gear shift. You need it in the mountains. I would not dare drive this way with an automatic shift.”
She shut up and prayed, silently.
The road dropped into a high alp where it met another road; at the intersection there was a light. When he saw it Hugh said, “Read my watch.”
“Eleven-twenty-five.”
“Good. We are slightly over fifty miles from ground zero. From my house, I mean. And the Havely Lode is only five minutes beyond here, I know how to find it now. I see Schmidt’s Corner is open and we are low on gas. We’ll grab some and groceries, too-yes, I recall you told me you had both in this car; we’ll get more-and still make it before the curtain.”
He braked and scattered gravel, stopped by a pump, jumped out. “Run inside and start grabbing stuff. Put the twins on the floor of the car and close the door. Won’t hurt ’em.” He stuck the hose into the car’s tank, started cranking the old-fashioned pump.
She was out in a moment. “There’s nobody here.”
“Honk the horn. The Dutchman is probably back at his house.”
Barbara honked and honked and the babies cried. Hugh hung up the hose. “Fourteen gallons we owe him for. Let’s go in. Should roll in just ten minutes, to be safe.”
Schmidt’s Corner was a gasoline station, a small lunch counter, a one- end grocery store, all of the sort that caters to local people, fishermen, hunters, and the tourist who likes to get off the pavement. Hugh wasted no time trying to rouse out the owner; the place told its own story: All lights were on, the screen door stood open, coffee was simmering on a hot plate, a chair had been knocked over, and the radio was tuned to the emergency frequency. It suddenly spoke up as he came in:
“Bomb warning. Third bomb warning. This is not a drill. Take shelter at once. Any shelter, God damn it, you’re going to be atom-bombed in the next few minutes. I’m damn well going to leave this goddam microphone and dive for the basement myself when impact is five minutes away! So get the lead out, you stupid fools, and quit listening to this chatter! TAKE SHELTER!”
“Grab those empty cartons and start filling them. Don’t pack, just dump stuff in. I’ll trot them out. We’ll fill the back seat and floor.” Hugh started following his own orders, had one carton filled before Barbara did. He rushed it out, rushed back; Barbara had another waiting, and a third almost filled. “Hugh. Stop one second. Look.”
The end carton was not empty. Mama cat, quite used to strangers, stared solemnly out at him while four assorted fuzzy ones nursed. Hugh returned her stare.
He suddenly closed the top of the carton over her. “All right,” he said. “Load something light into another carton so it weighs this one down while I drive. Hurry.” He rushed out to the car with the little family while the mother cat set up agonized complaint.
Barbara followed quickly with a half-loaded carton, put it on top of the cat box. They both rushed back inside. “Take all the canned milk he’s got.” Hugh stopped long enough to put a roll of dollars on top of the cash register. “And grab all the toilet paper or Kleenex you see, too. Three minutes till we leave.”
They left in five minutes but with more cartons; the back seat of the car was well leveled off. “I got a dozen tea towels,” Barbara said gleefully, “and six big packs of Chux.”
“Huh?”
“Diapers, dear, diapers. Might last us past the fallout. I hope. And I grabbed two packs of playing cards, too. Maybe I shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t be hypocritical, my love. Hang onto the kids and be sure that door is locked.” He drove for several hundred yards, with his head hanging
out. “Here!”
The going got very rough. Hugh drove in low gear and very carefully~ A black hole in the side of the mountain loomed up suddenly as he
turned. “Good, we’ve made it! And we drive straight inside.” He started in and tromped on the brake. “Good Lord! A cow.”
“And a calf,” Barbara added, leaning out her side. “I’ll have to back out.”
“Hugh. A cow. With a calf.”
“Uh…how the hell would we feed her?”
“Hugh, it may not burn here at all. And that’s a real live cow.” “Uh…all right, all right. We’ll eat them if we have to.” There was a
wooden wall and a stout door about thirty feet inside the mouth of the mine tunnel. Hugh eased the car forward, forcing the reluctant cow ahead of him, and at last crunched his side of the car against the rock wall to allow the other door to open.
The cow immediately made a break for freedom; Barbara opened her door and thereby stopped her. The calf bawled, the twins echoed him.
Hugh squeezed out past Barbara and the babies, got past the cow and unfastened the door, which was secured by a padlock passed through a hasp but not closed. He shoved the cow’s rump aside and braced the door open. “Kick on the ‘up’ lights. Let it shine in.”
Barbara did, then insisted that cow and calf be taken inside. Hugh muttered something about, “Noah’s bloody ark!” but agreed, largely because the cow was so very much in the way. The door, though wide, was about one inch narrower than bossie; she did not want to go through it. But Hugh got her beaded that way, then kicked her emphatically. She went through. The calf followed his mother.
At which point Hugh discovered why th~ cow was in the tunnel. Someone- presumably someone nearby-had converted the mine to use as a cow barn; there were a dozen or so bales of hay inside. The cow showed no wish to leave once she was at this treasure.
Cartons were carried in, two cartons were dumped and a twin placed in each, with a carton of cat and kittens just beyond and all three weighted down to insure temporary captivity.
While they were unloading Barbara’s survival gear from the trunk, everything suddenly became noonday bright. Barbara said, “Oh, heavens! We aren’t through.”
“We go on unloading. Maybe ten minutes till the sound wave. I don’t know about the shock wave. Here, take the rifle.”
They had the car empty with jeep cans of water and gasoline out but not yet inside when the ground began to tremble and noise of giant subways started. Hugh put the cans inside, yelled, “Move these!”
“Hugh! Come in!”
“Soon.” There was loose hay he had driven over just back of the car. He gathered it up, stuffed it through the door, went back and scavenged, not to save the hay but to reduce fire hazard to gasoline in the car’s tank. He considered backing the car out and letting it plunge down the hill. He decided not to risk it. If it got hot enough to set fire to the car’s gas tank-well, there were side tunnels, deep inside. “Barbara! Do you have a light yet?”
“Yes! Please come inside. Please!”
He went in, barred the door. “Now we move these bales of hay, far back.
You carry the light, I carry the bay. And mind your feet. It is wet a bit farther back. That’s why we shut down. Too much pumping.”
They moved groceries, livestock (human, bovine, and feline) and gear into a side tunnel a hundred yards inside the mountain. They had to wade through several inches of water on the way but the side tunnel was slightly higher and dry. Once Barbara lost a moccasin. “Sorry,” said Hugh. “This
mountain is a sponge. Almost every bore struck water.”
“I,” said Barbara, “am a woman who appreciates water. I have had reason
to.”
Hugh did not answer as the flash of the second bomb suddenly brightened
everything even that deep inside-just through cracks of a wooden wall. He looked at his watch. “Right on time. We’re sitting through a second show of the same movie, Barb. This time I hope it will be cooler.”
“I wonder.”
“If it will be cooler? Sure, it will. Even if it burns outside. I think I know a place where we can go down, and save us, and maybe the cats but not the cow and calf, even if smoke gets pulled in.”
“Hugh, I didn’t mean that.” “What did you mean?”
“Hugh, I didn’t tell you this at the time. I was too upset by it and didn’t want you to get upset. But I don’t own a manual gear shift car.”
“Huh? Then whose car is that outside?”
“Mine. I mean my keys were in it-and it certainly had my stuff in the trunk. But mine had automatic shift.”
“Honey,” he said slowly, “I think you’ve flipped your lid a little.”
“I thought you would think so and that’s why I didn’t say anything until we were safe. But Hugh-listen to me, dear! — I have never owned a manual shift car. I didn’t learn to drive that far back. I don’t know how to drive manual shift.”
He stared thoughtfully. “I don’t understand it.”
“Neither do I. Darling, when you came away from your house, you said, ‘She’s in there. Grace.’ Did you mean you saw her?”
“Why, yes. She was nodding over the television, half passed out.” “But, dearest, Grace had been nodding over the television. But you put
her to bed while I was making crêpes Suzettes. Don’t you remember? When the alert came, you went and got her and carried her down-in her nightgown.”
Hugh Farnham stood quite still for several moments. “So I did,” he agreed. “So I had. Well, let’s get the rest of this gear moved. The big one will be along in about an hour and a half.”
“But will it be?” “What do you mean?”
“Hugh, I don’t know what has happened. Maybe this is a different world. Or maybe it’s the same one but just a tiny bit changed by-well, by us coming back, perhaps.”
“I don’t know. But right now we go on, moving this stuff.”
The big one came on time. It shook them up, did not hurt them. When the air wave hit, it shook them up again. But without casualties other than to the nerves of some very nervous animals-the twins by now seemed to enjoy rough stuff.
Hugh noted the time, then said thoughtfully, “If it is a different world, it is not so very different. And yet — “
“Yet what, dear?”
“Well, it is some different. You wouldn’t forget that about your own car. And I do remember putting Grace to bed early; Duke and I had a talk afterwards. So, it’s different.” Suddenly he grinned. “It could be importantly different. If the future can change the past, or whatever, maybe the past can change the future, too. Maybe the United States won’t be wholly destroyed.
Maybe neither side will be so suicidal as to use plague bombs. Maybe — Hell, maybe Ponse will never get a chance to have teen-age girls for dinner!” He added, “I’m damn’ well going to make a try! To see that he doesn’t.”
“We’ll try! And our boys will try.”
“Yes. But that’s tomorrow. I think the fireworks are over for tonight.
Madame, do you think you can sleep on a pile of hay?”
“Just sleep?”
“You’re too eager. I’ve had a long hard day.”
“You had had a long hard day the other time, too.” “We’ll see.”
Chapter 23
They lived through the missiles, they lived through the bombs, they lived through the fires, they lived through the epidemics-which were not extreme and may not have been weapons; both sides disclaimed them-and they lived through the long period of disorders while civil government writhed like a snake with a broken back. They lived. They went on.
Their sign reads:
FARNHAM’S FREEHOLD
TRADING POST & RESTAURANT BAR
American Vodka Corn Liquor Applejack
Pure Spring Water Grade “A” Milk
Corned Beef & Potatoes Steak & Fried Potatoes Butter & some days Bread Smoked Bear Meat
Jerked Quisling (by the neck)
!!!!Any BOOK Accepted as Cash!!!! DAY NURSERY
!!FREE KITTENS!!
Blacksmithing, Machine Shop, Sheet Metal Work — You Supply the Metal FARNHAM SCHOOL OF CONTRACT BRIDGE
Lessons by Arrangement
Social Evening Every Wednesday WARNING!!!
Ring Bell. Wait. Advance with your Hands Up. Stay on path, avoid mines. We lost three customers last week. We can’t afford to lose you. No sales tax. Hugh & Barbara Farnham & Family
Freeholders
High above their sign their homemade starry flag is flying — and they are still going on.
The End
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
Posts about the Changes in America
America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
Articles & Links
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
This is a wonderful story. It is great “escapist reading”, and has some very significant deeper elements.
''there were things that were right and others that were wrong and it was not just a matter of where you were. He felt this with an inner conviction too deep to be influenced by Sam’s cheerful cynicism.''
This ''inner conviction'' places Heinlein's work apart. Morality can't be proved. We must be convinced.
This reflective, thoughtful, wondering threads it's way throughout. Who hasn't pondered -
'Is morality adjustable?
Who says what is right?
How can I know for sure?
Should I forgive myself or punish myself?'
Presented so skillfully, so warmly, I have returned to Max several times in over five decades. I still tear up each visit.
Max is disclosing his deception -
“I was always explaining—in my mind of course, why I did it, justifying myself, pointing out that the system was at fault, not me. Now I don’t want to justify myself. Not that I regret it, not when I think what I would have missed. But I don’t want to duck out of paying for it, either.”
Walther nodded.
“That sounds like a healthy attitude. Captain, no code is perfect. A man must conform with judgment and commonsense, not with blind obedience. I’ve broken rules; some violations I paid for, some I didn’t. This mistake you made could have turned you into a moralistic prig, a ‘Regulation Charlie’ determined to walk the straight and narrow and to see that everyone else obeyed the letter of the law. Or it could have made you a permanent infant who thinks rules are for everyone but him. It doesn’t seem to have had either effect; I think it has matured you.”
Keen insight.
Another theme is the proper use and abuse of authority. Government regulations -
''You don’t believe in anarchy, surely? Our whole society is founded on entrusting grave secrets only to those who are worthy.''
Government protects you -
When the idea soaked in, Max was shocked.
“But they put you in jail for that!”
“Where do you think you are now?”
“Well, I’m not in jail. And I don’t want to be.”
“This whole planet is one big jail, and a crowded one at that.''
Security vs Liberty, a question that all face and choose their answer.
And yet (this is what makes Heinlein fascinating) he is not defiant or disrespectful to authority.
Explains why Max must agree to be Captain . . .
Mr. Samuels said quietly,
“I don’t agree with the Chief Engineer about the unimportance of legal aspects; most of these laws have wise reasons behind them. But I agree with what else he says. Mr. Jones, a ship is not just steel, it is a delicate political entity. Its laws and customs cannot be disregarded without inviting disaster.’’
This deep respect for law and legality drive this story. The dangerous curves are when ‘law’ has to be superseded by ‘legal principles’.
When? Why? How? Well . .
.
“It will be far easier to maintain morale and discipline in this ship with a young captain—with all his officers behind him—than it would be to let passengers and crew suspect that the man who must make the crucial decisions, those life-and-death matters involving the handling of the ship, that this all-powerful man nevertheless can’t be trusted to command the ship. No, sir, such a situation would frighten me; that is how mutinies are born.”
This is deep trust in authority.
However, this power is used to help others, not the captain.
The respect is earned and willingly given.
What a lesson!
Heinlein presents this growing and searching - to submit, defy, accept and use authority in this work. Wonderful!
-Amazon product review by Clay Garner
THE TOMAHAWK
Max liked this time of day, this time of year. With the crops in, he could finish his evening chores early and be lazy. When he had slopped the hogs and fed the chickens, instead of getting supper he followed a path to a rise west of the barn and lay down in the grass, unmindful of chiggers. He had a book with him that he had drawn from the county library last Saturday, Bonforte’s Sky Beasts: A Guide to Exotic Zoology, but he tucked it under his head as a pillow. A blue jay made remarks about his honesty, then shut up when he failed to move. A red squirrel sat on a stump and stared at him, then went on burying nuts.
Max kept his eyes to the northwest. He favored this spot because from it he could see the steel stilts and guide rings of the Chicago, Springfield, & Earthport Ring Road emerge from a slash in the ridge to his right. There was a guide ring at the mouth of the cut, a great steel hoop twenty feet high. A pair of
stilt-like tripods supported another ring a hundred feet out from the cut. A third and last ring, its stilts more than a hundred feet high to keep it level with the others, lay west of him where the ground dropped still more sharply into the valley below. Half way up it he could see the power-link antenna pointing across the gap.
On his left the guides of the C.S.&E. picked up again on the far side of the gap. The entering ring was larger to allow for maximum windage deviation; on its stilts was the receptor antenna for the power link. That ridge was steeper; there was only one more ring before the road disappeared into a tunnel. He had read that, on the Moon, entrance rings were no larger than pass-along rings, since there was never any wind to cause variation in ballistic. When he was a child this entrance ring had been slightly smaller and, during an unprecedented windstorm, a train had struck the ring and produced an unbelievable wreck, with more than four hundred people killed. He had not seen it and his father had not allowed him to poke around afterwards because of the carnage, but the scar of it could still be seen on the lefthand ridge, a
darker green than the rest.
He watched the trains go by whenever possible, not wishing the passengers any bad luck—but still, if there should happen to be a catastrophe, he didn’t want to miss it.
Max kept his eyes fixed on the cut; the Tomahawk was due any instant. Suddenly there was a silver gleam, a shining cylinder with needle nose burst out of the cut, flashed through the last ring and for a breathless moment was in free trajectory between the ridges. Almost before he could swing his eyes the projectile entered the ring across the gap and disappeared into the hillside—just as the sound hit him.
It was a thunderclap that bounced around the hills. Max gasped for air. “Boy!” he said softly. “Boy, oh boy!” The incredible sight and the impact on his ears always affected him the same way. He had heard that for the passengers the train was silent, with the sound trailing them, but he did not know; he had never ridden a train and it seemed unlikely, with Maw and the farm to take care of, that he ever would.
He shifted to a sitting position and opened his book, holding it so that he would be aware of the southwestern sky. Seven minutes after the passing of the Tomahawk he should be able to see, on a clear evening, the launching orbit of the daily Moonship. Although much father away and much less dramatic than the nearby jump of the ring train it was this that he had come to see. Ring trains were all right, but spaceships were his love—even a dinky like the moon shuttle.
But he had just found his place, a description of the intelligent but phlegmatic crustaceans of Epsilon Ceti IV, when he was interrupted by a call behind him. “Oh, Maxie! Maximilian! Max… mil… yan!”
He held still and said nothing.
“Max! I can see you, Max—you come at once, hear me?”
He muttered to himself and got to his feet. He moved slowly down the path, watching the sky over his shoulder until the barn cut off his view. Maw was back and that was that—she’d make his life miserable if he didn’t come in and help. When she had left that morning he had had the impression that she would be gone overnight—not that she had said so; she never did—but he had learned to read the signs. Now he would have to listen to her complaints and her petty gossip when he wanted to read, or just as bad, be disturbed by the slobbering stereovision serials she favored. He had often been tempted to sabotage the pesky SV set—by rights with an ax! He hardly ever got to see the programs he liked.
When he got in sight of the house he stopped suddenly. He had supposed that Maw had ridden the bus from the Corners and walked up the draw as usual. But there was a sporty little unicycle standing near the stoop—and there was someone with her.
He had thought at first it was a “foreigner”—but when he got closer he recognized the man. Max would rather have seen a foreigner, any foreigner. Biff Montgomery was a hillman but he didn’t work a farm; Max couldn’t remember having seen him do any honest work. He had heard it said that Montgomery sometimes hired out as a guard when one of the moonshine stills back in the hills was operating and it might be so—Montgomery was a big, beefy man and the part might fit him.
Max had known Montgomery as long as he could remember, seen him loafing around Clyde’s Corners. But he had ordinarily given him “wagon room” and had had nothing to do with him—until lately: Maw had started being seen with him, even gone to barn dances and huskings with him. Max had tried to tell her that Dad wouldn’t have liked it. But you couldn’t argue with Maw—what she didn’t like she just didn’t hear.
But this was the first time she had ever brought him to the house. Max felt a slow burn of anger starting in
him.
“Hurry up, Maxie!” Maw called out. “Don’t stand there like a dummy.” Max reluctantly moved along and joined them. Maw said, “Maxie, shake hands with your new father,” then looked roguish, as if she had said something witty. Max stared and his mouth sagged open.
Montgomery grinned and stuck out a hand. “Yep, Max, you’re Max Montgomery now—I’m your new pop. But you can call me Monty.”
Max stared at the hand, took it briefly. “My name is Jones,” he said flatly. “Maxie!” protested Maw.
Montgomery laughed jovially. “Don’t rush him, Nellie my love. Let Max get used to it. Live and let live; that’s my motto.” He turned to his wife. “Half a mo’, while I get the baggage.” From one saddlebag of the unicycle he extracted a wad of mussed clothing; from the other, two flat pint bottles. Seeing Max watching him he winked and said, “A toast for the bride.”
His bride was standing by the door; he started to brush on past her. She protested, “But Monty darling, aren’t you going to—”
Montgomery stopped. “Oh. I haven’t much experience in these things. Sure.” He turned to Max—”Here, take the baggage”—and shoved bottles and clothes at him. Then he swung her up in his arms, grunting a bit, and carried her over the threshold, put her down and kissed her while she squealed and blushed.
Max silently followed them, put the items on the table and turned to the stove. It was cold, he had not used it since breakfast. There was an electric range but it had burned out before his father had died and there had never been money to repair it. He took out his pocket knife, made shavings, added kindling and touched the heap with an Everlite. When it flared up he went out to fetch a pail of water.
When he came back Montgomery said, “Wondered where you’d gone. Doesn’t this dump even have running water?”
“No.” Max set the pail down, then added a couple of chunks of cord wood to the fire. His Maw said, “Maxie, you should have had dinner ready.”
Montgomery interceded pleasantly with, “Now, my dear, he didn’t know we were coming. And it leaves time for a toast.” Max kept his back to them, giving his full attention to slicing side meat. The change was so overwhelming that he had not had time to take it in.
Montgomery called to him. “Here, son! Drink your toast to the bride.” “I’ve got to get supper.”
“Nonsense! Here’s your glass. Hurry up.”
Montgomery had poured a finger of amber liquid into the glass; his own glass was half full and that of his bride at least a third. Max accepted it and went to the pail, thinned it with a dipper of water.
“You’ll ruin it.”
“I’m not used to it.”
“Oh, well. Here’s to the blushing bride—and our happy family! Bottoms up!”
Max took a cautious sip and put it down. It tasted to him like the bitter tonic the district nurse had given him one spring. He turned back to his work, only to be interrupted again. “Hey, you didn’t finish it.”
“Look, I got to cook. You don’t want me to burn supper, do you?”
Montgomery shrugged. “Oh, well—the more for the rest of us. We’ll use yours for a chaser. Sonny boy, when I was your age I could empty a tumbler neat and then stand on my hands.”
Max had intended to sup on side meat and warmed-over biscuits, but there was only half a pan left of the biscuits. He scrambled eggs in the grease of the side meat, brewed coffee, and let it go at that. When they sat down Montgomery looked at it and announced, “My dear, starting tomorrow I’ll expect you to live up to what you told me about your cooking. Your boy isn’t much of a cook.” Nevertheless he ate heartily. Max decided not to tell him that he was a better cook than Maw—he’d find out soon enough.
Presently Montgomery sat back and wiped his mouth, then poured himself more coffee and lighted a cigar. Maw said, “Maxie, dear, what’s the dessert?”
“Dessert? Well—there’s that ice cream in the freezer, left over from Solar Union Day.” She looked vexed. “Oh, dear! I’m afraid it’s not there.”
“Huh?”
“Well, I’m afraid I sort of ate it one afternoon when you were out in the south field. It was an awfully hot day.”
Max did not say anything, he was unsurprised. But she was not content to leave it. “You didn’t fix any dessert, Max? But this is a special occasion.”
Montgomery took his cigar out of his mouth. “Stow it, my dear,” he said kindly. “I’m not much for sweets, I’m a meat-and-potatoes man—sticks to the ribs. Let’s talk of pleasanter things.” He turned to Max. “Max, what can you do besides farm?”
Max was startled. “Huh? I’ve never done anything else. Why?”
Montgomery touched the ash of the cigar to his plate. “Because you are all through farming.”
For the second time in two hours Max had more change than he could grasp. “Why? What do you mean?”
“Because we’ve sold the farm.”
Max felt as if he had had a rug jerked out from under him. But he could tell from Maw’s face that it was true. She looked the way she always did when she had put one over on him—triumphant and slightly apprehensive.
“Dad wouldn’t like that,” he said to her harshly. “This land has been in our family for four hundred years.”
“Now, Maxie! I’ve told you I don’t know how many times that I wasn’t cut out for a farm. I was city raised.”
“Clyde’s Corners! Some city!”
“It wasn’t a farm. And I was just a young girl when your father brought me here—you were already a big boy. I’ve still got my life before me. I can’t live it buried on a farm.”
Max raised his voice. “But you promised Dad you’d…”
“Stow it,” Montgomery said firmly. “And keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak to your mother—and to me.”
Max shut up.
“The land is sold and that’s that. How much do you figure this parcel is worth?” “Why, I’ve never thought about it.”
“Whatever you thought, I got more.” He gave Max a wink. “Yes, sir! It was a lucky day for your mother and you when she set her cap for me. I’m a man with his ear to the ground. I knew why an agent was around buying up these worn-out, worthless pieces of property. I…”
“I use government fertilizers.”
“Worthless I said and worthless I meant. For farming, that is.” He put his finger along his nose, looked sly, and explained. It seemed that some big government power project was afoot for which this area had been selected—Montgomery was mysterious about it, from which Max concluded that he didn’t know very much. A syndicate was quietly buying up land in anticipation of government purchase. “So we held ’em up for five times what they expected to pay. Pretty good, huh?”
Maw put in, “You see, Maxie? If your father had known that we would ever get…” “Quiet, Nellie!”
“But I was just going to tell him how much…” “‘Quiet!’ I said.”
She shut up. Montgomery pushed his chair back, stuck his cigar in his mouth, and got up. Max put water on to heat for the dishes, scraped the plates and took the leavings out to the chickens. He stayed out quite a spell, looking at the stars and trying to think. The idea of having Biff Montgomery in the family shook him to his bones. He wondered just what rights a stepfather had, or, rather a step-stepfather, a man who had married his stepmother. He didn’t know.
Presently he decided that he had to go back inside, much as he hated to. He found Montgomery standing at the bookshelf he had built over the stereo receiver; the man was pawing at the books and had piled several on the receiver. He looked around. “You back? Stick around, I want you to tell me about the live stock.”
Maw appeared in the doorway. “Darling,” she said to Montgomery, “can’t that wait till morning?”
“Don’t be in a hurry, my dear,” he answered. “That auctioneer fellow will be here early. I’ve got to have the inventory ready.” He continued to pull books down. “Say, these are pretty things.” He held in his hands half a dozen volumes, printed on the finest of thin paper and bound in limp plastic. “I wonder what they’re worth? Nellie, hand me my specs.”
Max advanced hastily, reached for them. “Those are mine!”
“Huh?” Montgomery glanced at him, then held the books high in the air. “You’re too young to own anything. No, everything goes. A clean sweep and a fresh start.”
“They’re mine! My uncle gave them to me.” He appealed to his mother. “Tell him, Maw.”
Montgomery said quietly, “Yes, Nellie, set this youngster straight—before I have to correct him.” Nellie looked worried. “Well, I don’t rightly know. They did belong to Chet.”
“And Chet was your brother? Then you’re Chet’s heir, not this young cub.” “He wasn’t her brother, he was her brother-in-law!”
“So? No matter. Your father was your uncle’s heir, then, and your mother is your father’s heir. Not you, you’re a minor. That’s the law, son. Sorry.” He put the books on the shelf but remained standing in front of them.
Max felt his right upper lip begin to twitch uncontrollably; he knew that he would not be able to talk coherently. His eyes filled with tears of rage so that he could hardly see. “You… you thief!”
Nellie let out a squawk. “Max!”
Montgomery’s face became coldly malignant. “Now you’ve gone too far. I’m afraid you’ve earned a taste of the strap.” His fingers started unbuckling his heavy belt.
Max took a step backward. Montgomery got the belt loose and took a step forward. Nellie squealed, “Monty! Please!”
“Keep out of this, Nellie.” To Max he said, “We might as well get it settled once and for all who is boss around here. Apologize!”
Max did not answer. Montgomery repeated, “Apologize, and we’ll say no more about it.” He twitched the belt like a cat lashing its tail. Max took another step back; Montgomery stepped forward and grabbed at him.
Max ducked and ran out the open door into darkness. He did not stop until he was sure that Montgomery was not following. Then he caught his breath, still raging. He was almost sorry that Montgomery had not chased him; he didn’t think that anyone could match him on his home grounds in the dark. He knew where the wood pile was; Montgomery didn’t. He knew where the hog wallow was.
Yes, he knew where the well was—even that.
It was a long time before he quieted down enough to think rationally. When he did, he was glad it had ended so easily, Montgomery outweighed him a lot and was reputed to be a mean one in a fight.
If it had ended, he corrected. He wondered if Montgomery would decide to forget it by morning. The light was still on in the living room; he took shelter in the barn and waited, sitting down on the dirt floor and leaning against the planks. After a while he felt terribly tired. He considered sleeping in the barn but there was no fit place to lie down, even though the old mule was dead. Instead he got up and looked at the house.
The light was out in the living room, but he could see a light in the bedroom; they were still awake, surely. Someone had closed the outer door after his flight; it did not lock so there was no difficulty getting in, but he was afraid that Montgomery might hear him. His own room was a shed added at the kitchen end of the main room, opposite the bedroom, but it had no outside door.
No matter—he had solved that problem when he had first grown old enough to wish to get in and out at night without consulting his elders. He crept around the house, found the saw horse, placed it under his window, got on and wiggled loose the nail that held the window. A moment later he stepped silently down into his own room. The door to the main part of the house was closed but he decided not to risk
switching on the light; Montgomery might take it into his head to come out into the living room and see a crack of light under his door. He slipped quietly out of his clothes and crawled into his cot.
Sleep wouldn’t come. Once he began to feel that warm drowsiness, then some tiny noise had brought him wide, stiff awake. Probably just a mouse—but for an instant he had thought that Montgomery was standing over his bed. With his heart pounding, he sat up on the edge of his cot, still in his skin.
Presently he faced up to the problem of what he was to do—not just for the next hour, not just tomorrow morning, but the following morning and all the mornings after that. Montgomery alone presented no problem; he would not voluntarily stay in the same county with the man. But how about Maw?
His father had told him, when he had known that he was dying, “Take care of your mother, son.” Well, he had done so. He had made a crop every year—food in the house and a little money, even if things had been close. When the mule died, he had made do, borrowing McAllister’s team and working it out in labor.
But had Dad meant that he had to take care of his stepmother even if she remarried? It had never occurred to him to consider it. Dad had told him to look out for her and he had done so, even though it had put a stop to school and did not seem to have any end to it.
But she was no longer Mrs. Jones but Mrs. Montgomery. Had Dad meant for him to support Mrs. Montgomery?
Of course not! When a woman married, her husband supported her. Everybody knew that. And Dad wouldn’t expect him to put up with Montgomery. He stood up, his mind suddenly made up.
The only question was what to take with him.
There was little to take. Groping in the dark he found the rucksack he used for hunting hikes and stuffed into it his other shirt and his socks. He added Uncle Chet’s circular astrogation slide rule and the piece of volcanic glass his uncle had brought back for him from the Moon. His citizen’s identification card, his toothbrush, and his father’s razor—not that he needed that very often—about completed the plunder.
There was a loose board back of his cot. He felt for it, pulled it out and groped between the studs—found nothing. He had been hiding a little money from time to time against a rainy day, as Maw couldn’t or wouldn’t save. But apparently she had found it on one of her snooping tours. Well, he still had to leave; it just made it a little more difficult.
He took a deep breath. There was something he must get… Uncle Chet’s books… and they were still (presumably) on the shelf against the wall common with the bedroom. But he had to get them, even at the risk of meeting Montgomery.
Cautiously, most slowly, he opened the door into the living room, stood there with sweat pouring down him. There was still a crack of light under the bedroom door and he hesitated, almost unable to force himself to go on. He heard Montgomery muttering something and Maw giggle.
As his eyes adjusted he could see by the faint light leaking out under the bedroom door something piled at the outer door. It was a deadfall alarm of pots and pans, sure to make a dreadful clatter if the door were opened. Apparently Montgomery had counted on him coming back and expected to be ready to take care of him. He was very glad that he had sneaked in the window.
No use putting it off—he crept across the floor, mindful of the squeaky board near the table. He could not see but he could feel and the volumes were known to his fingers. Carefully he slid them out, being
sure not to knock over the others.
He was all the way back to his own door when he remembered the library book. He stopped in sudden panic.
He couldn’t go back. They might hear him this time—or Montgomery might get up for a drink of water or something.
But in his limited horizon, the theft of a public library book—or failure to return it, which was the same thing—was, if not a mortal sin, at least high on the list of shameful crimes. He stood there, sweating and thinking about it.
Then he went back, the whole long trek, around the squeaky board and tragically onto one he had not remembered. He froze after he hit it, but apparently it had not alarmed the couple in the room beyond. At last he was leaning over the SV receiver and groping at the shelf.
Montgomery, in pawing the books, had changed their arrangement. One after another he had to take them down and try to identify it by touch, opening each and feeling for the perforations on the title page.
It was the fourth one he handled. He got back to his room hurrying slowly, unbearably anxious but afraid to move fast. There at last, he began to shake and had to wait until it wore off. He didn’t chance closing his door but got into his clothes in the dark. Moments later he crept through his window, found the saw horse with his toe, and stepped quietly to the ground.
His shoes were stuffed on top of the books in his rucksack; he decided to leave them there until he was well clear of the house, rather than chance the noise he might make with his feet shod. He swung wide around the house and looked back. The bedroom light was still on; he started to angle down toward the road when he noticed Montgomery’s unicycle. He stopped.
If he continued he would come to the road the bus passed along. Whether he turned right or left there, Montgomery would have a fifty-fifty chance of catching him on the unicycle. Having no money he was dependent on Shank’s ponies to put distance under him; he could not take the bus.
Shucks! Montgomery wouldn’t try to fetch him back. He would say good riddance and forget him!
But the thought fretted him. Suppose Maw urged him? Suppose Montgomery wouldn’t forget an insult and would go to any trouble to “get even”?
He headed back, still swinging wide of the house, and cut across the slopes toward the right of way of the C.S.&E.
Good Samaritan
He wished for a light, but its lack did not bother him much. He knew this country, every slope, almost every tree. He stayed high, working along the hillside, until he reached the exit ring where the trains jumped the gap, and there he came out on the road used by the ring road’s maintenance crews. He sat down and put on his shoes.
The maintenance road was no more than a track cut through trees; it was suited to tractor treads but not
to wheels. But it led down across the gap and up to where the ring road disappeared in the tunnel through the far ridge. He followed it, making good time in the born mountaineer’s easy, loose-jointed walk.
Seventy minutes later he was across the gap and passing under the entrance ring. He went on until he was near the ring that marked the black entrance to the tunnel. He stopped at what he judged to be a safe distance and considered his chances.
The ridge was high, else the rings would have been built in a cut rather than a tunnel. He had often hunted on it and knew that it would take two hours to climb it—in daylight. But the maintenance road ran right through the hill, under the rings. If he followed it, he could go through in ten or fifteen minutes.
Max had never been through the ridge. Legally it was trespass—not that that bothered him, he was trespassing now. Occasionally a hog or a wild animal would wander into the tunnel and be trapped there when a train hurtled through. They died, instantly and without a scratch. Once Max had spotted the carcass of a fox just inside the tunnel and had ducked in and salvaged it. There were no marks on it, but when he skinned it he found that it was a mass of tiny hemorrhages. Several years earlier a man had been caught inside; the maintenance crew brought out the body.
The tunnel was larger than the rings but no larger than necessary to permit the projectile to ride ahead of its own reflected shock wave. Anything alive in the tunnel could not avoid the wave; that unbearable thunderclap, painful at a distance, was so loaded with energy as to be quick death close up.
But Max did not want to climb the ridge; he went over the evening schedule of trains in his mind. The Tomahawk was the one he had watched at sundown; the Javelin he had heard while he was hiding in the barn. The Assegai must have gone by quite a while ago though he didn’t remember hearing it; that left only the midnight Cleaver. He then looked at the sky.
Venus had set, of course, but he was surprised to see Mars still in the west. The Moon had not risen. Let’s see—full moon was last Wednesday. Surely…
The answer he got seemed wrong, so he checked himself by taking a careful eyesight of Vega and compared it with what the Big Dipper told him. Then he whistled softly—despite everything that had happened it was only ten o’clock, give or take five minutes; the stars could not be wrong. In which case the Assegai was not due for another three-quarters of an hour. Except for the faint chance of a special train he had plenty of time.
He headed into the tunnel. He had not gone fifty yards before he began to be sorry and a bit panicky; it was as dark as a sealed coffin. But the going was much easier as the bore was lined to permit smooth shockwave reflections. He had been on his way several minutes, feeling each step but hurrying, when his eyes, adjusting to complete darkness, made out a faint grey circle far ahead. He broke into a trot and then into a dead run as his fear of the place piled up.
He reached the far end with throat burned dry and heart laboring; there he plunged downhill regardless of the sudden roughening of his path as he left the tunnel and hit the maintenance track. He did not slow up until he stood under stilt supports so high that the ring above looked small. There he stood still and fought to catch his breath.
He was slammed forward and knocked off his feet.
He picked himself up groggily, eventually remembered where he was and realized that he had been knocked cold. There was blood on one cheek and his hands and elbows were raw. It was not until he noticed these that he realized what had happened; a train had passed right over him.
It had not been close enough to kill, but it had been close enough to blast him off his feet. It could not have been the Assegai; he looked again at the stars and confirmed it. No, it must have been a special—and he had beaten it out of the tunnel by about a minute.
He began to shake and it was minutes before he pulled himself together, after which he started down the maintenance road as fast as his bruised body could manage. Presently he became aware of an odd fact; the night was silent.
But night is never silent. His ears, tuned from babyhood to the sounds and signs of his hills, should have heard an endless pattern of little night noises—wind in the leaves, the scurrying of his small cousins, tree frogs, calls of insects, owls.
By brutal logic he concluded correctly that he could not hear—”deef as a post”—the shock wave had left him deaf. But there was no way to help it, so he went on; it did not occur to him to return home. At the bottom of this draw, where the stilts were nearly three hundred feet high, the maintenance road crossed a farm road. He turned down hill onto it, having accomplished his first purpose of getting into territory where Montgomery would be less likely to look for him. He was in another watershed now; although still only a few miles from home, nevertheless by going through the ridge he had put himself into a different neighborhood.
He continued downhill for a couple of hours. The road was hardly more than a cart track but it was easier than the maintenance road. Somewhere below, when the hills gave way to the valley where the “foreigners” lived, he would find the freight highway that paralleled the ring road on the route to Earthport—Earthport being his destination although he had only foggy plans as to what he would do when he got there.
The Moon was behind him now and he made good time. A rabbit hopped onto the road ahead, sat up and stared, then skittered away. Seeing it, he regretted not having brought along his squirrel gun. Sure, it was worn out and not worth much and lately it had gotten harder and harder to buy the slugs thrown by the obsolete little weapon—but rabbit in the pot right now would go mighty nice, mighty nice! He realized that he was not only weary but terribly hungry. He had just picked at his supper and it looked like he’d breakfast on his upper lip.
Shortly his attention was distracted from hunger to a ringing in his ears, a ringing that got distressingly worse. He shook his head and pounded his ears but it did not help; he had to make up his mind to ignore it. After another half mile or so he suddenly noticed that he could hear himself walking. He stopped dead, then clapped his hands together. He could hear them smack, cutting through the phantom ringing. With a lighter heart he went on.
At last he came out on a shoulder that overlooked the broad valley. In the moonlight he could make out the sweep of the freight highway leading southwest and could detect, he thought, its fluorescent traffic guide lines. He hurried on down.
He was nearing the highway and could hear the rush of passing freighters when he spotted a light ahead. He approached it cautiously, determined that it was neither vehicle nor farm house. Closer approach showed it to be a small open fire, visible from uphill but shielded from the highway by a shoulder of limestone. A man was squatting over it, stirring the contents of a can resting on rocks over the fire.
Max crept nearer until he was looking down into the hobo jungle. He got a whiff of the stew and his mouth watered. Caught between hunger and a hillman’s ingrown distrust of “foreigners” he lay still and stared. Presently the man set the can off the fire and called out, “Well, don’t hide there! Come on down.”
Max was too startled to answer. The man added, “Come on down into the light. I won’t fetch it up to
you.”
Max got to his feet and shuffled down into the circle of firelight. The man looked up. “Howdy. Draw up a chair.”
“Howdy.” Max sat down across the fire from the tramp. He was not even as well dressed as Max and he needed a shave. Nevertheless he wore his rags with a jaunty air and handled himself with a sparrow’s cockiness.
The man continued to stir the mess in the can then spooned out a sample, blew on it, and tasted it. “About right,” he announced. “Four-day mulligan, just getting ripe. Find yourself a dish.” He got up and picked over a pile of smaller cans behind him, selected one. Max hesitated, then did the same, settling on one that had once contained coffee and appeared not to have been used since. His host served him a liberal portion of stew, then handed him a spoon. Max looked at it.
“If you don’t trust the last man who used it,” the man said reasonably, “hold it in the fire, then wipe it. Me, I don’t worry. If a bug bites me, he dies horribly.” Max took the advice, holding the spoon in the flames until the handle became too hot, then wiped it on his shirt.
The stew was good and his hunger made it superlative. The gravy was thick, there were vegetables and unidentified meat. Max didn’t bother his head about the pedigrees of the materials; he simply enjoyed it. After a while his host said, “Seconds?”
“Huh? Sure. Thanks!”
The second can of stew filled him up and spread through his tissues a warm glow of well-being. He stretched lazily, enjoying his fatigue. “Feel better?” the man asked.
“Gee, yes. Thanks.”
“By the way, you can call me Sam.” “Oh, my name is Max.”
“Glad to know you, Max.”
Max waited before raising a point that had been bothering him. “Uh, Sam? How did you know I was there? Did you hear me?”
Sam grinned. “No. But you were silhouetted against the sky. Don’t ever do that, kid, or it may be the last thing you do.”
Max twisted around and looked up at where he had lurked. Sure enough, Sam was right. He’d be dogged!
Sam added, “Traveled far?” “Huh? Yeah, quite a piece.” “Going far?”
“Uh, pretty far, I guess.”
Sam waited, then said, “Think your folks’ll miss you?”
“Huh? How did you know?”
“That you had run away from home? Well, you have, haven’t you?” “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I have.”
“You looked beat when you dragged in here. Maybe it’s not too late to kill the goose before your bridges are burned. Think about it, kid. It’s rough on the road. I know.”
“Go back? I won’t ever go back!” “As bad as that?”
Max stared into the fire. He needed badly to get his thoughts straight, even if it meant telling a foreigner his private affairs—and this soft-spoken stranger was easy to talk to. “See here, Sam, did you ever have a stepmother?”
“Eh? Can’t remember that I ever had any. The Central Jersey Development Center for State Children used to kiss me good night.”
“Oh.” Max blurted out his story with an occasional sympathetic question from Sam to straighten out its confusion. “So I lit out,” he concluded. “There wasn’t anything else to do. Was there?”
Sam pursed his lips. “I reckon not. This double stepfather of yours—he sounds like a mouse studying to be a rat. You’re well shut of him.”
“You don’t think they’ll try to find me and haul me back, do you?”
Sam stopped to put a piece of wood on the fire. “I am not sure about that.”
“Huh? Why not? I’m no use to him. He doesn’t like me. And Maw won’t care, not really. She may whine a bit, but she won’t turn her hand.”
“Well, there’s the farm.”
“The farm? I don’t care about that, not with Dad gone. Truthfully, it ain’t much. You break your back trying to make a crop. If the Food Conservation Act hadn’t forbidden owners to let farm land fall out of use, Dad would have quit farming long ago. It would take something like this government condemnation to make it possible to find anybody to take it off your hands.”
“That’s what I mean. This joker got your mother to sell it. Now my brand of law may not be much good, but it looks as if that money ought to come to you.”
“What? Oh, I don’t care about the money. I just want to get away from them.”
“Don’t talk that way about money; the powers-that-be will have you shut up for blasphemy. But it probably doesn’t matter how you feel, as I think Citizen Montgomery is going to want to see you awful bad.”
“Why?”
“Did your father leave a will?”
“No. Why? He didn’t have anything to leave but the farm.”
“I don’t know the ins and outs of your state laws, but it’s a sure thing that at least half of that farm belongs to you. Possibly your stepmother has only lifetime tenure in her half, with reversion to you when she dies. But it’s a certainty that she can’t grant a good deed without your signature. Along about time your county courthouse opens up tomorrow morning the buyers are going to find that out. Then they’ll come
high-tailing up, looking for her—and you. And ten minutes later this Montgomery hombre will start looking for you, if he hasn’t already.”
“Oh, me! If they find me, can they make me go back?” “Don’t let them find you. You’ve made a good start.”
Max picked up his rucksack. “I guess I had better get moving. Thanks a lot, Sam. Maybe I can help you someday.”
“Sit down.”
“Look, I had better get as far away as I can.”
“Kid, you’re tired out and your judgment has slipped. How far can you walk tonight, the shape you’re in? Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we’ll go down to the highway, follow it about a mile to the freighters’ restaurant south of here and catch the haulers as they come out from breakfast, feeling good. We’ll promote a ride and you’ll go farther in ten minutes than you could make all night.”
Max had to admit that he was tired, exhausted really, and Sam certainly knew more about these wrinkles than he did. Sam added, “Got a blanket in your bindle?”
“No. Just a shirt… and some books.”
“Books, eh? Read quite a bit myself, when I get a chance. May I see them?”
Somewhat reluctantly Max got them out. Sam held them close to the fire and examined them. “Well, I’ll be a three-eyed Martian! Kid, do you know what you’ve got here?”
“Sure.”
“But you ought not to have these. You’re not a member of the Astrogators’ Guild.” “No, but my uncle was. He was on the first trip to Beta Hydrae,” he added proudly. “No foolin’!”
“Sure as taxes.”
“But you’ve never been in space yourself? No, of course not.”
“But I’m going to be!” Max admitted something that he had never told anyone, his ambition to emulate his uncle and go out to the stars. Sam listened thoughtfully. When Max stopped, he said slowly, “So you want to be an astrogator?”
“I certainly do.”
Sam scratched his nose. “Look, kid, I don’t want to throw cold water, but you know how the world wags. Getting to be an astrogator is almost as difficult as getting into the Plumbers’ Guild. The soup is thin these days and there isn’t enough to go around. The guild won’t welcome you just because you are anxious to be apprenticed. Membership is hereditary, just like all the other high-pay guilds.”
“But my uncle was a member.” “Your uncle isn’t your father.”
“No, but a member who hasn’t any sons gets to nominate someone else. Uncle Chet explained it to me. He always told me he was going to register my nomination.”
“And did he?”
Max was silent. At the time his uncle had died he had been too young to know how to go about finding out. When his father had followed his uncle events had closed in on him—he had never checked up, subconsciously preferring to nurse the dream rather than test it. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I’m going to the Mother Chapter at Earthport and find out.”
“Hmmm—I wish you luck, kid.” He stared into the fire, sadly it seemed to Max. “Well, I’m going to grab some shut-eye, and you had better do the same. If you’re chilly, you’ll find some truck back under that rock shelf—burlap and packing materials and such. It’ll keep you warm, if you don’t mind risking a flea or two.”
Max crawled into the dark hole indicated, found a half-way cave in the limestone. Groping, he located the primitive bedding. He had expected to be wakeful, but he was asleep before Sam finished covering the fire.
He was awakened by sunlight blazing outside. He crawled out, stood up and stretched the stiffness out of his limbs. By the sun he judged it to be about seven o’clock in the morning. Sam was not in sight. He looked around and shouted, not too loudly, and guessed that Sam had gone down to the creek for a drink and a cold wash. Max went back into the shelter and hauled out his rucksack, intending to change his socks.
His uncle’s books were missing.
There was a note on top of his spare shirt: “Dear Max,” it said, “There is more stew in the can. You can warm it up for breakfast. So long—Sam P.S. Sorry.”
Further search disclosed that his identification card was missing, but Sam had not bothered with his other pitiful possessions. Max did not touch the stew but set out down the road, his mind filled with bitter thoughts.
Earthport
The farm road crossed under the freight highway; Max came up on the far side and headed south beside the highway. The route was marked by “NO TRESPASS” signs but the path was well worn. The highway widened to make room for a deceleration strip. At the end of its smooth reach, a mile away, Max could see the restaurant Sam had mentioned.
He shinnied over the fence enclosing the restaurant and parking grounds and went to the parking stalls where a dozen of the big land ships were lined up. One was quivering for departure, its flat bottom a few inches clear of the metallic pavement. Max went to its front end and looked up at the driver’s
compartment. The door was open and he could see the driver at his instrument board. Max called out, “Hey, Mister!”
The driver stuck his head out. “What’s itching you?” “How are the chances of a lift south?”
“Beat it, kid.” The door slammed.
None of the other freighters was raised off the pavement; their control compartments were empty. Max was about to turn away when another giant scooted down the braking strip, reached the parking space, crawled slowly into a stall, and settled to the ground. He considered approaching its driver, but decided to wait until the man had eaten. He went back toward the restaurant building and was looking through the door, watching hungry men demolish food while his mouth watered, when he heard a pleasant voice at his shoulder.
“Excuse me, but you’re blocking the door.” Max jumped aside. “Oh! Sorry.”
“Go ahead. You were first.” The speaker was a man about ten years older than Max. He was profusely freckled and had a one-sided grin. Max saw on his cap the pin of the Teamsters’ Guild. “Go on in,” the man repeated, “before you get trampled in the rush.”
Max had been telling himself that he might catch Sam inside—and, after all, they couldn’t charge him just for coming in, if he didn’t actually eat anything. Underlying was the thought of asking to work for a meal, if the manager looked friendly. The freckled-faced man’s urging tipped the scales; he followed his nose toward the source of the heavenly odors pouring out the door.
The restaurant was crowded; there was one vacant table, for two. The man slid into a chair and said, “Sit down.” When Max hesitated, he added, “Go ahead, put it down. Never like to eat alone.” Max could feel the manager’s eyes on him, he sat down. A waitress handed them each a menu and the hauler looked her over appreciatively. When she left he said, “This dump used to have automatic service—and it went broke. The trade went to the Tivoli, eighty miles down the stretch. Then the new owner threw away the machinery and hired girls and business picked up. Nothing makes food taste better than having a pretty girl put it in front of you. Right?”
“Uh, I guess so. Sure.” Max had not heard what was said. He had seldom been in a restaurant and then only in the lunch counter at Clyde’s Corners. The prices he read frightened him; he wanted to crawl under the table.
His companion looked at him. “What’s the trouble, chum?” “Trouble? Uh, nothing.”
“You broke?” Max’s miserable expression answered him. “Shucks, I’ve been there myself. Relax.” The man waggled his fingers at the waitress. “Come here, honey chile. My partner and I will each have a breakfast steak with a fried egg sitting on top and this and that on the side. I want that egg to be just barely dead. If it is cooked solid, I’ll nail it to the wall as a warning to others. Understand me?”
“I doubt if you’ll be able to get a nail through it,” she retorted and walked away, swaying gently. The hauler kept his eyes on her until she disappeared into the kitchen. “See what I mean? How can machinery compete?”
The steak was good and the egg was not congealed. The hauler told Max to call him “Red” and Max gave his name in exchange. Max was pursuing the last of the yolk with a bit of toast and was considering whether it was time to broach the subject of a ride when Red leaned forward and spoke softly. “Max—you got anything pushing you? Free to take a job?”
“What? Why, maybe. What is it?” “Mind taking a little run southwest?”
“Southwest? Matter of fact, I was headin’ that way.”
“Good. Here’s the deal. The Man says we have to have two teamsters to each rig—or else break for eight hours after driving eight. I can’t; I’ve got a penalty time to meet—and my partner washed out. The flathead got taken drunk and I had to put him down to cool. Now I’ve got a check point to pass a hundred thirty miles down the stretch. They’ll make me lay over if I can’t show another driver.”
“Gee! But I don’t know how to drive, Red. I’m awful sorry.”
Red gestured with his cup. “You won’t have to. You’ll always be the off-watch driver. I wouldn’t trust little Molly Malone to somebody who didn’t know her ways. I’ll keep myself awake with Pep pills and catch up on sleep at Earthport.”
“You’re going all the way to Earthport?” “Right.”
“It’s a deal!”
“Okay, here’s the lash up. Every time we hit a check point you’re in the bunk, asleep. You help me load and unload—I’ve got a partial and a pick-up at Oke City—and I’ll feed you. Right?”
“Right!”
“Then let’s go. I want to scoot before these other dust jumpers get underway. Never can tell, there might be a spotter.” Red flipped a bill down and did not wait for change.
The Molly Malone was two hundred feet long and stream lined such that she had negative lift when cruising. This came to Max’s attention from watching the instruments; when she first quivered and raised, the dial marked ROAD CLEARANCE showed nine inches, but as they gathered speed down the acceleration strip it decreased to six.
“The repulsion works by an inverse-cube law,” Red explained. “The more the wind pushes us down the harder the road pushes us up. Keeps us from jumping over the skyline. The faster we go the steadier we are.”
“Suppose you went so fast that the wind pressure forced the bottom down to the road? Could you stop soon enough to keep from wrecking it?”
“Use your head. The more we squat the harder we are pushed up—inverse-cube, I said.”
“Oh.” Max got out his uncle’s slide rule. “If she just supports her own weight at nine inches clearance, then at three inches the repulsion would be twenty-seven times her weight and at an inch it would be seven hundred and twenty-nine, and at a quarter of an inch—”
“Don’t even think about it. At top speed I can’t get her down to five inches.”
“But what makes her go?”
“It’s a phase relationship. The field crawls forward and Molly tries to catch up—only she can’t. Don’t ask me the theory, I just push the buttons.” Red struck a cigarette and lounged back, one hand on the tiller. “Better get in the bunk, kid. Check point in forty miles.”
The bunk was thwartships abaft the control compartment, a shelf above the seat. Max climbed in and wrapped a blanket around himself. Red handed him a cap. “Pull this down over your eyes. Let the button show.” The button was a teamster’s shield, Max did as he was told.
Presently he heard the sound of wind change from a soft roar to a sigh and then stop. The freighter settled to the pavement and the door opened. He lay still, unable to see what was going on. A strange voice said, “How long you been herding it?”
“Since breakfast at Tony’s.”
“So? How did your eyes get so bloodshot?” “It’s the evil life I lead. Want to see my tongue?”
The inspector ignored this, saying instead, “Your partner didn’t sign his trick.” “Whatever you say. Want me to wake the dumb geek?”
“Umm… don’t bother. You sign for him. Tell him to be more careful.” “Right.”
The Molly Malone pulled out and picked up speed. Max crawled down. “I thought we were sunk when he asked for my signature.”
“That was on purpose,” Red said scornfully. “You have to give them something to yap about, or they’ll dig for it.”
Max liked the freighter. The tremendous speed so close to the ground exhilarated him; he decided that if he could not be a spaceman, this life would not be bad—he’d find out how high the application fee was and start saving. He liked the easy way Red picked out on the pavement ahead the speed line that matched the Molly’s speed and then laid the big craft into a curve. It was usually the outermost line, with the Molly on her side and the horizon tilted up at a crazy angle.
Near Oklahoma City they swooped under the ring guides of the C.S.&E. just as a train went over—the
Razor, by Max’s calculations. “I used to herd those things,” Red remarked, glancing up. “You did?”
“Yep. But they got to worrying me. I hated it every time I made a jump and felt the weight sag out from under me. Then I got a notion that the train had a mind of its own and was just waiting to turn aside instead of entering the next guide ring. That sort of thing is no good. So I found a teamster who wanted to better himself and paid the fine to both guilds to let us swap. Never regretted it. Two hundred miles an hour when you’re close to the ground is enough.”
“Uh, how about space ships?”
“That’s another matter. Elbow room out there. Say, kid, while you’re at Earthport you should take a look at the big babies. They’re quite something.”
The library book had been burning a hole in his rucksack; at Oklahoma City he noticed a postal box at the freight depot and, on impulse, dropped the book into it. After he had mailed it he had a twinge of worry that he might have given a clue to his whereabouts which would get back to Montgomery, but he suppressed the worry—the book had to be returned. Vagrancy in the eyes of the law had not worried him, nor trespass, nor impersonating a licensed teamster—but filching a book was a sin.
Max was asleep in the bunk when they arrived. Red shook him. “End of the line, kid.” Max sat up, yawning. “Where are we?”
“Earthport. Let’s shake a leg and get this baby unloaded.”
It was two hours past sunrise and growing desert hot by the time they got the Molly disgorged. Red stood him to a last meal. Red finished first, paid, then laid a bill down by Max’s plate. “Thanks, kid. That’s for luck. So long.” He was gone while Max still had his mouth hanging open. He had never learned his friend’s name, did not even know his shield number.
Earthport was much the biggest settlement Max had ever seen and everything about it confused him—the hurrying self-centered crowds, the enormous buildings, the slidewalks in place of streets, the noise, the desert sun beating down, the flatness—why, there wasn’t anything you could call a hill closer than the skyline!
He saw his first extra-terrestrial, an eight-foot native of Epsilon Gemini V, striding out of a shop with a package under his left arms—as casually, Max thought, as a farmer doing his week’s shopping at the Corners. Max stared. He knew what the creature was from pictures and SV shows, but seeing one was another matter. Its multiple eyes, like a wreath of yellow grapes around the head, gave it a grotesque faceless appearance. Max let his own head swivel to follow it.
The creature approached a policeman, tapped the top of his cap, and said, “Excuse me, sahr, but can you tirect me to the Tesert Palms Athletic Club?” Max could not tell where the noise came out.
Max finally noticed that he seemed to be the only one staring, so he walked slowly on, while sneaking looks over his shoulder—which resulted in his bumping into a stranger. “Oh, excuse me!” Max blurted. The stranger looked at him. “Take it easy, cousin. You’re in the big city now.” After that he tried to be careful.
He had intended to seek out the Guild Hall of the Mother Chapter of Astrogators at once in the forlorn hope that even without his books and identification card he might still identify himself and find that Uncle Chet had provided for his future. But there was so much to see that he loitered. He found himself presently in front of Imperial House, the hotel that guaranteed to supply any combination of pressure, temperature, lighting, atmosphere, pseudogravitation, and diet favored by any known race of intelligent creatures. He hung around hoping to see some of the guests, but the only one who came out while he was there was wheeled out in a pressurized travel tank and he could not see into it.
He noticed the police guard at the door eyeing him and started to move on—then decided to ask directions, reasoning that if it was all right for a Geminian to question a policeman it certainly must be all right for a human being. He found himself quoting the extra-terrestrial. “Excuse me, sir, but could you direct me to the Astrogators’ Guild Hall?”
The officer looked him over. “At the foot of the Avenue of Planets, just before you reach the port.” “Uh, which way do…”
“New in town?” “Yeah. Yes, sir.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Staying? Why, nowhere yet. I just got here. I…” “What’s your business at the Astrogators’ Hall?”
“It’s on account of my uncle,” Max answered miserably. “Your uncle?”
“He… he’s an astrogator.” He mentally crossed his fingers over the tense.
The policeman inspected again. “Take this slide to the next intersection, change and slide west. Big building with the guild sunburst over the door—can’t miss it. Stay out of restricted areas.” Max left without waiting to find out how he was to know a restricted area. The Guild Hall did prove easy to find; the slidewalk to the west ducked underground and when it emerged at its swing-around Max was deposited in front of it.
But he had not eyes for it. To the west where avenue and buildings ended was the field and on it space ships, stretching away for miles—fast little military darts, stubby Moon shuttles, winged ships that served the satellite stations, robot freighters, graceless and powerful. But directly in front of the gate hardly half a mile away was a great ship that he knew at once, the starship Asgard. He knew her history, Uncle Chet had served in her. A hundred years earlier she had been built out in space as a space-to-space rocket ship; she was then the Prince of Wales. Years passed, her tubes were ripped out and a mass-conversion torch was kindled in her; she became the Einstein. More years passed, for nearly twenty she swung empty around Luna, a lifeless, outmoded hulk. Now in place of the torch she had Horst-Conrad impellers that clutched at the fabric of space itself; thanks to them she was now able to touch Mother Terra. To commemorate her rebirth she had been dubbed Asgard, heavenly home of the gods.
Her massive, pear-shaped body was poised on its smaller end, steadied by an invisible scaffolding of thrust beams. Max knew where they must be, for there was a ring of barricades spotted around her to keep the careless from wandering into the deadly loci.
He pressed his nose against the gate to the field and tried to see more of her, until a voice called out, “Away from there, Jack! Don’t you see that sign?”
Max looked up. Above his head was a sign: RESTRICTED AREA. Reluctantly he moved away and walked back to the Guild Hall.
THE ASTROGATORS’ GUILD
Everything about the hall of the Mother Chapter was to Max’s eyes lavish, churchlike, and frightening. The great doors opened silently as he approached, dilating away into the walls. His feet made no sound on the tesselated floor. He started down the long, high foyer, wondering where he should go, when a firm voice stopped him. “May I help you, please?”
He turned. A beautiful young lady with a severe manner held him with her eye. She was seated behind a desk. Max went up to her. “Uh, maybe you could tell me, Ma’am, who I ought to see. I don’t rightly know just…”
“One moment. Your name, please?” Several minutes later she had wormed out of him the basic facts of his quest. “So far as I can see, you haven’t any status here and no excuse for appealing to the Guild.”
“But I told you…”
“Never mind. I’m going to put it up to the legal office.” She touched a button and a screen raised up on her desk; she spoke to it. “Mr. Hanson, can you spare a moment?”
“Yes, Grace?”
“There is a young man here who claims to be a legacy of the Guild. Will you talk with him?”
The voice answered, “Look, Grace, you know the procedures. Get his address, send him on his way, and send his papers up for consideration.”
She frowned and touched another control. Although Max could see that she continued to talk, no sound reached him. Then she nodded and the screen slid back into the desk. She touched another button and said, “Skeeter!”
A page boy popped out of a door behind her and looked Max over with cold eyes. “Skeeter,” she went on, “take this visitor to Mr. Hanson.”
The page sniffed. “Him?”
“Him. And fasten your collar and spit out that gum.”
Mr. Hanson listened to Max’s story and passed him on to his boss, the chief legal counsel, who listened to a third telling. That official then drummed his desk and made a call, using the silencing device the girl had used.
He then said to Max, “You’re in luck, son. The Most Worthy High Secretary will grant you a few minutes of his time. Now when you go in, don’t sit down, remember to speak only when spoken to, and get out quickly when he indicates that the audience is ended.”
The High Secretary’s office made the lavishness that had thus far filled Max’s eyes seem like austerity. The rug alone could have been swapped for the farm on which Max grew up. There was no communication equipment in evidence, no files, not even a desk. The High Secretary lounged back in a mammoth easy chair while a servant massaged his scalp. He raised his head as Max appeared and said, “Come in, son. Sit down there. What is your name?”
“Maximilian Jones, sir.”
They looked at each other. The Secretary saw a lanky youth who needed a haircut, a bath, and a change of clothes; Max saw a short, fat little man in a wrinkled uniform. His head seemed too big for him and Max could not make up his mind whether the eyes were kindly or cold.
“And you are a nephew of Chester Arthur Jones?” “Yes, sir.”
“I knew Brother Jones well. A fine mathematician.” The High Secretary went on, “I understand that you
have had the misfortune to lose your government Citizen’s Identification. Carl.”
He had not raised his voice but a young man appeared with the speed of a genie. “Yes, sir?”
“Take this young man’s thumb print, call the Bureau of Identification—not here, but the main office at New Washington. My compliments to the Chief of Bureau and tell him that I would be pleased to have immediate identification while you hold the circuit.”
The print was taken speedily; the man called Carl left. The High Secretary went on, “What was your purpose in coming here?” Diffidently Max explained that his uncle had told him that he intended to nominate him for apprenticeship in the guild.
The man nodded. “So I understand. I am sorry to tell you, young fellow, that Brother Jones made no nomination.”
Max had difficulty in taking in the simple statement. So much was his inner pride tied to his pride in his uncle’s profession, so much had he depended on his hope that his uncle had named him his professional heir, that he could not accept at once the verdict that he was nobody and nothing. He blurted out, “You’re sure? Did you look?”
The masseur looked shocked but the High Secretary answered calmly, “The archives have been searched, not once, but twice. There is no possible doubt.” The High Secretary sat up, gestured slightly, and the servant disappeared. “I’m sorry.”
“But he told me,” Max said stubbornly. “He said he was going to.”
“Nevertheless he did not.” The man who had taken the thumb print came in and offered a memorandum to the High Secretary, who glanced at it and waved it away. “I’ve no doubt that he considered you.
Nomination to our brotherhood involves a grave responsibility; it is not unusual for a childless brother to have his eye on a likely lad for a long time before deciding whether or not he measures up. For some reason your uncle did not name you.”
Max was appalled by the humiliating theory that his beloved uncle might have found him unworthy. It could not be true—why, just the day before he died, he had said—he interrupted his thoughts to say, “Sir—I think I know what happened.”
“Eh?”
“Uncle Chester died suddenly. He meant to name me, but he didn’t get a chance. I’m sure of it.”
“Possibly. Men have been known to fail to get their affairs in order before the last orbit. But I must assume that he knew what he was doing.”
“But—”
“That’s all, young man. No, don’t go away. I’ve been thinking about you today.” Max looked startled, the High Secretary smiled and continued, “You see, you are the second ‘Maximilian Jones’ who has come to us with this story.”
“Huh?”
“Huh indeed.” The guild executive reached into a pocket of his chair, pulled out some books and a card, handed them to Max, who stared unbelievingly.
“Uncle Chet’s books!”
“Yes. Another man, older than yourself, came here yesterday with your identification card and these books. He was less ambitious than you are,” he added dryly. “He was willing to settle for a rating less lofty than astrogator.”
“What happened?”
“He left suddenly when we attempted to take his finger prints. I did not see him. But when you showed up today I began to wonder how long a procession of ‘Maximilian Jones’s’ would favor us. Better guard that card in the future—I fancy we have saved you a fine.”
Max placed it in an inner pocket. “Thanks a lot, sir.” He started to put the books in his rucksack. The High Secretary gestured in denial.
“No, no! Return the books, please.” “But Uncle Chet gave them to me.”
“Sorry. At most he loaned them to you—and he should not have done even that. The tools of our profession are never owned individually; they are loaned to each brother. Your uncle should have turned them in when he retired, but some of the brothers have a sentimental fondness for having them in their possession. Give them to me, please.”
Max still hesitated. “Come now,” the guildsman said reasonably. “It would not do for our professional secrets to be floating around loose, available to anyone. Even the hairdressers do not permit that. We have a high responsibility to the public. Only a member of this guild, trained, tested, sworn, and accepted, may lawfully be custodian of those manuals.”
Max’s answer was barely audible. “I don’t see the harm. I’m not going to get to use them, it looks like.”
“You don’t believe in anarchy, surely? Our whole society is founded on entrusting grave secrets only to those who are worthy. But don’t feel sad. Each brother, when he is issued his tools, deposits an earnest with the bursar. In my opinion, since you are the nearest relative of Brother Jones, we may properly repay the earnest to you for their return. Carl.”
The young man appeared again. “The deposit monies, please.” Carl had the money with him—he seemed to earn his living by knowing what the High Secretary was about to want. Max found himself accepting an impressive sheaf of money, more than he had ever touched before, and the books were taken from him before he could think of another objection.
It seemed time to leave, but he was motioned back to his chair. “Personally, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am merely the servant of my brothers; I have no choice. However… ” The High Secretary fitted his finger tips together. “Our brotherhood takes care of its own. There are funds at my disposal for such cases. How would you like to go into training?”
“For the Guild?”
“No, no! We don’t grant brotherhood as charity. But for some respectable trade, metalsmith, or chef, or tailor—what you wish. Any occupation not hereditary. The brotherhood will sponsor you, pay your ‘prentice fee and, if you make good, lend you your contribution when you are sworn in.”
Max knew he should accept gratefully. He was being offered an opportunity free that most of the swarming masses never got on any terms. But the cross-grained quirk in him that had caused him to
spurn the stew that Sam had left behind made this generous offer stick in his craw. “Thanks just the same,” he answered in tones almost surly, “but I don’t rightly think I can take it.”
The High Secretary looked bleak. “So? It’s your life.” He snapped his fingers, a page appeared, and Max was led quickly out of the Hall.
He stood on the steps of the Guild Hall and wondered dejectedly what he should do next. Even the space ships on the field at the foot of the street did not attract; he could not have looked at one without feeling like crying. He looked to the east instead.
A short distance away a jaunty figure leaned against a trash receptacle. As Max’s eyes rested on the man he straightened up, flipped a cigarette to the pavement, and started toward him.
Max looked at him again. “Sam!” It was undoubtedly the wayfarer who had robbed him—well dressed, clean shaved—but Sam nonetheless. Max hurried toward him.
“Howdy, Max,” Sam greeted him with an unembarrassed grin, “how did you make out?” “I ought to have you arrested!”
“Now, now—keep your voice down. You’re making yourself conspicuous.” Max took a breath and lowered his voice. “You stole my books.”
“Your books? They weren’t yours—and I returned them to their owners. You want to arrest me for that?”
“But you… Well, anyhow you…”
A voice, civil, firm, and official, spoke at Max’s elbow. “Is this person annoying you, sir?” Max turned and found a policeman standing behind him. He started to speak, then bit off the words as he realized the question had been addressed to Sam.
Sam took hold of Max’s upper arm in a gesture that was protective and paternal, but quite firm. “Not at all, officer, thank you.”
“Are you sure? I received word that this chico was headed this way and I’ve had my eye on him.” “He’s a friend of mine. I was waiting for him here.”
“As you say. We have a lot of trouble with vagrants. They all seem to head for Earthport.”
“He’s not a vagrant. He’s a young friend of mine from the country and I’m afraid he’s gotten a bit confused. I’ll be responsible.”
“Very well, sir.”
“Not at all.” Max let himself be led away. When they were out of earshot Sam said, “That was close. That nosy clown would have had us both in the bull pen. You did all right, kid—kept your lip zipped at the right time.”
They were around the corner into a less important street before Sam let go his grip. He stopped and faced Max, grinning. “Well, kid?”
“I should a’ told that cop about you!”
“Why didn’t you? He was right there.”
Max found himself caught by contradictory feelings. He was angry with Sam, no doubt about it, but his first unstudied reaction at seeing him had been the warm pleasure one gets from recognizing a familiar face among strangers—the anger had come a split second later. Now Sam looked at him with easy cynicism, a quizzical smile on his face. “Well, kid?” he repeated. “If you want to turn me in, let’s go back and get it over with. I won’t run.”
Max looked back at him peevishly. “Oh, forget it!” “Thanks. I’m sorry about it, kid. I really am.” “Then why did you do it?”
Sam’s face changed suddenly to a sad, far-away look, then resumed its cheerful cynicism. “I was tempted by an idea, old son—every man has his limits. Some day I’ll tell you. Now, how about a bit to eat and a gab? There’s a joint near here where we can talk without having the nosies leaning over our shoulders.”
“I don’t know as I want to.”
“Oh, come now! The food isn’t much but it’s better than mulligan.”
Max had been ready with a stiff speech about how he would not turn Sam in, but he certainly did not want to eat with him; the mention of mulligan brought him up short. He remembered uneasily that Sam had not inquired as to his morals, but had shared his food.
“Well… okay.”
“That’s my boy!” They went on down the street. The neighborhood was a sort to be found near the port in any port city; once off the pompous Avenue of the Planets it became more crowded, noisier, more alive, and somehow warmer and more friendly despite a strong air of “keep your hand on your purse.” Hole-in-the-wall tailor shops, little restaurants none too clean, cheap hotels, honky-tonks, fun arcades, exhibits both “educational” and “scientific,” street vendors, small theaters with gaudy posters and sounds of music leaking out, shops fronting for betting parlors, tattoo parlors fronting for astrologers, and the inevitable Salvation Army mission gave the street flavor its stylish cousins lacked. Martians in trefoil sunglasses and respirators, humanoids from Beta Corvi III, things with exoskeletons from Allah knew where, all jostled with humans of all shades and all blended in easy camaraderie.
Sam stopped at a shop with the age-old symbol of three golden spheres. “Wait here. Be right out.” Max waited and watched the throng. Sam came out shortly without his coat. “Now we eat.” “Sam! Did you pawn your coat?”
“Give the man a cigar! How did you guess?”
“But… Look, I didn’t know you were broke; you looked prosperous. Get it back, I’ll… I’ll pay for our lunch.”
“Say, that’s sweet of you, kid. But forget it. I don’t need a coat this weather. Truth is, I was dressed up just to make a good impression at—well, a little matter of business.”
Max blurted out, “But how did you… “, then shut up. Sam grinned. “Did I steal the fancy rags? No. I encountered a citizen who believed in percentages and engaged him in a friendly game. Never bet on
percentages, kid; skill is more fundamental. Here we are.”
The room facing the street was a bar, beyond was a restaurant. Sam led him on through the restaurant, through the kitchen, down a passage off which there were card rooms, and ended in a smaller, less pretentious dining room; Sam picked a table in a corner. An enormous Samoan shuffled up, dragging one leg. Sam nodded, “Howdy, Percy.” He turned to Max. “A drink first?”
“Uh, I guess not.”
“Smart lad. Lay off the stuff. Irish for me, Percy, and we’ll both have whatever you had for lunch.” The Samoan waited silently. Sam shrugged and laid money on the table, Percy scooped it up.
Max objected, “But I was going to pay.”
“You can pay for the lunch. Percy owns the place,” he added. “He’s offensively rich, but he didn’t get that way by trusting the likes of me. Now tell me about yourself, old son. How you got here? How you made out with the astrogators… everything. Did they kill the fatted calf?”
“Well, no.” There seemed to be no reason not to tell Sam and he found that he wanted to talk. Sam nodded at the end.
“About what I had guessed. Any plans now?” “No. I don’t know what to do now, Sam.”
“Hmm… it’s an ill wind that has no turning. Eat your lunch and let me think.” Later he added, “Max, what do you want to do?”
“Well… I wanted to be an astrogator…” “That’s out.”
“I know.”
“Tell me, did you want to be an astrogator and nothing else, or did you simply want to go into space?” “Why, I guess I never thought about it any other way.”
“Well, think about it.”
Max did so. “I want to space. If I can’t go as an astrogator, I want to go anyhow. But I don’t see how. The Astrogators’ Guild is the only one I stood a chance for.”
“There are ways.”
“Huh? Do you mean put in for emigration?”
Sam shook his head. “It costs more than you could save to go to one of the desirable colonies—and the ones they give you free rides to I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Sam hesitated. “There are ways to wangle it, old son—if you do what I say. This uncle of yours—you were around him a lot?”
“Why, sure.”
“Talked about space with you?” “Certainly. That’s all we talked about.”
“Hmm… how well do you know the patter?”
“…YOUR MONEY AND MY KNOW-HOW… “
“The patter?” Max looked puzzled. “I suppose I know what everybody knows.” “Where’s the worry hole?”
“Huh? That’s the control room.”
“If the cheater wants a corpse, where does he find it?”
Max looked amused. “That’s just stuff from SV serials, nobody talks like that aboard ship. The cook is the cook, and if he wanted a side of beef, he’d go to the reefer for it.”
“How do you tell a ‘beast’ from an animal?”
“Why, a ‘beast’ is a passenger, but an animal is just an animal, I guess.”
“Suppose you were on a ship for Mars and they announced that the power plant had gone blooie and the ship was going to spiral into the Sun? What would you think?”
“I’d think somebody was trying to scare me. In the first place, you wouldn’t be ‘on’ a ship—’in’ is the right word. Second, a spiral isn’t one of the possible orbits. And third, if a ship was headed for Mars from Earth, it couldn’t fall into the Sun; the orbit would be incompatible.”
“Suppose you were part of a ship’s crew in a strange port and you wanted to go out and look the place over. How would you go about asking the captain for permission?”
“Why, I wouldn’t.” “You’d just jump ship?”
“Let me finish. If I wanted to hit dirt, I’d ask the first officer; the captain doesn’t bother with such things. If the ship was big enough, I’d have to ask my department head first.” Max sat up and held Sam’s eye. “Sam—you’ve been spaceside. Haven’t you?”
“What gave you that notion, kid?” “What’s your guild?”
“Stow it, Max. Ask me no questions and I’ll sell you no pigs in a poke. Maybe I’ve studied up on the jive just as you have.”
“I don’t believe it,” Max said bluntly.
Sam looked pained. Max went on, “What’s this all about? You ask me a bunch of silly questions—sure, I know quite a bit about spaceside; I’ve been reading about it all my life and Uncle Chet would talk by the hour. But what of it?”
Sam looked at him and said softly, “Max—the Asgard is raising next Thursday—for starside. Would you like to be in her?”
Max thought about it. To be in the fabulous Asgard, to be heading out to the stars, to be—he brushed the vision aside. “Don’t talk that way, Sam! You know I’d give my right arm. Why needle me?”
“How much money have you?” “Huh? Why?”
“How much?”
“I haven’t even had time to count it.” Max started to haul out the wad of bills he had been given; Sam hastily and unobtrusively stopped him.
“Psst!” he protested. “Don’t flash a roll in here. Do you want to eat through a slit in your throat? Keep it down!”
Startled, Max took the advice. He was still more startled when he finished the tally; he had known that he had been given quite a lot of money but this was more than he had dreamed. “How much?” Sam persisted. Max told him, Sam swore softly. “Well, it will just have to do.”
“Do for what?”
“You’ll see. Put it away.”
As Max did so he said wonderingly, “Sam, I had no idea those books were so valuable.” “They aren’t.”
“Huh?”
“It’s malarkey. Lots of guilds do it. They want to make it appear that their professional secrets are precious, so they make the candidate put up a wad of dough for his reference books. If those things were published in the ordinary way, they’d sell at a reasonable price.”
“But that’s right, isn’t it? As the Worthy High Secretary explained, it wouldn’t do for just anybody to have that knowledge.”
Sam made a rude noise and pretended to spit. “What difference would it make? Suppose you still had them—you don’t have a ship to conn.”
“But… ” Max stopped and grinned. “I can’t see that it did any good to take them away from me anyhow. I’ve read them, so I know what’s in them.”
“Sure you know. Maybe you even remember some of the methods. But you don’t have all those columns of figures so you can look up the one you need when you need it. That’s what they care about.”
“But I do! I read them, I tell you.” Max wrinkled his forehead, then began to recite: “‘Page 272, Calculated Solutions of the Differential Equation of Motion by the Ricardo Assumption—” He began to reel off a series of seven-place figures. Sam listened in growing surprise, then stopped him.
“Kid, you really remember that? You weren’t making it up?” “Of course not, I read it.”
“Well, I’ll be a beat up… Look, you’re a page-at-a-glance reader? Is that it?”
“No, not exactly. I’m a pretty fast reader, but I do have to read it. But I don’t forget. I never have been able to see how people forget. I can’t forget anything.”
Sam shook his head wonderingly. “I’ve been able to forget a lot of things, thank Heaven.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe we should forget the other caper and exploit this talent of yours. I can think of angles.”
“What do you mean? And what other caper?”
“Hmm… no, I was right the first time. The idea is to get away from here. And with your funny memory the chances are a whole lot better. Even though you sling the slang pretty well I was worried. Now I’m not.”
“Sam, stop talking riddles. What are you figuring on?’
“Okay, kid, I’ll lay it on the table.” He glanced around, leaned forward, and spoke even more quietly. “We take the money and I spread it around carefully. When the Asgard raises, we’re signed on as crewmen.”
“As apprentices? We wouldn’t even have time for ground school. And besides you’re too old to ‘prentice.”
“Use your head! We don’t have enough to pay one apprentice fee, let alone two, in any space guild—and the Asgard isn’t signing ‘prentices anyhow. We’ll be experienced journeymen in one of the guilds, with records to prove it.”
When the idea soaked in, Max was shocked. “But they put you in jail for that!” “Where do you think you are now?”
“Well, I’m not in jail. And I don’t want to be.”
“This whole planet is one big jail, and a crowded one at that. What chance have you got? If you aren’t born rich, or born into one of the hereditary guilds, what can you do? Sign up with one of the labor companies.”
“But there are non-hereditary guilds.”
“Can you pay the fee? You’ve got a year, maybe two until you’re too old to ‘prentice. If you were sharp with cards you might manage it—but can you earn it? You should live so long! Your old man should have saved it; he left you a farm instead.” Sam stopped suddenly, bit his thumb. “Max, I’ll play fair. Your old man did leave you a fair start in life. With the money you’ve got you can go home, hire a shyster, and maybe squeeze that Montgomery item out of the money he swindled for your farm. Then you can buy your apprenticeship in some guild. Do it, kid. I won’t stand in your way.” He watched Max narrowly.
Max reflected that he had just refused a chance to pick a trade and be given a free start. Maybe he should reconsider. Maybe… “No! That’s not what I want. This… this, uh, scheme of yours; how do we do it?”
Sam relaxed and grinned. “My boy!”
Sam got them a room over Percy’s restaurant. There he coached him. Sam went out several times and Max’s money went with him. When Max protested Sam said wearily, “What do you want? To hold my heart as security? Do you want to come along and scare ’em out of the dicker? The people I have to reason with will be taking chances. Or do you think you can arrange matters yourself? It’s your money and my know-how… that’s the partnership.”
Max watched him leave the first time with gnawing doubts, but Sam came back. Once he brought with him an elderly, gross woman who looked Max over as if he were an animal up for auction. Sam did not introduce her but said, “How about it? I thought a mustache would help.”
She looked at Max from one side, then the other. “No,” she decided, “that would just make him look made up for amateur theatricals.” She touched Max’s head with moist, cold fingers; when he drew back, she admonished, “Don’t flinch, honey duck. Aunt Becky has to work on you. No, we’ll move back his hair line above his temples, thin it out on top, and kill its gloss. Some faint wrinkles tattooed around his eyes. Mmm… that’s all. Mustn’t overdo it.”
When this fat artist was through Max looked ten years older. Becky asked if he wanted his hair roots killed, or would he prefer to have his scalp return to normal in time? Sam started to insist on permanence, but she brushed him aside. “I’ll give him a bottle of ‘Miracle Gro’—no extra charge, it’s just rubbing alcohol—and he can make a big thing of using it. How about it, lover? You’re too pretty to age you permanently.”
Max accepted the “Miracle Gro”—hair restored or your money back.
Sam took away his citizen’s identification card, returned with another one. It had his right name, a wrong age, his right serial number, a wrong occupation, his own thumb print, and a wrong address. Max looked at it curiously. “It looks real.”
“It should. The man who made it makes thousands of real ones—but he charges extra for this.” That night Sam brought him a book titled Ship Economy and embossed with the seal of the Guild of Space Stewards, Cooks, and Purser’s Clerks. “Better stay up all night and see how much you can soak up. The man it belongs to won’t sleep more than ten hours even with the jolt Percy slipped into his nightcap. Want a pill to keep you awake?”
“I don’t think so.” Max examined it. It was in fine print and quite thick. But by five in the morning he had finished it. He woke Sam and gave it back, then went to sleep, his head buzzing with stowage and dunnage, moment arms and mass calculations, hydroponics techniques, cargo records, tax forms, diets, food preservation and preparation, daily, weekly, and quarterly accounts, and how to get rats out of a compartment which must not be evacuated. Simple stuff, he decided—he wondered why such things were considered too esoteric for laymen.
On the fourth day of his incarceration Sam fitted him out with spaceside clothes, none of them new, and gave him a worn plastileather personal record book. The first page stated that he was an accepted brother of the Stewards, Cooks, and Purser’s Clerks, having honorably completed his apprenticeship. It listed his skills and it appeared that his dues had been paid each quarter for seven years. What appeared to be his own signature appeared above that of the High Steward, with the seal of the guild embossed through both. The other pages recorded his trips, his efficiency ratings, and other permanent data, each properly signed by the first officers and pursers concerned. He noted with interest that he had been fined three days pay in the Cygnus for smoking in an unauthorized place and that he had once for six weeks been allowed to strike for chartsman, having paid the penalty to the Chartsmen & Computers Guild for
the chance.
“See anything odd?” asked Sam. “It all looks funny to me.”
“It says you’ve been to Luna. Everybody’s been to Luna. But the ships you served in are mostly out of commission and none of the pursers happens to be in Earthport now. The only starship you ever jumped in was lost on the trip immediately after the one you took. Get me?”
“I think so.”
“When you talk to another spaceman, no matter what ship he served in, it’s not one you served in—you won’t be showing this record to anybody but the purser and your boss anyhow.”
“But suppose they served in one of these?”
“Not in the Asgard. We made darn sure. Now I’m going to take you out on an evening of gaiety. You’ll drink warm milk on account of your ulcer and you’ll complain when you can’t get it. And that’s just about all you’ll talk about—your symptoms. You’ll start a reputation right now for being untalkative; you can’t make many mistakes with your mouth shut. Watch yourself, kid, there will be spacemen around you all evening. If you mess it up, I’ll leave you dirtside and raise without you. Let me see you walk again.”
Max walked for him. Sam cursed gently. “Cripes, you still walk like a farmer. Get your feet out of those furrows, boy.”
“No good?”
“It’ll have to do. Grab your bonnet. We’ll strike while the iron’s in the fire and let the bridges fall where they may.”
“SPACEMAN” JONES
The Asgard was to raise the next day. Max woke early and tried to wake Sam, but this proved difficult. At last the older man sat up. “Oh, what a head! What time is it?”
“About six.”
“And you woke me? Only my feeble condition keeps me from causing you to join your ancestors. Go back to sleep.”
“But today’s the day!”
“Who cares? She raises at noon. We’ll sign on at the last minute; that way you won’t have time to make a slip.”
“Sam? How do you know they’ll take us?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake! It’s all arranged. Now shut up. Or go downstairs and get breakfast—but don’t talk to anybody. If you’re a pal, you’ll bring me a pot of coffee at ten o’clock.”
“And breakfast?”
“Don’t mention food in my presence. Show some respect.” Sam pulled the covers up over his head.
It was nearly eleven thirty when they presented themselves at the gate of the port; ten minutes later before the bus deposited them at the base of the ship. Max looked up at its great, bulging sides but was cut short by a crewman standing at the lift and holding a list. “Names.”
“Anderson.” “Jones.”
He checked them off. “Get in the ship. You should have been here an hour ago.” The three climbed into the cage; it swung clear of the ground and was reeled in, swaying, like a bucket on a well rope.
Sam looked down and shuddered. “Never start a trip feeling good,” he advised Max. “It might make you sorry to be leaving.” The cage was drawn up inside the ship; the lock closed after them and they stepped out into the Asgard. Max was trembling with stage fright.
He had expected to be sworn into the ship’s company by the first officer, as called for by law. But his reception was depressingly unceremonious. The crewman who had checked them into the ship told them to follow him; he led them to the Purser’s office. There the Chief Clerk had them sign and thumbprint the book, yawning the while and tapping his buck teeth. Max surrendered his forged personal record book, while feeling as if the deception were stamped on it in bold letters. But Mr. Kuiper merely chucked it into a file basket. He then turned to them. “This is a taut ship. You’ve started by very nearly missing it. That’s a poor start.”
Sam said nothing. Max said, “Yessir.”
The Chief Clerk went on, “Stow your gear, get your chow, and report back.” He glanced at a wall chart. “One of you in D-112, the other in E-009.”
Max started to ask how to get there, but Sam took his elbow and eased him out of the office. Outside he said, “Don’t ask any questions you can avoid. We’re on Baker deck, that’s all we need to know.” Presently they came to a companionway and started back down. Max felt a sudden change in pressure, Sam grinned. “She’s sealed. Won’t be long now.”
They were in D-112, an eight-man bunkroom, and Sam was showing him how to set the lock on the one empty locker when there was a distant call on a loudspeaker. Max felt momentarily dizzy and his weight seemed to pulse. Then it stopped. Sam remarked, “They were a little slow synchronizing the field—or else this bucket of bolts has an unbalanced phaser.” He clapped Max on the back. “We made it, kid.”
They were in space.
E-009 was down one more deck and on the far side; they left Sam’s gear there and started to look for lunch. Sam stopped a passing engineer’s mate. “Hey, shipmate—we’re fresh caught. Where’s the crew’s mess?”
“Clockwise about eighty and inboard, this deck.” He looked them over. “Fresh caught, eh? Well, you’ll find out.”
“Like that, huh?”
“Worse. A madhouse squared. If I wasn’t married, I’d ‘a’ stayed dirtside.” He went on his way.
Sam said, “Ignore it, kid. All the oldtimers in a ship claim its the worst madhouse in space. A matter of pride.” But their next experience seemed to confirm it; the serving window in the mess room had closed at noon, when the ship lifted; Max mournfully resigned himself to living with a tight belt until supper. But Sam pushed on into the galley and came out presently with two loaded trays. They found empty places and sat down.
“How did you do it?”
“Any cook will feed you if you let him explain first what a louse you are and how by rights he doesn’t have to.”
The food was good—real beef patties, vegetables from the ship’s gardens, wheat bread, a pudding, and coffee. Max polished his platter and wondered if he dared ask for seconds. He decided against it. The talk flowed around him and only once was there danger that his tyro status might show up, that being when a computerman asked him a direct question as to his last trip.
Sam stalled it off. “Imperial survey,” he answered briefly. “We’re both still covered.”
The computerman grinned knowingly. “Which jail were you in? The Imperial Council hasn’t ordered a secret survey in years.”
“This one was so secret they forgot to tell you about it. Write ’em a letter and burn them out about it,” Sam stood up. “Finished, Max?”
On the way back to the Purser’s Office Max worried as to his probable assignment, checking over in his mind the skills and experience he was alleged to have. He need not have worried; Mr. Kuiper, with a fine disregard for such factors, assigned him as stableman.
The Asgard was a combined passenger liner and freighter. She carried this trip Hereford breeding stock, two bulls and two dozen cows, and an assortrnent of other animals consigned for ecologic and economic reasons to colonies—pigs, chickens, sheep, a pair of Angora goats, a family of llamas. It was contrary to Imperial policy to plant most terrestrial fauna on other planets; the colonials were expected to establish economy with indigenous flora and fauna—but some animals have been bred for so many generations for the use of man that they are not easily replaced by exotic creatures. On Gamma Leonis VI (b), New Mars, the saurians known locally as “chuckleheads” or “chucks” could and did replace Percherons as draft animals with greater efficiency and economy—but men disliked them. There was never the familial trust that exists between horses and men; unless a strain of chucks should develop a degree of rapport with men (which seemed unlikely) they would eventually die out and be replaced by the horse, for the unforgivable sin of failing to establish a firm treaty with the most ravenous, intolerant, deadly, and successful of the animals in the explored universe, Man.
There was also a cage of English sparrows. Max never did find out where these noisy little scavengers were believed to be necessary, nor was he acquainted with the complex mathematical analysis by which such conclusions were reached. He simply fed them and tried to keep their quarters clean.
There were cats in the Asgard, too, but most of these were free citizens and crewmen, charged with holding down the rats and mice that had gone into space along with mankind. One of Max’s duties was to change the sand boxes on each deck and take the soiled ones to the oxydizer for processing. The other cats were pets, property of passengers, unhappy prisoners in the kennel off the stables. The passengers’ dogs lived there, too; no dogs were allowed to run free.
Max wanted to look back at Earth and see it as a shrinking globe in the sky, but that was a privilege reserved for passengers. He spent the short period when it would have been possible in hauling (by hand) green timothy hay from the hydroponics airconditioning plant to the stables and in cleaning said stables. It was a task he neither liked nor disliked; by accident he had been assigned to work that he understood.
His immediate boss was the Chief Ship’s Steward, Mr. Giordano. Mr. “Gee” split the ship’s housekeeping with Mr. Dumont, Chief Passengers’ Steward; their domains divided at Charlie deck. Thus Mr. Dumont had passengers’ quarters, officers’ country, offices, and the control and communication stations, while Giordano was responsible for everything down (or aft) to but not including the engineering space—crew’s quarters, mess, and galley, stores, stables and kennel, hydroponics deck, and cargo spaces. Both worked for the Purser, who in turn was responsible to the First Officer.
The organization of starships derived in part from that of military vessels, in part from ocean liners of earlier days, and in part from the circumstances of interstellar travel. The first officer was boss of the ship and a wise captain did not interfere with him. The captain, although by law monarch of his miniature world, turned his eyes outward; the first officer turned his inward. As long as all went well the captain concerned himself only with the control room and with astrogation; the first officer bossed everything else. Even astrogators, communicators, computermen, and chartsmen were under the first officer, although in practice he had nothing to do with them when they were on duty since they worked in the “worry hole” under the captain.
The chief engineer was under the first officer, too, but he was nearly an autonomous satrap. In a taut, well-run ship he kept his bailiwick in such shape that the first officer did not need to worry about it. The chief engineer was responsible not only for the power plant and the Horst-Conrad impellers but for all auxiliary engineering equipment wherever located—for example the pumps and fans of the hydroponics installations, even though the purser, through his chief ship’s steward, took care of the farming thereof.
Such was the usual organization of starship liner-freighters and such was the Asgard. It was not identical with the organization of a man-of-war and very different from that of the cheerless transports used to ship convicts and paupers out to colonies that were being forced—in those ships, the purser’s department was stripped to a clerk or two and the transportees did all the work, cooking, cleaning, handling cargo, everything. But the Asgard carried paid passengers, some of whom measured their wealth in megabucks; they expected luxury hotel service even light-years out in space. Of the three main departments of the Asgard, astrogation, engineering, and housekeeping, the Purser’s was by far the largest.
A first officer could reach that high status from chief astrogator, from chief engineer, or from purser, but only if he were originally an astrogator could he go on to captain. The three officer types were essentially mathematicians, business managers, or physicists; a captain necessarily had to be able to practice the mathematical skill of astrogation. First Officer Walther, as was usually the case with a liner, had formerly been a purser.
The Asgard was a little world, a tiny mobile planet. It had its monarch the captain, its useless nobility the passengers, its technical and governing class, and its hewers of wood and drawers of water. It contained flora and fauna in ecological balance; it carried its miniature sun in its power plant. Although its schedule contemplated only months in space, it was capable of staying in space indefinitely. The chef might run out of caviar, but there would be no lack of food, nor of air, nor of heat and light.
Max decided that he was lucky to be assigned to Mr. Giordano rather than to Chief Clerk Kuiper. Mr.
Kuiper supervised his clerks minutely, but Mr. Gee did not often stir his fat frame out of his
office-stateroom. He was a jovial boss—provided everything ran to suit him. Mr. Gee found it an effort
to go all the way down to the stables; once he became convinced that Max was giving the animals proper care and keeping the place clean he gave up inspecting, merely requiring Max to report daily. This gave Giordano more time for his principal avocation, which was distilling a sort of vodka in a cubby in his stateroom, using materials grown in the hydroponds—also in his charge. He carried on a clandestine trade in his product with the crew. By keeping his mouth shut and his ears open Max learned that this was a usual prerogative of a chief ship’s steward, ignored as long as the steward had the judgment to limit his operations. The ship, of course, had a wine mess and bar, but that was for the “beasts”—crewmen could not patronize it.
“I was once in a ship,” Sam told Max, “where the First clamped down—busted up the still, busted the steward to cleaning decks, and generally threw the book.” He stopped to puff on his cigar, a gift from the passenger steward; they were hiding out in Max’s stables, enjoying a rest and a gab. “Didn’t work out.”
“Why not?”
“Use your head. Forces must balance, old son. For every market there is a supplier. That’s the key to the nutshell. In a month there was a still in durn near every out-of-the-way compartment in the ship and the crew was so demoralized it wasn’t fit to stuff vacuum. So the Captain had a talk with the First and things went back to normal.”
Max thought it over. “Sam? Were you that ship’s steward?” “Huh? What gave you that idea?”
“Well… you’ve been in space before; you no longer make any bones about it. I just thought—well, you’ve never told me what your guild was, nor why you were on dirt, or why you had to fake it to get back to space again. I suppose it’s none of my business.”
Sam’s habitual cynical smile gave way to an expression of sadness. “Max, a lot of things can happen to a man when he thinks he has the world by the tail. Take the case of a friend of mine, name of Roberts. A sergeant in the Imperial Marines, good record, half a dozen star jumps, a combat decoration or two. A smart lad, boning to make warrant officer. But he missed his ship once—hadn’t been on Terra for some time and celebrated too much. Should have turned himself in right away, of course, taken his reduction in rank and lived it down. Trouble was he still had money in his pocket. By the time he was broke and sober it was too late. He never quite had the guts to go back and take his court martial and serve his sentence. Every man has his limits.”
Max said presently, “You trying to say you used to be a marine?”
“Me? Of course not, I was speaking of this guy Richards, just to illustrate what can happen to a man when he’s not looking. Let’s talk of more pleasant things. Kid, what do you plan to do next?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, what do you figure on doing after this jump?’
“Oh. More of the same, I guess. I like spacing. I suppose I’ll try to keep my nose clean and work up to chief steward or chief clerk.”
Sam shook his head. “Think it through, kid. What happens when your record in this ship is mailed to the guild? And another copy is mailed to the Department of Guilds and Labor?”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you. Maybe nothing happens at first, maybe you can space for another cruise. But eventually the red tape unwinds, they compare notes and see that while your ship lists you as an experienced steward’s mate, there isn’t any Max Jones in their files. Comes the day you ground at Terra and a couple of clowns with sidearms are waiting at the foot of the lift to drag you off to the calabozo.”
“But Sam! I thought it was all fixed?”
“Don’t blow a gasket. Look at me, I’m relaxed—and it applies to me, too. More so, for I have other reasons we needn’t go into to want to let sleeping dogs bury their own dead. As for it being ‘all fixed,’ it is—everything I promised. You’re here, aren’t you? But as for the files: old son, it would have taken ten times the money to tamper with guild files, and as for locating a particular microfilm in New Washington and substituting a fake that would show the record you are supposed to have—well, I wouldn’t know how to start, though no doubt it could be done, with enough time, money, and finesse.”
Max felt sensations almost identical with those he had experienced when Montgomery had announced that the farm was sold. Despite his menial position he liked it aboard ship, he had had no intention of ever doing anything else. He got along with his boss, he was making friends, he was as cozy as a bird in its nest. Now the nest was suddenly torn down. Worse, he was in a trap.
He turned white. Sam put a hand on his shoulder. “Stop spinning, kid! You’re not in a jam.” “Jail—”
“Jail my aunt’s Sunday hat! You’re safe as dirt until we get back. You can walk away from the Asgard at Earthport with your wages in your pocket and have days at least, maybe weeks or months, before anyone will notice, either at the guild mother hall or at New Washington. You can lose yourself among four billion people. You won’t be any worse off than you were when you first ran into me—you were trying to get lost then, remember?—and you’ll have one star trip under your belt to tell your kids about. Or they may never look for you; some clerk may chuck your trip record into the file basket and leave it there until it gets lost rather than bother. Or you might be able to persuade a clerk in Mr. Kuiper’s office to lose the duplicates, not mail them in. Nelson, for example; he’s got a hungry look.” Sam eyed him carefully, then added, “Or you might do what I’m going to do.”
Only part of what Sam had said had sunk in. Max let the record play back and gradually calmed down as he began to understand that his situation was not entirely desperate. He was inclined to agree about Nelson, as Nelson had already suggested indirectly that sometimes the efficiency marks on the ship’s books were not necessarily the ones that found their way into the permanent records—under certain circumstances. He put the idea aside, not liking it and having no notion anyhow of how to go about offering a bribe.
When he came, in his mental play back, to Sam’s last remark, it brought him to attention. “What are you
going to do?”
Sam eyed the end of his cigar stub. “I’m not going back.”
This required no diagram to be understood. But, under Imperial decrees, the suggested offense carried even heavier punishment than faking membership in a guild. Deserting was almost treason. “Keep talking,” Max said gruffly.
“Let’s run over where we touch this cruise. Garson’s Planet—domed colonies, like Luna and Mars. In a domed colony you do exactly what the powers-that-be say, or you stop breathing. You might hide out and have a new identity grafted on, but you would still be in the domes. No good, there’s more freedom even back on Terra. Nu Pegasi VI, Halcyon—not bad though pretty cold at aphelion. But it is still
importing more than it exports which means that the Imperials run the show and the locals will help dig out a wanted man. Now we come to Nova Terra, Beta Aquarü X—and that, old son, is what the doctor ordered and why the preacher danced.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Once. I should have stayed. Max, imagine a place like Earth, but sweeter than Terra ever was. Better weather, broader richer lands… forests aching to be cut, game that practically jumps into the stew pot. If you don’t like settlements, you move on until you’ve got no neighbors, poke a seed in the ground, then jump back before it sprouts. No obnoxious insects. Practically no terrestrial diseases and no native diseases that like the flavor of our breed. Gushing rivers. Placid oceans. Man, I’m telling you!”
“But wouldn’t they haul us back from there?”
“Too big. The colonists want more people and they won’t help the Imperials. The Imperial Council has a deuce of a time just collecting taxes. They don’t even try to arrest a deserter outside the bigger towns.” Sam grinned. “You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because it didn’t pay. An Imperial would be sent to Back-and-Beyond to pick up someone; while he was looking he would find some golden-haired daughter of a rancher eyeing him—they run to eight or nine kids, per family and there are always lots of eligible fillies, husband-high and eager. So pretty quick he is a rancher with a beard and a new name and a wife. He was a bachelor and he hasn’t been home lately—or maybe he’s married back on Terra and doesn’t want to go home. Either way, even the Imperial Council can’t fight human nature.”
“I don’t want to get married.”
“That’s your problem. But best of all, the place still has a comfortable looseness about it. No property taxes, outside the towns. Nobody would pay one; they’d just move on, if they didn’t shoot the tax collector instead. No guilds—you can plow a furrow, saw a board, drive a truck, or thread a pipe, all the same day and never ask permission. A man can do anything and there’s no one to stop him, no one to tell him he wasn’t born into the trade, or didn’t start young enough, or hasn’t paid his contribution. There’s more work than there are men to do it and the colonists just don’t care.”
Max tried to imagine such anarchy and could not, he had never experienced it. “But don’t the guilds object?”
“What guilds? Oh, the mother lodges back earthside squawked when they heard, but not even the Imperial Council backed them up. They’re not fools—and you don’t shovel back the ocean with a fork.”
“And that’s where you mean to go. It sounds lovely,” Max said wistfully.
“I do. It is. There was a girl—oh, she’ll be married now; they marry young—but she had sisters. Now here is what I figure on—and you, too, if you want to tag along. First time I hit dirt I’ll make contacts. The last time I rate liberty, which will be the night before the ship raises if possible, I’ll go dirtside, then in a front door and out the back and over the horizon so fast I won’t even be a speck. By the time I’m marked ‘late returning’ I’ll be hundreds of miles away, lying beside a chuckling stream in a virgin wilderness, letting my beard grow and memorizing my new name. Say the word and you’ll be on the bank, fishing.”
Max stirred uneasily. The picture aroused in him a hillbilly homesickness he had hardly been aware of.
But he could not shuffle off his proud persona as a spaceman so quickly. “I’ll think about it.”
“Do that. It’s a good many weeks yet, anyhow.” Sam got to his feet. “I’d better hurry back before Ole Massa Dumont wonders what’s keeping me. Be seeing you, kid—and remember: it’s an ill wind that has no turning.
Eldreth
Max’s duties did not take him above “C” deck except to service the cats’ sand boxes and he usually did that before the passengers were up. He wanted to visit the control room but he had no opportunity, it being still higher than passengers’ quarters. Often an owner of one of the seven dogs and three cats in Max’s custody would come down to visit his pet. This sometimes resulted in a tip. At first his
cross-grained hillbilly pride caused him to refuse, but when Sam heard about it, he swore at him dispassionately. “Don’t be a fool! They can afford it. What’s the sense?”
“But I would exercise their mutts anyhow. It’s my job.” He might have remained unconvinced had it not been that Mr. Gee asked him about it at the end of his first week, seemed to have a shrewd idea of the usual take, and expected a percentage—”for the welfare fund.”
Max asked Sam about the fund, was laughed at. “That’s a very interesting question. Are there any more questions?”
“I suppose not.”
“Max, I like you. But you haven’t learned yet that when in Rome, you shoot Roman candles. Every tribe has its customs and what is moral one place is immoral somewhere else. There are races where a son’s first duty is to kill off his old man and serve him up as a feast as soon as he is old enough to swing it—civilized races, too. Races the Council recognizes diplomatically. What’s your moral judgment on that?”
Max had read of such cultures—the gentle and unwarlike Bnathors, or the wealthy elephantine amphibians of Paldron who were anything but gentle, probably others. He did not feel disposed to pass judgment on nonhumans. Sam went on, “I’ve known stewards who would make Jelly Belly look like a philanthropist. Look at it from his point of view. He regards these things as prerogatives of his position, as rightful a part of his income as his wages. Custom says so. It’s taken him years to get to where he is; he expects his reward.”
Sam, Max reflected, could always out-talk him.
But he could not concede that Sam’s thesis was valid; there were things that were right and others that were wrong and it was not just a matter of where you were. He felt this with an inner conviction too deep to be influenced by Sam’s cheerful cynicism. It worried Max that he was where he was as the result of chicanery, he sometimes lay awake and fretted about it.
But it worried him still more that his deception might come to light. What to do about Sam’s proposal was a problem always on his mind.
The only extra-terrestrial among Max’s charges was a spider puppy from the terrestrian planet Hespera. On beginning his duties in the Asgard Max found the creature in one of the cages intended for cats; Max looked into it and a sad, little, rather simian face looked back at him. “Hello, Man.”
Max knew that some spider puppies had been taught human speech, after a fashion, but it startled him; he jumped back. He then recovered and looked more closely. “Hello yourself,” he answered. “My, but you are a fancy little fellow.” The creature’s fur was a deep, rich green on its back, giving way to orange on the sides and blending to warm cream color on its little round belly.
“Want out,” stated the spider puppy.
“I can’t let you out. I’ve got work to do.” He read the card affixed to the cage: “Mr. Chips” it stated, Pseudocanis hexapoda hesperae, Owner: Miss E. Coburn, A-092; there followed a detailed instruction as to diet and care. Mr. Chips ate grubs, a supply of which was to be found in freezer compartment
H-118, fresh fruits and vegetables, cooked or uncooked, and should receive iodine if neither seaweed nor artichokes was available. Max thumbed through his mind, went over what he had read about the creatures, decided the instructions were reasonable.
“Please out!” Mr. Chips insisted.
It was an appeal hard to resist. No maiden fayre crying from a dungeon tower had ever put it more movingly. The compartment in which the cats were located was small and the door could be fastened; possibly Mr. Chips could be allowed a little run—but later; just now he had to take care of other animals.
When Max left, Mr. Chips was holding onto the bars and sobbing gently. Max looked back and saw that it was crying real tears; a drop trembled on the tip of its ridiculous little nose; it was hard to walk out on it. He had finished with the stables before tackling the kennel; once the dogs and cats were fed and their cages policed he was free to give attention to his new friend. He had fed it first off, which had stopped the crying. When he returned, however, the demand to be let out resumed.
“If I let you out, will you get back in later?”
The spider puppy considered this. A conditional proposition seemed beyond its semantic attainments, for it repeated, “Want out.” Max took a chance.
Mr. Chips landed on his shoulder and started going through his pockets. “Candy,” it demanded. “Candy?”
Max stroked it. “Sorry, chum. I didn’t know.” “Candy?”
“No candy.” Mr. Chips investigated personally, then settled in the crook of Max’s arm, prepared to spend a week or more. It wasn’t, Max decided, much like a puppy and certainly not like a spider, except that six legs seemed excessive. The two front ones had little hands; the middle legs served double duty. It was more like a monkey, but felt like a cat. It had a slightly spicy fragrance and seemed quite clean.
Max tried talking to it, but found its intellectual attainments quite limited. Certainly it used human words meaningfully but its vocabulary was not richer than that which might be expected of a not-too-bright toddler.
When Max tried to return it to its cage there ensued twenty minutes of brisk exercise, broken by stalemates. Mr. Chips swarmed over the cages, causing hysterics among the cats. When at last the spider puppy allowed itself to be caught it still resisted imprisonment, clinging to Max and sobbing. He ended by
walking it like a baby until it fell asleep.
This was a mistake. A precedent had been set and thereafter Max was not permitted to leave the kennel without walking the baby.
He wondered about the “Miss Coburn” described on the tag as Mr. Chips’ owner. All of the owners of cats and dogs had shown up to visit their pets, but Mr. Chips remained unvisited. He visualized her as a sour and hatchet-faced spinster who had received the pet as a going-away present and did not appreciate it. As his friendship with the spider puppy grew his mental picture of Miss E. Coburn became even less attractive.
The Asgard was over a week out and only days from its first spatial transition before Max had a chance to compare conception with fact. He was cleaning the stables, with Mr. Chips riding his shoulder and offering advice, when Max heard a shrill voice from the kennel compartment. “Mr. Chips! Chipsie!
Where are you?”
The spider puppy sat up suddenly and turned its head. Almost immediately a young female appeared in the door; Mr. Chips squealed, “Ellie!” and jumped to her arms. While they were nuzzling each other Max looked her over. Sixteen, he judged, or seventeen. Or maybe even eighteen—shucks, how was a fellow to tell when womenfolk did such funny things to their faces? Anyhow she was no beauty and the expression on her face didn’t help it any.
She looked up at him and scowled. “What were you doing with Chipsie? Answer me that!”
It got his back fur up. “Nothing,” he said stiffly. “If you will excuse me, ma’am, I’ll get on with my work.” He turned his back and bent over his broom.
She grabbed his arm and swung him around. “Answer me! Or… or—I’ll tell the Captain, that’s what I’ll do!”
Max counted ten, then just to be sure, recalled the first dozen 7-place natural logarithms. “That’s your privilege, ma’am,” he said with studied calmness, “but first, what’s your name and what is your business here? I’m in charge of these compartments and responsible for these animals—as the Captain’s representative.” This he knew to be good space law, although the concatenation was long.
She looked startled. “Why, I’m Eldreth Coburn,” she blurted as if anyone should know. “And your business?”
“I came to see Mr. Chips—of course!”
“Very well, ma’am. You may visit your pet for a reasonable period,” he added, quoting verbatim from his station instruction sheet. “Then he goes back in his cage. Don’t disturb the other animals and don’t feed them. That’s orders.”
She started to speak, decided not to and bit her lip. The spider puppy had been looking from face to face and listening to a conversation far beyond its powers, although it may have sensed the emotions involved. Now it reached out and plucked Max’s sleeve. “Max,” Mr. Chips announced brightly. “Max!”
Miss Coburn again looked startled. “Is that your name?”
“Yes, ma’am. Max Jones. I guess he was trying to introduce me. Is that it, old fellow?” “Max,” Mr. Chips repeated firmly. “Ellie.”
Eldreth Coburn looked down, then looked up at Max with a sheepish smile. “You two seem to be friends. I guess I spoke out of turn. Me and my mouth.”
“No offense meant I’m sure, ma’am.”
Max had continued to speak stiffly; she answered quickly, “Oh, but I was rude! I’m sorry—I’m always sorry afterwards. But I got panicky when I saw the cage open and empty and I thought I had lost Chipsie.”
Max grinned grudgingly. “Sure. Don’t blame you a bit. You were scared.”
“That’s it—I was scared.” She glanced at him. “Chipsie calls you Max. May I call you Max?” “Why not? Everybody does—and it’s my name.”
“And you call me Eldreth, Max. Or Ellie.”
She stayed on, playing with the spider puppy, until Max had finished with the cattle. She then said reluctantly, “I guess I had better go, or they’ll be missing me.”
“Are you coming back?” “Oh, of course!” “Ummm… Miss Eldreth…” “Ellie.”
“—May I ask a question?” He hurried on, “Maybe it’s none of my business, but what took you so long? That little fellow has been awful lonesome. He thought you had deserted him.”
“Not ‘he’—’she’.” “Huh?”
“Mr. Chips is a girl,” she said apologetically. “It was a mistake anyone could make. Then it was too late, because it would confuse her to change her name.”
The spider puppy looked up brightly and repeated, “‘Mr. Chips is a girl.’ Candy, Ellie?” “Next time, honey bun.”
Max doubted if the name was important, with the nearest other spider puppy light-years away. “You didn’t answer my question?”
“Oh. I was so mad about that I wanted to bite. They wouldn’t let me.” “Who’s ‘they’? Your folks?”
“Oh, no! The Captain and Mrs. Dumont.” Max decided that it was almost as hard to extract information from her as it was from Mr. Chips. “You see, I came aboard in a stretcher—some silly fever, food poisoning probably. It couldn’t be much because I’m tough. But they kept me in bed and when the Surgeon did let me get up, Mrs. Dumont said I mustn’t go below ‘C’ deck. She had some insipid notion that it wasn’t proper.”
Max understood the stewardess’s objection; he had already discovered that some of his shipmates were
a rough lot—though he doubted that any of them would risk annoying a girl passenger. Why, Captain Blaine would probably space a man for that.
“So I had to sneak out. They’re probably searching for me right now. I’d better scoot.”
This did not fit in with Mr. Chips’ plans; the spider puppy clung to her and sobbed, stopping occasionally to wipe tears away with little fists. “Oh, dear!”
Max looked perturbed. “I guess I’ve spoiled him—her. Mr. Chips, I mean.” He explained how the ceremony of walking the baby had arisen.
Eldreth protested, “But I must go. What’ll I do?”
“Here, let’s see if he—she—will come to me.” Mr. Chips would and did. Eldreth gave her a pat and ran out, whereupon Mr. Chips took even longer than usual to doze off. Max wondered if spider puppies could be hypnotized; the ritual was getting monotonous.
Eldreth showed up next day under the stern eye of Mrs. Dumont. Max was respectful to the stewardess and careful to call Eldreth “Miss Coburn.” She returned alone the next day. He looked past her and raised his eyebrows. “Where’s your chaperone?”
Eldreth giggled. “La Dumont consulted her husband and he called in your boss—the fat one. They agreed that you were a perfect little gentleman, utterly harmless. How do you like that?”
Max considered it. “Well, I’m an ax murderer by profession, but I’m on vacation.” “That’s nice. What have you got there?”
It was a three-dimensional chess set. Max had played the game with his uncle, it being one that all astrogators played. Finding that some of the chartsmen and computermen played it, he had invested his tips in a set from the ship’s slop chest. It was a cheap set, having no attention lights and no arrangements for remote-control moving, being merely stacked transparent trays and pieces molded instead of carved, but it sufficed.
“It’s solid chess. Ever seen it?”
“Yes. But I didn’t know you played it.” “Why not? Ever play flat chess?” “Some.”
“The principles are the same, but there are more pieces and one more direction to move. Here, I’ll show you.
She sat tailor-fashion opposite him and he ran over the moves. “These are robot freighters… pawns. They can be commissioned anything else if they reach the far rim. These four are starships; they are the only ones with funny moves, they correspond with knights. They have to make interspace transitions, always off the level they’re on to some other level and the transition has to be related a certain way, like this—or this. And this is the Imperial flagship; it’s the one that has to be checkmated. Then there is… ” They ran through a practice game, with the help of Mr. Chips, who liked to move the pieces and did not care whose move it was.
Presently he said, “You catch on pretty fast.”
“Thanks.”
“Of course, the real players play four-dimensional chess.” “Do you?”
“Well, no. But I hope to learn some day. It’s just a matter of holding in your mind one more spatial relationship. My uncle used to play it. He was going to teach me, but he died.” He found himself explaining about his uncle. He trailed off without mentioning his own disappointment.
Eldreth picked up one of the starship pieces from a tray. “Say, Max, we’re pretty near our first transition, aren’t we?”
“What time is it?”
“Uh, sixteen twenty-one—say, I’d better get upstairs.”
“Then it’s, uh, about thirty-seven hours and seven minutes, according to the computer crew.”
“Mmm… you seem to know about such things. Could you tell me just what it is we do? I heard the Astrogator talking about it at the table but I couldn’t make head nor tail. We sort of duck into a space warp; isn’t that right?”
“Oh no, not a space warp. That’s a silly term—space doesn’t ‘warp’ except in places where pi isn’t exactly three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine three two three eight four six two six four three three eight three two seven, and so forth—like inside a nucleus. But we’re heading out to a place where space is really flat, not just mildly curved the way it is near a star.
Anomalies are always flat, otherwise they couldn’t fit together—be congruent.” She looked puzzled. “Come again?”
“Look, Eldreth, how far did you go in mathematics?”
“Me? I flunked improper fractions. Miss Mimsey was very vexed with me.” “Miss Mimsey?”
“Miss Mimsey’s School for Young Ladies, so you see I can listen with an open mind.” She made a face. “But you told me that all you went to was a country high school and didn’t get to finish at that. Huh?”
“Yes, but I learned from my uncle. He was a great mathematician. Well, he didn’t have any theorems named after him—but a great one just the same, I think.” He paused. “I don’t know exactly how to tell you; it takes equations. Say! Could you lend me that scarf you’re wearing for a minute?”
“Huh? Why, sure.” She removed it from her neck.
It was a photoprint showing a stylized picture of the solar system, a souvenir of Solar Union Day. In the middle of the square of cloth was the conventional sunburst surrounded by circles representing orbits of solar planets, with a few comets thrown in. The scale was badly distorted and it was useless as a structural picture of the home system, but it sufficed. Max took it and said, “Here’s Mars.”
Eldreth said, “You read it. That’s cheating.”
“Hush a moment. Here’s Jupiter. To go from Mars to Jupiter you have to go from here to here, don’t you?”
“Obviously.”
“But suppose I fold it so that Mars is on top of Jupiter? What’s to prevent just stepping across?” “Nothing, I guess. Except that what works for that scarf wouldn’t work very well in practice. Would it?”
“No, not that near to a star. But it works fine after you back away from a star quite a distance. You see, that’s just what an anomaly is, a place where space is folded back on itself, turning a long distance into no distance at all.”
“Then space is warped.”
“No, no, no! Look, I just folded your scarf. I didn’t stretch it out of shape! I didn’t even wrinkle it. Space is the same way; it’s crumpled like a piece of waste paper—but it’s not warped, just crumpled. Through some extra dimensions, of course.”
“I don’t see any ‘of course’ about it.”
“The math of it is simple, but it’s hard to talk about because you can’t see it. Space—our space—may be crumpled up small enough to stuff into a coffee cup, all hundreds of thousands of light-years of it. A
four-dimensional coffee cup, of course.”
She sighed. “I don’t see how a four-dimensional coffee cup could even hold coffee, much less a whole galaxy.”
“No trouble at all. You could stuff this sheer scarf into a thimble. Same principle. But let me finish. They used to think that nothing could go faster than light. Well, that was both right and wrong. It…”
“How can it be both?”
“That’s one of the Horst anomalies. You can’t go faster than light, not in our space. If you do, you burst out of it. But if you do it where space is folded back and congruent, you pop right back into our own space again—but a long way off. How far off depends on how it’s folded. And that depends on the mass in the space, in a complicated fashion that can’t be described in words but can be calculated.”
“But suppose you do it just anywhere?”
“That’s what happened to the first ones who tried it. They didn’t come back. And that’s why surveys are dangerous; survey ships go poking through anomalies that have been calculated but never tried. That’s also why astrogators get paid so much. They have to head the ship for a place you can’t see and they have to put the ship there just under the speed of light and they have to give it the gun at just the right world point. Drop a decimal point or use a short cut that covers up an indeterminancy and it’s just too bad. Now we’ve been gunning at twenty-four gee ever since we left the atmosphere. We don’t feel it of course because we are carried inside a discontinuity field at an artificial one gravity—that’s another of the anomalies. But we’re getting up close to the speed of light, up against the Einstein Wall; pretty soon we’ll be squeezed through like a watermelon seed between your finger and thumb and we’ll come out near Theta Centauri fifty-eight light-years away. Simple, if you look at it right.”
She shivered. “If we come out, you mean.”
“Well… I suppose so. But it’s not as dangerous as helicopters. And look at it this way: if it weren’t for the anomalies, there never would have been any way for us to reach the stars; the distances are too great.
But looking back, it is obvious that all that emptiness couldn’t be real—there had to be the anomalies. That’s what my uncle used to say.”
“I suppose he must have been right, even if I don’t understand it.” She scrambled to her feet. “But I do know that I had better hoof it back upstairs, or Mrs. Dumont may change her mind.” She hugged Mr. Chips and shoved the little creature into Max’s arms. “Walk the baby—that’s a pal.”
THREE WAYS TO GET AHEAD
Max intended to stay awake during the first transition, but he slept through it. It took place shortly after five in the morning, ship’s time. When he was awakened by idlers’ reveille at six it was all over. He jerked on his clothes, fuming at not having awakened earlier, and hurried to the upper decks. The passageways above Charlie deck were silent and empty; even the early risers among the passengers would not be up for another hour. He went at once to the Bifrost Lounge and crossed it to the view port, placed there for the pleasure of passengers.
The stars looked normal but the familiar, age-old constellations were gone. Only the Milky Way, our own galaxy, seemed as usual—to that enormous spiral of stars, some hundred thousand light-years across, a tiny displacement of less than sixty light-years was inconsequential.
One extremely bright yellow-white star was visible; Max decided that it must be Theta Centauri, sun of Garson’s Planet, their first stop. He left shortly, not wanting to chance being found loafing in passengers’ country. The sand boxes which constituted his excuse were then replaced with greater speed than usual and he was back in crew’s quarters in time for breakfast.
The passage to Garson’s Planet took most of a month even at the high boost possible to Horst-Conrad ship. Eldreth continued to make daily trips to see Mr. Chips—and to talk with and play 3-dee chess with Max. He learned that while she had not been born on Hespera, but in Auckland on Terra, nevertheless Hespera was her home. “Daddy sent me back to have them turn me into a lady, but it didn’t take.”
“What do you mean?”
She grinned. “I’m a problem. That’s why I’ve been sent for. You’re in check, Max. Chipsie! Put that back. I think the little demon is playing on your side.”
He gradually pieced together what she meant. Miss Mimsey’s school had been the third from which she had been expelled. She did not like Earth, she was determined to go home, and she had created a reign of terror at each institution to which she had been entrusted. Her widower father had been determined that she must have a “proper” education, but she had been in a better strategic position to impose her will—her father’s Earthside attorneys had washed their hands of her and shipped her home.
Sam made the mistake of joshing Max about Eldreth. “Have you gotten her to set the day yet, old son?” “Who set what day?”
“Now, now! Everybody in the ship knows about it, except possibly the Captain. Why play dumb with your old pal?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about!”
“I wasn’t criticizing, I was admiring. I’d never have the nerve to plot so high a trajectory myself. But as
grandpop always said, there are just three ways to get ahead; sweat and genius, getting born into the right family, or marrying into it. Of the three, marrying the boss’s daughter is the best, because—Hey! Take it easy!” Sam skipped back out of range.
“Take that back!”
“I do, I do. I was wrong. But my remarks were inspired by sheer admiration. Mistaken, I admit. So I apologize and withdraw the admiration.”
“But… ” Max grinned in spite of himself. It was impossible to stay angry at Sam. Sure, the man was a scamp, probably a deserter, certainly a belittler who always looked at things in the meanest of terms, but—well, there it was. Sam was his friend.
“I knew you were joking. How could I be figuring on getting married when you and I are going to…” “Keep your voice down.” Sam went on quietly, “You’ve made up your mind?”
“Yes. It’s the only way out, I guess. I don’t want to go back to Earth.”
“Good boy! You’ll never regret it.” Sam looked thoughtful. “We’ll need money.” “Well, I’ll have some on the books.”
“Don’t be silly. You try to draw more than spending money and they’ll never let you set foot on dirt. But don’t worry—save your tips, all that Fats will let you keep, and I’ll get us a stake. It’s my turn.”
“How?”
“Lots of ways. You can forget it.”
“Well… all right. Say, Sam, just what did you mean when you—I mean, well, suppose I did want to marry Ellie—I don’t of course; she’s just a kid and anyhow I’m not the type to marry—but just supposing? Why should anybody care?”
Sam looked surprised. “You don’t know?” “Why would I be asking?”
“You don’t know who she is?”
“Huh? Her name’s Eldreth Coburn and she’s on her way home to Hespera, she’s a colonial. What of it?”
“You poor boy! She didn’t mention that she is the only daughter of His Supreme Excellency, General Sir John FitzGerald Coburn, O.B.E., K.B., O.S.U., and probably X.Y.Z., Imperial Ambassador to Hespera and Resident Commissioner Plenipotentiary?”
“Huh? Oh my gosh!”
“Catch on, kid? With the merest trifle of finesse you can be a remittance man, at least. Name your own planet, just as long as it isn’t Hespera.”
“Oh, go boil your head! She’s a nice kid anyhow.”
Sam snickered. “She sure is. As grandpop used to say, ‘It’s an ill wind that gathers no moss.'”
The knowledge disturbed Max. He had realized that Eldreth must be well to do—she was a passenger,
wasn’t she? But he had no awe of wealth. Achievement as exemplified by his uncle held much more respect in his eyes. But the notion that Eldreth came from such an impossibly high stratum—and that he, Maximilian Jones, was considered a fortune-hunter and social climber on that account—was quite upsetting.
He decided to put an end to it. He started by letting his work pile up so that he could say truthfully that he did not have time to play three-dee chess. So Ellie pitched in and helped him. While he was playing the unavoidable game that followed he attempted a direct approach. “See here, Ellie, I don’t think you ought to stay down here and play three-dee chess with me. The other passengers come down to see their pets and they notice. They’ll gossip.”
“Pooh!”
“I mean it. Oh, you and I know it’s all right, but it doesn’t look right.”
She stuck out her lower lip. “Am I going to have trouble with you? You talk just like Miss Mimsey.” “You can come down to see Chipsie, but you’d better come down with one of the other pet owners.”
She started to make a sharp answer, then shrugged, “Okay, this isn’t the most comfortable place anyhow. From now on we play in Bifrost Lounge, afternoons when your work is done and evenings.”
Max protested that Mr. Giordano would not let him; she answered quickly, “Don’t worry about your boss. I can twist him around my little finger.” She illustrated by gesture.
The picture of the gross Mr. Gee in such a position slowed up Max’s answer, but he finally managed to get out, “Ellie, crew members can’t use the passenger lounge. It’s…”
“They can so. More than once, I’ve seen Mr. Dumont having a cup of coffee there with Captain Blaine.”
“You don’t understand. Mr. Dumont is almost an officer, and if the Captain wants him as his guest, well, that’s the Captain’s privilege.”
“You’d be my guest.”
“No, I wouldn’t be.” He tried to explain to her the strict regulation that crew members were not to associate with passengers. “The Captain would be angry if he could see us right now—not at you, at me. If he caught me in the passengers’ lounge he’d kick me all the way clown to ‘H’ deck.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“But… ” He shrugged. “All right. I’ll come up this evening. He won’t kick me, actually; that would be beneath him. He’ll just send Mr. Dumont over to tell me to leave, then he’ll send for me in the morning. I don’t mind being fined a month’s pay if that is what it takes to show you the way things are.”
He could see that he had finally reached her. “Why, I think that’s perfectly rotten! Everybody is equal. Everybody! That’s the law.”
“They are? Only from on top.”
She got up suddenly and left. Max again had to soothe Mr. Chips, but there was no one to soothe him. He decided that the day that he and Sam disappeared over a horizon and lost themselves could not come too soon.
Eldreth returned next day but in company with a Mrs. Mendoza, the devoted owner of a chow who
looked much like her. Eldreth treated Max with the impersonal politeness of a lady “being nice” to servants, except for a brief moment when Mrs. Mendoza was out of earshot.
“Max?”
“Yes, Miss?”
“I’ll ‘Yes, Miss’ you! Look, Max, what was your uncle’s name? Was it Chester Jones?” “Why, yes, it was. But why…”
“Never mind.” Mrs. Mendoza rejoined them. Max was forced to drop it.
The following morning the dry-stores keeper sought him out. “Hey, Max! The Belly wants you. Better hurry—I think you’re in some sort of a jam.”
Max worried as he hurried. He couldn’t think of anything he had done lately; he tried to suppress the horrid fear that Ellie was involved.
It was clear that Mr. Giordano was not pleased but all that he said was, “Report to the Purser’s Office. Jump.” Max jumped.
The Purser was not there; Mr. Kuiper received him and looked him over with a cold eye. “Put on a clean uniform and make it quick. Then report to the Captain’s cabin.”
Max stood still and gulped. Mr. Kuiper barked, “Well? Move!” “Sir,” Max blurted, “I don’t know where the Captain’s cabin is.”
“What? I’ll be switched! Able deck, radius nine oh and outboard.” Max moved.
The Captain was in his cabin. With him was Mr. Samuels the Purser, Mr. Walther the First Officer, and Dr. Hendrix the Astrogator. Max concluded that whatever it was he was about to be tried for, it could be nothing trivial. But he remembered to say, “Steward’s Mate Third Class Jones reporting, sir.”
Captain Blaine looked up. “Oh, yes. Find a chair.” Max found one, sat down on the edge of it. The Captain said to the First Officer, “Under the circumstances, Dutch, I suppose it’s the best thing to do—though it seems a little drastic. You agree, Hal?”
The Purser agreed. Max wondered just how drastic it was and whether he would live through it.
“We’ll log it as an exception, then, Doc, and I’ll write up an explanation for the board. After all, regulations were made to be broken. That’s the end of it.” Max decided that they were simply going to space him and explain it later.
The Captain turned back to his desk in a manner that signified that the meeting was over. The First Officer cleared his throat. “Captain… ” He indicated Max with his eyes.
Captain Blaine looked up again. “Oh, yes! Young man, your name is Jones?” “Yessir.”
“I’ve been looking over your record. I see that you once tried out for chartsman for a short time in the
Thule?”
“Uh, yes, Captain.” “Didn’t you like it?”
“Well, sir.” Max asked himself what Sam would say when confronted by such a ghost. “It was like this… to tell you the truth I didn’t do much except empty ash trays in the Worry—in the control room.” He held his breath.
The Captain smiled briefly. “It can sometimes work out that way. Would you be interested in trying it again?”
“What? Yes, sir!” “Dutch?”
“Captain, ordinarily I see no point in a man striking twice for the same job. But there is this personal matter.”
“Yes, indeed. You can spare him, Hal?”
“Oh, certainly, Captain. He’s hardly a key man where he is.” The Purser smiled. “Bottom deck valet.” The Captain smiled and turned to the Astrogator. “I see no objection, Doc. It’s a guild matter, of course.” “Kelly is willing to try him. He’s short a man, you know.”
“Very well, then…”
“Just a moment, Captain.” The Astrogator turned to Max. “Jones… you had a relative in my guild?” “My uncle, sir. Chester Jones.”
“I served under him. I hope you have some of his skill with figures.” “Uh, I hope so, sir.”
“We shall see. Report to Chief Computerman Kelly.”
Max managed to find the control room without asking directions, although he could hardly see where he was going.
CHARTSMAN JONES
The change in Max’s status changed the whole perspective of his life. His social relations with the other crew members changed not entirely for the better. The control room gang considered themselves the gentry of the crew, a status disputed by the power technicians and resented by the stewards. Max found that the guild he was leaving no longer treated him quite as warmly while the guild for which he was trying out did not as yet accept him.
Mr. Gee simply ignored him—would walk right over him if Max failed to jump aside. He seemed to
regard Max’s trial promotion as a personal affront.
It was necessary for him to hit the slop chest for dress uniforms. Now that his duty station was in the control room, now that he must pass through passengers’ country to go to and from work, it was no longer permissible to slouch around in dungarees. Mr. Kuiper let him sign for them; his cash would not cover it. He had to sign as well for the cost of permission to work out of his guild, with the prospect of going further in debt to both guilds should he be finally accepted. He signed cheerfully.
The control department of the Asgard consisted of two officers and five men—Dr. Hendrix the Astrogator, his assistant astrogator Mr. Simes, Chief Computerman Kelly, Chartsman First Class Kovak, Chtsmn 2/C Smythe, and computermen Noguchi and Lundy, both second class. There was also
“Sack” Bennett, communicator first class, but he was not really a part of the control gang, even though his station was in the Worry Hole; a starship was rarely within radio range of anything except at the very first and last parts of a trip. Bennett doubled as Captain Blaine’s secretary and factotum and owed his nickname to the often-stated belief of the others that he spent most of his life in his bunk.
Since the Asgard was always under boost a continuous watch was kept; not for them were the old, easy days of rocket ships, with ten minutes of piloting followed by weeks of free fall before more piloting was required. Since the Asgard carried no apprentice astrogator, there were only two officers to stand watches (Captain Blaine was necessarily an astrogator himself, but skippers do not stand watches); this lack was made up by Chief Computerman Kelly, who stood a regular watch as control
officer-of-the-watch. The other ratings stood a watch in four; the distinction between a computerman and a chartsman was nominal in a control room dominated by “Decimal Point” Kelly—what a man didn’t know he soon learned, or found another ship.
Easy watches for everyone but Max—he was placed on watch-and-watch for instruction, four hours on followed by four hours off in which he must eat, keep himself clean, relax, and—if he found time—sleep.
But he thrived on it, arriving early and sometimes having to be ordered out of the Worry Hole. Not until much later did he find out that this stiff regime was Kelly’s way of trying to break him, discover his weakness and get rid of him promptly if he failed to measure up.
Not all watches were pleasant. Max’s very first watch was under Mr. Simes. He crawled up the hatch into the control room and looked around him in wonderment. On four sides were the wonderfully delicate parallax cameras. Between two of them Lundy sat at the saddle of the main computer; he looked up and nodded but did not speak. Mr. Simes sat at the control console, facing the hatch; he must have seen Max but gave no sign of it.
There were other instruments crowded around the walls, some of which Max recognized from reading and from seeing pictures, some of which were strange—tell-tales and gauges from each of the ship’s compartments, a screen to reproduce the view aft or “below,” microphone and controls for the ship’s announcing system, the “tank” or vernier stereograph in which plates from the parallax cameras could be compared with charts, spectrostellograph, dopplerscope, multipoint skin temperature recorder, radar repeater for landing, too many things to take in at once.
Overhead through the astrogation dome was the starry universe. He stared at it, mouth agape. Living as he had been, inside a steel cave, he had hardly seen the stars; the firmament had been more with him back home on the farm.
“Hey! You!”
Max shook his head and found Mr. Simes looking at him. “Come here.” Max did so, the assistant astrogator went on, “Don’t you know enough to report to the watch officer when you come on duty?”
“Uh—sorry, sir.”
“Besides that, you’re late.” Max slid his eyes to the chronometer in the console; it still lacked five minutes of the hour. Simes continued, “A sorry state of affairs when crewmen relieve the watch later than the watch officer. What’s your name?”
“Jones, sir.”
Mr. Simes sniffed. He was a red-faced young man with thin, carroty hair and a sniff was his usual conversational embellishment, at least with juniors. “Make a fresh pot of coffee.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Max started to ask where and how, but Mr. Simes had gone back to his reading. Max looked helplessly at Lundy, who indicated a direction with his eyes. Behind the chart safe Max found a coffee maker and under it cups, saucers, sugar, and tins of cream.
He burned himself before getting the hang of the gear’s idiosyncrasies. Mr. Simes accepted the brew without looking at him. Max wondered what to do next, decided to offer a cup to Lundy. The computerman thanked him quietly and Max decided to risk having one himself, since it seemed to be accepted. He took it over beside the computer to drink it.
He was still doing so when the watch officer spoke up. “What is this? A tea party? Jones!” “Yes, sir?”
“Get the place policed up. Looks as if a herd of chucks had been wallowing in it.”
The room seemed clean, but Max found a few scraps of paper to pick up and stuff down the chute, after which he wiped already-gleaming brightwork. He had started to go over things a second time when Lundy motioned him over. Max then helped Lundy change plates in the parallax cameras and watched him while he adjusted the electronic timer. Mr. Simes pushed the ready button himself, which seemed to be his sole work during the watch.
Lundy removed the plates and set them up in the tank for chart comparison, took the readings and logged them. Max gave him nominal help and gathered some notion of how it was done, after which he again wiped brightwork.
It was a long watch. He went to his bunk drained of the elation he had felt.
But watches with Dr. Hendrix and with Chief Kelly were quite different. The Worry Hole was a jolly place under Kelly; he ruled as a benevolent tyrant, shouting, cursing, slandering the coffee, slurring his juniors and being sassed back. Max never touched a polish rag when Kelly was at control; he was kept too busy not merely helping but systematically studying everything in the room. “We haven’t a condemned thing to do,” Kelly shouted at him, “until we hit Carson’s Folly. Nothing to do but to ride this groove down until we hit dirt. So you, my laddy buck, are going to do plenty. When we get there you are going to know this condemned hole better than your mother knew your father—or you can spend your time there learning what you’ve missed while your mates are dirtside getting blind. Get out the instruction manual for the main computer, take off the back plate and get lost in them wires. I don’t want to see anything but your ugly behind the rest of this watch.”
Within ten minutes Kelly was down on his knees with him, helping him trace the intricate circuits.
Max learned, greatly assisted by his photographic memory and still more by the sound grounding in theory he had gotten from his uncle. Kelly was pleased. “I reckon you exaggerated a mite when you said you hadn’t learned anything in the Thule.”
“Well, not much.”
“Johansen have the Worry Hole when you were striking?”
“Uh, yes.” Max hoped frantically that Kelly would not ask other names.
“I thought so. That squarehead wouldn’t tell his own mother how old he was.”
There came a watch when Kelly trusted him to do a dry run for a transition approach on the computer, with Noguchi handling the tables and Kelly substituting for the astrogator by following records of the actual transition the ship had last made. The programming was done orally, as is the case when the astrogator is working under extreme pressure from latest data, just before giving the crucial signal to boost past the speed of light.
Kelly took it much more slowly than would happen in practice, while Noguchi consulted tables and called out figures to Max. He was nervous at first, his fingers trembling so that it was hard to punch the right keys—then he settled down and enjoyed it, feeling as if he and the machine had been born for each other.
Kelly was saying, “—times the binary natural logarithm of zero point eight seven oh nine two.” Max heard Noguchi’s voice call back the datum while he thumbed for the page—but in his mind Max saw the page in front of his eyes long before Noguchi located it; without conscious thought he depressed the right
keys.
“Correction!” sang out Kelly. “Look, meathead, you don’t put in them figures; you wait for translation by Noggy here. How many times I have to tell you?”
“But I did—” Max started, then stopped. Thus far he had managed to keep anyone aboard the Asgard
from learning of his embarrassingly odd memory.
“You did what?” Kelly started to clear the last datum from the board, then hesitated. “Come to think of it, you can’t possibly feed decimal figures into that spaghetti mill. Just what did you do?”
Max knew he was right and hated to appear not to know how to set up a problem. “Why, I put in the figures Noguchi was about to give me.”
“How’s that again?” Kelly stared at him. “You a mind reader?” “No. But I put in the right figures.”
“Hmm… ” Kelly bent over the keyboard. “Call ’em off, Noggy.” The computerman reeled off a string of ones and zeroes, the binary equivalent of the decimal expression Kelly had given him; Kelly checked the depressed keys, his lips moving in concentration. He straightened up. “I once saw a man roll thirteen sevens with honest dice. Was it fool luck, Max?”
“No.”
“Well! Noggy, gimme that book.” Kelly went through the rest of the problem, giving Max raw data and the operations to be performed, but not translating the figures into the binary notation the computer required. He kept thumbing the book and glancing over Max’s shoulder. Max fought off stage fright and punched the keys, while sweat poured into his eyes.
At last Kelly said, “Okay. Twist its tail.” Max flipped the switch which allowed the computer to swallow the program and worry it for an instant; the answer popped out in lights, off or on—the machine’s
equivalent of binary figures.
Kelly translated the lights back into decimal notation, using the manual. He then glanced at the recorded problem. He closed the record book and handed it to Noguchi. “I think I’ll have a cup of coffee,” he said quietly and walked away.
Noguchi reopened it, looked at the lights shining on the board and consulted the manual, after which he looked at Max very oddly. Max saw Kelly staring at him over a cup with the same expression. Max reached up and cleared the board entirely; the lights went out. He got down out of the computerman’s saddle. Nobody said anything.
Max’s next watch was with Dr. Hendrix. He enjoyed watches with the Astrogator almost as much as those with Kelly; Dr. Hendrix was a friendly and soft-spoken gentleman and gave as much attention to training Max as Kelly did. But this time Kelly lingered on after being relieved—in itself nothing, as the Chief Computerman frequently consulted with, or simply visited with, the Astrogator at such times. But today, after relieving the watch, Dr. Hendrix said pleasantly, “Kelly tells me that you are learning to use the computer, Jones?”
“Uh, yes, sir.”
“Very well, let’s have a drill.” Dr. Hendrix dug out an old astrogation log and selected a
transition-approach problem similar to the one Max had set up earlier. Kelly took the manual, ready to act as his “numbers boy”—but did not call the translations. Max waited for the first one; when it did not come, he read the figures from the page shining in his mind and punched them in.
It continued that way. Kelly said nothing, but wet his lips and checked what Max did each time the doctor offered a bit of the problem. Kovak watched from nearby, his eyes moving from actor to actor.
At last Dr. Hendrix closed the book. “I see,” he agreed, as if it were an everyday occurrence. “Jones, that is an extremely interesting talent. I’ve read of such cases, but you are the first I have met. You’ve heard of Blind Tom?”
“No, sir.”
“Perhaps the ship’s library has an account of him.” The Astrogator was silent for a moment. “I don’t mean to belittle your talent, but you are not to use it during an actual maneuver. You understand why?”
“Yes, sir. I guess I do.”
“Better say that you are not to use it unless you think an error has been made—in which case you will speak up at once. But the printed tables remain the final authority.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Good. See me, please, in my room when you come off watch.”
It was “day time” by the ship’s clocks when he went off watch. He went to the passageway outside Dr. Hendrix’s room and waited; there Ellie came across him. “Max!”
“Oh. Hello, Ellie.” He realized uncomfortably that he had not seen her since his tentative promotion.
“Hello he says!” She planted herself in front of him. “You’re a pretty sight—with your bloodshot eyes matching the piping on your shirt. Where have you been? Too good for your old friends? You haven’t even been to see Chipsie.”
He had been, once, although he had not run into Ellie. He had not repeated the visit because the shipmate who had replaced him had not liked being assigned as chambermaid to cows, sheep, llamas, et al.; he had seemed to feel that it was Max’s fault. “I’m sorry,” Max said humbly, “but I haven’t had time.”
“A feeble excuse. Know what you are going to do now? You’re going straight to the lounge and I am going to trim your ears—I’ve figured out a way to box your favorite gambit that will leave you gasping.”
Max opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “No.” “Speak louder. You used a word I don’t understand.”
“Look, Ellie, be reasonable. I’m waiting for Dr. Hendrix and as soon as he lets me go I’ve got to get some sleep. I’m about ten hours minus.”
“You can sleep any time.”
“Not when you’re standing four hours on and four off. You nap anytime you get a chance.” She looked perplexed. “You don’t mean you work every other watch? Why, that’s criminal.” “Maybe so but that’s how it is.”
“But—I’ll fix that! I’ll speak to the Captain.” “Ellie! Don’t you dare!”
“Why not? Captain Blaine is old sugar pie. Never you mind, I’ll fix it.”
Max took a deep breath, then spoke carefully. “Ellie, don’t say anything to the Captain, not anything. It’s a big opportunity for me and I don’t mind. If you go tampering with things you don’t understand, you’ll ruin my chances. I’ll be sent back to the stables.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t do that.”
“You don’t understand. He may be an ‘old sugar pie’ to you; to me he is the Captain. So don’t.” She pouted. “I was just trying to help.”
“I appreciate it. But don’t. And anyhow, I can’t come to the lounge, ever. It’s off limits for me.”
“But I thought—I think you’re just trying to avoid me. You run around up here now and you dress in pretty clothes. Why not?”
They were interrupted by Dr. Hendrix returning to his room. “Morning, Jones. Good morning, Miss Coburn.” He went on in.
Max said desperately, “Look, Ellie, I’ve got to go.” He turned and knocked on the Astrogator’s door.
Dr. Hendrix ignored having seen him with Ellie. “Sit down, Jones. That was a very interesting exhibition you put on.” The Astrogator went on, “I’m curious to know how far your talent extends. Is it just to figures?”
“Why, I guess not, sir.”
“Do you have to study hard to do it?”
“No, sir.”
“Hmm… We’ll try something. Have you read—let me see—any of the plays of Shakespeare?”
“Uh, we had Hamlet and As You Like It in school, and I read A Winter’s Tale. But I didn’t like it,” he answered honestly.
“In that case I don’t suppose you reread it. Remember any of it?” “Oh, certainly, sir.”
“Hmm—” Dr. Hendrix got down a limp volume.
“Let me see. Act two, scene three; Leontes says, ‘Nor night nor day nor rest: it is but weakness… ‘”
Max picked it up. “… it is but weakness to bear the matter thus; mere weakness. If the cause were not in being… ” He continued until stopped.
“That’s enough. I don’t care much for that play myself. Even the immortal Will had his off days. But how did you happen to have read that book of tables? Shakespeare at his dullest isn’t that dull. I’ve never read them, not what one would call’reading.'”
“Well, sir, Uncle Chet had his astrogation manuals at home after he retired and he used to talk with me a lot. So I read them.”
“Do I understand that you have memorized the entire professional library of an astrogator?” Max took a deep breath. “Well, sir, I’ve read them.”
Dr. Hendrix took from his shelves his own tools of his profession. He did not bother with the binary tables, that being the one Max had shown that he knew. He leafed through them, asked Max questions, finally identifying what he wanted only by page number. He closed the last of them. “Whew!” he commented, and blinked. “While I am aware that there are numerous cases of your talent in the history of psychology, I must admit it is disconcerting to encounter one.” He smiled. “I wonder what Brother Witherspoon would think of this.”
“Sir?”
“Our High Secretary. I’m afraid he would be shocked; he has conservative notions about protecting the’secrets’ of our profession.”
Max said uncomfortably, “Am I likely to get into trouble, sir? I didn’t know it was wrong to read Uncle’s books.”
“What? Nonsense. There are no’secrets’ to astrogation. You use these books on watch, so does every member of the ‘Worry’ gang. The passengers can read them, for all I care. Astrogation isn’t secret; it is merely difficult. Few people are so endowed as to be able to follow accurately the mathematical reasoning necessary to plan a—oh, a transition, let us say. But it suits those who bother with guild politics to make it appear an arcane art—prestige, you know.” Dr. Hendrix paused and tapped on his chair arm. “Jones, I want you to understand me. Kelly thinks you may shape up.”
“Uh, that’s good, sir.”
“But don’t assume that you know more than he does just because you have memorized the books.”
“Oh, no, sir!”
“Actually, your talent isn’t necessary in the control room. The virtues needed are those Kelly has—unflagging attention to duty, thorough knowledge of his tools, meticulous care for details, deep loyalty to his job and his crew and his ship and to those placed over him professionally. Kelly doesn’t need eidetic memory, ordinary good memory combined with intelligence and integrity are what the job takes—and that’s what I want in my control room.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Astrogator hesitated. “I don’t wish to be offensive but I want to add this. Strange talents are sometimes associated with ordinary, or even inferior, mentality—often enough so that the psychologists use the term ‘idiot savant.’ Sorry. You obviously aren’t an idiot, but you are not necessarily a genius, even if you can memorize the Imperial Encyclopedia. My point is: I am more interested in your horse sense and your attention to duty than I am in your phenomenal memory.”
“Uh, I’ll try, sir.”
“I think you’ll make a good chartsman, in time.” Dr. Hendrix indicated that the interview was over; Max got up. “One more thing.”
“Yes, sir?”
“There are excellent reasons of discipline and efficiency why crew members do not associate with passengers.”
Max gulped. “I know, sir.”
“Mind your P’s and Q’s. The members of my department are careful about this point—even then it is difficult.”
Max left feeling deflated. He had gone there feeling that he was about to be awarded something—even a chance to become an astrogator. He now felt sweated down to size.
GARSON’S PLANET
Max did not see much of Sam during the weeks following; the stiff schedule left him little time for visiting. But Sam had prospered.
Like all large ships the Asgard had a miniature police force, experienced ratings who acted as the First Officer’s deputies in enforcing ship’s regulations. Sam, with his talent for politics and a faked certffication as steward’s mate first class, managed during the reshuffle following Max’s transfer to be assigned as master-at-arms for the Purser’s department. He did well, treading on no toes, shutting his eyes to such violations as were ancient prerogatives and enforcing those rules of sanitation, economy, and behavior which were actually needed for a taut, happy ship… all without finding it necessary to haul offenders up before the First Officer for punishment—which suited both Mr. Walther and the crew. When Stores Clerk Maginnis partook too freely of Mr. Gee’s product and insisted on serenading his bunk mates, Sam merely took him to the galley and forced black coffee down him—then the following day took him down
to ‘H’ deck, laid his own shield of office aside, and gave Maginnis a scientific going over that left no scars but deeply marked his soul. In his obscure past Sam had learned to fight, not rough house, not in the stylized mock combat of boxing, but in the skilled art in which an unarmed man becomes a lethal machine.
Sam had selected his victim carefully. Had he reported him Maginnis would have regarded Sam as a snoop, a mere busybody to be outwitted or defied, and had the punishment been severe he might have been turned into a permanent discipline problem—not forgetting that reporting Maginnis might also have endangered a sacred cow, Chief Steward Giordano. As it was, it turned Maginnis into Sam’s strongest supporter and best publicist, as Maginnis’s peculiar but not unique pride required him to regard the man who defeated him as “the hottest thing on two feet, sudden death in each hand, a real man! No nonsense about old Sam—try him yourself and see how you make out. Go on, I want to lay a bet.”
It was not necessary for Sam to set up a second lesson.
A senior engineer’s mate was chief master-at-arms and Sam’s nominal superior; these two constituted the police force of their small town. When the technician asked to go back to power room watch-standing and was replaced by an engineer’s mate third, it was natural that Walther should designate Sam as Chief Master-at-Arms.
He had had his eye on the job from the moment he signed on. Any police chief anywhere has powers far beyond those set forth by law. As long as Sam stayed well buttered up with Mr. Kuiper, Mr. Giordano, and (to a lesser extent) with Mr. Dumont, as long as he was careful to avoid exerting his authority in either the engineering spaces or the Worry Hole, he was the most powerful man in the ship—more powerful in all practical matters than the First Officer himself since he was the First Officer’s visible presence.
Such was the situation when the ship grounded at Garson’s Planet.
Garson’s Planet appears to us to be a piece of junk left over when the universe was finished. It has a surface gravity of one-and-a-quarter, too much for comfort, it is cold as a moneylender’s heart, and it has a methane atmosphere unbreathable by humans. With the sky swarming with better planets it would be avoided were it not an indispensable way station. There is only one survey Horst congruency near Earth’s Sun and transition of it places one near Theta Centauri—and of the thirteen planets of that sun, Carson’s Planet possesses the meager virtue of being least unpleasant.
But there are half a dozen plotted congruencies accessible to Theta Centauri, which makes Carson’s Planet the inevitable cross-roads for trade of the Solar Union.
Max hit dirt there just once, once was plenty. The colony at the space port, partly domed, partly dug in under the domes, was much like the Lunar cities and not unlike the burrows under any major Earth city, but to Max it was novel since he had never been on Luna and had never seen a big city on Terra other than Earthport. He went dirtside with Sam, dressed in his best and filled with curiosity. It was not necessary to put on a pressure suit; the port supplied each passenger liner with a pressure tube from ship’s lock to dome lock.
Once inside Sam headed down into the lower levels. Max protested, “Sam, let’s go up and look around.”
“Huh? Nothing there. A hotel and some expensive shops and clip joints for the pay passengers. Do you want to pay a month’s wages for a steak?”
“No. I want to see out. Here I am on a strange planet and I haven’t seen it at all. I couldn’t see it from the control room when we landed and now I haven’t seen anything but the inside of a trans tube and this.” He
gestured at the corridor walls.
“Nothing to see but a dirty, thick, yellow fog that never lifts. Worse than Venus. But suit yourself. I’ve got things to do, but if you don’t want to stick with me you certainly don’t have to.”
Max decided to stick. They went on down and came out in a wide, lighted corridor not unlike that street in Earthport where Percy’s restaurant was located, save that it was roofed over. There were the same bars, the same tawdry inducements for the stranger to part with cash, even to the tailor shop with the permanent “CLOSING OUT” sale. Several other ships were in and the sector was crowded. Sam looked around. “Now for a place for a quiet drink and a chat.”
“How about there?” Max answered, pointing to a sign reading THE BETTER ‘OLE. “Looks clean and cheerful.”
Sam steered him quickly past it. “It is,” he agreed, “but not for us.” “Why not?”
“Didn’t you notice the customers? Imperial Marines.” “What of that? I’ve got nothing against the Imperials.”
“Mmm… no,” Sam agreed, still hurrying, “but those boys stick together and they have a nasty habit of resenting a civilian who has the bad taste to sit down in a joint they have staked out. Want to get your ribs kicked in?”
“Huh? That wouldn’t happen if I minded my own business, would it?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Suppose a hostess decides that you’re ‘cute’—and the spit-and-polish boy she was with wants to make something of it? Max, you’re a good boy—but there just ain’t no demand for good boys. To stay out of trouble you have to stay away from it.”
They threaded their way through the crowd for another hundred yards before Sam said, “Here we are—provided Lippy is still running the place.” The sign read THE SAFE LANDING; it was larger but not as pleasant as THE BETTER ‘OLE.
“Who’s Lippy?”
“You probably won’t meet him.” Sam led the way in and picked out a table.
Max looked around. It looked like any other fifth-rate bar grille. “Could I get a strawberry soda here? I’ve had a hankering for one for ages—I used always to get one Saturdays when I went to the Corners.”
“They can’t rule you out for trying.”
“Okay. Sam, something you said—you remember the story you told me about your friend in the Imperials? Sergeant Roberts?”
“Who?”
“Or Richards. I didn’t quite catch it.” “Never heard of the guy.”
“But…”
“Never heard of him. Here’s the waiter.”
Nor had the humanoid Sirian waiter heard of strawberry soda. He had no facial muscles but his back skin crawled and rippled with embarrassed lack of comprehension. Max settled for something called “Old Heidelberg” although it had never been within fifty light-years of Germany. It tasted to Max like cold soap suds, but since Sam had paid for it he nursed it along and pretended to drink it.
Sam bounced up almost at once. “Sit tight, kid. I won’t be long.” He spoke to the barman, then disappeared toward the back. A young woman came over to Max’s table.
“Lonely, spaceman?” “Uh, not especially.”
“But I am. Mind if I sit down?” She sank into the chair that Sam had vacated. “Suit yourself. But my friend is coming right back.”
She didn’t answer but turned to the waiter at her elbow. “A brown special, Giggles.” Max made an emphatic gesture of denial. “No!”
“What’s that, dear?”
“Look,” Max answered, blushing, “I may look green as paint—I am, probably. But I don’t buy colored water at house prices. I don’t have much money.”
She looked hurt. “But you have to order or I can’t sit here.”
“Well… ” He glanced at the menu. “I could manage a sandwich, I guess.”
She turned again to the waiter. “Never mind the special, Giggles. A cheese on rye and plenty of mustard.” She turned back to Max. “What’s your name, honey?”
“Max.”
“Mine’s Dolores. Where are you from?” “The Ozarks. That’s Earthside.”
“Now isn’t that a coincidence! I’m from Winnipeg—we’re neighbors!”
Max decided that it might appear so, from that distance. But as Dolores babbled on it became evident that she knew neither the location of the Ozarks nor that of Winnipeg, had probably never been on Terra in her life. She was finishing the sandwich while telling Max that she just adored spacemen, they were so romantic, when Sam returned.
He looked down at her. “How much did you take him for?”
Dolores said indignantly, “That’s no way to talk! Mr. Lipski doesn’t permit…”
“Stow it, kid,” Sam went on, not unkindly. “You didn’t know that my partner is a guest of Lippy. Get me? No’specials,’ no ‘pay-me’s’—you’re wasting your time. Now how much?”
Max said hastily, “It’s okay, Sam. All I bought her was a sandwich.”
“Well… all right. But you’re excused, sister. Later, maybe.” She shrugged and stood up. “Thanks, Max.”
“Not at all, Dolores. I’ll say hello to the folks in Winnipeg.” “Do that.”
Sam did not sit down. “Kid, I have to go out for a while.” “Okay.”
Max started to rise, Sam motioned him back. “No, no. This I’d better do by myself. Wait here, will you? They won’t bother you again—or if they do, ask for Lippy.”
“I won’t have any trouble.”
“I hope not.” Sam looked worried. “I don’t know why I should fret, but there is something about you that arouses the maternal in me. Your big blue eyes I guess.”
“Huh? Oh, go sniff space! Anyway, my eyes are brown.”
“I was speaking,” Sam said gently, “of the eyes of your dewy pink soul. Don’t speak to strangers while I’m gone.”
Max used an expression he had picked up from Mr. Gee; Sam grinned and left.
But Sam’s injunction did not apply to Mr. Simes. Max saw the assistant astrogator appear in the doorway. His face was redder than usual and his eyes looked vague. He let his body revolve slowly as he surveyed the room. Presently his eyes lit on Max and he grinned unpleasantly.
“Well, well, well!” he said as he advanced toward Max. “If it isn’t the Smart Boy.” “Good evening, Mr. Simes.” Max stood up.
“So it’s ‘good evening, Mr. Simes’! But what did you say under your breath?’ “Nothing, sir.”
“Humph! I know! But I think the same thing about you, only worse.” Max did not answer, Simes went on, “Well, aren’t you going to ask me to sit down?”
“Have a seat, sir,” Max said without expression.
“Well, what do you know? The Smart Boy wants me to sit with him.” He sat, called the waiter, ordered, and turned back to Max. “Smart Boy, do you know why I’m sitting with you?”
“No, sir.”
“To put a flea in your ear, that’s why. Since you pulled that hanky-panky with the computer, you’ve been Kelly’s hair-faired—fair-haired—boy. Fair-haired boy,” he repeated carefully. “That gets you nowhere with me. Get this straight: you go sucking around the Astrogator the way Kelly does and I’ll run you out of the control room. Understand me?”
Max felt himself losing his temper. “What do you mean by ‘hanky-panky,’ Mr. Simes?”
“You know. Probably memorized the last half dozen transitions—now you’ve got Kelly and the Professor thinking you’ve memorized the book. A genius in our midst! You know what that is? That’s a lot of…”
Fortunately for Max they were interrupted; he felt a firm hand on his shoulder and Sam’s quiet voice said, “Good evening, Mr. Simes.”
Simes looked confused, then recognized Sam and brightened. “Well, if it isn’t the copper. Sit down, Constable. Have a drink.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Sam pulled up another chair. “Do you know Smart Boy here?”
“I’ve seen him around.”
“Keep your eye on him. That’s an order. He’s very, very clever. Too clever. Ask him a number. Pick a number between one and ten.”
“Seven.”
Mr. Simes pounded the table. “What did I tell you? He memorized it before you got here. Someday he’s going to memorize one and they’ll stencil it across his chest. You know what, Constable? I don’t trust smart boys. They get ideas.”
Reinforced by Sam’s calming presence Max kept quiet. Giggles had come to the table as soon as Sam joined them; Max saw Sam write something on the back of a menu and pass it with money to the humanoid. But Mr. Simes was too busy with his monologue to notice. Sam let him ramble on, then suddenly interrupted. “You seem to have a friend here, sir.”
“Huh? Where?”
Sam pointed. At the bar Dolores was smiling and gesturing at the assistant navigator to join her. Simes focused his eyes, grinned and said, “Why, so I do! It’s my Great Aunt Sadie.” He got up abruptly.
Sam brushed his hands together. “That disposes of that. Give you a bad time, kid?” “Sort of. Thanks, Sam. But I hate to see him dumped on Dolores. She’s a nice kid.”
“Don’t worry about her. She’ll roll him for every thin he has on him—and a good job, too.” His eyes became hard. “I like an officer who acts like an officer. If he wants to pin one on, he should do it in his own part of town. Oh, well.” Sam relaxed. “Been some changes, eh, kid? Things are different from the way they were when we raised ship at Terra.”
“I’ll say they are!”
“Like it in the Worry gang?”
“It’s more fun than I ever had in my life. And I’m learning fast—so Mr. Kelly says. They’re a swell bunch—except for him.” He nodded toward Simes.
“Don’t let him worry you. The best soup usually has a fly in it. Just don’t let him get anything on you.” “I sure don’t intend to.”
Sam looked at him, then said softly, “Ready to take the dive?”
“Huh?”
“I’m getting our stake together. We’ll be all set.”
Max found it hard to answer. He had known that his transfer had not changed anything basic; he was still in as much danger as ever. But he had been so busy with the joy of hard, interesting work, so dead for sleep when he was not working, that the subject had been pushed back in his mind. Now he drew patterns on the table in the sweat from the glasses and thought about it. “I wish,” he said slowly, “that there was some way to beat it.”
“There is a way, I told you. Your record gets lost.”
Max raised his eyes. “What good would that do? Sure, it would get me another trip. But I don’t want just another trip; I want to stay with it.” He looked down at the table top and carefully sketched an hyperboloid. “I’d better go with you. If I go back to Terra, it’s the labor companies for me—even if I stay out of jail.”
“Nonsense.” “What?”
“Understand me, kid. I’d like to have you with me. A time like that, having a partner at your elbow is the difference between—well, being down in the dumps and being on top. But you can stay in space, with a record as clean as a baby’s.”
“Huh? How?”
“Because you are changing guilds. Now only one paper has to get lost—your strike-out record with the stewards, cooks, and clerks. And they will never miss it because you aren’t on their books, anyhow. You start fresh with the chartsmen and computers, all neat and legal.”
Max sat still and was tempted. “How about the report to the Department of Guilds and Labor?”
“Same thing. Different forms to different offices. I checked. One form gets lost, the other goes in—and Steward’s Mate Jones vanishes into limbo while Apprentice Chartsman Jones starts a clean record.”
“Sam, why don’t you do it? With the drag you’ve got now you could switch to… uh, well, to…”
“To what?” Sam shook his head sadly. “No, old son, there is nothing I can switch to. Besides, there are reasons why I had better be buried deep.” He brightened. “Tell you what—I’ll pick my new name before I take the jump and tell you. Then some day, two years, ten, twenty, you’ll lay over at Nova Terra and look me up. We’ll split a bottle and talk about when we were young and gay. Eh?”
Max smiled though he did not feel happy. “We will, Sam. We surely will.” Then he frowned. “But, Sam, I don’t know how to wangle the deal—and you’ll be gone.”
“I’ll fix it before I leave. I’ve got Nelson eating out of my hand now. Like this: half cash down and half on delivery—and I’ll fix it so that you have something on him—never mind what; you don’t need to know yet. When you ground at Earthport, he asks you to mail the reports because you are going dirtside and he has work to finish. You check to see that the two reports you want are there, then you give him his pay off. Done.”
Max said slowly, “I suppose that’s best.”
“Quit fretting. Everybody has a skeleton in the closet; the thing is to keep ’em there and not at the feast.” He pushed an empty glass aside. “Kid, would you mind if we went back to the ship? Or had you planned to make a night of it?”
“No, I don’t mind.” Max’s elation at setting foot on his first strange planet was gone—Garson’s Hole was, he had to admit, a sorry sample of the Galaxy.
“Then let’s get saddled up. I’ve got stuff to carry and I could use help.”
It turned out to be four fairly large bundles which Sam had cached in public lockers. “What are they?” Max asked curiously.
“Tea cozies, old son. Thousands of them. I’m going to sell ’em to Procyon pinheads as skull caps.” Somewhat affronted, Max shut up.
Everything coming into the ship was supposed to be inspected, but the acting master-at-arms on watch at the lock did not insist on examining the items belonging to the Chief Master-at-Arms any more than he would have searched a ship’s officer. Max helped Sam carry the bundles to the stateroom which was the prerogative of the ship’s chief of police.
“THROUGH THE CARGO HATCH”
From Garson’s Planet to Halcyon around Nu Pegasi is a double dogleg of three transitions, of 105, 487, and 19 light-years respectively to achieve a “straight line” distance of less than 250 light-years. But neither straight-line distance nor pseudo-distance of transition is important; the Asgard covered less than a
light-year between gates. A distance “as the crow flies” is significant only to crows.
The first transition was barely a month out from Carson’s Planet. On raising from there Kelly placed Max on a watch in three, assigning him to Kelly’s own watch, which gave Max much more sleep, afforded him as much instruction (since the watch with Simes was worthless, instruction-wise), and kept Max out of Simes’ way, to his enormous relief. Whether Kelly had planned that feature of it Max never knew—and did not dare ask.
Max’s watch was still an instruction watch, he had no one to relieve nor to be relieved by. It became his habit not to leave the control room until Kelly did, unless told to do so. This resulted in him still being thrown into the company of Dr. Hendrix frequently, since the Astrogator relieved the Chief Computerman and Kelly would usually hang around and chat… during which time the Astrogator would sometimes inquire into Max’s progress.
Occasionally the Captain would show up on Dr. Hendrix’s watch. Shortly after leaving Garson’s Planet Dr. Hendrix took advantage of one such occasion to have Max demonstrate for Captain Blaine and First Officer Walther his odd talent. Max performed without a mistake although the Captain’s presence made him most self-conscious. The Captain watched closely with an expression of gentle surprise. Afterwards he said, “Thank you, lad. That was amazing. Let me see—what is your name?”
“Jones, sir.”
“Jones, yes.” The old man blinked thoughtfully. “It must be terrifying not to be able to forget—especially
in the middle of the night. Keep a clear conscience, son.”
Twelve hours later Dr. Hendrix said to him, “Jones, don’t go away. I want to see you.” “Yes, sir.”
The Astrogator spoke with Kelly for a few moments, then again spoke to Max. “The Captain was impressed by your vaudeville act, Jones. He is wondering whether you have any parallel mathematical ability.”
“Well—no, sir. I’m not a lightning calculator, that is. I saw one in a sideshow once. He could do things I couldn’t.”
Hendrix brushed it aside. “Not important. I believe you told me that your uncle taught you some mathematical theory?”
“Just for astrogation, sir.”
“What do you think I am talking about? Do you know how to compute a transition approach?” “Uh, I think so, sir.”
“Frankly, I doubt it, no matter how much theoretical drill Brother Jones gave you. But go ahead.” “Now, sir?”
“Try it. Pretend you’re the officer of the watch. Kelly will be your assistant. I’ll just be audience. Work the approach we are on. I realize that we aren’t close enough for it to matter—but you are to assume that the safety of the ship depends on it.”
Max took a deep breath. “Aye aye, sir.” He started to get out fresh plates for the cameras. Hendrix said, “No!”
“Sir?”
“If you have the watch, where’s your crew? Noguchi, help him.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Noguchi grinned and came over. While they were bending over the first camera, Noguchi whispered, “Don’t let him rattle you, pal. We’ll give him a good show. Kelly will help you over the humps.”
But Kelly did not help; he acted as “numbers boy” and nothing else, with no hint to show whether Max was right, or wildly wrong. After Max had his sights and had taken his comparison data between plates and charts he did not put the problem through the computer himself, but let Noguchi man the machine, with Kelly translating. After a long time and much sweat the lights blinked what he hoped was the answer.
Dr. Hendrix said nothing but took the same plates to the tank and started to work the problem again, with the same crew. Very quickly the lights blinked on again; the Astrogator took the tables from Kelly and looked up the translation himself. “We differ only in the ninth decimal place. Not bad.”
“I was wrong only in the ninth place, sir?”
“I didn’t say that. Perhaps I was more in error.”
Max started to grin, but Dr. Hendrix frowned. “Why didn’t you take doppler spectra to check?” Max felt a cold chill. “I guess I forgot, sir.”
“I thought you were the man who never forgot?”
Max thought intuitively—and correctly—that two kinds of memory were involved, but he did not have a psychologist’s jargon with which to explain. One sort was like forgetting one’s hat in a restaurant, that could happen to anyone; the other was being unable to recall what the mind had once known.
Hendrix went on, “A control room man must not forget things necessary to the safety of the ship. However as an exercise you solved it very well—except that you have no speed. Had we been pushing close to the speed of light, ready to cross, your ship would have been in Hades and crashed in the River Styx before you got the answer. But it was a good first try.”
He turned away. Kelly jerked his head toward the hatch and Max went below.
As he was falling asleep Max turned over in his mind the notion that Dr. Hendrix might even be thinking of him for—Oh no! He put the thought aside. After all, Kelly could have done it; he had seen him do early approaches many times, and faster, too. Probably Noguchi could have done it.
Certainly Noguchi could have done it, he corrected. After all, there weren’t any “secrets.”
As they approached the first anomaly the easy watch in three for officers and watch in four for the men changed to watch-and-watch, with an astrogator, an assistant, a chartsman, and a computerman on each watch. Max was at last assigned to a regular watch; the first watch was Dr. Hendrix assisted by Chartsman 1/c Kovak, Max as chartsman of the watch and Noguchi on the computer; the other watch was Mr. Simes assisted by Chief Kelly, Smythe as chartsman and Lundy as computerman. Max noticed that Dr. Hendrix had assigned his “first team” to Simes and had taken the less experienced technicians himself. He wondered why, but was pleased not to be working for Simes.
He learned at last why they called it the “Worry Hole.” Dr. Hendrix became a frozen-masked automaton, performing approach correction after correction and demanding quick, accurate, and silent service.
During the last twenty hours of the approach the Astrogator never left the control room, nor did anyone else other than for short periods when nominally off watch. Simes continued to take his regular watch but Dr. Hendrix hung over him, checking everything that he did. Twice he required the junior astrogator to reperform portions of his work and once elbowed him aside and did it himself. The first time it happened Max stared—then he noticed that the others were careful to be busy doing something else whenever Dr. Hendrix spoke privately to Simes.
The tension grew as the critical instant approached. The approach to an anomalous intraspatial transition can hardly be compared to any other form of piloting ever performed by human beings, though it might be compared to the impossible trick of taking off in an atmosphere plane, flying a thousand miles blind—while performing dead reckoning so perfectly as to fly through a narrow tunnel at the far end, without ever seeing the tunnel. A Horst congruency cannot be seen, it can only be calculated by abstruse mathematics of effects of mass on space; a “gateway” is merely unmarked empty space in vaster emptiness. In approaching a planet an astrogator can see his destination, directly or by radar, and his speed is just a few miles per second. But in making a Horstian approach the ship’s speed approaches that of light—and reaches it, at the last instant. The nearest landmarks are many billions of miles away, the landmarks themselves are moving with stellar velocities and appear to be crowding together in the
exaggerated parallax effects possible only when the observer is moving almost as fast as is his single clue to location and speed—the wave fronts of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Like searching at midnight in a dark cellar for a black cat that isn’t there.
Toward the last Kelly himself was on the computer with Lundy at his ear. Smythe and Kovak were charting, passing new data to Dr. Hendrix, who was programming orally to the computer crew, setting up the problems in his head and feeding them to the electronic brain almost without delay. The power room was under his direct control now; he had a switch led out from the control console in each hand, one to nurse the ship along just below speed of light, the other to give the Asgard the final kick that would cause her to burst through.
Max was pushed aside, no task remained in which there was not someone more experienced. On a different level, Simes too had been pushed aside; there was place for only one astrogator at the moment of truth.
Of all those in the Worry Hole only Captain Blaine seemed to be relaxed. He sat in the chair sacred to him, smoking quietly and watching Hendrix. The Astrogator’s face was gray with fatigue, greasy with unwashed sweat. His uniform was open at the collar and looked slept in, though he certainly had not slept. Max looked at him and wondered why he had ever longed to be an astrogator, ever been foolish enough to wish to bear this undivided and unendurable burden.
But the doctor’s crisp voice showed no fatigue; the endless procession of numbers marched out, sharp as print, each spoken so that there could be no mistake, no need to repeat, “nine” always sounded as one syllable, “five” always stretched into two. Max listened and learned and wondered.
He glanced up through the dome, out into space itself, space shown distorted by their unthinkable speed. The stars ahead, or above, had been moving closer together for the past several watches, the huge parallax effect displacing them to the eye so that they seemed to be retreating in the very sector of the sky they were approaching. They were seeing by infra-red waves now, ploughing into oncoming wave trains so fast that doppler effect reduced heat wave lengths to visible light.
The flood of figures stopped. Max looked down, then looked up hastily as he heard Dr. Hendrix say, “Stand by!”
The stars seemed to crawl together, then instantly they were gone to be replaced without any lapse of time whatever by another, new and totally different starry universe.
Hendrix straightened up and sighed, then looked up. “There’s the Albert Memorial,” he said quietly. “And there is the Hexagon. Well, Captain, it seems we made it again.” He turned to Simes. “Take it, Mister.” He let the Captain go first, then followed him down the hatch.
The control gang went back to easy watches; the next transition was many days away. Max continued as chartsman-of -the-watch in place of Kovak, who temporarily replaced Dr. Hendrix while the Astrogator got a week of rest: There was truly not much to do during the early part of a leg and the doctor’s superb skill was not needed. But Max greatly enjoyed the new arrangements; it made him proud to sign the rough log “M. Jones, Chtsmn o/W.” He felt that he had arrived—even though Simes found fault with him and Kelly continued to drill him unmercifully in control room arts.
He was surprised but not apprehensive when he was told, during an off-watch period, to report to the Astrogator. He put on a fresh uniform, slicked his hair clown, and went above “C” deck. “Apprentice Chartsman Jones reporting, sir.”
Kelly was there, having coffee with the Astrogator. Hendrix acknowledged Max’s salutation but left him standing. “Yes, Jones.” He turned to Kelly. “Suppose you break the news.”
“If you say so, sir.” Kelly looked uncomfortable. “Well, Jones, it’s like this—you don’t really belong in my guild.”
Max was so shocked that he could not answer. He was about to say that he had thought—he had understood—he hadn’t known—But he got nothing out; Kelly continued, “The fact is, you ought to buck for astrogator. The Doctor and I have been talking it over.”
The buzzing in his head got worse. He became aware that Dr. Hendrix was repeating, “Well, Jones? Do you want to try it? Or don’t you?”
Max managed to say, “Yes. Yes, sir.”
“Good. Kelly and I have been watching you. He is of the opinion and so am I that you may, just possibly, have the latent ability to develop the skill and speed necessary. The question is: do you think so?”
“Uh… that is—I hope so, sir!”
“So do I,” Hendrix answered dryly. ‘We shall see. If you haven’t, you can revert to your own guild and no harm is done. The experience will make you a better chartsman.” The Astrogator turned to Kelly. “I’ll quiz Jones a bit, Kelly. Then we can make up our minds.”
“Very good, sir.” Kelly stood up.
When the Chief Computerman had gone Hendrix turned to his desk, hauled out a crewman’s personal record. To Max he said harshly, “Is this yours?”
Max looked at it and gulped. “Yes, sir.”
Dr. Hendrix held his eye. “Well? How good a picture is it of your career thus far? Any comment you want to make?”
The pause might have been a dozen heart beats, though to Max it was an endless ordeal. Then a catharsis came bursting up out of him and he heard himself answering, “It’s not a good picture at all, sir. It’s phony from one end to the other.”
Even as he said it, he wondered why. He felt that he had kicked to pieces his one chance to achieve his ambition. Yet, instead of feeling tragic, he felt oddly relaxed.
Hendrix put the personal record back on his desk. “Good,” he answered. “Very good. If you had given any other answer, I would have run you out of my control room. Now, do you want to tell me about it? Sit down.”
So Max sat down and told him. All that he held back was Sam’s name and such details as would have identified Sam. Naturally Dr Hendrix noticed the omission and asked him point blank.
“I won’t tell you, sir.”
Hendrix nodded. “Very well. Let me add that I shall make no attempt to identify this, ah, friend of yours—if by chance he is in this ship.”
“Thank you, sir.”
There followed a considerable silence. At last Hendrix said, “Son, what led you to attempt this preposterous chicanery? Didn’t you realize you would be caught?”
Max thought about it. “I guess I knew I would be, sir—eventually. But I wanted to space and there wasn’t any other way to do it.” When Hendrix did not answer Max went on. After the first relief of being able to tell the truth, he felt defensive, anxious to justify himself—and just a little bit irked that Dr. Hendrix did not see that he had simply done what he had to do—so it seemed to Max. “What would you have done, sir?”
“Me? How can I answer that? What you’re really asking is: do I consider your actions morally wrong, as well as illegal?”
“Uh, I suppose so, sir.”
“Is it wrong to lie and fake and bribe to get what you want? It’s worse than wrong, it’s undignified!”
Dr. Hendrix chewed his lip and continued. “Perhaps that opinion is the sin of the Pharisees… my own weakness. I don’t suppose that a young, penniless tramp, such as you described yourself to be, can afford the luxury of dignity. As for the rest, human personality is a complex thing, nor am I a judge.
Admiral Lord Nelson was a liar, a libertine, and outstandingly undisciplined. President Abraham Lincoln was a vulgarian and nervously unstable. The list is endless. No, Jones, I am not going to pass judgment; you must do that yourself. The authorities having jurisdiction will reckon your offenses; I am concerned only with whether or not you have the qualities I need.”
Max’s emotions received another shock. He had already resigned himself to the idea that he had lost his chance. “Sir?”
“Don’t misunderstand me.” Hendrix tapped the forged record. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. But perhaps you can live down your mistake. In the meantime, I badly need another watch officer; if you measure up, I can use you. Part of it is personal, too; your uncle taught me, I shall try to teach you.”
“Uh, I’ll try, sir. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m not even feeling particularly friendly to you, at the moment. Don’t talk with anyone. I’ll ask the Captain to call a guild meeting and he and Mr. Simes and I will vote on you. We’ll make you a probationary apprentice which will permit the Captain to appoint you to the temporary rank of merchant cadet. The legalities are a bit different from those of the usual route as you no doubt know.”
Max did not know, though he was aware that officers sometimes came up “through the cargo hatch”—but another point hit him. “Mr. Simes, sir?”
“Certainly. By this procedure, all the astrogators you serve with must pass on you.” “Uh, does it have to unanimous, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Then—Well, sir, you might as well forget it. I mean, I appreciate your willingness to, uh, but… ” His voice trailed off.
Dr. Hendrix smiled mirthlessly. “Hadn’t you better let me worry about that?” “Oh. Sorry, sir.”
“When it has been logged, I’ll notify you. Or ‘when and if,’ if you prefer.”
“Yes, sir.” Max stood up. “Sir? There were, uh, a couple of other things I wondered about.” Hendrix had turned back to his desk. He answered, “Well?” somewhat impatiently.
“Would you mind telling me—just for my curiosity—how you caught me?”
“Oh, that. No doubt you’ve given yourself away to several people. I’m sure Kelly knows, from the subjects he avoided. For example, I once heard Lundy mention to you Kiefer’s Ritz on Luna. Your answer, though noncommittal, implied that you did not really know what dive he was talking about—and it is impossible for a spaceman not to know that place, its entrance faces the east lock to the space port.”
“Oh.”
“But the matter came to the top of my mind in connection with this.” He again indicated the false record. “Jones, I deal in figures and my mind can no more help manipulating them for all the information they contain than I can help breathing. This record says that you went to space a year before your uncle retired—I remember what year that was. But you told me that your uncle had trained you at home and your performance bore out that statement. Two sets of alleged facts were contradictory; need I add that I was fairly sure of the truth?”
“Oh. I guess I wasn’t very smart?’
“No, you weren’t. Figures are sharp things, Jones. Don’t juggle them, you’ll get cut. What was the other matter?”
“Well, sir, I was kind of wondering what was going to happen to me. I mean about that.”
“Oh,” Hendrix answered indifferently, “that’s up to the Stewards & Clerks. My guild won’t take action concerning a disciplinary matter of another guild. Unless, of course, they call it ‘moral turpitude’ and make it stick.”
With that faint comfort Max left, Nevertheless he felt easier than he had at any time since he had signed on. The prospect of punishment seemed less a burden than constantly worrying about getting caught.
Presently he forgot it and exulted in the opportunity—at last!—to take a crack at astrogator. He wished he could tell Sam… or Ellie.
HALCYON
The probationary appointment was logged later that same day. The Captain called him in, swore him in, then congratulated him and called him “Mister” Jones. The ceremony was simple, with no spectator but Hendrix and the Captain’s secretary.
The commonplaces attendant on the change were, for a while, more startling to Max than the promotion itself. They started at once. “You had better take the rest of the day to shake down, Mr. Jones,” the Captain said, blinking vaguely. “Okay, Doc?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Good. Bennett, will you ask Dumont to step in?”
The Chief Passengers’ Steward was unblinkingly unsurprised to find the recent steward’s mate third a ship’s officer. To the Captain’s query he said, “I was planning to put Mr. Jones in stateroom B-014, sir. Is that satisfactory?”
“No doubt, no doubt.”
“I’ll have boys take care of his luggage at once.”
“Good. You trot along with Dumont, Mr. Jones. No, wait a moment. We must find you a cap.” The Captain went to his wardrobe, fumbled around. “I had one that would do here somewhere.”
Hendrix had been standing with his hands behind him. “I fetched one, Captain. Mr. Jones and I wear the same size, I believe.”
“Good. Though perhaps his head has swelled a bit in the past few minutes. Eh?”
Hendrix grinned savagely. “If it has, I’ll shrink it.” He handed the cap to Max. The wide gold strap and sunburst the Astrogator had removed; substituted was a narrow strap with tiny sunburst surrounded by the qualifying circle of the apprentice. Max thought it must be old insignia saved for sentimental reasons by Hendrix himself. He choked up as he mumbled his thanks, then followed Dumont out of the Captain’s cabin, stumbling over his feet.
When they reached the companionway Dumont stopped. “There is no need to go down to the bunkroom, sir. If you will tell me the combination of your locker, we’ll take care of everything.”
“Oh, gee, Mr. Dumont! I’ve got just a small amount of truck. I can carry it up myself.”
Dumont’s face had the impassivity of a butler’s. “If I may make a suggestion, sir, you might like to see your stateroom while I have the matter taken care of.” It was not a question; Max interpreted it correctly to mean: “Look, dummy, I know the score and you don’t. Do what I tell you before you make a terrible break!”
Max let himself be guided. It is not easy to make the jump from crewman to officer while remaining in the same ship. Dumont knew this, Max did not. Whether his interest was fatherly, or simply a liking for correct protocol—or both—Dumont did not intend to allow the brand-new junior officer to go lower than “C” deck until he had learned to carry his new dignity with grace. So Max sought out stateroom
B-014.
The bunk had a real foam mattress and a spread. There was a tiny wash basin with running water and a mirror. There was a bookshelf over the bunk and a wardrobe for his uniforms. There was even a shelf desk that let down for his convenience. There was a telephone on the wall, a buzzer whereby he could summon the steward’s mate on watch! There was a movable chair all his own, a wastebasket, and—yes!—a little rug on the deck. And best of all, there was a door with a lock.
The fact that the entire room was about as large as a piano box bothered him not at all.
He was opening drawers and poking into things when Dumont returned. Dumont was not carrying Max’s meager possessions himself; that task was delegated to one of his upper-decks staff. The steward’s mate followed Dumont in and said, “Where shall I put this, sir?”
Max realized with sudden embarrassment that the man waiting on him had eaten opposite him for past months. “Oh! Hello, Jim. Just dump it on the bunk. Thanks a lot.”
“Yes, sir. And congratulations!”
“Uh, thanks!” They shook hands. Dumont let that proper ceremony persist for a minimum time, then said, “That’s all now, Gregory. You can go back to the pantry.” He turned to Max. “Anything else, sir?”
“Oh, no, everything is fine.”
“May I suggest that you probably won’t want to sew insignia on these uniforms yourself? Unless you are better with a needle than I am,” Dumont added with just the right chuckle.
“Well, I guess I could.”
“Mrs. Dumont is handy with a needle, taking care of the lady passengers as she does. Suppose I take this one? It can be ready and pressed in time for dinner.”
Max was happy to let him. He was suddenly appalled by a terrifying notion—he was going to have to eat in the Bifrost Lounge!
But there were further disturbances before dinner. He was completing the small task of stowing his possessions when there came a knock on the door, followed immediately by someone coming in. Max found himself nose to nose with Mr. Simes.
Simes looked at the cap on his head and laughed. “Take that thing off before you wear out your ears.” Max did not do so. He said, “You wanted me, sir?”
“Yes. Just long enough, Smart Boy, to give you a word of advice.” “Yes?”
Simes tapped himself on the chest. “Just this. There is only one assistant astrogator in this ship—and I’m it. Remember that. I’ll still be it long after you’ve been busted back to sweeping up after cows. Which is where you belong.”
Max felt a flush crawl up his neck and burn his cheeks. “Why,” he asked, “if you think that, didn’t you veto my appointment?”
Simes laughed again. “Do I look like a fool? The Captain says yes, the Astrogator says yes—should I stick my neck out? It’s easier to wait and let you stick your neck out—which you will. I just wanted to let you know that a dinky piece of gold braid doesn’t mean a thing. You’re still junior to me by plenty. Don’t forget it.”
Max clenched his jaw and did not answer. Simes went on, “Well?” “‘Well’ what?”
“I just gave you an order.”
“Oh. Aye aye, Mr. Simes. I won’t forget it. I certainly won’t.”
Simes looked at him sharply, said, “See that you don’t,” and left. Max was still facing his door, clenching his fists, when Gregory tapped on the door. “Dinner, sir. Five minutes.”
Max delayed as long as he could, wishing mightily that he could slide down to Easy deck and take his usual place in the warm, noisy, relaxed comfort of the crew’s mess. He hesitated in the lounge doorway, paralyzed with stage fright. The beautiful room was blazing with light and looked unfamiliar; he had never been in it save in early morning, to change the sandbox located down the pantry passage—at which times only standing lights were burning.
He was barely in time; some of the ladies were seated but the Captain was still standing. Max realized that he should be near his chair, ready to sit down when the Captain did—or as soon as the ladies were seated, he amended—but where should he go? He was still jittering when he heard his name shouted. “Max!”
Ellie came running up and threw her arms around his neck. “Max! I just heard. I think it’s wonderful!”
She looked at him, her eyes shining, then kissed him on both cheeks.
Max blushed to his ears. He felt as if every eye was turned on him—and he was right. To add to his embarrassment Ellie was dressed in formal evening dress of Hesperan high style, which not only made her look older and much more female, but also shocked his puritanical hillbilly standards.
She let go of him, which was well but left him in danger of collapsing at the knees. She started to babble something, Max did not know what, when Chief Steward Dumont appeared at her elbow. “The Captain is waiting, Miss,” he said firmly.
“Bother to the Captain! Oh, well—see you after dinner, Max.” She headed for the Captain’s table. Dumont touched Max’s sleeve and munnured, “This way, sir.”
His place was at the foot of the Chief Engineer’s table. Max knew Mr. Compagnon by sight but had never spoken to him. The Chief glanced up and said, “Evening, Mr. Jones. Glad to have you with us. Ladies and gentlemen, our new astrogation officer, Mr. Jones. On your right, Mr. Jones, is Mrs. Daigler. Mr. Daigler on her right, then—” and so on, around the table: Dr. and Mrs. Weberbauer and their daughter Rebecca, Mr. and Mrs. Scott, a Mr. Arthur, Senhor and Senhora Vargas.
Mrs. Daigler thought it was lovely, his being promoted. And so nice to have more young people at the table. She was much older than Max but young enough to be handsome and aware of it. She wore more jewels than Max had ever seen and her hair was lacquered into a structure a foot high and studded with pearls. She was as perfectly finished and as expensive as a precision machine and she made Max uncomfortable.
But he was not yet as uncomfortable as he could be. Mrs. Daigler produced a wisp of a handkerchief from her bosom, moistened it and said, “Hold still, Mr. Jones.” She scrubbed his cheek. “Turn your head.” Blushing, Max complied.
“There, that’s better,” Mrs. Daigler announced. “Mama fixed.” She turned away and said, “Don’t you think, Mr. Compagnon, that science, with all the wonderful things they do these days, could discover a lip paint that wouldn’t come off?”
“Stop it, Maggie,” her husband interrupted. “Pay no attention, Mr. Jones. She’s got a streak of sadism as wide as she is.”
“George, you’ll pay for that. Well, Chief?”
The Chief Engineer patted his lips with snowy linen. “I think it must already have been invented, but there
was no market. Women like to brand men, even temporarily.” “Oh, bosh!”
“It’s a woman’s world, ma’am.”
She turned to Max. “Eldreth is a dear, isn’t she? I suppose you knew her ‘dirtside’?—as Mr. Compagnon calls it.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then how? I mean, after all, there isn’t much opportunity. Or is there?” “Maggie, stop pestering him. Let the man eat his dinner.”
Mrs. Weberbauer on his other side was as easy and motherly as Mrs. Daigler was difficult. Under her soothing presence Max managed to start eating. Then he noticed that the way he grasped a fork was not the way the others did, tried to change, made a mess of it, became aware of his untidy nails, and wanted to crawl under the table. He ate about three hundred calories, mostly bread and butter.
At the end of the meal Mrs. Daigler again gave her attention to him, though she addressed the Chief Engineer. “Mr. Compagnon, isn’t it customary to toast a promotion?”
“Yes,” the Chief conceded. “But he must pay for it. That’s a requirement.”
Max found himself signing a chit presented by Dumont. The price made him blink—his first trip might be a professional success, but so far it had been financial disaster. Champagne, iced in a shiny bucket, accompanied the chit and Dumont cut the wires and drew the cork with a flourish.
The Chief Engineer stood up. “Ladies and gentlemen—I give you Astrogator Jones. May he never misplace a decimal point!”
“Cheers!”—”Bravo!”—”Speech, speech!”
Max stumbled to his feet and muttered, “Thank you.”
His first watch was at eight o’clock the next morning. He ate breakfast alone and reflected happily that as a watch stander he would usually eat either before or after the passengers. He was in the control room a good twenty minutes early.
Kelly glanced up and said, “Good morning, sir.”
Max gulped. “Er—good morning, Chief!” He caught Smythe grinning behind the computer, turned his eyes hastily away.
“Fresh coffee, Mr. Jones. Will you have a cup?” Max let Kelly pour for him; while they drank Kelly quietly went over the details—acceleration schedule, position and vector, power units in use, sights taken, no special orders, etc. Noguchi relieved Smythe, and shortly before the hour Dr. Hendrix appeared.
“Good morning, sir.” “Good morning, Doctor.”
“Morning.” Hendrix accepted coffee, turned to Max. “Have you relieved the officer of the watch?” “Uh, why no, sir.”
“Then do so. It lacks less than a minute of eight.”
Max turned to Kelly and shakily saluted. “I relieve you, sir.”
“Very well, sir.” Kelly went below at once. Dr. Hendrix sat down, took out a book and started to read. Max realized with a chilly feeling that he had been pushed in, to swim or not. He took a deep breath and went over to Noguchi. “Noggy, let’s get the plates ready for the middle o’ watch sights.”
Noguchi glanced at the chronometer. “As you say, sir.” “Well… I guess it is early. Let’s take a few dopplers.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Noguchi climbed out of the saddle where he had been loafing. Max said in a low voice, “Look, Noggy, you don’t have to say’sir’ to me.”
Noguchi answered just as quietly. “Kelly wouldn’t like it if I didn’t. Better let it ride.” “Oh.” Max frowned. “Noggy? How does the rest of the Worry gang feel about it?”
Noguchi did not pretend not to understand. He answered, “Shucks, they’re all rooting for you, if you can swing it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Certain. Just as long as you don’t try to make a big hairy thing out of yourself like—well, like some I could mention.” The computerman added, “Maybe Kovak isn’t exactly cheering. He’s been having a watch of his own, you know—for the first time.”
“He’s sore?”
“Not exactly. He couldn’t expect to keep it long anyhow, not with a transition coming up. He won’t go out of his way to give you trouble, he’ll be fair.”
Max made a mental note to see what he could do to swing Kovak over to his side. The two manned the dopplerscope, took readings on stars forward of vector, checked what they found by spectrostellograph, and compared both with standard plates from the chart safe. At first Max had to remember that he was in charge; then he got so interested in fussy details of measurements that he was no longer self-conscious. At last Noguchi touched his sleeve. “Pushing ten o’clock, sir. I’d better get set up.”
“Huh? Sure, go ahead.” He reminded himself not to help Noggy; the chartsman has his prerogatives, too. But he checked the set up just as Hendrix always did, as Simes rarely did, and as Kelly sometimes did, depending on who had made it.
After they had gotten the new data Max programmed the problem on paper (there being plenty of time), then called it off to Noguchi at the computer. He thumbed the book himself, there being no “numbers boy” available. The figures were as clear in his recollection as ever, but he obeyed Hendrix’s injunction not to depend on memory.
The result worried him. They were not “in the groove.” Not that the Asgard was far out, but the discrepancy was measurable. He checked what he had done, then had Noguchi run the problem again,
using a different programming method. The result came out the same.
Sighing, he computed the correction and started to take it to Hendrix for approval. But the Astrogator still paid no attention; he sat at the console, reading a novel from the ship’s library.
Max made up his mind. He went to the console and said, “Excuse me, sir. I need to get there for a moment.” Hendrix got up without answering and found another seat. Max sat down and called the power room. “Control officer speaking. I intend to increase boost at eleven o’clock. Stand by for time check.”
Hendrix must have heard him, he thought, but the Astrogator gave no sign. Max fed in the correction, set the control chronometer to execute his wishes at eleven plus-or-minus nothing.
Shortly before noon Simes showed up. Max had already written his own log, based on Noguchi’s log, and had signed it “M. Jones.” He had hesitated, then added “C. O. o/W.” Simes went to Dr. Hendrix, saluted, and said, “Ready to relieve you, sir.”
Hendrix spoke his first word since eight o’clock. “He’s got it.”
Simes looked non-plussed, then went to Max. “Ready to relieve you.” Max recited off the situation data while Simes read the log and the order book. Simes interrupted him while he was still listing minor ship’s data. “Okay, I relieve you. Get out of my control room, Mister.” Max got out. Dr. Hendrix had already gone down.
Noguchi had loitered at the foot of the ladder. He caught Max’s eye, made a circle with thumb and finger and nodded. Max grinned at him, started to ask a question; he wanted to know if that discrepancy was a booby trap, intentionally left in by Kelly. Then he decided that it would not be fitting; he’d ask Kelly himself, or figure it from the records. “Thanks, Noggy.”
That watch turned out to be typical only in the one respect that Dr. Hendrix continued to require Max to be officer of the watch himself. He did not again keep quiet but rode Max steadily, drilling him hour after hour, requiring him to take sights and set up problems continuously, as if the Asgard were actually close to transition. He did not permit Max to program on paper but forced him to pretend that time was too short and that data must immediately go into the computer, be acted on at once. Max sweated, with remote controls in each fist and with Hendrix himself acting as “numbers boy.” The Astrogator kept pushing him for speed, speed, and more speed—never at the sacrifice of accuracy, for any error was unforgivable. But the goal was always greater speed.
Once Max objected. “Sir, if you would let me put it right into the machine, I could cut it down a lot.”
Hendrix snapped, “When you have your own control room, you can do that, if you think it wise. Now you’ll do it my way.”
Occasionally Kelly would take over as his supervisor. The Chief Computerman was formal, using such phrases as, “May I suggest, sir—” or “I think I’d do it this way, sir.” But once he broke out with, “Confound it, Max! Don’t ever pull a dumb stunt like that!”
Then he started to amend his remarks. Max grinned. “Please, Chief. For a moment you made me feel at home. Thanks.”
Kelly looked sheepish. “I’m tired, I guess. I could do with a smoke and some java.”
While they were resting Max noted that Lundy was out of earshot and said, “Chief? You know more than I’ll ever learn. Why didn’t you buck for astrogator? Didn’t you ever get a chance?”
Kelly suddenly looked bleak. “I once did,” he said stiffly. “Now I know my limitations.” Max shut up, much embarrassed. Thereafter Kelly reverted to calling him Max whenever they were alone.
Max did not see Sam for more than a week after he moved up to Baker deck. Even then the encounter was chance; he ran across him outside the Purser’s office. “Sam!”
“Good morning, sir!” Sam drew up in a smart salute with a broad grin on his face. “Huh? ‘Good morning, sir’ my foot! How’s it going, Sam?”
“Aren’t you going to return my salute? In my official capacity I can report you, you know. The Captain is very, very fussy about ship’s etiquette.”
Max made a rude noise. “You can hold that salute until you freeze, you clown.”
Sam relaxed. “Kid, I’ve been meaning to get up and congratulate you—but every time I find you’re on watch. You must live in the Worry Hole.”
“Pretty near. Look, I’ll be off this evening until midnight. What do you say I stop down to see you?” Sam shook his head. “I’ll be busy.”
“Busy how? You expecting a jail break? Or a riot, maybe?”
Sam answered soberly, “Kid, don’t get me wrong—but you stick to your end of the ship and I’ll stick to mine. No, no, keep quiet and listen. I’m as proud as if I had invented you. But you can’t fraternize in crew’s quarters, not even with the Chief Master-at-Arms. Not yet.”
“Who’ll know? Who’s to care?”
“You know blamed well that Giordano would love to tell Kuiper that you didn’t know how to behave like an officer—and Old Lady Kuiper would pass it along to the Purser. Take my advice. Have I ever thrown you a curve?”
Max dropped the matter, though he badly wanted a chin with Sam. He needed to tell him that his faked record had been breached and to consult with him as to probable consequences.
Of course, he considered as he returned to his stateroom, there wasn’t a thing to keep him from carrying out his orginal intention of jumping ship with Sam at Nova Terra—except that it was now no longer possible to imagine it. He was an officer.
They were approaching the middle transition; the control room went on watch-and-watch. But still Dr. Hendrix did not take the watch; Simes and Jones alternated. The Astrogator stood every watch with Max but required him to do the work and carry the responsibility himself. Max sweated it out and learned that practice problems and study of theory were nothing like having it matter when he had no way and no time to check. You had to be right, every time—and there was always doubt.
When, during the last twenty-four hours, the Worry gang went on continuous watch, Max thought that Dr. Hendrix would push him aside. But he did not. Simes was pushed aside, yes, but Max took the worry seat, with Hendrix bending over him and watching everything he did, but not interfering. “Great
heavens!” Max thought. “Surely he isn’t going to let me make this transition? I’m not ready for it, not yet. I’ll never keep up.”
But data was coming too fast for further worry; he had to keep processing it, see the answers, and make decisions. It was not until twenty minutes before transition that Hendrix pushed him aside without a word and took over. Max was still recovering when they burst through into a new sky.
The last approach-and-transition before Halcyon was much like the second. There were a couple of weeks of easy watches, headed by Simes, Jones, and Kovak, with both Kelly and Hendrix getting a little rest. Max liked it, both on and off watch. On watch he continued to practice, trying to achieve the inhuman speed of Dr. Hendrix. Off watch he slept and enjoyed himself. The Bifrost Lounge no longer terrified him. He now played three-dee with Ellie there, with Chipsie on his shoulder, giving advice. Ellie had long since waved her eyes at Captain Blaine and convinced him that a pet so well behaved, so well house-broken, and in particular so well mannered (she had trained the spider puppy to say, “Good morning, Captain,” whenever it saw Blaine)—in all respects so civilized should not be forced to live in a cage.
Max had even learned to swap feeble repartee with Mrs. Daigler, thinking up remarks and waiting for a chance. Ellie was threatening to teach him to dance, although he managed to stall her until resumption of watch-and-watch before transition made it impossible.
Again he found himself shoved into the worry seat for the last part of the approach. This time Dr. Hendrix did not displace him until less than ten minutes before burst through.
On the easy drop down to Halcyon Ellie’s determination won out. Max learned to dance. He found that he liked it. He had good rhythm, did not forget her instructions, and Ellie was a fragrant, pleasant armful. “I’ve done all I can,” she announced at last. “You’re the best dancer with two left feet I’ve ever met.” She required him to dance with Rebecca Weberbauer and with Mrs. Daigler. Mrs. Daigler wasn’t so bad after all, as long as she kept her mouth shut—and Rebecca was cute. He began to look forward to the fleshpots of Halcyon, that being Ellie’s stated reason for instructing him; he was to be conscripted as her escort.
Only one thing marred the final leg; Sam was in trouble. Max did not find out about it until after the trouble broke. He got up early to go on watch and found Sam cleaning decks in the silent passages of passenger quarters. He was in dungarees and wearing no shield. “Sam!”
Sam looked up. “Oh. Hi, kid. Keep your voice down, you’ll wake people.” “But Sam, what in Ned are you doing?”
“Me? I seem to be manicuring this deck.” “But why?”
Sam leaned on his broom. “Well, kid, it’s like this. The Captain and I had a difference of opinion. He won.”
“You’ve been busted?”
“Your intuition is dazzling.” “What happened?”
“Max, the less you know about it the better. Don’t fret. Sic transit gloria mundi—Tuesday is usually worse.”
“But—See here, I’ve got to grab chow and go on watch. I’ll look you up later.” “Don’t.”
Max got the story from Noguchi. Sam, it appeared, had set up a casino in an empty storeroom. He might have gotten away with it indefinitely had it remained a cards-and-dice set up, with a rake off for the house—the “house” being the Chief Master-at-Arms. But Sam had added a roulette wheel and that had been his downfall; Giordano had come to suspect that the wheel had less of the element of chance than was customary in better-run gambling halls—and had voiced his suspicion to Chief Clerk Kuiper. From there events took an inevitable course.
“When did he put in this wheel?”
“Right after we raised from Garson’s Planet.” Max thought uncomfortably of the “tea cozies” he had helped Sam bring aboard there. Noguchi went on, “Uh, didn’t you know, sir? I thought you and him were pretty close before—you know, before you moved up decks.”
Max avoided an answer and dug into the log. He found it under the previous day, added by Bennett to Simes’ log. Sam was restricted to the ship for the rest of the trip, final disciplinary action postponed until return to Terra.
That last seemed to mean that Captain Blaine intended to give Sam a chance to show good behavior before making his recommendation to the guilds—the Captain was a sweet old guy, he certainly was. But “restricted”? Then Sam would never get his chance to run away from whatever it was he was running away from. He located Sam as soon as he was off watch, digging him out of his bunkroom and taking him out into the corridor.
Sam looked at him sourly. “I thought I told you not to look me up?”
“Never mind! Sam, I’m worried about you. This’restricted’ angle… it means you won’t have a chance to—”
“Shut up!” It was a whisper but Max shut up. “Now look here,” Sam went on, “Forget it. I got my stake and that’s the important point.”
“But…”
“Do you think they can seal this ship tight enough to keep me in when I decide to leave? Now stay away from me. You’re teacher’s pet and I want to keep it that way. I don’t want you lectured about bad companions, meaning me.”
“But I want to help, Sam. I…”
“Will you kindly get up above ‘C’ deck where you belong?”
He did not see Sam again that leg; presently he stopped worrying about it. Hendrix required him to compute the planetary approach—child’s play compared with a transition—then placed Max at the conn
when they grounded. This was a titulary responsibility since it was precomputed and done on radar-automatic. Max sat with the controls under his hands, ready to override the autopilot—and
Hendrix stood behind him, ready to override him—but there was no need; the Asgard came down by the plotted curve as easy as descending stairs. The thrust beams bit in and Max reported, “Grounded, sir, on schedule.”
“Secure.”
Max spoke into the ship’s announcers. “Secure power room. Secure all space details. Dirtside routine, second section.”
Of the four days they were there he spent the first three nominally supervising, and actually learning from, Kovak in the routine ninety-day inspection and overhaul of control room instruments. Ellie was vexed with him, as she had had different plans. But on the last day he hit dirt with her, chaperoned by Mr. and Mrs. Mendoza.
It was a wonderful holiday. Compared with Terra, Halcyon is a bleak place and Bonaparte is not much of a city. Nevertheless Halcyon is an earth-type planet with breathable air, and the party from the Asgard had not set foot outdoors since Earthport, months of time and unthinkable light-years behind. The season was postaphelion, midsummer, Nu Pegasi burned warm and bright in blue sky. Mr. Mendoza hired a carriage and they drove out into green, rolling countryside behind four snuffling little Halcyon ponies.
There they visited a native pueblo, a great beehive structure of mud, conoid on conoid, and bought souvenirs—two of which turned out to have “Made in Japan” stamped inconspicuously on them.
Their driver, Herr Eisenberg, interpreted for them. The native who sold the souvenirs kept swiveling his eyes, one after another, at Mrs. Mendoza. He twittered some remarks to the driver, who guffawed. “What does he say?” she asked.
“He was complimenting you.” “So? But how?”
“Well… he says you are for a slow fire and no need for seasoning; you’d cook up nicely. And he’d do it, too,” the colonist added, “if you stayed here after dark.”
Mrs. Mendoza gave a little scream. “You didn’t tell us they were cannibals. Josie, take me back!”
Herr Eisenberg looked horrified. “Cannibals? Oh, no, lady! They don’t eat each other, they just eat us—when they can get us, that is. But there hasn’t been an incident in twenty years.”
“But that’s worse!”
“No, it isn’t, lady. Look at it from their viewpoint. They’re civilized. This old fellow would never break one of their laws. But to them we are just so much prime beef, unfortunately hard to catch.”
“Take us back at once! Why, there are hundreds of them, and only five of us.”
“Thousands, lady. But you are safe as long as Gneeri is shining.” He gestured at Nu Pegasi. “It’s bad juju to kill meat during daylight. The spirit stays around to haunt.”
Despite his reassurances the party started back. Max noticed that Eldreth had been unfrightened. He himself had wondered what had kept the natives from tying them up until dark.
They dined at the Josephine, Bonaparte’s best (and only) hotel. But there was a real three-piece
orchestra, a dance floor, and food that was at least a welcome change from the menus of the Bifrost Lounge. Many ship’s passengers and several officers were there; it made a jolly party. Ellie made Max dance between each course. He even got up his nerve to ask Mrs. Daigler for a dance, once she came over and suggested it.
During the intermission Eldreth steered him out on the adjacent balcony. There she looked up at him. “You leave that Daigler hussy alone, hear me?”
“Huh? I didn’t do anything.”
She suddenly smiled warmly. “Of course not, you big sweet ninny. But Ellie has to take care of you.” She turned and leaned on the rail. Halcyon’s early night had fallen, her three moons were chasing each other. The sky blazed with more stars than can be seen in Terra’s lonely neighborhood. Max pointed out the strange constellations and showed her the departure direction they would take tomorrow to reach transition for Nova Terra. He had learned four new skies so far, knew them as well as he knew the one that hung over the Ozarks—and he would learn many more. He was already studying, from the charts, other skies they would be in this trip.
“Oh, Max, isn’t it lovely!”
“Sure is. Say, there’s a meteor. They’re scarce here, mighty scarce.” “Make a wish! Make a wish quick!”
“Okay.” He wished that he would get off easy when it came to the showdown. Then he decided that wasn’t right; he ought to wish old Sam out of his jam—not that he believed in it, either way.
She turned and faced him. “What did you wish?”
“Huh?” He was suddenly self-conscious. “Oh, mustn’t tell, that spoils it.” “All right. But I’ll bet you get your wish,” she added softly.
He thought for a moment that he could have kissed her, right then, if he had played his cards right. But the moment passed and they went inside. The feeling stayed with him on the ride back, made him elated. It was a good old world, even if there were some tough spots. Here he was, practically a junior astrogator on his first trip—and it hadn’t been more than weeks since he was borrowing McAllister’s mules to work the crop and going barefooted a lot to save shoes.
And yet here he was in uniform, riding beside the best-dressed girl in four planets.
He fingered the insignia on his chest. Marrying Ellie wasn’t such an impossible idea now that he was an officer—if he ever decided to marry. Maybe her old man wouldn’t consider an officer—and an astrogator at that—completely ineligible. Ellie wasn’t bad; she had spunk and she played a fair game of three-dee—most girls wouldn’t even be able to learn the rules.
He was still in a warm glow when they reached the ship and were hoisted in. Kelly met him at the lock. “Mr. Jones—the Captain wants to see you.”
“Huh? Oh. G’night, Ellie—I’ll have to run.” He hurried after Kelly. “What’s up?” “Dr. Hendrix is dead.”
TRANSITION
Max questioned Kelly as they hurried up to the Captain’s cabin.
“I don’t know. I just don’t know, Max.” Kelly seemed close to tears. “I saw him before dinner—he came into the Hole to check what you and Kovak have been doing. He seemed all right. But the Purser found him dead in his bunk, the middle of the evening.” He added worriedly, “I don’t know what is going to happen now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well… if I was captain, I’d lay over and send for a relief. But I don’t know.”
For the first time Max realized that this change would make Mr. Simes the astrogator. “How long would it take to get a relief?”
“Figure it out. The Dragon is about three months behind us; she’d pick up our mail. A year about.” In the contradictions of interstellar travel the ships themselves were the fastest method of communication; a radio message (had such a silly thing been attempted) would have taken more than two centuries to reach Earth, a like time for a reply.
Max found the Captain’s cabin open and crowded with officers, all standing around, saying nothing, and looking solemn; he slipped inside without announcing himself and tried to be inconspicuous. Kelly did not go in. Captain Blaine sat at his desk with head bent. Several stragglers, members of the gay party at the Josephine, arrived after Max; First Officer Walther checked them off with his eyes, then said quietly to Blaine, “Ship’s officers all present, sir.”
Captain Blaine raised his head and Max was shocked to see how old he looked. “Gentlemen,” he said in a low voice, “you know the sad news. Dr. Hendrix was found dead in his room this evening. Heart attack. The Surgeon tells me that he passed on about two hours before he was found—and that his death was probably almost painless.”
His voice broke, then he continued. “Brother Hendrix will be placed in his last orbit two hours after we raise ship tomorrow. That is how he would have wished it, the Galaxy was his home. He gave unstintingly of himself that men should ride safely among the stars.”
He paused so long that Max thought that the old man had forgotten that others were present. But when he resumed his voice was almost brisk. “That is all, gentlemen. Astrogators will please remain.”
Max was not sure that he counted as an astrogator but the use of the plural decided him. First Officer Walther started to leave; Blaine called him back. When the four were alone, the Captain said, “Mr.
Simes, you will take over head-of-department duties at once. Mr., uh… “; his eyes rested on Max. “Jones, sir.”
“Mr. Jones will assume your routine duties, of course. This tragedy leaves you short-handed; for the rest of this trip I will stand a regular watch.”
Simes spoke up. “That isn’t necessary, Captain. We’ll make out.”
“Perhaps. But those are my wishes.” “Aye aye, sir.”
“Prepare to lift on schedule. Any questions?” “No, sir.”
“Goodnight, gentlemen. Dutch, stay a moment, please?”
Outside the door Simes started to turn away; Max stopped him. “Mr. Simes?” “Huh? Yes?”
“Any instructions for me, sir?”
Simes looked him over. “You stand your watch, Mister. I’ll handle everything else.”
The next morning Max found a crepe armband on his desk and a notice from the First Officer that mourning would continue for one week. The Asgard raised on schedule, with the Captain sitting quietly in his chair, with Simes at the control console. Max stood near the Captain, with nothing to do. Aside from the absence of Hendrix all was routine—except that Kelly was quite bad-tempered. Simes, Max admitted, handled the maneuver smartly—but it was precomputed, anyone could have done it; shucks, Ellie could have been sitting there. Or Chipsie.
Max had the first watch. Simes left him after enjoining him not to deviate from schedule without phoning him first. An hour later Kovak relieved Max temporarily and Max hurried to the passenger lock. There were five honorary pall bearers, the Captain, Mr. Walther, Simes, Max, and Kelly. Behind them, crowding the passageways, were officers and most of the crew. Max saw no passengers.
The inner door of the lock was opened; two steward’s mates carried the body in and placed it against the outer door. Max was relieved to see that it had been wrapped in a shroud covering it completely. They closed the inner door and withdrew.
The Captain stood facing the door, with Simes and the First Officer standing guard on one side of the door and, on the other side facing them, Max and Kelly. The Captain flung one word over his shoulder: “Pressure!”
Behind stood Bennett wearing a portable phone; he relayed the word to the power room. The pressure gauge over the lock door showed one atmosphere; now it started to crawl upward. The Captain took a little book from his pocket and began to read the service for the dead. Feeling that he could not stand to listen Max watched the pressure gauge. Steadily it climbed. Max reflected that the ship had already passed escape speed for the Nu Pegasi system before he had been relieved; the body would take an open orbit.
The gauge reached ten atmospheres; Captain Blaine closed his book. “Warn the passengers,” he said to Bennett.
Shortly the loudspeakers sounded: “All hands! All passengers! The ship will be in free fall for thirty seconds. Anchor yourselves and do not change position.” Max reached behind him, found one of the many hand holds always present around an airlock and pulled down so that his grip would keep his feet in contact with the deck. A warning siren howled—then suddenly he was weightless as the ship’s boost and the artificial anomalous gravity field were both cut out.
He heard the Captain say loudly and firmly, “‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’ Let the body be cast forth.”
The pressure gauge dropped suddenly to zero and Dr. Hendrix was launched into space, there to roam the stars for all eternity.
Max felt weight again as the power room brought them back to ship-normal. The pressure gauge showed gradually building pressure. People turned away and left, their voices murmuring low. Max went up and relieved the watch.
The following morning Simes moved into Dr. Hendrix’s cabin. There was trouble with First Officer Walther about it—Max heard only third-hand reports—but the Captain upheld Simes; he stayed in the Astrogator’s quarters. The Worry Hole settled into routine not much different from what had gone before, except that Simes’ personality spread through everything. There had never been a posted watch list before; Kelly had always assigned the crewmen and the Doctor had simply informed the top-watch standers orally of his wishes. Now a typed list appeared:
FIRST WATCH Randolph Simes, Astrogator SECOND WATCH Captain Blaine
(M. Jones, acting apprentice, under instruction) THIRD WATCH Kelly, Ch. Cmptrmn. (signed) Randolph Simes, Astrogator
Below was a four-watch list for crewmen, also signed by Simes.
Max looked at it and shrugged it off. It was obvious that Simes had it in for him, though he could not figure out why. It was equally obvious that Simes did not intend to let him do any astrogation and that Max’s chances of being accepted in time as a fullfledged brother had now, with the death of Dr. Hendrix, sunk to zero. Unless, of course, Captain Blaine overrode Simes and forced a favorable report, which was extremely unlikely. Max again began to think of going along with Sam at Nova Terra.
Well, in the meantime he’d stand his watches and try to stay out of trouble. That was that.
There was only one transition to be made between Halcyon and Nova Terra, a leap of ninety-seven light-years three weeks out from Halcyon at a boost of seventeen gravities—the boost always depended on the distance from the star to the gateway, since the purpose was to arrive there just under the speed of light. The Worry Hole stayed on a watch in three for the officers and one in four for crewmen for the first two weeks. Captain Blaine showed up each watch but seemed quite willing for Max to carry out the light duties of that portion of the leg. He gave little instruction—when he did, he was likely to wander off into anecdotes, amusing but not useful.
Max tried to continue his own drill, carrying out the routine middle o’ watch computation as if it were the frantic matter it would have been near transition. Captain Blaine watched him, then said mildly, “Don’t get yourself into a state, son. Always program on paper when possible—always. And take time to check.
Hurrying causes mistakes.” Max said nothing, thinking of Dr. Hendrix, but carried out the orders.
At the end of his first watch under the Captain Max signed the log as usual. When Simes came on watch four hours later, Max was dug out of bed and required to report to the control room. Simes pointed to the log. “What’s the idea, Mister?”
“Of what, sir?”
“Signing the log. You weren’t officer of the watch.”
“Well, sir, the Captain seemed to expect it. I’ve signed a lot of logs and he’s always approved them in the past.”
“Hmm—I’ll speak to the Captain. Go below.”
At the end of his next watch, having received no instructions, Max prepared the log and took it to the Captain. “Sir? Do you want to sign this? Or shall I?”
“Eh?” Blaine looked at it. “Oh, I suppose I had better. Always let a head of department do things his own way if possible. Remember that when you are a skipper, son.” He signed it.
That settled it until the Captain started a habit of not being there, first for short periods, then for longer. The time came when he was absent at the end of the watch; Max phoned Mr. Simes. “Sir, the Captain isn’t here. What do you want me to do?”
“So what? It’s his privilege to leave the control room.”
“But Kelly is ready to relieve and the log isn’t signed. Shall I sign it? Or shall I phone him?” “Phone him? Jumping jeepers, no! Are you crazy?”
“What are your orders, sir?”
Simes was silent, then answered, “Print his name, then sign under it ‘By direction’—and after this use your head.”
They changed to watch-and-watch for the last week. Max continued under the Captain; Kelly assisted Simes. Once the shift was made Blaine became meticulous about being present in the control room and, when Max started to make the first computation, gently pushed him aside. “I had better take over, lad. We’re getting closer now.”
So Max assisted him—and became horrifyingly aware that the Captain was not the man he must once have been. His knowledge of theory was sound and he knew all the short cuts—but his mind tended to wander. Twice in one computation Max had to remind him diplomatically of details. Yet the Old Man seemed unaware of it, was quite cheerful.
It went on that way. Max began to pray that the Captain would let the new Astrogator make the transition himself—much as he despised Simes. He wanted to discuss his misgivings with Kelly—there was no one else with whom it would have been possible—but Kelly was on the opposite watch with Simes. There was nothing to do but worry.
When the last day arrived he discovered that Captain Blaine neither intended to take the ship through himself nor to let Simes do it; he had a system of his own. When they were all in the Worry Hole the Captain said, “I want to show you all a wrinkle that takes the strain out of astrogating. With no reflections on our dear brother, Dr. Hendrix, while he was a great astrogator, none better—nevertheless he worked too hard. Now here is a method taught me by my own master. Kelly, if you will have the remote controls
led out, please.”
He had them seat themselves in a half circle, himself, Simes, and Max, around the saddle of the computer, with Kelly in the saddle. Each of them was armed with programming forms and Captain Blaine held the remote-control switches in his lap. “Now the idea is for us each to work a sight in succession, first me, then Mr. Simes, then Mr. Jones. That way we keep the data flowing without strain. All right, lads, start pitching. Transition stations everyone.”
They made a dry run, then the Captain stood up. “Call me, Mr. Simes, two hours before transition. I believe you and Mr. Jones will find that this method gives you enough rest in the meantime.”
“Yes, sir. But Captain—may I make a suggestion?” “Eh? Certainly, sir.”
“This is a fine system, but I suggest that Kelly be put in the astrogating group instead of Jones. Jones is not experienced. We can put Kovak in the saddle and Lundy on the book.”
Blaine shook his head. “No. Accuracy is everything, sir, so we must have our best operator at the computer. As for Mr. Jones, this is how he must get experience—if he gets rattled, you and I can always fill in for him.” He started to leave, then added, “But Kovak can alternate with Kelly until I return. Mustn’t have anyone getting tired, that way mistakes are made.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Simes said nothing more to Max. They started working sights, alternately, using written programming on printed forms. The sights were coming in on a twenty-minute schedule, giving each of them forty minutes for a problem if he cared to take it. Max began to think that the Captain’s method did have its points.
Certainly Dr. Hendrix had worked himself to death—ships did not wear out but men did.
He had plenty of time to work not only his own problems, but those of Simes. The data came out orally and there was nothing to keep Max from programming Simes’ sights in his head and checking on what went into the computer. So far as he could see Simes was doing all right—though of course there was no real strain involved, not yet.
They ate sandwiches and drank coffee where they sat, leaving their seats only for five minutes or so at a time. Captain Blaine showed up twenty minutes early. He smiled and said cheerily, “Everyone happy and relaxed? Now we really get down to it. I have just time for a cup of coffee.”
A few minutes later he sat down and took over the control switches from Simes. The sights were coming through on a ten-minute schedule now, still ample time. Max continued to work them all, his own on paper and the others in his head. He was always through in time to catch the data for the next sight, program it mentally and check translations as Lundy thumbed the book. It gave him a running picture of how closely they were in the groove, how much hunting they were having to do in approaching their invisible target. It seemed to him that Simes tended to over-correct and that the Captain was somewhat optimistically under-correcting, but neither was so far out as to endanger the ship.
Maybe he was wrong about the Captain—the Old Man seemed to steady down when it mattered. His own corrections, he was glad to see, the Captain applied without question.
After more than an hour with transition forty-five. minutes away Captain Blaine looked up and said, “All right, boys, we’re getting close. Slam them to us as fast as you can now.”
Smythe and Kovak, with Noguchi and Bennett running for them, slipped into high gear; data poured out
in a steady stream. Max continued to work every sight, programming his own in his head and calling off figures faster than he wrote them down. He noticed that Simes was sweating, sometimes erasing and starting over. But the figures Simes called out agreed with what Max thought they should be, from his own mental programming. Captain Blaine seemed relaxed, though he had not speeded up materially and sometimes was still using the computer when Max was ready to pour his sight into it.
At one point Simes spoke too rapidly, slurring his figures, Lundy promptly said, “Repeat, sir!”
“Confound it! Clean out your ears!” But Simes repeated. The Captain glanced up, then bent back to his own problem. As soon as the computer was free Captain Blaine called his own figures to Lundy. Max had already set up the Captain’s sight in his mind, was subconsciously listening while watching Simes.
An alarm bell rang in his mind. “Captain! I don’t check you!” Captain Blaine stopped. “Eh?”
“That program is wrong, sir.”
The Captain did not seem angry. He simply handed his programming board to Simes. “Check me, sir.” Simes glanced quickly at the figures. “I check you, sir!”
Blaine said, “Drop out, Jones. Mr. Simes and I will finish.” “But—”
“Drop out, Mister!”
Max got out of the circle, seething inside. Simes’ check of the Captain’s set up hadn’t meant anything, unless Simes had listened to and remembered (as Max had) the data as it came in. The Captain had transposed an eight and a three in the fifth and sixth decimal places—the set up would look okay unless one knew the correct figures. If Simes had even bothered to check it, he added bitterly.
But Max could not keep from noting and processing the data in his mind. Simes’ next sight should catch the Captain’s error; his correction should repair it. It would be a big correction, Max knew; traveling just under the speed of light the ship clipped a million miles in less than six seconds.
Max could see Simes hesitate as the lights from his next sight popped up on the computer and Lundy translated them back. Why, the man looked frightened! The correction called for would push the ship extremely close to critical speed—Simes paused, then ordered less than half the amount that Max believed was needed.
Blaine applied it and went on with his next problem. When the answer came out the error, multiplied by time and unthinkable velocity, was more glaring than ever. The Captain threw Simes a glance of astonishment, then promptly made a correction. Max could not tell what it was, since it was done without words by means of the switch in his lap.
Simes licked the dryness from his lips. “Captain?”
“Time for just one more sight,” Blaine answered. “I’ll take it myself, Mr. Simes.”
The data were passed to him, he started to lay his problem out on the form. Max saw him erase, then look up; Max followed his gaze. The pre-set on the chronometer above the computer showed the seconds trickling away. “Stand by!” Blaine announced.
Max looked up. The stars were doing the crawling together that marked the last moments before transition. Captain Blaine must have pressed the second switch, the one that would kick them over, while Max was watching, for the stars suddenly blinked out and were replaced instantaneously by another starry firmament, normal in appearance.
The Captain lounged back, looked up. “Well,” he said happily, “I see we made it again.” He got up and headed for the hatch, saying over his shoulder, “Call me when you have laid us in the groove, Mr. Simes.” He disappeared down the hatch.
Max looked up again, trying to recall from the charts he had studied just what piece of this new sky they were facing. Kelly was looking up, too. “Yes, we came through,” Max heard him mutter. “But where?”
Simes also had been looking at the sky. Now he swung around angrily. “What do you mean?” “What I said,” Kelly insisted. “That’s not any sky I ever saw before.”
“Nonsense, man! You just haven’t oriented yourself. Everybody knows that a piece of sky can look strange when you first glance at it. Get out the flat charts for this area; we’ll find our landmarks quickly enough.”
“They are out, sir. Noguchi.”
It took only minutes to convince everyone else in the control room that Kelly was right, only a little longer to convince even Simes. He finally looked up from the charts with a face greenish white. “Not a word to anybody,” he said. “That’s an order—and I’ll bust any man who slips. Kelly, take the watch.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“I’ll be in the Captain’s cabin.” He went below to tell Blaine that the Asgard had come out in unknown space—was lost.
ANYWHERE
Two hours later Max climbed wearily up into the Worry Hole. He had just had a bad half hour, telling the truth as he saw it. Captain Blaine had been disinclined to blame anyone but himself, but had seemed stunned and bewildered. Simes had been nasty. His unstated logic seemed to be that, since it could not possibly be his fault and since it was unthinkable to blame the Captain, it must be Max’s fault. Since Max had been relieved some minutes before transition, his theory seemed to be that Max had caused it by making a disturbance as they were approaching the critical instant—joggled their elbows, so to speak.
Mr. Walther had been present, a mute judge. They spoke of matters’ outside his profession; he had seemed to be studying their faces. Max had stuck doggedly to his story.
He found Kelly still on watch. Kovak and Smythe were taking spectrograms; Noguchi and Lundy were busy with papers. “Want to be relieved?” he said to Kelly.
Kelly looked troubled. “I’m sorry, but you can’t.” “Huh?”
“Mr. Simes phoned while you were on your way up. He says you are not to stand duty until further notice.”
“He did? Well, I’m not surprised.”
“He also said that you were to stay out of the control room.”
Max made a violent statement about Simes. He added, “Well, it was nice while it lasted. Be seeing you.”
He turned away but Kelly stopped him. “Don’t be in a hurry, Max. He won’t be up for a while. I want to know what happened. From the computer I can’t tell what goes on.”
Max told him, drawing on his memory for the figures. Kelly nodded at last. “That confirms what I’ve been able to dig out. The Captain flubbed with a transposition—easy to do. Then Simes didn’t have the guts to make a big correction when it came around to him. But one more thing you don’t know. Neither do they—yet.”
“Huh? What?”
“The power room recorder shows it. Guenther had the watch down there and gave it to me over the phone. No, I didn’t tell him anything was wrong. I just asked for the record; that’s not unusual. By the way, any excitement down below? Passengers blowing their tops?”
“Not when I came up.”
“Won’t be long. They can’t keep this quiet forever. Back to my story—things were already sour but the Captain had one last chance. He applied the correction and a whopping big one. But he applied it with the wrong sign, just backwards.”
Profanity was too weak. All Max could say was, “Oh, my!” “Yeah. Well, there’s the devil to pay and him out to lunch.” “Any idea where we are?”
Kelly pointed to Kovak and Smythe at the spectrostellograph. “They’re fishing, but no bites. Bright stars first, B-types and O’s. But there is nothing that matches the catalogues so far.”
Noguchi and Lundy were using a hand camera. Max asked, “What are they doing?”
“Photographing the records. All of ’em—programming sheets, the rough data from the chartsmen, the computer tape, everything.”
“What good will that do?”
“Maybe none. But sometimes records get lost. Sometimes they even get changed. But not this time. I’m going to have a set of my own.”
The unpleasant implications of Kelly’s comments were sinking into Max’s mind when Noguchi looked up. “That’s all, Boss.”
“Good.” Kelly turned to Max. “Do me a favor. Stick those films in your pocket and take them with you. I want them out of here. I’ll pick them up later.”
“Well… all right.” While Noguchi was unloading the camera Max added to Kelly, “How long do you
think it will take to figure out where we are, checking spectra?”
Kelly looked more troubled than ever. “Max, what makes you think there is anything to find?” “I don’t follow you.”
“Why should anything out there… ” He made a sweeping gesture. “… match up with any charts we’ve got here?”
“You mean,” Max said slowly, “that we might not be in our own galaxy at all? Maybe in another, like the Andromeda Nebula, say?”
“Maybe. But that’s not all. Look, Max, I’m no theoretical physicist, that’s sure, but so far as I know all that theory says is that when you pass the speed of light you have to go out of your own space, somewhere else. You’ve become irrelevant and it won’t hold you. But where you go, unless you are set just right for a Horst congruency, that’s another matter. The theory doesn’t say. Does it?”
Max’s head started to ache. “Gee, I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. But since we weren’t set to duck back into our own space at another point, we may be anywhere. And I mean anywhere. We may be in some other space-time totally unconnected with our own.” He glanced up at the strange stars.
Max went below feeling worse than ever. He passed Simes going up; the Astrogator scowled at him but did not say anything. When Max reached his stateroom he put the films in a drawer—then thought about it, removed the drawer and cached them in dead space behind the drawer.
Max stayed in his room and worried. He fretted over being kept out of the control room, wanting very badly himself to check the sky for known stars. B- and O-type stars—well, that was all right, but there were half a dozen other ways. Globular star clusters, now—they’d be easy to identify; snag four of them and you’d know where you were as clear as reading a street sign. Then it would be just a case of fining it down, because you’d know what to look for and where. After which you’d high-tail it for the nearest charted congruency, whether it took you a week or a year. The ship couldn’t really be lost.
But suppose they weren’t even in the right galaxy?
The thought dismayed him. If that were the case, they’d never get home before the end of time. It was chased out by another thought—suppose Kelly’s suspicion had been correct, that this was an entirely different universe, another system of space and time? What then? He had read enough philosophical fancies to know that there was no theoretical reason for such to be impossible; the Designer might have created an infinity of universes, perhaps all pretty much alike—or perhaps as different as cheese and Wednesday. Millions, billions of them, all side by side from a multidimensional point of view.
Another universe might have different laws, a different speed of light, different gravitational ballistics, a different time rate—why they might get back to find that ten million years had passed and Earth burnt to a cinder!
But the light over his desk burned steadily, his heart pumped as always, obeying familiar laws of hydraulics, his chair pressed up against him—if this was a different sort of space the differences weren’t obvious. And if it was a different universe, there was nothing to be done about it.
A knock came at the door, he let Kelly in and gave him the chair, himself sitting on the bed. “Any news?” “No. Golly I’m tired. Got those pix?”
Max took out the drawer, fished around behind it, gave them to Kelly. “Look, Chief, I got an idea.” “Spill it.”
“Let’s assume that we’re in the right galaxy, because—” “Because if we ain’t, there isn’t any point in trying!”
“Well, yes. All right, we’re in the Milky Way. So we look around, make quick sample star counts and estimate the distance and direction of the center. Then we try to identify spectra of stars in that direction, after deciding what ones we ought to look for and figuring apparent magnitudes for estimated distance. That would…”
“—save a lot of time,” Kelly finished wearily. “Don’t teach your grandpop how to suck eggs. What the deuce do you think I’ve been doing?”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s more than our revered boss thought of. While I been trying to work he’s been bellyachin’ around, finding fault, and trying to get me to say that he was dead right in everything—worrying about himself instead of worrying about his ship. Pfui! By the way, he grabbed the records just like I thought he would—’to show the Captain.’ He says.” Kelly stood up. “I’d better go.”
“Don’t rush. I’ll ring for coffee.”
“Running out of my ears now.” Kelly took the films from his pocket and looked at them dutifully. “I had Noggy make two shots of everything; this is a double set. That’s a good hidey-hole you’ve got. What say we stick one set in there and let it cool? Never can tell.”
“Kelly, you aren’t really expecting trouble over those records? Seems to me we’ve got trouble enough with the ship being lost.”
“Huh? Max, you’re going to make a good officer some day. But you’re innocent. Now I’m a suspenders and belt man. I like to take as few chances as possible. Doc Hendrix—rest his soul!—was the same way.” Kelly waited until Max had returned the spare set to the space back of the drawer, then started to leave. He paused.
“One thing I forgot to tell you, Max. We happened to come out pretty close to a star and a G-type at that.”
“Oh.” Max considered it. “Not one we know?”
“Of course not, or I would have said so. Haven’t sized it yet, but figuring normal range in the G’s we could reach it in not less than four weeks, not more than a year, at high boost. Thought you’d like to know.”
“Well, yes. Thanks. But I can’t see that it makes much difference.”
“No? Doesn’t it seem like a good idea to have a Sol-type star, with maybe Earth-type planets around it, not far off?”
“Well…”
“It does to me. The Adam-and-Eve business is rugged at best—and we might be in for a long stay.” With that he left.
No steward’s mate came to tell Max it was time for dinner; when he noticed that it was past time, he went to the lounge. Most of the passengers were already seated, although some were standing around talking. It was impossible to miss the feeling of unrest in the room. Max saw that the Captain was not at his table, nor was Mr. Walther at his. As he headed for his own table a Mr. Hornsby tried to grab his arm. Max shook him off. “Sorry, sir. I’m in a hurry.”
“Wait a minute! I want to ask you…”
“Sorry.” He hurried on and sat down. Chief Engineer Compagnon was not at the table, but the usual passengers were present. Max said, “Good evening,” and reached for his soup spoon, just to keep busy.
There was no soup to be toyed with, nor were there rolls and butter on the table, although it was ten minutes past the hour. Such things simply did not happen in Chief Steward Dumont’s jurisdiction. Come to think about it, Dumont was not in sight.
Mrs. Daigler put a hand on his arm. “Max? Tell me, dear—what is this silly rumor going around?” Max tried to maintain a poker face. “What rumor, ma’am?”
“You must have heard it! After all, you’re in astrogation. They say that the Captain turned the wrong corner or something and that we’re falling into a star.”
Max tried to give a convincing chuckle. “Who told you that? Whoever it was probably couldn’t tell a star from his elbow.”
“You wouldn’t fool your Aunt Maggie?”
“I can assure you positively that the Asgard is not falling into a star. Not even a small star.” He turned in his chair. “But it does look like something’s fallen into the galley. Dinner is awfully late.”
He remained turned, trying to avoid further questions. It did not work. Mr. Arthur called out sharply, “Mr. Jones!”
He turned back. “Yes?”
“Why stall us? I have been informed authoritatively that the ship is lost.” Max tried to look puzzled. “I don’t follow you. We seem to be in it.”
Mr. Arthur snorted. “You know what I mean! Something went wrong with that whatyoumucallit—transition. We’re lost.”
Max put on a school-teacherish manner, ticking off points on his fingers. “Mr. Arthur, I assure you that the ship is in absolutely no danger. As for being lost, I assure you just as firmly that if we are, the Captain neglected to tell me so. I was in the control room at transition and he seemed quite satisfied with it.
Would you mind telling me who has been spreading this story? It’s a serious thing, starting such rumors. People have been known to panic.”
“Well… it was one of the crew. I don’t know his name.”
Max nodded. “I thought so. Now in my experience in space… ” He went on, quoting from his uncle. “… I have learned that the only thing faster than light is the speed with which a story can spread through a ship. It doesn’t have to have any foundation, it spreads just the same.” He looked around again. “I wonder what has happened to dinner? I’d hate to go on watch hungry.”
Mrs. Weberbauer said nervously, “Then we are all right, Maxie?” “We’re all right, ma’am.”
Mrs. Daigler leaned toward him again and whispered, “Then why are you sweating, Max?”
He was saved by a steward’s mate rushing up to the table and starting to deal out plates of soup. Max stopped him when he came around and said quietly, “Jim, where’s Dumont?”
Out of the corner of his mouth the waiter said, “Cooking.” “Huh? Where’s the chef?”
The steward’s mate leaned down and whispered, “Frenchy is boiled as a judge. I guess he couldn’t take it. You know.”
Max let him go. Mr. Arthur said sharply, “What did he tell you?”
“I was trying to find out what went wrong in the galley,” Max answered. “Seems the cook incapacitated himself.” He spooned up a mouthful of the soup. “From the taste I’d say he had burned his thumb in this so-called chowder. Pretty bad, isn’t it?”
Max was saved from further evasions by the arrival of the First Officer. Mr. Walther went to the Captain’s table and banged on a glass with a spoon. “Your attention, please!”
He waited for quiet, then took a paper from his pocket. “I have an announcement to make on behalf of the Captain. Those of you who are familiar with the theory of astrogation are aware that space is changing constantly, due to the motions of the stars, and that consequently no two trips are exactly alike. Sometimes it is necessary, for this reason, to make certain changes in a ship’s routing. Such a circumstance has arisen in this present trip and the Asgard will be somewhat delayed in reaching her next destination. We regret this, but we can’t change the laws of nature. We hope that you will treat it as a minor inconvenience—or even as additional vacation, in the friendly and comfortable atmosphere of our ship. Please remember, too, that the insurance policy accompanying your ticket covers you completely against loss or damage you may be cost through the ship being behind schedule.”
He put away the paper; Max had the impression that he had not actually been reading from it. “That is all that the Captain had to say, but I want to add something myself. It has come to my attention that someone has been spreading silly rumors about this minor change in schedule. I am sorry if any of you have been alarmed thereby and I assure you that I will take very strict measures if the originator can be identified.” He risked a dignified smile. “But you know how difficult it is to trace down a bit of gossip. In any case, I want to assure you all that the Asgard is in no danger of any sort. The old girl was plying space long before any of us were born, she’ll still be going strong after we all die of old age—bless her sturdy bones!” He turned and left at once.
Max had listened in open-mouthed admiration. He came from country where the “whopper” was a respected literary art and it seemed to him that he had never heard a lie told with more grace, never seen one interwoven with truth with such skill, in his life. Piece by piece, it was impossible to say that anything
the First Officer had said was untrue; taken as a whole it was a flat statement that the Asgard was not lost—a lie if he ever heard one. He turned back toward his table mates. “Will someone pass the butter, please?”
Mr. Arthur caught his eye. “And you told us,” he said sharply, “that nothing was wrong!” Mr. Daigler growled, “Lay off him, Arthur. Max did pretty well, under the circumstances.” Mrs. Weberbauer looked bewildered. “But Mr. Walther said that everything was all right?”
Daigler looked at her with compassion. “We’re in trouble, Mama Weberbauer. That’s obvious. But all we can do is keep calm and trust the ship’s officers. Right, Max?”
“I guess that’s right, sir.”
“THIS ISN’T A PICNIC”
Max kept to his room that evening and the next day, wishing neither to be questioned by passengers nor to answer questions about why he had been relieved of duty. In consequence he missed the riot, having slept through it. He first heard of it when the steward’s mate who tended his room showed up with a black eye. “Who gave you the shiner, Garcia?”
“I’m not sure, sir. It happened in the ruckus last night.” “Ruckus? What ruckus?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it. What happened?”
Garcia Lopez stared at the overhead. “Well—I wouldn’t want to say too much. You know how it is—nobody wants to testify against a mate. No?”
“Who asked you to peach on a mate? You don’t have to mention names—but what happened?”
“Well, sir. Some of those chicos, they ain’t got much sense.” Slowly Max learned that the unrest among the crew had been greater than that among the passengers, possibly because they understand more clearly the predicament. Some of them had consulted with Giordano’s poor-man’s vodka, then had decided to call on the Captain in a body and demand straight talk. The violence had taken place when the master-at-arms had attempted to turn them back at the companionway to “C” deck.
“Anybody hurt?”
“Not what you’d call hurt. Cut up a little. I picked this up… ” He touched his eye tenderly. “… from being too anxious to see what was going on. Slats Kovak busted an ankle.”
“Kovak! Why would he be in it?” It did not make sense that a member of the Worry gang should take part in anything so unreasonable.
“He was coming down, coming off watch, I guess. Maybe he was backing up the constable. Or maybe
he just got caught in the swinging doors. Your friend Sam Anderson was sure in the thick of it.” Sam! Max felt sick at heart—Sam in trouble again! “You’re sure?”
“I was there.”
“Uh, he wasn’t leading it, was he?”
“Oh, you got me wrong, M—Mr. Jones. He settled it. I never see a man who could use his hands like that. He’d grab two of ’em… clop! their heads would come together. Then he would grab two more.”
Max decided to come out of hiding and do two things; look up Kovak, find out how he was and what he might need or want, and second, look up Sam. But before he could leave Smythe arrived with a watch list to initial. He found that he was assigned watch-and-watch with Simes—and that he himself was due on watch immediately. He went up, wondering what had caused Simes to relent.
Kelly was in the control room; Max looked around, did not see Simes. “You got it, Chief?” “Until you relieve me. This is my last watch.”
“How’s that? Are you his pet peeve now?”
“You could say so. But not the way you think, Max. He drew up a watch list with him and me
heel-and-toe. I politely pointed out the guild rules, that I wasn’t being paid to take the responsibility of top watch.”
“Oh, brother! What did he say?”
“What could he say? He could order me in writing and I could accept in writing, with my objection to the orders entered in the log—and his neck is out a yard. Which left him his choice of putting you back on the list, asking the Captain to split it with him, or turning his cap around and relieving himself for the next few weeks. With Kovak laid up it didn’t leave him much choice. You heard about Kovak?”
“Yes. Say, what was that?” Max glanced over where Noguchi was loafing at the computer and lowered his voice. “Mutiny?”
Kelly’s eyes grew round. “Why, as I understand it, sir, Kovak slipped and fell down a companionway.” “Oh. Like that, huh?”
“That’s what it says in the log.”
“Hmm… well, I guess I had better relieve you. What’s the dope?”
They were in orbit under power for the nearby G-type star; the orders were entered in the Captain’s order book… in Simes’ handwriting but with Captain Blaine’s signature underneath. To Max it looked shaky, as if the Old Man had signed it under emotional stress. Kelly had already placed them in the groove. “Have we given up trying to find out where we are?” Max asked.
“Oh, no. Orders are to spend as much time as routine permits on it. But I’ll lay you seven to two you don’t find anything. Max, this is somewhere else entirely.”
“Don’t give up. How do you know?” “I feel it.”
Nevertheless Max spent the watch “fishing.” But with no luck. Spectrograms, properly taken and measured, are to stars what fingerprints are to men; they can be classified and comparisons made with those on file which are most nearly similar. While he found many which matched fairly closely with catalogued spectra, there was always the difference that makes one identical twin not quite like his brother.
Fifteen minutes before the end of the watch he stopped, and made sure that he was ready to be relieved. While waiting he thought about the shenanigan Kelly had pulled to get him back on duty. Good old Kelly! He knew Kelly well enough to know that he must not thank him; to do so would be to attribute to the Chief Computerman a motive which was “improper”—just wink the other eye and remember it.
Simes stomped in five minutes past the hour. He said nothing but looked over the log and records of observations Max had made. Max waited several minutes while growing more and more annoyed. At last he said, “Are you ready to relieve me, sir?”
“All in good time. I want to see first what you’ve loused up this time.” Max kept his mouth shut. Simes pointed at the log where Max had signed it followed by “C.O. o/W.” “That’s wrong, to start with. Add ‘under instruction.'”
Max breathed deeply. “Whose instruction, sir?” “Mine.”
Max hesitated only momentarily before answering, “No, sir. Not unless you are present during my watch to supervise me.”
“Are you defying me?”
“No, sir. But I’ll take written orders on that point… entered in the log.”
Simes closed the log book and looked him slowly up and down. “Mister, if we weren’t short-handed you wouldn’t be on watch. You aren’t ready for a top watch—and it’s my opinion that you won’t ever be.”
“If that’s the way you feel, sir, I’d just as lief go back to chartsman. Or steward’s mate.”
“That’s where you belong!” Simes’ voice was almost a scream. Noguchi had hung around after Lundy had relieved him; they both looked up, then turned their heads away.
Max made no effort to keep his answer private. “Very good, sir. Will you relieve me? I’ll go tell the First Officer that I am surrendering my temporary appointment and reverting to my permanent billet.”
Max expected a blast. But Simes made a visible effort to control himself and said almost quietly, “See here, Jones, you don’t have the right attitude.”
Max thought to himself, “What have I got to lose?” Aloud he said, “You’re the one who doesn’t have the right attitude, sir.”
“Eh? What’s that?”
“You’ve been riding me ever since I came to work in the Hole. You’ve never bothered to give me any instruction and you’ve found fault with everything I did. Since my probationary appointment it’s been four times worse. You came to my room and told me that you were opposed to my appointment, that you didn’t want me…”
“You can’t prove that!”
“I don’t have to. Now you tell me that I’m not fit to stand the watch you’ve just required me to stand. You’ve made it plain that you will never recommend me for permanent appointment, so obviously I’m wasting my time. I’ll go back to the Purser’s gang and do what I can there. Now, will you relieve me, sir?”
“You’re insubordinate.”
“No, sir, I am not. I have spoken respectfully, stating facts. I have requested that I be relieved—my watch was over a good half hour ago—in order that I may see the First Officer and revert to my permanent billet. As allowed by the rules of both guilds,” Max added.
“I won’t let you.”
“It’s my option, sir. You have no choice.”
Simes’ face showed that he indeed had no choice. He remained silent for some time, then said more quietly, “Forget it. You’re relieved. Be back up here at eight o’clock.”
“Not so fast, sir. You have stated publicly that I am not competent to take the watch. Therefore I can’t accept the responsibility.”
“Confound it! What are you trying to do? Blackmail me?
Max agreed in his mind that such was about it, but he answered, “I wouldn’t say so, sir. You can’t have it both ways.”
“Well—I suppose you are competent to stand this sort of watch. There isn’t anything to do, actually.” “Very good, sir. Will you kindly log the fact?”
“Huh?”
“In view of the circumstances, sir, I insist on the letter of the rules and ask you to log it.”
Simes swore under his breath, then grabbed the stylus and wrote quickly. He swung the log book around. There!”
Max read: “M. Jones is considered qualified to stand a top watch in space, not involving anomaly. (s) R. Simes, Astrogator.”
Max noted the reservation, the exception that would allow Simes to keep him from ever reaching permanent status. But Simes had stayed within the law. Besides, he admitted to himself, he didn’t want to leave the Worry gang. He comforted himself with the thought that since they were all lost together it might never matter what Simes recommended.
“Quite satisfactory, sir.”
Simes grabbed the book. “Now get out. See that you’re back here on time.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Max could not refrain from having the last word, standing up to Simes had gone to his head. “Which reminds me, sir: will you please relieve me on time after this?”
“What?”
“Under the law a man can’t be worked more than four hours out of eight, except for a logged emergency.”
“Go below!”
Max went below, feeling both exultant and sick. He had no taste for fights, never had; they left him with a twisted lump inside. He burst into his room, and almost fell over Sam.
“Sam!”
“The same. What’s eating you, boy? You look like the goblins had been chasing you.”
Max flopped on his bunk and sighed. “I feel that way, too.” He told Sam about the row with Simes.
Sam nodded approval. “That’s the way to deal with a jerk like that—insult him until he apologizes. Give him lumps enough times and he’ll eat out of your hand.”
Max shook his head dolefully. “Today was fun, but he’ll find some way to take it out on me. Oh, well!” “Not so, my lad. Keep your nose clean and wait for the breaks. If a man is stupid and
bad-tempered—which he is, I sized him up long ago—if you are smart and keep your temper, eventually
he leaves himself wide open. That’s a law of nature.”
“Maybe.” Max swung around and sat up. “Sam—you’re wearing your shield again.”
Sam stuck his thumb under the badge of office of Chief Master-at-Arms. “Didn’t you notice?” “I guess I was spinning too fast. Tell me about it—did the First decide to forgive and forget?” “Not precisely. You know about that little excitement last night?”
“Well, yes. But I understand that officially nothing happened?” “Correct. Mr. Walther knows when to pull his punches.” “What did happen? I heard you cracked some skulls together.”
“Nothing much. And not very hard. I’ve seen ships where it would have been regarded as healthy exercise to settle your dinner. Some of the lads got scared and that made them lap up happy water. Then a couple with big mouths and no forehead got the inspiration that it was their right to talk to the Captain about it. Being sheep, they had to go in a flock. If they had run into an officer, he could have sent them back to bed with no trouble. But my unfortunate predecessor happened to run into them and told them to disperse. Which they didn’t. He’s not the diplomatic type, I’m afraid. So he hollered, ‘Hey, Rube!’ in his quaint idiom and the fun began.”
“But where do you figure? You came to help him?”
“Hardly. I was standing at a safe distance, enjoying the festivities, when I noticed Mr. Walther’s bedroom slippers coming down the ladder. Whereupon I waded in and was prominent in the ending. The way to win a medal, Max, is to make sure the general is watching, then act.”
Max grinned. “Somehow I hadn’t figured you for the hero type.”
“Heaven forbid! But it worked out. Mr. Walther sent for me, ate me out, told me that I was a scoundrel and a thief and a nogoodnick—then offered me my shield back if I could keep order below decks. I
looked him in the eye, a sincere type look, and told him I would do my best. So here I am.” “I’m mighty pleased, Sam.”
“Thanks. Then he looked me in the eye and told me that he had reason to suspect—as if he didn’t know!—that there might be a still somewhere in the ship. He ordered me to find it, and then destroy any liquor I found.”
“So? How did Mr. Gee take that?”
“Why, Fats and I disassembled his still and took the pieces back to stores, then we locked up his stock in trade. I pleaded with him not to touch it until the ship was out of its mess. I explained that I would break both his arms if he did.”
Max chuckled. “Well, I’m glad you’re back in good graces. And it was nice of you to come tell me about it.” He yawned. “Sorry. I’m dead for sleep.”
“I’ll vamoose. But I didn’t come to tell you, I came to ask a question.” “Huh? What?”
“Have you seen the Skipper lately?”
Max thought back. “Not since transition. Why?”
“Nor has anyone else. I thought he might be spending his time in the Worry Hole.”
“No. Come to think, he hasn’t been at his table either—at least when I’ve been in the lounge.”
“He’s been eating in his cabin.” Sam stood up. “Very, very interesting. Mmm… I wouldn’t talk about it, Max.”
Simes was monosyllabic when Max relieved him. Thereafter they had no more words; Simes acted as if Max did not exist except for the brief formalities in relieving. The Captain did not show up in the control room. Several times Max was on the point of asking Kelly about it, but each time decided not to. But there were rumors around the ship—the Captain was sick, the Captain was in a coma, Walther and the Surgeon had relieved him of duty, the Captain was constantly at his desk, working out a new and remarkable way to get the ship back to where it belonged.
By now it was accepted that the ship was lost, but the time for hysteria had passed; passengers and crew were calm and there seemed to be general consent that the decision to put down around the solar-type star toward which they were headed was the only reasonable decision. They were close enough now that it had been determined that the star did have planets—no G-class star had ever been found to be without planets, but to pick them up on a stereoplate was consoling.
It came to a choice between planet #3 and planet #4. Bolometric readings showed the star to have a surface temperature slightly over 6000° Kelvin, consistent with its spectrum; it was not much larger than Father Sol; calculated surface temperatures for the third and fourth planets gave a probability that the third might be uncomfortably hot whereas number four might be frigid. Both had atmospheres.
A fast hyperboloid swing past both settled the matter. The bolometer showed number three to be too hot and even number four to be tropical. Number four had a moon which the third did not—another
advantage for four, for it permitted, by examining the satellite’s period, an easy calculation of its mass; from that and its visible diameter its surface gravity was a matter of substitution in classic Newtonian formula… ninety-three percent of Earth-normal, comfortable and rather low in view of its over
ten-thousand-mile diameter. Absorption spectra showed oxygen and several inert gases.
Simes assisted by Kelly placed the Asgard in a pole-to-pole orbit to permit easy examination—Max, as usual, was left to chew his nails.
The Captain did not come to the control room even to watch this maneuver.
They hung in parking orbit while their possible future home was examined from the control room and stared at endlessly from the lounge. It was in the lounge that Ellie tracked Max down. He had hardly seen her during the approach, being too busy and too tired with a continuous heel-and-toe watch and in the second place with much on his mind that he did not want to have wormed out of him. But, once the orbit was established and power was off, under standard doctrine Simes could permit the watch to be taken by crewmen—which he did and again told Max to stay out of the control room.
Max could not resist the fascination of staring at the strange planet; he crowded into the lounge along with the rest. He was standing back and gazing over heads when he felt his arm grabbed. “Where have you been?”
“Working.” He reached out and caressed Chipsie; the spider puppy leaped to his shoulders and started searching him.
“Hmmmph! You don’t work all the time. Do you know that I sent nine notes to your room this past week?”
Max knew. He had saved them but had not answered. “Sorry.”
“Sorry he says. Never mind—Max, tell me all about it.” She turned and looked out. “What have they named it? Is there anybody on it? Where are we going to land? When are we going to land? Max, aren’t you excited?”
“Whew! They haven’t named it yet—we just call it’the planet’ or ‘number four.’ Kelly wants to name it ‘Hendrix.’ Simes is hedging; I think he wants to name it after himself. The Captain hasn’t made any decision that I know of.”
“They ought to name it ‘Truth’ or ‘Hope’ or something like that. Where is the Captain, Max? I haven’t seen the old dear for days.”
“He’s working. This is a busy time for him, of course.” Max reflected that his evasion might be true. “About your other questions, we haven’t seen any signs of cities or towns or anything that looks like civilization.”
“What do you mean by ‘civilization’? Not a lot of dirty old cities surely?”
Max scratched his head and grinned. “You’ve got me. But I don’t see how you could have it, whatever it is, without cities.”
“Why not? Bees have cities, ants have cities, challawabs have cities. None of them is civilized. I can think of a lovely civilization that would just sit around in trees and sing and think beautiful thoughts.”
“Is that what you want?”
“No, it would bore me to death. But I can think about it, can’t I? You didn’t say when we were going to land?”
“I don’t know. When they decide it’s safe.”
“I wish they would hurry. Isn’t it thrilling? Just like Robinson Crusoe, or Swiss Family Robinson—I can’t keep those two straight. Or the first men on Venus.”
“They died.”
“So they did. But we won’t, not on—” She waved her hand at the lovely green and blue and cloudy-white globe. “—not on, uh, I’m going to call it ‘Charity’ because that’s what it looks like.”
Max said soberly, “Ellie, don’t you realize this is serious?” He kept his voice low in order not to alarm others. “This isn’t a picnic. If this place doesn’t work out, it might be pretty awful.”
“Why?”
“Look, don’t quote me and don’t talk about it. But I don’t think any of us will ever get home again.”
She sobered momentarily, then shrugged and smiled. “You can’t frighten me. Sure, I’d like to go home—but if I can’t, well, Charity is going to be good to us. I know it.”
Max shut up.
“—OVER A HUNDRED YEARS—”
The Asgard landed on Charity the following day. Eldreth affixed her choice by the statistical process of referring to the planet by that name, assuming that it was official, and repeating it frequently.
When word was passed that landing would commence at noon, ship’s time, Max went to the control room and simply assumed that it was his right to be present. Simes looked at him sourly but said nothing—for an evident reason: Captain Blaine was present.
Max was shocked at his appearance. The Captain seemed to have aged ten to fifteen years since the bad transition. In place of his habitual cheerful expression was one that Max had trouble tagging—until he recalled that he had seen it on horses, on horses too old to work but still working—head bent, eyes dull, mute and resigned against a fate both inescapable and unbearable. The old man’s skin hung loose, as if he had not eaten for days or weeks. He seemed hardly interested in what was going on around him.
He spoke only once during the maneuver. Just before the chronometer showed noon Simes straightened up from the console and looked at his skipper. Blaine lifted his head and said in a hoarse whisper, “Take her down, Mister.”
An Imperial military ship in landing on a strange spot would normally guide a radar-beacon robot down first, then home in on the beacon. But the Asgard was a merchant liner; she expected to land nowhere but at ports equipped with beams and beacons and other aids. Consequently the landing was made blind by precomputed radar-automatic and was planned for an open valley selected by photograph. The planet was densely wooded in most areas, choice was limited.
Simes presented a picture of the alert pilot, hands poised at the controls, eyes on the radar screen portraying the view below them, while racked in front of him were comparison photographs, radar and visual. The let down was without incident; starry black sky gave way to deep purple, then to blue. There was not even a jar as the ship touched, for its private gravity inside its Horstian field kept them from feeling impressed acceleration. Max knew they were down when he saw Simes cut in the thrust beams to cradle the ship upright.
Simes said to the microphone, “Power room, start auxiliaries and secure. All hands, dirtside routine, first section.” He turned to Blaine. “Grounded, Captain.”
Blaine’s lips shaped the words, “Very good, sir.” He got up and shuffled toward the hatch. When he had gone Simes ordered, “Lundy, take stand-by watch. The rest of you clear the control room.”
Max went down with Kelly. When they reached “A” deck Max said grudgingly, “It was a smart landing I’ll have to admit.”
“Thanks,” said Kelly.
Max glanced at him. “So you calculated it?” “I didn’t say that. I just said, ‘Thanks.'”
“So? Well, you’re welcome.” Max felt his weight pulse and suddenly he was a trifle lighter. “They cut the field. Now we’re really down.”
He was about to invite Kelly into his room for the inevitable coffee when the ship’s speakers sounded: “All hands! All passengers! Report to Bifrost Lounge for an important announcement. Those on watch are ordered to listen in by phone.”
“What’s up?” asked Max. “Why wonder? We’ll go see.”
The lounge was crowded with passengers and crew. First Officer Walther stood near the Captain’s table, counting the crowd with his eyes. Max saw him speak to Bennett, who nodded and hurried away. The large view port was across the lounge from Max; he stretched on his toes and tried to see out. All he could see was hilltops and blue sky.
There was a lessening of the murmur of voices; Max looked around to see Bennett preceding Captain Blaine through the crowd. The Captain went to his table and sat down; the First Officer glanced at him, then cleared his throat loudly. “Quiet, please.”
He went on, “I’ve called you together because Captain Blaine has something he wants to say to you.” He stopped and stepped back respectfully.
Captain Blaine slowly stood up, looked uncertainly around. Max saw him square his thin shoulders and lift his head. “Men,” he said, his voice suddenly firm and strong. “My guests and friends—” he went on, his voice sinking. There was a hush in the lounge, Max could hear the Captain’s labored breathing. He again asserted control of himself and continued, “I have brought you… I have brought you as far as I can… ” His voice trailed off. He looked at them for a long moment, his mouth trembling. It seemed impossible for him to continue. The crowd started to stir.
But he did continue and they immediately quieted. “I have something else to say,” he began, then paused. This pause was longer, when he broke it his voice was a whisper. “I’m sorry. God keep you all.” He
turned and started for the door.
Bennett slipped quickly in front of him. Max could hear him saying quietly and firmly: “Gangway, please. Way for the Captain.” No one said anything until he was gone, but a woman passenger at Max’s elbow was sobbing softly.
Mr. Walther’s sharp, clear voice rang out. “Don’t go away, anyone! I have additional announcements to make.” His manner ignored what they had all just seen. “The time has come to sum up our present situation. As you can see, this planet is much like our Mother Earth. Tests must be made to be sure that the atmosphere is breathable, and so forth; the Surgeon and the Chief Engineer are making them now. But it seems likely that this new planet will prove to be eminently suitable for human beings, probably even more friendly than Earth.
“So far, we have seen no indications of civilized life. On the whole, that seems a good thing. Now as to our resources—The Asgard carries a variety of domestic animals, they will be useful and should be conserved as breeding stock. We have an even wider variety of useful plants, both in the ship’s hydroponic gardens and carried as seeds. We have a limited but adequate supply of tools. Most important of all the ship’s library contains a fair cross-section of our culture. Equally important, we ourselves have our skills and traditions…”
“Mr. Walther!”
“Yes, Mr. Hornsby?”
“Are you trying to tell us that you are dumping us here?”
Walther looked at him coldly. “No. Nobody is being’dumped’ as you put it. You can stay in the ship and you will be treated as a guest as long as the Asgard—or you yourself—is alive. Or until the ship reaches the destination on your ticket. If it does. No, I have been trying to discuss reasonably an open secret; this ship is lost.”
A voiceless sigh went through the room. All of them knew it, but up till now it had not been admitted officially. The flat announcement from a responsible officer echoed like the sentence of a court.
“Let me state the legal position,” Mr. Walther went on. “While this ship was in space you passengers were subject to the authority of the Captain, as defined by law, and through him you were subject to me and the other ship’s officers. Now we have landed. You may go freely… or you may stay. Legally this is an unscheduled stopover; if the ship ever leaves here you may return to it and continue as passengers.
That is my responsibility to you and it will be carried out. But I tell you plainly that at present I have no hope to offer that we will ever leave here—which is why I spoke of colonizing. We are lost.”
In the rear of the room a woman began to scream hysterically, with incoherent sounds of, “… home! I want to go home! Take me…”
Walther’s voice cut through the hubbub. “Dumont! Flannigan! Remove her. Take her to the Surgeon.”
He continued as if nothing had happened. “The ship and the ship’s crew will give every assistance possible, consistent with my legal responsibility to keep the ship in commission, to aid any of you who wish to colonize. Personally I think…”
A surly voice cut in, “Why talk about ‘law’? There is no law here!”
Walther did not even raise his voice. “But there is. As long as this ship is in commission, there is law, no matter how many light-years she may be from her home port. Furthermore, while I have no authority
over any who choose to leave the ship, I strongly advise you to make it your first act dirtside to hold a town meeting, elect officers, and found a constitutional government. I doubt that you can survive otherwise.”
“Mr. Walther.” “Yes, Mr. Daigler?”
“This is obviously no time for recriminations…” “Obviously!”
Daigler grinned wryly. “So I won’t indulge, though I could think of some. But it happens that I know something professionally about the economics of colonizing.”
“Good! We’ll use your knowledge.”
“Will you let me finish? A prime principle in maintaining a colony out of touch with its supply base is to make it large enough. It’s a statistical matter, too small a colony can be overwhelmed by a minor setback. It’s like going into a dice game with too little money: three bad rolls and you’re sunk. Looking around me, it’s evident that we have much less than optimal minimum. In fact—”
“It’s what we have, Mr. Daigler.”
“I see that. I’m not a wishful thinker. What I want to know is, can we count on the crew as well?”
Mr. Walther shook his head. “This ship will not be decommissioned as long as there are men capable of manning it. There is always hope, no matter how small, that we may find a way home. It is even possible that an Imperial survey ship might discover us. I’m sorry—no.”
“That isn’t quite what I asked. I was two jumps ahead of you, I figured you wouldn’t let the crew colonize. But can we count on their help? We seem to have about six females, give or take one, who will probably help to carry on the race. That means that the next generation of our new nation is going to be much smaller. Such a colony would flicker and die, by statistical probability—unless every man jack of us works ten hours a day for the rest of his life, just to give our children a better chance of making it. That’s all right with me, if we all make an all-out try. But it will take all the manpower we have to make sure that some young people who aren’t even born yet get by thirty years from now. Will the crew help?”
Mr. Walther said quietly, “I think you can count on it.” “Good enough.”
A small, red-faced man whose name Max had never learned interrupted. “Good enough, my eye! I’m going to sue the company, I’m going to sue the ship’s officers individually. I’m going to shout it from the… ” Max saw Sam slipping through the crowd to the man’s side, the disturbance stopped abruptly.
“Take him to the Surgeon,” Mr. Walther said wearily. “He can sue us tomorrow. The meeting is adjourned.”
Max started for his room. Eldreth caught up with him. “Max! I want to talk with you.” “All right.” He started back toward the lounge.
“No, I want to talk privately. Let’s go to your room.”
“Huh? Mrs. Dumont would blow her top, then she’d tell Mr. Walther.”
“Bother with all that! Those silly rules are dead. Didn’t you listen at the meeting?” “You’re the one who didn’t listen.”
He took her firmly by the arm, turned her toward the public room. They ran into Mr. and Mrs. Daigler coming the other way. Daigler said, “Max? Are you busy?”
“Yes,” answered Eldreth. “No,” said Max.
“Hmm… you two had better take a vote. I’d like to ask Max some questions. I’ve no objection to your being with us, Eldreth, if you will forgive the intrusion.
She shrugged. “Oh, well, maybe you can handle him. I can’t.”
They went to the Daiglers’ stateroom, larger and more luxurious than Max’s and possessing two chairs. The two women perched on the bed, the men took the chairs. Daigler began, “Max, you impress me as a man who prefers to give a straight answer. There are things I want to know that I didn’t care to ask out there. Maybe you can tell me.”
“I will if I can.”
“Good. I’ve tried to ask Mr. Simes, all I get is a snottily polite brush off. I haven’t been able to get in to see the Captain—after today I see that there wouldn’t have been any point anyhow. Now, can you tell me, with the mathematics left out, what chance we have to get home? Is it one in three, or one in a thousand—or what?”
“Uh, I couldn’t answer it that way.” “Answer it your own way.”
“Well, put it this way. While we don’t know where we are, we know positively where we aren’t. We aren’t within, oh, say a hundred light-years of any explored part of the Galaxy.”
“How do you know? It seems to me that’s a pretty big space to be explored in the weeks since we got off the track.”
“It sure is. It’s a globe twelve hundred trillion miles thick. But we didn’t have to explore it, not exactly.” “Then how?”
“Well, sir, we examined the spectra of all first magnitude stars in sight—and a lot more. None of them is in our catalogues. Some are giants that would be first magnitude anywhere within a hundred light-years of them—they’d be certain to be in the catalogues if a survey ship had ever been that close to them. So we are absolutely certain that we are a long, long way from anywhere that men have ever been before.
Matter of fact, I spoke too conservatively. Make it a globe twice as thick, eight times as big, and you’d still be way over on the conservative side. We’re really lost.”
“Mmm… I’m glad I didn’t ask those questions in the lounge. Is there any possibility that we will ever know where we are?”
“Oh, sure! There are thousands of stars left to examine. Chief Kelly is probably shooting one this minute.”
“Well, then, what are the chances that we will eventually find ourselves?”
“Oh, I’d say they were excellent—in a year or two at the outside. If not from single stars, then from globular star clusters. You realize that the Galaxy is a hundred thousand light-years across, more or less, and we can see only stars that are fairly close. But the globular clusters make good landmarks, too.” Max added the mental reservation, if we aren’t in the wrong galaxy. There seemed no point in burdening them with that dismaying possibility.
Daigler relaxed and took out a cigar. “This is the last of my own brand, but I’ll risk smoking it now. Well, Maggie, I guess you won’t have to learn how to make soap out of wood ashes and hog drippings after all. Whether it’s one year or five, we can sweat it out and go home.”
“I’m glad.” She patted her ornate coiffure with soft, beautifully manicured hands. “I’m hardly the type for it.”
“But you don’t understand!” “Eh? What’s that, Max?”
“I didn’t say we could get back. I just said I thought it was fairly certain we would find out where we are.”
“What’s the difference? We find out, then we go home.”
“No, because we can’t be less than a hundred light-years from explored space.”
“I don’t see the hitch. This ship can do a hundred light-years in a split second. What was the longest leap we made this cruise? Nearly five hundred light-years, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but—” Max turned to Eldreth. “You understand? Don’t you?” “Well, maybe. That folded-scarf thing you showed me?”
“Yes, yes. Mr. Daigler, sure the Asgard can transit five hundred light-years in no time—or any other distance. But only at calculated and surveyed congruencies. We don’t know of any within a hundred light-years, at least… and we won’t know of any even if we find out where we are because we know where we aren’t. Follow me? That means that the ship would have to travel at top speed for something over a hundred years and maybe much longer, just for the first leg of the trip.”
Mr. Daigler stared thoughtfully at his cigar ash, then took out a pen knife and cut off the burning end. “I’ll save the rest. Well, Maggie, better study up on that homemake soap deal. Thanks, Max. My father was a farmer, I can learn.”
Max said impulsively, “I’ll help you, sir.”
“Oh yes, you did tell us that you used to be a farmer, didn’t you? You should make out all right.” His eyes swung to Eldreth. “You know what I would do, if I were you kids? I’d get the Captain to marry you right away. Then you’d be all set to tackle colonial life right.”
Max blushed to his collar and did not look at Ellie. “I’m afraid I can’t. I’m a crew member, I’m not eligible to colonize.”
Mr. Daigler looked at him curiously. “Such devotion to duty. Well, no doubt Ellie can take her pick among the single men passengers.”
“Charityville” was a going concern within a week. It had a mayor, Mr. Daigler, a main street, Hendrix Avenue, even its first wedding, performed by the mayor in the presence of the villagers—Mr. Arthur and little Becky Weberbauer. The first cottage, now building, was reserved for the newlyweds. It was a log cabin and a very sloppy job, for, while there were those among them who had seen pictures or had even seen log cabins, there was no one who had ever built one before.
There was an air of hope, of common courage, even of gaiety in the new community. The place was fragrant with new starts, forward-looking thoughts. They still slept in the ship and breakfasted there, then carried their lunches and labored mightily, men and women alike, through the short day—Charity spun on her axis in twenty-one-plus hours. They returned at nightfall, dined in the ship, and some found energy to dance a bit before going to bed.
Charity seemed to be all that her name implied. The days were balmy, the nights were mild—and beautiful beyond anything yet found in the Galaxy. Its star (they simply called it “the Sun”) was accompanied by more comets than had yet been seen around any star. A giant with a wide tail stretched from zenith to western horizon, diving at their Sun. Another, not yet so grand but awesome enough to have caused watchers for the end of the world on Earthly hilltops, approached from the north, and two more decorated the southern sky with lace of icy fire.
Concomitant with comets was, necessarily, an equal abundance of meteors. Every night was a shower of falling stars, every day ended like Solar Union Day with a display of fireworks.
They had seen no dangerous animals. Some of the settlers reported seeing centaurlike creatures about the size of Shetland ponies, but they seemed timid and had scurried away when discovered. The prevalent life form appeared to be marsupial mammals in various sizes and shapes. There were no birds, but there was another sort of flying life not found elsewhere—jellyfishlike creatures four or five feet high with dangling tendrils, animated balloons. They appeared to have muscular control over their swollen bladders for they could rise and fall, and could even, by some not evident means, go upwind against a gentle breeze—in higher winds they anchored to treetops, or floated free and let the wind carry them.
They seemed curious about Charityville and would hang over a work site, turning slowly around as if to see everything. But they never got within reach. Some of the settlers wanted to shoot one down and examine it; Mayor Daigler forbade it.
There was another animal too—or might be. They were called “peekers” because all that anyone had seen was something that ducked quickly behind a rock or tree when anyone tried to look. Between the possibly mythical peeker and the ubiquitous balloons the colonists felt that their new neighbors took a deep but not unfriendly interest in what they were doing.
Maggie Daigler—she was “Maggie” to everyone now—had put away her jewels, drawn dungarees from ship’s stores, and chopped off her hair. Her nails were short and usually black with grime. But she looked years younger and quite happy.
In fact, everyone seemed happy but Max.
Ellie was avoiding him. He cursed himself and his big mouth thrice daily and four times at night. Sure, Daigler had spoken out of turn—but was that any reason for him to open his mouth and put his foot in it? Of course, he had never figured on marrying Ellie—but shucks, maybe they were stuck here forever. “Probably,” not “maybe,” he corrected. The ban on joining the colony would be let up in time—in which case, what was the sense in getting in bad with the only eligible girl around?
An astrogator ought to be a bachelor but a farmer needed a wife. Mighty nice to have some one cooking the turnip greens and jointing a chicken while a man was out in the fields. He ought to know—Maw had let it slide often enough. Ellie wouldn’t be like Maw. She was strong and practical and with just a little teaching would do all right.
Besides she was about the prettiest thing he ever saw, if you looked at her right.
When Mr. and Mrs. Dumont, by special dispensation, joined the colony it caused him to act. Since the steward and stewardess would have no duties in a ship without passengers no one could reasonably object—but it gave Max an approach. He went to see the First Officer.
“Probationary Apprentice Jones, sir.”
Walther glanced up. “I think I’d say ‘Assistant Astrogator Jones’ if I were you. Closer to the facts. Come in.”
“Uh, that’s what I wanted to speak with you about, sir.” “So? How?”
“I want to revert to my billet.”
“Eh? Why would you rather be a chartsman than an astrogator? And what difference does it make—now?”
“No, sir. I’m electing to resume my permanent appointment, steward’s mate third.” Walther looked amazed. “There must be more to this. Explain yourself.”
With much stammering Max explained his trouble with Simes. He tried to be fair and finished with the dismal feeling that he had sounded childish. Walther said, “You’re sure about this? Mr. Simes has said nothing to me about you.”
“He wouldn’t, sir. But it’s true. You can ask Kelly.”
Walther thought for a while. “Mr. Jones, I wouldn’t attach too much importance to this. At your age these conflicts of personality often seem more serious than they are. My advice is to forget it and do your work. I’ll speak to Mr. Simes about his keeping you out of the control room. That isn’t proper and I am surprised to hear it.”
“No, sir.”
“‘No, sir’ what?”
“I want to return to steward’s mate.” “Eh? I don’t understand you.”
“Because, sir, I want to join the colony. Like Chief Steward Dumont.”
“Oh… A light begins to dawn.” Walther slapped the desk emphatically. “Absolutely no! Under no circumstances.”
“Sir?”
“Please understand me. This is not discrimination. If you were a steward’s mate and nothing else, I would consider your request—under the special circumstances which I believe pertain. But you are an astrogator. You know our situation. Dr. Hendrix is dead. Captain Blaine—well, you have seen him. He may recover, I cannot plan on it. Mr. Jones, as long as there is any faint hope that this ship will ever lift again, as long as we have crew to work her, no astrogator, no chartsman, no computerman will be relieved from duty for any reason whatsoever. You see that, don’t you?”
“I guess so, sir. Uh, aye aye, sir.”
“Good. By the way, keep this to yourself, but as soon as the colony can get along without us temporarily, I want the ship placed in a parking orbit so that you specialists can maintain a search. You can’t work very well through this atmosphere, can you?”
“No, sir. Our instruments were designed for open space.”
“So we must see that you get it.” The First Officer sat silent, then added, “Mr. Jones—Max, isn’t it? May I speak to you man to man?”
“Uh? Certainly, sir.”
“Mmm… Max, this is none of my business, but treat it as fatherly advice. If you have an opportunity to marry—and want to—you don’t have to join the colony to do it. If we stay, it won’t matter in the long run whether you are crew or a charter member of the village. If we leave, your wife goes with you.”
Max’s ears burned. He could think of nothing to say.
“Hypothetical question, of course. But that’s the proper solution.” Walther stood up. “Why don’t you take the day off? Go take a walk or something. Fresh air will do you good. I’ll speak to Mr. Simes.”
Instead, Max went looking for Sam, did not find him in the ship, discovered that he had gone dirtside. He followed him down and walked the half mile to Charityville.
Before he reached the building that was being worked on he saw a figure separate itself from the gang. He soon saw that it was Eldreth. She stopped in front of him, a sturdy little figure in dirty dungarees. She planted her feet and set fists on her hips.
“Uh, howdy, Ellie.”
“Up to your old tricks! Avoiding me. Explain yourself.”
The injustice of it left him stuttering. “But… Now see here, Ellie, it’s not that way at all. You’ve been…”
“A likely story. You sound like Chipsie caught with her hand in a candy dish. I just wanted to tell you, you reluctant Don Juan, that you have nothing to worry about. I’m not marrying anyone this season. So you can resume the uneven tenor of your ways.”
“But, Ellie… ” he started desperately.
“Want me to put it in writing? Put up a bond?” She looked fiercely at him, then began to laugh, wrinkling her nose. “Oh, Max, you large lout, you arouse the eternal maternal in me. When you are upset your face gets as long as a mule’s. Look, forget it.”
“But, Ellie… Well, all right.” “Pals?”
“Pals.”
She sighed. “I feel better. I don’t know why, but I don’t like to be on the outs with you. Where were you going?”
“Uh, nowhere. Taking a walk.”
“Fine. I’ll go too. Half a sec while I gather in Chipsie.” She turned and called, “Mister Chips! Chipsie!” “I don’t see her.”
“I’ll get her.” She ran off, to return quickly with the spider puppy on her shoulder and a package in her hand. “I picked up my lunch. We can split it.”
“Oh, we won’t be gone that long. Hi, Chipsie baby.” “Hi, Max. Candy?”
He dug into a pocket, found a sugar cube that he had saved several days ago for the purpose; the spider puppy accepted it gravely and said, “Thank you.”
“Yes, we will,” Ellie disagreed, “because some of the men saw a herd of those centaur ponies the other side of that ridge. It’s quite a hike.”
“I don’t think we ought to go that far,” he said doubtfully. “Won’t they miss you?”
“I’ve been doing my share. See my callouses?” She stuck out a grimy paw. “I told Mr. Hornsby that I was suddenly come down with never-get-overs and he would have to find somebody else to hold while he hammered.”
He was pleased to give in. They went up rising ground and into an arroyo and soon were in a grove of primitive conifers. Mr. Chips jumped down from Ellie’s shoulders and scurried up a tree. Max stopped. “Hadn’t we better catch her?”
“You worry too much. Chipsie wouldn’t run away. She’d be scared to death. Chipsie! Here, honey!”
The spider puppy hustled through branches, got directly above them, dropped a cone on Max. Then she laughed, a high giggle. “See? She just wants to play.”
The ridge was high and Max found that his hillbilly’s wind had been lost somewhere among the stars. The arroyo meandered slowly upwards. He was still woodsman enough to keep a sharp eye out for landmarks and directions. At weary last they topped the crest. Ellie paused. “I guess they’re gone,” she said disappointedly, staring out over flatter country below them. “No! Look over there. See them! About two dozen little black dots.”
“Uh huh. Yeah.”
“Let’s go closer. I want a good look.”
“I wonder if that’s smart? We’re a far piece from the ship and I’m not armed.” “Oh, they’re harmless.”
“I was thinking of what else might be in these woods.”
“But we’re already in the woods, and all we’ve seen are the hobgoblins.” She referred to the balloonlike creatures, two of which had trailed them up the arroyo. The humans had grown so used to their presence that they no longer paid them any attention.
“Ellie, it’s time we went back.” “No.”
“Yes. I’m responsible for you. You’ve seen your centaurs.”
“Max Jones, I’m a free citizen. You may be starting back; I’m going to have a close look at those underslung cow ponies.” She started down.
“Well—Wait a moment. I want to get my bearings.” He took a full look around, fixed the scene forever in his mind, and followed her. He was not anxious to thwart her anyhow; he had been mulling over the notion that this was a good time to explain why he had said what he had said to Mr. Daigler—and perhaps lead around to the general subject of the future. He wouldn’t go so far as to talk about marriage—though he might bring it up in the abstract if he could figure out an approach.
How did you approach such a subject? You didn’t just say, “There go the hobgoblins, let’s you and me get married!”
Ellie paused. “There go the hobgloblins. Looks as if they were heading right for the herd.” Max frowned. “Could be. Maybe they talk to them?”
She laughed. “Those things?” She looked him over carefully. “Maxie, I’ve just figured out why I bother with you.”
Huh? Maybe she was going to lead up to it for him. “Why?”
“Because you remind me of Putzie. You get the same puzzled look he does.” “‘Putzie?’ Who is Putzie?”
“Putzie is the man my father shipped me off to Earth to get me away from—and the reason I crushed out of three schools to get back to Hespera. Only Daddy will probably have shipped him off, too. Daddy is tricky. Come here, Chipsie. Don’t go so far.”
She continued, “You’ll love Putzie. He’s nice. Stop it, Chipsie.”
Max despised the man already. “I don’t like to fret you,” he said, “but it’s a long way to Hespera.”
“I know. Let’s not borrow trouble.” She looked him over again. “I might keep you in reserve, if you weren’t so jumpy.”
Before he could think of the right answer she had started down.
The centaurs—it seemed the best name, though the underparts were not much like horses and the parts that stuck up were only vaguely humanoid—clustered near the foot of the hill, not far out from the trees. They weren’t grazing, it was hard to tell what they were doing. The two hobgoblins were over the group, hovering as if in interest just as they did with humans. Ellie insisted on going to the edge of the clearing to see them better.
They reminded Max of clowns made up to look like horses. They had silly, simple expressions and apparently no room for a brain case. They appeared to be marsupials, with pouches almost like bibs. Either they were all females or with this species the male had a pouch too. Several little centaurs were cavorting around, in and out the legs of their elders.
One of the babies spied them, came trotting toward them, sniffling and bleating. Behind it the largest adult pulled out of the herd to watch the young one. The colt scampered up and stopped about twenty feet away.
“Oh, the darling!” Ellie said and ran out a few feet, dropped to one knee. “Come here, pet. Come to mama.”
Max started for her. “Ellie! Come back here!”
The large centaur reached into its pouch, hauled out something, swung it around its head like a gaucho’s throwing rope. “Ellie!”
He reached her just as it let go. The thing struck them, wound around and held them. Ellie screamed and Max struggled to tear it loose—but they were held like Laocoön.
Another line came flying through the air, clung to them. And another.
Mr. Chips had followed Ellie. Now she skittered away, crying. She stopped at the edge of the clearing and shrilled, “Max! Ellie! Come back. Please back!”
CIVILIZATION
Ellie did not faint nor grow hysterical. After that involuntary scream, her next remark was simply, “Max, I’m sorry. My fault.”
The words were almost in his ear, so tightly were they tied together by the clinging ropes. He answered, “I’ll get us loose!” and continued to strain at their bonds.
“Don’t struggle,” she said quietly, “It just makes them tighter. We’ll have to talk our way out of this.”
What she said was true; the harder he strained the tighter the pythonlike bonds held them. “Don’t,” Ellie pleaded. “You’re making it worse. It’s hurting me.” Max desisted.
The largest centaur ambled up and looked them over. Its broad simple face was still more ludicrous close up and its large brown eyes held a look of gentle astonishment. The colt approached from the other side and sniffed curiously, bleated in a high voice. The adult bugled like an elk; the colt shied sideways, then rejoined the herd on a dead run.
“Take it easy,” Ellie whispered. “I think they were scared that we would hurt the baby. Maybe they’ll just look us over and let us go.”
“Maybe. But I wish I could get at my knife.” “I’m glad you can’t. This calls for diplomacy.”
The rest of the herd came up, milled around and looked them over, while exchanging calls that combined bugling, whinnying, and something between a cough and a snort. Max listened. “That’s language,” he decided.
“Of course. And how I wish I had studied it at Miss Mimsey’s.”
The largest centaur leaned over them, smoothed at their bonds; they became looser but still held them. Max said sharply, “I think they are going to untie us. Get ready to run.”
“Yes, boss.”
Another centaur reached into its built-in pouch, took out another of the ropelike things. It dropped to its fore knees, flipped the end so that it curled around Max’s left ankle. The end seemed to weld into a loop, hobbling Max as effectively as a bowline knot; Ellie was treated the same way. The biggest centaur then patted their bonds, which fell off and writhed gently on the ground. It picked them up and stuffed them into its pouch.
The centaur which had hobbled them wrapped the ends of their tethers around its upright trunk, they merged into a belt. After an exchange of sour bugle calls with the leader, it patted the leashes… which then stretched like taffy, becoming quite twenty feet long and much more slender. Max pressed his knife on Ellie and said, “Try to cut yourself loose. If you can, then run for it. I’ll keep them busy.”
“No, Max.”
“Yes! Dawggone it, quit being a brat! You’ve made enough trouble.”
“Yes, Max.” She took the knife and tried to saw through the strange rope near her ankle. The centaurs made no attempt to stop her, but watched with the same air of gentle astonishment. It was as if they had never seen a knife, had no notion of what one was. Presently she gave up. “No good, Max. It’s like trying to slice duraplastic.”
“Why, I keep that knife like a razor. Let me try.”
He had no better luck. He was forced to stop by the herd moving out—walk or be dragged. He managed to close the knife while hopping on one foot to save his balance. The group proceeded at a slow walk for a few steps, then the leader bugled and the centaurs broke into a trot, exactly like ancient cavalry.
Ellie stumbled at once and was dragged. Max sat down, managed to grab his hobble and hang on while shouting, “Hey! Stop!”
Their captor stopped and looked around almost apologetically. Max said, “Look, stupid. We can’t keep up. We’re not horses,” while helping Ellie to her feet. “Are you hurt, kid?”
“I guess not.” She blinked back tears. “If I could lay hands on that hay-burning oaf, he’d be hurt—plenty!”
“You skinned your hand.”
“It won’t kill me. Just tell him to slow down, will you?”
Seeing them on their feet the monster immediately started to trot again. Down they went again, with Max trying to drag them to a halt. This time the leader trotted back from the main herd and consulted their custodian. Max took part, making up in vehemence what he lacked in semantic efficiency.
Perhaps he was effective; their keeper slowed to a fast walk, letting the others go ahead. Another centaur dropped back and became a rear guard. One of the animated balloons, which had continued to hover over the herd, now drifted back and remained over Max and Ellie.
The pace was just bearable, between a fast walk and a dogtrot. The route led across the open, flat floor of the valley and through knee-high grass. The grass saved them somewhat, as the centaur leading them seemed to feel that a fall or two every few hundred yards represented optimum efficiency. He never seemed impatient and would stop and let them get up, but always started off again at a clip brisk for humans. Max and Ellie ceased trying to talk, their throats being burned dry by their panting efforts to keep up. A tiny stream meandered through the bottom of the valley; the centaur jumped easily across it. It was necessary for the humans to wade. Ellie paused in midstream, leaned down and started to drink. Max objected, “Ellie! Don’t drink that—you don’t know that it’s safe.”
“I hope it poisons me so I can lie down and die. Max, I can’t go much farther.”
“Chin up, kid. We’ll get out of this. I’ve been keeping track of where we’ve gone.” He hesitated, then drank also, being terribly thirsty. The centaur let them, then tugged them on.
It was as far again to the rising ground and forest on the other side. They had thought that they were as tired as they could be before they started up hill; they were mistaken. The centaur was agile as a goat and seemed surprised that they found it difficult. Finally Ellie collapsed and would not get up; the centaur came back and stirred her roughly with a three-toed hoof.
Max struck him with both fists. The centaur made no move to retaliate but looked at him with that same stupid astonishment. Their rear guard came up and conversed with it, after which they waited for perhaps ten minutes. Max sat down beside Ellie and said anxiously, “Feeling any better?”
“Don’t talk.”
Presently the guard edged between them and drove Max back by stepping on him, whereupon the other centaur tugged on Ellie’s leash. It contracted and she was forced to scramble to her feet. The centaurs let them rest twice after that. After an endless time, when the local sun was dropping low in the west, they came out on flat table land, still heavily wooded. They continued through trees for a distance which Max’s count of paces told him was under a mile but seemed like ten, then stopped.
They were in a semi-clearing, a space carpeted with fallen needles. Their guard came up to the other centaur and took from him the end of Max’s leash, flipped it around the base of a tree, to which it clung. The other centaur did the same with Ellie’s leash to another tree about forty feet away. Having done so, they roughly urged the two together, while stopping to stroke their bonds until they were stretched out very thin. It allowed Max and Ellie enough slack that they might have passed each other.
This did not seem to please the centaurs. One of them shifted Max’s leash farther back into the surrounding bushes, dragging him with it. This time at the extreme limit allowed by their bonds they were
about six feet apart. “What are they doing?” asked Ellie. “Looks like they don’t want us to combine forces.”
Finished, the centaurs trotted away. Ellie looked after them, began to sob, then cried openly, tears running down her dirty face and leaving tracks. “Stow it,” Max said harshly. “Sniffling will get us nowhere.”
“I can’t help it,” she bawled. “I’ve been brave all day—at least I’ve tried to be. I… ” She collapsed face down and let herself go.
By getting down prone and stretching Max could just reach her head. He patted her tangled hair. “Take it easy, kid,” he said softly. “Cry it out, if you’ll feel better.”
“Oh, Maxie! Tied up… like a dog.”
“We’ll see about that.” He sat up and examined his tether.
Whatever the ropelike leash was, it was not rope. It had a smooth shiny surface which reminded him more of a snake, though the part that wound around his ankle showed no features; it simply flowed around his ankle and merged back into itself.
He lifted the bight and detected a faint throbbing. He stroked it as he had seen the centaurs do and it responded with flowing pulsations, but it neither shrank nor grew longer, nor did it loosen its grip. “Ellie,” he announced, “This thing is alive.”
She lifted a woebegone face. “What thing?” “This rope.”
“Oh, that! Of course.”
“At least,” he went on, “if it isn’t, it’s not really dead.” He tried his knife again, there was no effect. “I’ll bet if I had a match I could make it cry ‘Uncle.’ Got an Everlite, Ellie?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Neither do I. Well, maybe I can make a fire some other way. Rubbing two sticks together, or something.”
“Do you know how?”
“No.” He continued stroking and patting the living rope, but, though he always got a response in pulsations, he did not seem to have the right touch; the bond stayed as before. He was continuing this fruitless attempt when he heard his name called. “Max! Ellie!”
Ellie sat up with a jerk. “Chipsie! Oh, Max, she followed us. Come here, darling!”
The spider puppy was high above them in a tree. She looked carefully around, then scurried down, making the last ten feet a flying leap into Ellie’s arms. They cuddled and made soft noises, then Ellie straightened up, her eyes shining. “Max, I feel so much better.”
“So do I.” He added, “Though I don’t know why.”
The spider puppy announced gravely, “Chipsie follow.”
Max reached across and petted her. “Yes, Chipsie did. Good girl!”
Ellie hugged the spider puppy. “I don’t feel deserted now, Max. Maybe everything will come out all right.”
“Look, Ellie, we’re not in too bad a spot. Maybe I’ll find the combination to tickle these ropes or snakes or whatever so they’ll give up. If I do, we’ll sneak back tonight.”
“How would we find our way?”
“Don’t worry. I watched every foot of the way, every change of direction, every landmark.” “Even in the dark?”
“Easier in the dark. I know these stars—I sure ought to. But suppose we don’t get loose; we still aren’t licked.”
“Huh? I don’t relish spending my life tied to a tree.”
“You won’t. Look—I think these things are just curious about us. They won’t eat us, that’s sure—they probably live on grass. Maybe they’ll get bored and turn us loose. But if they don’t, it’ll be rough on them.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Because of Mr. Walther and George Daigler—and Sam, Sam Anderson; that’s why. They’re probably beating the bushes for us right now. We are less than ten miles from the ship—five by a straight line.
They’ll find us. Then if these silly-looking centaurs want to get tough, they’ll learn about modern weapons. They and their fool throwing ropes!”
“It might take a long time to find us. Nobody knows where we went.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “If I had a pocket radio. Or some way to signal. Or even a way to build a fire. But I don’t.”
“I never thought. It just seemed like going for a stroll in the park.”
Max thought darkly that he had tried to warn her. Why, even the hills around home weren’t safe if a body didn’t keep his eyes peeled… you could run into a mean old bobcat, or even a bear. Person like Ellie never ‘ud had enough hard knocks to knock sense into her, that was her trouble.
Presently he admitted that he himself hadn’t looked for grief from anything as apparently
chuckled-headed and harmless as these centaur things. Anyhow, as Sam would say, no use cryin’ over spilt milk when the horse was already stolen.
“Ellie.”
“Huh?”
“Do you suppose Chipsie could find her way back?” “Why, I don’t know.”
“If she could, we could send a message.”
Chipsie looked up. “Back?” she inquired. “Please back. Go home.”
Ellie frowned. “I’m afraid Chipsie doesn’t talk that well. She’d probably just hiccup and get incoherent.” “I don’t mean that. I know Chipsie is no mental giant. I…”
“Chipsie is smart!”
“Sure. But I want to send a written message and a map.” He fumbled in a pocket, pulled out a stylus. “Do you have any paper?”
“I’ll see.” She found a folded paper in a dungaree pocket. “Oh, dear! I was supposed to take this to Mr. Giordano. Mr. Hornsby will be so vexed with me.”
“What is it?”
“A requisition for number-ten wire.”
“It doesn’t matter now.” He took the paper, scratched out the memorandum, turned it over and began to draw, stopping to consult the pictures filed in his mind for distances, which way the local sun lay, contours, and other details.
“Max?”
“Quiet, can’t you?” He continued to sketch, then added: “URGENT—to First Officer Walther: Eldreth Coburn and self captured by centaurs. Be careful and watch out for their throwing ropes. Respectfully,
M. Jones.” He handed it to Ellie. “That ought to do it. Is there any way to fasten it to her? I sure don’t want her to drop it.”
“Mmm… let me see. Turn your back, Max.” “Why?”
“Don’t be difficult. Turn your back.”
He did so, shortly she said, “All right now.” He faced her and she handed him a ribbon. “How’s this?”
“Swell!” They managed to tie the ribbon, with the note folded and firmly attached, around Mr. Chips’ waist, anchoring it to a middle limb… not too easy as the spider puppy seemed to think it was a game and was ticklish as well.
“There! Stop squirming, Chipsie, and listen. Ellie wants you to go home.” “Home?”
“Yes, home. Go back to the ship.” “Ellie go home?”
“Ellie can’t go home.” “No.”
“Honey, you’ve got to.” “No.”
“Look, Chipsie. You find Maggie and tell her Ellie said to give you some candy. You give Maggie this.” She tugged at the tied note.
“Candy?”
“Go home. Find Maggie. Maggie will give you candy.” “Ellie go home.”
“Please, Chipsie.”
“Ellie,” Max said urgently, “something is coming.”
Eldreth looked up, saw a centaur coming through the trees. She pointed. “Look, Chipsie! They’re coming! They’ll catch Chipsie! Go home! Run!”
The spider puppy squealed in terror and scurried for the trees. Once on a branch she looked back and whimpered. “Go home!” screamed Ellie. “Find Maggie!”
Mr. Chips shot a glance at the centaur, then disappeared. They had no time to worry further, the centaur was almost up to them. He glanced at them and went on by; it was what followed the centaur that grabbed their attention. Ellie suppressed a shriek. “Max! They’ve caught everybody.”
“No,” he corrected grimly. “Look again.” The gathering gloom had caused him to make the same mistake; it seemed that the entire ship’s company trotted after the centaur in single file, ankle leashed to ankle by living ropes. But only the first glance gave such an impression. These creatures were more than humanoid—but such degraded creatures had never sailed between the stars.
They shuffled quickly along like well-trained animals. One or two looked at Ellie and Max in passing, but their stares were bovine, incurious. Small children not on leash trotted with their mothers, and once Max was startled to see a wrinkled little head peeping out of a pouch—these man-creatures were marsupials, too.
Max controlled a desire to retch and as they passed out of sight he turned to Ellie. “Gosh!” “Max,” Eldreth said hoarsely, “do you suppose we’ve died and gone to our punishment?” “Huh? Don’t be silly. Things are bad enough.”
“I mean it. That was something right out of Dante’s Inferno.”
Max was swallowing uneasily and not feeling good-tempered. “Look, you can pretend you’re dead if you want to. Me, I’m alive and I mean to stay so. Those things weren’t men. Don’t let it throw you.”
“But they were men. Men and women and children.”
“No, they weren’t. Being shaped like us doesn’t make them men. Being a man is something else entirely.” He scowled. “Maybe the centaurs are ‘men.'”
“Oh, no—”
“Don’t be too sure. They seem to run things in this country.”
The discussion was cut short by another arrival. It was almost dark and they did not see the centaur until he entered their clearing. He was followed by three of the—Max decided to call them ‘men’ though he
resented the necessity—followed by three men. They were not on leashes. All three were bearing burdens. The centaur spoke to them; they distributed what they carried.
One of them set down a large clay bowl filled with water in the space separating Max and Ellie. It was the first artifact that any human had seen on Charity and did not indicate a high level of mechanical culture, being crudely modeled and clearly not thrown on a potter’s wheel; it held water, no more could be said for it. A second porter dumped a double armful of small fruits beside the bowl. Two of them splashed into the bowl, he did not bother to fish them out.
Max had to look twice to see what the third slave was carrying. It looked as if he had three large ovoid balls slung by ropes in each of his hands; second inspection showed them to be animals about the size of opossums which he carried by their tails. He went around the clearing, stopping every few feet and lifting one of his burdens to a lower branch. When he had finished they were surrounded by six small creatures, each hanging by its tail. The centaur followed the slave, Max saw him stroke each animal and press a spot on its neck. In each case the entire body of the little animal lit up, began to shine like a firefly with soft silvery light.
The clearing was softly illuminated thereby—well enough, Max thought, to read large print. One of the hobgoblins balloons came sailing silently between trees and anchored to a point thirty feet above them; it seemed to settle down for the night.
The centaur came over to Max and prodded him with a hoof, snorting inquiringly. Max listened carefully, then repeated the sound. The centaur answered and again Max mimicked. This useless exchange continued for a few phrases, then the centaur gave up and left, his train trotting after him.
Ellie shivered. “Phew!” she exclaimed, “I’m glad they’re gone. I can stand the centaurs, a little, but those men… ugh!”
He shared her disgust; they looked less human close up, having hair lines that started where their eyebrows should have been. They were so flat-headed that their ears stuck up above their skulls. But it was not this that had impressed Max. When the centaur had spoken to him Max had gotten his first good look into a centaur’s mouth. Those teeth were never meant for munching grain, they were more like the teeth of a tiger—or a shark.
He decided not to mention this. “Say, wasn’t that the same one that was leading the herd that caught us?” “How would I know? They all look alike.”
“But they don’t, any more than two horses look alike.” “Horses all look alike.”
“But… ” He stopped, baffled by a city viewpoint at which communication failed. “I think it was the same one.”
“I can’t see that it matters.”
“It might. I’m trying to learn their language.”
“I heard you swallowing your tonsils. How did you do that?”
“Oh, you just remember what a sound sounds like, then do it.” He threw his head back and made a very plaintive sound.
“What was that?”
“A shote stuck in a fence. Little shote by the name of Abner I had once.” “It sounds tragic.”
“It was, until I helped him loose. Ellie, I think they’ve bedded us down for the night.” He gestured at the bowl and the fruit beside it. “Like feeding the hogs.”
“Don’t put it that way. Room service. Room service and maid service and lights. Food and drink.” She picked up one of the fruits. It was about the size and shape of a cucumber. “Do you suppose this is fit to eat?”
“I don’t think you ought to try it. Ellie, it would be smart not to eat or drink anything until we are rescued.”
“Well, maybe we could go hungry but we certainly can’t go without water. You die of thirst in a day or two.”
“But we may be rescued before morning.”
“Maybe.” She peeled the fruit. “It smells good. Something like a banana.” He peeled one and sniffed it. “More like a pawpaw.”
“Well?”
“Mmm—Look here, I’ll eat one. If it hasn’t made me sick in a half hour, then you can try one.” “Yes, sir, boss man.” She bit into the one she held. “Mind the seeds.”
“Ellie, you’re a juvenile delinquent.”
She wrinkled her nose and smiled. “You say the sweetest things! I try to be.”
Max bit into his. Not bad—not as much flavor as a pawpaw, but not bad. Some minutes later he was saying, “Maybe we should leave some for breakfast?”
“All right. I’m full anyway.” Ellie leaned over and drank. Without words they had each concluded that the cloying meal required them to risk the water. “There, I feel better. At least we’ll die comfortably. Max? Do you think we dare sleep? I’m dead.”
“I think they are through with us for the night. You sleep, I’ll sit up.”
“No, that’s not fair. Honest, what good would it do to keep watch? We can’t get away.” “Well… here, take my knife. You can sleep with it in your hand.”
“All right.” She reached across the bowl and accepted it. “Good night, Max. I’m going to count sheep.”
“Good night.” He stretched out, shifted and got a tree cone out of his ribs, then tried to relax. Fatigue and a full stomach helped, the knowledge of their plight hindered—and that hobgoblin hanging up there.
Maybe it was keeping watch—but not for their benefit. “Max? Are you asleep?”
“No, Ellie.”
“Hold my hand? I’m scared.” “I can’t reach it.”
“Yes, you can. Swing around the other way.”
He did so, and found that he could reach over his head past the water bowl and clasp her hand. “Thanks, Max. Good night some more.”
He lay on his back and stared up through the trees. Despite the half light given by the luminiferous animals he could see stars and the numerous meteor trails crisscrossing the sky. To avoid thinking he started counting them. Presently they started exploding in his head and he was asleep.
The light of the local sun through the trees awakened him. He raised his head. “I wondered how long you would sleep,” Eldreth announced. “Look who’s here.”
He sat up, wincing with every move, and turned around. Mr. Chips was sitting on Ellie’s middle and peeling one of the papaya-like fruits. “Lo, Maxie.”
“Hello, Chipsie.” He saw that the note was still tied to her. “Bad girl!”
Mr. Chips turned to Ellie for comfort. Tears started to leak out. “No, no,” corrected Ellie. “Good girl. She’s promised to go find Maggie as soon as she finishes breakfast. Haven’t you, dear?”
“Go find Maggie,” the spider puppy agreed.
“Don’t blame her, Max. Spider puppies aren’t nocturnal back home. She just waited until we were quiet, then came back. She couldn’t help it. I found her sleeping in my arm.”
The spider puppy finished eating, then drank daintily from the bowl. Max decided that it didn’t matter, considering who had probably used it before they had. This thought he suppressed quickly. “Find Maggie,” Mr. Chips announced.
“Yes, dear. Go straight back to the ship as fast as you can and find Maggie. Hurry.”
“Find Maggie. Hurry fast. ‘Bye, Maxie.” The spider puppy took to the trees and scampered away in the right direction.
“Do you think she’ll get there?” asked Max.
“I think so. After all, her ancestors found their way through forests and such for a lot of generations. She knows it’s important; we had a long talk.”
“Do you really think she understands that much?”
“She understands about pleasing me and that’s enough. Max, do you suppose they can possibly reach us today? I don’t want to spend another night here.”
“Neither do I. If Chipsie can move faster than we can…” “Oh, she can.”
“Then maybe—if they start quickly.”
“I hope so. Ready for breakfast?” “Did Chipsie leave anything?” “Three apiece. I’ve had mine. Here.”
“Sure you’re lying? There were only five when we went to sleep.” She looked sheepish and allowed him to split the odd one. While they were eating he noticed a change. “Hey, what became of the over-sized lightning bugs?”
“Oh. One of those awful creatures came at dawn and carried them away. I was set to scream but he didn’t come close to me, so I let you sleep.”
“Thanks. I see our chaperone is with us.” The hobgoblin still hung in the tree tops. “Yes, and there have been peekers around all morning, too.”
“Did you get a look at one?”
“Of course not.” She stood up, stretched and winced. “Now to see what beautiful surprises this lovely day brings forth.” She made a sour face. “The program I would pick is to sit right here and never lay eyes on anything until George Daigler shows up with about a dozen armed men. I’d kiss him. I’d kiss all of them.”
“So would I.”
Until well past noon Eldreth’s chosen schedule prevailed, nothing happened. They heard from time to time the bugling and snorting of centaurs but saw none. They talked in desultory fashion, having already disposed of both hopes and fears, and were dozing in the sunshine, when they suddenly came alert to the fact that a centaur was entering the clearing.
Max felt sure that it was the leader of the herd, or at least that it was the one who had fed and watered them. The creature wasted no time, making it clear with kicks and prods that they were to allow themselves to be leashed for travel.
Never once were they free of the living ropes. Max thought of attacking the centaur, perhaps leaping on his back and cutting his throat. But it seemed most unlikely that he could do it quietly enough; one snort might bring the herd down on them. Besides which he knew no way to get free of their bonds even if he killed the centaur. Better wait—especially with a messenger gone for help.
They were led, falling and being dragged occasionally, along the route taken by the party of slaves. It became apparent that they were entering a large centaur settlement. The path opened out into a winding, well-tended road with centaurs going both directions and branching off onto side roads. There were no buildings, none of the outward marks of a civilized race—but there was an air of organization, of custom, of stability. Little centaurs scampered about, got in the way, and were ordered aside. There was activity of various sorts on both sides of the road and grotesque human slaves were almost as numerous as centaurs, carrying burdens, working in unexplained fashions—some with living-rope bonds, some allowed to run free. They could not see much because of the uncomfortable pace they were forced to maintain.
Once Max noted an activity on his side of the road that he wished to see better. He did not mention it to Ellie, not only because talking was difficult but because he did not wish to worry her—but it had looked like an outdoor butcher shop to him. The hanging carcasses were not centaurs.
They stopped at last in a very large clearing, well filled with centaurs. Their master patted the lines that bound them and thereby caused them to shorten until they were fetched close to his sides. He then took his place in a centaur queue.
A large, grizzled, and presumably elderly centaur was holding court on one side of the “square.” He stood with quiet dignity as single centaurs or groups came in succession before him. Max watched with interest so great that he almost lost his fear. Each case would be the cause of much discussion, then the centaur chieftain would make a single remark and the case would be over. The contestants would leave quietly.
The conclusion was inescapable that law or custom was being administered, with the large centaur as arbiter.
There was none of the travesties of men in the clearing but there were underfoot odd animals that looked like flattened-out hogs. Their legs were so short that they seemed more like tractor treads. They were mostly mouth and teeth and snuffling snouts, and whatever they came to, if it was not a centaur’s hoof, they devoured. Max understood from watching them how the area, although thickly inhabited, was kept so clean; these scavengers were animated street cleaners.
Their master gradually worked up toward the head of the line. The last case before theirs concerned the only centaur they had seen which did not seem in vibrant health. He was old and skinny, his coat was dull and his bones stuck pitifully through his hide. One eye was blind, a blank white; the other was inflamed and weeping a thick ichor.
The judge, mayor, or top herd leader discussed his case with two younger healthy centaurs who seemed to be attending him almost as nurses. Then the boss centaur moved from his position of honor and walked around the sick one, inspecting him from all sides. Then he spoke to him.
The old sick one responded feebly, a single snorted word. The chief centaur spoke again, got what seemed to Max the same answer. The chief backed into his former position, set up a curious whinnying cry.
From all sides the squatty scavengers converged on the spot. They formed a ring around the sick one and his attendants, dozens of them, snuffling and grunting. The chief bugled once; one attendant reached into its pouch and hauled forth a creature curled into a knot, the centaur stroked it and it unwound. To Max it looked unpleasantly like an eel.
The attendant extended it toward the sick centaur. It made no move to stop him, but waited, watching with his one good eye. The head of the slender thing was suddenly touched to the neck of the sick centaur; he jerked in the characteristic convulsion of electric shock and collapsed.
The chief centaur snorted once—and the scavengers waddled forward with surprising speed, swarming over the body and concealing it. When they backed away, still snuffling, there were not even bones.
Max called out softly, “Steady, Ellie! Get a grip on yourself, kid.” She answered faintly, “I’m all right.”
A FRIEND IN NEED
For the first time they were turned loose. Their master tickled their bonds, which dropped from their ankles. Max said softly to Ellie, “If you want to run for it, I’ll keep them busy.”
Ellie shook her head. “No good. They’d have me before I went fifty feet. Besides—I can’t find my way back.”
Max shut up, knowing that she was right but having felt obliged to offer. The chief centaur inspected them with the characteristic expression of gentle surprise, exchanged bugling comments with their captor. They were under discussion for some time, there appeared to be some matter to be decided. Max got out his knife. He had no plan, other than a determination that no centaur would approach either one of them with that electric-shock creature, or any other menace, without a fight.
The crisis faded away. Their captor flicked their leashes about their ankles and dragged them off. Fifteen minutes later they were again staked out in the clearing they had occupied. Ellie looked around her after the centaur had gone and sighed. “‘Be it ever so humble… ‘ Max, it actually feels good to get back here.”
“I know.”
The monotony that followed was varied by one thing only: fading hope and mounting despair. They were not treated unkindly; they were simply domestic animals—fed and watered and largely ignored. Once a day they were given water and plenty of the native papayas. After the first night they no longer had the luxury of “artificial” light, nor did the hobgoblin hang over their clearing. But there was no way of escape, short of gnawing off a leg and crawling away.
For two or three days they discussed the possibility of rescue with mounting anxiety, then, having beaten the subject to death they dropped it; it simply added to their distress. Ellie rarely smiled now and she had quit her frivolous back talk; it seemed that it had finally gotten through her armor that this could happen to Eldreth Coburn, only daughter of the rich and almost all-powerful Mr. Commissioner Coburn—a chattel, a barnyard animal of monsters themselves suitable only for zoos.
Max took it a little more philosophically. Never having had much, he did not expect much—not that he enjoyed it. He kept his worst fear secret. Ellie referred to their status as “animals in a zoo” because most of their visitors were small centaurs who came sniffling and bleating around with a curiosity that their elders seemed to lack. He let her description stand because he believed their status worse than that—he thought that they were being fattened for the table.
One week after their capture Eldreth declined to eat breakfast and stayed silent all morning. All that Max could think of to say evoked only monosyllables. In desperation he said, “I’ll beat you at three-dee and spot you two starships.”
That roused her. “You and who else?” she said scornfully. “And with what?” “Well, we could play it in our heads. You know—blindfold.”
She shook her head. “No good. You’d claim your memory was better than mine and I wouldn’t be able to prove you were cheating.”
“Nasty little brat.”
She smiled suddenly. “That’s better. You’ve been too gentle with me lately—it depresses me. Max, we could make a set.”
“How?”
“With these.” She picked up one of many tree cones that littered the clearing. “A big one is a flagship. We can pick various sizes and break the thingamajigs off and such.”
They both got interested. The water bowl was moved aside so that it no longer occupied the center of the space marked by the limits of their tethers and the no-man’s-land between them was brushed free of needles and marked with scratches as boards. The boards had to be side by side; they must stack them in their minds, but that was a common expedient for players with good visualization when using an unpowered set—it saved time between moves.
Pebbles became robots; torn bits of cloth tied to cones distinguished sides and helped to designate pieces. By midafternoon they were ready. They were still playing their first game when darkness forced them to stop. As they lay down to sleep Max said, “I’d better not take your hand. I’d knock over men in the dark.”
“I won’t sleep if you don’t—I won’t feel safe. Besides, that gorilla messed up one board changing the water.”
“That’s all right. I remember where they were.”
“Then you can just remember where they all are, Stretch out your arm.” He groped in the darkness, found her fingers. “Night, Max. Sleep tight.” “Good night, Ellie.”
Thereafter they played from sunup to sundown. Their owner came once, watched them for an hour, went away without a snort. Once when Ellie had fought him to a draw Max said, “You know, Ellie, you play this game awfully well—for a girl.”
“Thank you too much.”
“No, I mean it. I suppose girls are probably as intelligent as men, but most of them don’t act like it. I think it’s because they don’t have to. If a girl is pretty, she doesn’t have to think. Of course, if she can’t get by on her looks, then—well, take you for example. If you…”
“Oh! So I’m ugly, Mr. Jones!”
“Wait a minute. I didn’t say that. Let’s suppose that you were the most beautiful woman since Helen of Troy. In that case, you would… ” He found that he was talking to her back. She had swung round, grabbed her knees, and was ignoring him.
He stretched himself to the limit of his tether, bound leg straight out behind him, and managed to touch her shoulder. “Ellie?”
She shook off his hand. “Keep your distance! You smell like an old goat.”
“Well,” he said reasonably, “you’re no lily yourself. You haven’t had a bath lately either.”
“I know it!” she snapped, and started to sob. “And I hate it. I just… h- h- hate it. I look awful.” “No, you don’t. Not to. me.”
She turned a tear-wet and very dirty face. “Liar.” “Nothing wrong that some soap and water won’t fix.”
“Oh, if only I had some.” She looked at him. “You aren’t at your best yourself, Mr. Jones. You need a haircut and the way your beard grows in patches is ghastly.”
He fingered the untidy stubble on his chin. “I can’t help it.” “Neither can I.” She sighed. “Set up the boards again.”
Thereafter she beat him three straight games, one with a disgraceful idiot’s mate. He looked at the boards sadly when it was over. “And you are the girl who flunked improper fractions?”
“Mr. Jones, has it ever occurred to you, the world being what it is, that women sometimes prefer not to appear too bright?” He was digesting this when she added, “I learned this game at my father’s knee, before I learned to read. I was junior champion of Hespera before I got shanghaied. Stop by sometime and I’ll show you my cup.”
“Is that true? Really?”
“I’d rather play than eat—when I can find competition. But you’re learning. Someday you’ll be able to give me a good game.”
“I guess I don’t understand women.” “That’s an understatement.”
Max was a long time getting to sleep that night. Long after Eldreth was gently snoring he was still staring at the shining tail of the big comet, watching the shooting star trails, and thinking. None of his thoughts was pleasant.
Their position was hopeless, he admitted. Even though Chipsie had failed (he had never pinned much hope on her), searching parties should have found them by now. There was no longer any reason to think that they would be rescued.
And now Ellie was openly contemptuous of him. He had managed to hurt her pride again—again with his big, loose, flapping jaw! Why, he should have told her that she was the prettiest thing this side of paradise, if it would make her feel good—she had mighty little to feel good about these days!
Being captive had been tolerable because of her, he admitted—now he had nothing to look forward to but day after day of losing at three-dee while Ellie grimly proved that girls were as good as men and better. At the end of it they would wind up as an item in the diet of a thing that should never have been born.
If only Dr. Hendrix hadn’t died!
If only he had been firm with Ellie when it mattered.
To top it off, and at the moment almost the worst of all, he felt that if he ate just one more of those blasted pawpaws it would gag him.
He was awakened by a hand on his shoulder and a whisper in his ear. “Max!” “What the—?”
“Quiet! Not a sound.”
It was Sam crouching over him—Sam!
As he sat up, sleep jarred out of him by adrenalin shock, he saw Sam move noiselessly to where Ellie slept. He squatted over her but did not touch her. “Miss Eldreth,” he said softly.
Ellie’s eyes opened and stared. She opened her mouth, Max was terrified that she might cry out. Sam hastily signed for silence; she looked at him and nodded. Sam knelt over her, seemed to study something in the shadow-laced moonlight, then took out a hand gun. There was the briefest of low-energy discharges, entirely silent, and Ellie stood up—free. Sam returned to Max. “Hold still,” he whispered. “I don’t want to burn you.” He knelt over Max’s bound ankle.
When the gun flared Max felt an almost paralyzing constriction around his ankle, then the thing fell off. The amputated major part contracted and jerked away into the shadows. Max stood up. “How—”
“Not a word. Follow me.” Sam led off into the bushes with Ellie behind him and Max following closely. They had gone only twenty yards when there was a whimpering cry of “Ellie!” and the spider puppy landed in Eldreth’s arms. Sam turned suddenly.
“Keep her quiet,” he whispered, “for your life.”
Ellie nodded and started petting the little creature, crooning to it voicelessly. When Chipsie tried to talk, she silenced it, then stuffed it inside her shirt. Sam waited these few moments, now started on without speaking.
They proceeded for several hundred yards as near silently as three people who believe their lives hang on it can manage. Finally Sam stopped. “This is as far as we dare go,” he said in a low voice. “Any farther in the dark and I’d be lost. But I’m pretty sure we are outside their sleeping grounds. We’ll start again at the first light.”
“How did you get here in the dark, then?”
“I didn’t. Chips and I have been hiding in thick bushes since midafternoon, not fifty feet from you.” “Oh.” Max looked around, looked up at the stars. “I can take us back in the dark.”
“You can? It ‘ud be a darn good thing. These babies don’t stir out at night—I think.” “Let me get in the lead. You get behind Ellie.”
It took more than an hour to get to the edge of the tableland. The darkness, the undergrowth, the need for absolute silence, and the fact that Max had to take it slowly to keep his bearings despite his photographic memory all slowed them down. The trip downhill into the valley was even slower.
When they reached the edge of the trees with comparatively flat grassland in front Sam halted them and surveyed the valley by dim moonlight. “Mustn’t get caught in the open,” he whispered. “They can’t throw those snakes too well among trees, but out in the open—oh, brother!”
“You know about the throwing ropes?” “Sure.”
“Sam,” whispered Ellie. “Mr. Anderson, why did…”
“Sssh!” he cautioned. “Explanations later. Straight across, at a dogtrot. Miss Eldreth, you set the pace. Max, pick your bearings and guide us. We’ll run side by side. All set?”
“Just a minute.” Max took the spider puppy from Eldreth, zipping it inside his shirt as she had done. Mr. Chips did not even wake up, but moaned softly like a disturbed baby. “Okay.”
They ran and walked and ran again for a half hour or more, wasting no breath on words, putting everything into gaining distance from the centaur community. Knee-high grass and semi-darkness made the going hard. They were almost to the bottom of the valley and Max was straining to spot the stream when Sam called out, “Down! Down flat!”
Max hit dirt, taking it on his elbows to protect Chips; Ellie flopped beside him. Max turned his head cautiously and whispered, “Centaurs?”
“No. Shut up.”
A hobgoblin balloon, moving at night to Max’s surprise, was drifting across the valley at an altitude of about a hundred feet. Its course would take it past them, missing them by perhaps a hundred yards. Then it veered and came toward them.
It lost altitude and hovered almost over them. Max saw Sam aim carefully, steadying his pistol with both bands. There was momentarily a faint violet pencil from gun to hobgoblin; the creature burst and fell so close by that Max could smell burned meat. Sam returned his weapon and got to his feet. “One less spy,” he said with satisfaction. “Let’s get going, kids.”
“You think those things spy?”
“‘Think’? We know. Those polo ponies have this place organized. Pipe down and make miles.”
Ellie found the stream by falling into it. They hauled her out and waded across, stopping only to drink. On the other bank Sam said, “Where’s your left shoe, Miss Eldreth?”
“It came off in the brook.”
Sam stopped to search but it was useless; the water looked like ink in the faint light. “No good,” he decided. “We could waste the whole night. You’re due for sore feet—sorry. Better throw away your other shoe.”
It did not slow them until they reached the far ridge beyond which lay Charityville and the ship. Soon after they started up Ellie cut her right foot on a rock. She did her best, setting her jaw and not complaining, but it handicapped them. There was a hint of dawn in the air by the time they reached the top. Max started to lead them down the arroyo that he and Ellie had come up so many year-long days ago. Sam stopped him. “Let me get this straight. This isn’t the draw that faces the ship, is it?”
“No, that one is just north of this.” Max reconstructed in his mind how it had looked from the ship and compared it with his memory of the photomap taken as the ship landed. “Actually a shoulder just beyond the next draw faces the ship.”
“I thought so. This is the one Chips led me up, but I want us to stay in the trees as long as possible. It’ll be light by the time we’d be down to the flat.”
“Does it matter? There have never been any centaurs seen in the valley the ship is in.”
“You mean you never saw any. You’ve been away, old son. We’re in danger now—and in worse danger
the closer we get to the ship. Keep your voice down—and lead us to that shoulder that sticks out toward the ship. If you can.”
Max could, though it meant going over strange terrain and keeping his bearings from his memory of a small-scale map. It involved “crossing the furrows,” too, instead of following a dry water course—which led to impasses such as thirty-foot drops that had to be gone painfully around. Sam grew edgy as the light increased and urged them to greater speed and greater silence even as Ellie’s increasingly crippled condition made his demands harder to meet.
“I really am sorry,” he whispered after she had to slide and scramble down a rock slope, checking herself with bare and bloody feet. “But it’s better to get there on stumps than to let them catch you.”
“I know.” Her face contorted but she made no sound. It was daylight by the time Max led them out on the shoulder. Silently he indicated the ship, a half mile away. They were about level with its top.
“Down this way, I think,” he said quietly to Sam. “No.”
“Huh?”
“Chilluns, it’s Uncle Sam’s opinion that we had better lie doggo in those bushes, holding still and letting the beggar flies bite us, until after sundown.”
Max eyed the thousand yard gap. “We could run for it.”
“And four legs run faster than two legs. We’ve learned that lately.”
The bushes selected by Sam grew out to the edge of the shoulder. He crawled through them until he reached a place where he could spy the valley below while still hidden. Ellie and Max wriggled after him. The ground dropped off sharply just beyond them. The ship faced them, to their left and nearer was Charityville.
“Get comfortable,” Sam ordered, “and we’ll take turns keeping guard. Sleep if you can, this will be a long watch.”
Max tried to shift Mr. Chips around so that he might lie flat. A little head poked out of his collar. “Good morning,” the spider puppy said gravely. “Breakfast?”
“No breakfast, hon,” Ellie told her. “Sam, is it all right to let her out?”
“I guess so. But keep her quiet.” Sam was studying the plain below. Max did the same. “Sam? Why don’t we head for the village? It’s closer.”
“Nobody there. Abandoned.”
“What? Look, Sam, can’t you tell us now what’s happened?”
Sam did not take his eyes off the plain. “Okay. But hold it down to whispers. What do you want to know?”
That was a hard one—Max wanted to know everything. “What happened to the village?” “Gave it up. Too dangerous.”
“Huh? Anybody caught?”
“Not permanently. Daigler had a gun. But then the fun began. We thought that all they had were those throwing snakes and that we had scared them off. But they’ve got lots more than that. Things that burrow underground, for example. That’s why the village had to be abandoned.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“Well… the newlyweds were already in residence. Becky Weberbauer is a widow.”
Ellie gasped and Sam whispered sharply to be quiet. Max mulled it over before saying, “Sam, I don’t see why, after they got my message, they didn’t…”
“What message?”
Max explained. Sam shook his head. “The pooch got back all right. By then we knew you were missing and were searching for you—armed, fortunately. But there was no message.”
“Huh? How did you find us?”
“Chips led me, I told you. But that was all. Somebody stuffed her into her old cage and that’s where I found her yesterday. I stopped to pet her, knowing you were gone, Miss Eldreth—and found the poor little thing nearly out of her mind. I finally got it through my head that she knew where you two were.
So… ” He shrugged.
“Oh. But I can’t see,” Max whispered, “why you risked it alone. You already knew they were dangerous; you should have had every man in the ship with you, armed.”
Sam shook his head. “And we would have lost every man. A sneak was possible; the other wasn’t. And we had to get you back.”
“Thanks. I don’t know how to say it, Sam. Anyhow, thanks.”
“Yes,” added Ellie, “and stop calling me ‘Miss Eldreth.’ I’m Ellie to my friends.” “Okay, Ellie. How are the feet?”
“I’ll live.”
“Good.” He turned his head to Max. “But I didn’t say we wanted to get you back, I said we had to. You, Max. No offense, Ellie.”
“Huh? Why me?”
“Well… ” Sam seemed reluctant. “You’ll get the details when you get back. But it looks like you’ll be needed if they take the ship off. You’re the only astrogator left.”
“Huh? What happened to Simes?” “Quiet! He’s dead.”
“For Pete’s sake.” Max decided that, little as he liked Simes, death at the hands of the centaurs he would not have wished on any human; he said so.
“Oh, no, it wasn’t that way. You see, when Captain Blaine died…”
“The Captain, too?” “Yes.”
“I knew he was sick, I didn’t know he was that sick.”
“Well, call it a broken heart. Or honorable hara-kiri. Or an accident. I found an empty box for sleeping pills when I helped pack his things. Maybe he took them, or maybe your pal Simes slipped them in his tea. The Surgeon certified ‘natural causes’ and that’s how it was logged. What is a natural cause when a man can’t bear to live any longer?”
Ellie said softly, “He was a good man.” “Yes,” agreed Sam. “Too good, maybe.” “But how about Simes?”
“Well, now, that was another matter. Simes seemed to feel that he was crown prince, but the First wouldn’t stand for it. Something about some films the Chief Computerman had. Anyhow, he tried to get tough with Walther and I sort of broke his neck. There wasn’t time to be gentle,” Sam added hastily. “Simes pulled a gun.”
“Sam! You aren’t in trouble?”
“None, except here and now. If we—quiet, kids!” He peered more sharply through the bushes. “Not a sound, not a movement,” he whispered. “It may miss us.”
A hobgoblln was drifting down from north, paralleling the ridge above and out from it, as if it were scouting the high land. Max said in Sam’s ear, “Hadn’t we better scrunch back?”
“Too late. Just hold still.”
The balloon drifted abreast of them, stopped, then moved slowly toward them. Max saw that Sam had his gun out. He held his fire until the hobgoblin hovered above them. The shot burned needles and branches but it brought down the thing.
“Sam! There’s another one!”
“Where?” Sam looked where Max pointed. The second hobgoblin apparently had been covering the first, higher and farther out. Even as they watched it veered away and gained altitude.
“Get it, Sam!”
Sam stood up. “Too late. Too far and too late. Well, kids, away we go. No need to keep quiet. Sit down and slide, Ellie; it’ll save your feet some.”
Down they went, scattering rocks and tearing their clothes, with Mr. Chips on her own and enjoying it. At the bottom Sam said, “Max, how fast can you do a half mile?”
“I don’t know. Three minutes.”
“Make it less. Get going. I’ll help Ellie.” “No.”
“You get there! You’re needed.” “No!”
Sam sighed. “Always some confounded hero. Take her other arm.”
They made a couple of hundred yards half carrying Eldreth, when she shook them off. “I can go faster alone,” she panted.
“Okay, let’s go!” Sam rasped.
She proved herself right. Ignoring her injured feet she pumped her short legs in a fashion which did not require Max’s best speed to keep up, but nevertheless kept him panting. The ship grew larger ahead of them. Max saw that the cage was up and wondered how long it would take to attract attention and get it lowered.
They were half way when Sam shouted, “Here comes the cavalry! Speed it up!”
Max glanced over his shoulder. A herd of centaurs—a dozen, two dozen, perhaps more—was sweeping toward them from the hills on a diagonal plainly intended to cut them off. Ellie saw them too and did speed up, with a burst that momentarily outdistanced Max.
They had cut the distance to a few hundred yards when the cage swung free of the lock and sank lazily toward the ground. Max started to shout that they were going to make it when he heard the drum of hooves close behind. Sam yelled, “Beat it, kids! Into the ship.” He stopped.
Max stopped too, while shouting, “Run, Ellie!
Sam snarled, “Run for it, I said! What can you do? Without a gun?”
Max hesitated, torn by an unbearable decision. He saw that Ellie had stopped. Sam glanced back, then backhanded Max across the mouth. “Get moving! Get her inside!”
Max moved, gathering Ellie in one arm and urging her on. Behind them Sam Anderson turned to face his death… dropping to one knee and steadying his pistol over his left forearm in precisely the form approved by the manual.
“—A SHIP IS NOT JUST STEEL—”
The cage hit the ground, four men swarmed out as Max stumbled inside and dumped Ellie on the floor. The door clanged shut behind them, but not too quickly for Mr. Chips. The spider puppy ran to Ellie, clutched her arm and wailed. Eldreth tried to sit up.
“You all right?” Max demanded.
“Uh, sure. But… ” She shut up as Max whirled around and tried to open the cage door.
It would not open. It was not until then that he realized that the lift was off the ground and rising slowly. He punched the “stop” control.
Nothing happened, the car continued upward. About ten feet off the ground it stopped. Max looked up through the grille roof and shouted, “Hey! In the lock, there! Lower away!”
He was ignored. He tried the door again—uselessly, as its safety catch prevented it being opened when the cage was in the air. Frustrated and helpless, he grabbed the bars and looked out. He could see nothing of Sam. The centaurs were milling around in the middle distance. He saw one stumble and go down and then another. Then he saw the four men who had passed him. They were on their bellies in fair skirmish line not far from the cage, each with a shoulder gun and each firing carefully. The range was not great, about three hundred yards; they were taking steady toll. Each silent, almost invisible bolt picked off a centaur.
Max counted seven more centaur casualties—then the monsters broke and ran, scattering toward the hills. The firing continued and several more dropped before distance made firing uncertain.
Somebody shouted, “Hold your fire!” and one of the men stumbled to his feet and ran toward the center of the battle. The others got up and followed him.
When they came back they were carrying something that looked like a bundle of clothing. The cage lowered to the ground, they came inside and laid it gently on the floor. One of them glanced at Eldreth, then quickly removed his jacket and laid it over Sam’s face. Not until then did Max see that it was Mr. Walther.
The other three were Mr. Daigler, a power man whom Max knew only by sight, and Chief Steward Giordano. The fat man was crying openly. “The filthy vermin!” he sobbed. “He never had a chance. They just rode him down and trompled him.” He choked, then added, “But he got at least five of ’em.” His eyes rested on Max without recognition. “He made ’em pay.”
Eldreth said gently, “Is he dead?”
“Huh? Of course. Don’t talk silly.” The steward turned his face away.
The car bumped to a stop. Walther looked in through the lock and said angrily, “Get those bystanders out of the way. What is this? A circus?” He turned back. “Let’s get him in, men.”
As he was bending to help, Max saw Eldreth being led away by Mrs. Dumont. Tenderly they carried Sam in and deposited him on the deck where the Surgeon was waiting. Walther straightened up and seemed to notice Max for the first time. “Mr. Jones? Will you see me in my stateroom as quickly as possible, please?”
“Aye aye, sir. But… ” Max looked down at his friend. “I’d like to…”
Walther cut him short. “There’s nothing you can do. Come away.” He added more gently, “Make it fifteen minutes. That will give you time for a wash and a change.”
Max presented himself on time, showered, his face hastily scraped, and in clean clothes—although lacking a cap. His one cap was somewhere in the far valley, lost on capture. He found Chief Engineer Compagnon and Mr. Samuels, the Purser, with the First Officer. They were seated around a table, having coffee. “Come in, Mr. Jones,” Walther invited. “Sit down. Coffee?”
“Uh, yes, sir.” Max discovered that he was terribly hungry. He loaded the brew with cream and sugar.
They sat for a few minutes, talking of unimportant matters, while Max drank his coffee and steadied down. Presently Walther said, “What shape are you in, Mr. Jones?”
“Why, all right, I guess, sir. Tired, maybe.”
“I imagine so. I’m sorry to have to disturb you. Do you know the situation now?” “Partly, sir. Sam told me… Sam Anderson… ” His voice broke.
“We’re sorry about Anderson,” Mr. Walther said soberly. “In many ways he was one of the best men I ever served with. But go on.”
Max recounted what Sam had had time to tell him, but shortened the statements about Simes and Captain Blaine to the simple fact that they were dead. Walther nodded. “Then you know what we want of you?”
“I think so, sir. You want to raise the ship, so you want me to astrogate.” He hesitated. “I suppose I can.” “Mmm… yes. But that’s not all.”
“Sir?”
“You must be Captain.”
All three had their eyes fixed on him. Max felt lightheaded and for a moment wondered what was wrong. Their faces seemed to swell and then recede. He realized vaguely that he had had little to eat and almost no sleep for many hours and had been running on nerve—yes, that must be what was wrong with him.
From a long distance away he heard Walther’s voice: “… utterly necessary to leave this planet without delay. Now our legal position is clear. In space, only an astrogation officer may command. You are being asked to assume command responsibility while very young but you are the only qualified person—therefore you must do it.”
Max pulled himself together, the wavering figures came into focus. “Mr. Walther?” “Yes?”
“But I’m not an astrogator. I’m just a probationary apprentice.
Chief Engineer Compagnon answered him. “Kelly says you’re an astrogator,” he growled. “Kelly is more of an astrogator than I am!”
Compagnon shook his head. “You can’t pass judgment on yourself.” Samuels nodded agreement.
“Let’s dispose of that,” Walther added. “There is no question of the Chief Computerman becoming captain. Nor does your rank in your guild matter. Line of command, underway, necessarily is limited to astrogators. You are senior in that line, no matter how junior you feel. At this moment, I hold command—until I pass it on. But I can’t take a ship into space. If you refuse… well, I don’t know what we will have to do. I don’t know.”
Max gulped and said, “Look, sir, I’m not refusing duty. I’ll astrogate—shucks, I suppose it’s all right to call me the astrogator, under the circumstances. But there is no reason to pretend that I’m captain. You stay in command while I conn the ship. That’s best, sir—I wouldn’t know how to act like a captain.”
Walther shook his head. “Not legally possible.”
Compagnon added, “I don’t care about the legalities. But I know that responsibility can’t be divided. Frankly, young fellow, I’d rather have Dutch as skipper than you—but he can’t astrogate. I’d be delighted to have Doc Hendrix—but he’s gone. I’d rather hold the sack myself than load it on you—but I’m a physicist and I know just enough of the math of astrogation to know that I couldn’t in a lifetime acquire the speed that an astrogator has to have. Not my temperament. Kelly says you’ve got it already. I’ve shipped with Kelly a good many years, I trust him. So it’s your pidgin, son; you’ve got to take it—and the authority that goes with it. Dutch will help—we’ll all help—but you can’t duck out and hand him the sack.”
Mr. Samuels said quietly, “I don’t agree with the Chief Engineer about the unimportance of legal aspects; most of these laws have wise reasons behind them. But I agree with what else he says. Mr. Jones, a ship is not just steel, it is a delicate political entity. Its laws and customs cannot be disregarded without inviting disaster. It will be far easier to maintain morale and discipline in this ship with a young captain—with all his officers behind him—than it would be to let passengers and crew suspect that the man who must make the crucial decisions, those life-and-death matters involving the handling of the ship, that this
all-powerful man nevertheless can’t be trusted to command the ship. No, sir, such a situation would frighten me; that is how mutinies are born.”
Max felt his heart pounding, his head was aching steadily. Walther looked at him grimly and said, “Well?” “I’ll take it.” He added, “I don’t see what else I can do.”
Walther stood up. “What are your orders, Captain?”
Max sat still and tried to slow his heart. He pressed his fingers to throbbing temples and looked frightened. “Uh, continue with routine. Make preparations to raise ship.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Walther paused, then added, “May I ask when the Captain plans to raise ship?”
He was having trouble focusing again. “When? Not before tomorrow—tomorrow at noon. I’ve got to have a night’s sleep.” He thought to himself that Kelly and he could throw it into a parking orbit, which would get them away from the centaurs—then stop to figure out his next move.
“I think that’s wise, sir. We need the time.”
Compagnon stood up. “If the Captain will excuse me, sir, I’ll get my department started.”
Samuels joined him. “Your cabin is ready, sir—I’ll have your personal effects moved in in a few minutes.”
Max stared at him. He had not yet assimilated the side implications of his new office. Use Captain Blaine’s holy of holies? Sleep in his bed? “Uh, I don’t think that’s necessary. I’m comfortable where I am.”
Samuels glanced at the First Officer, then said, “If you please, Captain, this is one of the things I was talking about when I said that a ship is a delicate political entity.”
“Eh?” Max thought about it, then suddenly felt both the burden descend on him and the strength to meet it. “Very well,” he answered, his voice deepening. “Do it.”
“Yes, sir.” Samuels looked at him. “Also, Captain—if you wish it—I’ll have Lopez stop in and trim your hair.”
Max pushed locks back of his ear. “It is shaggy, isn’t it? Very well.”
The Purser and the Chief Engineer left. Max stood for a moment uncertainly, not sure what his next cue was in this new role. Walther said, “Captain? Can you spare me a few more minutes?”
“Oh, certainly.” They sat down and Walther poured more coffee. Max said, “Mr. Walther? Do you suppose we could ring the pantry and get some toast? I haven’t eaten today.”
“Why, surely! Sorry, sir.” Instead of ringing, the First Officer phoned and ordered a high tea. Then he turned to Max. “Captain, I didn’t give you all the story—nor did I wish to until we were alone.”
“So?”
“Don’t misunderstand me. My turning over command to you did not depend on these other matters—nor is it necessary for your officers to know everything that the Captain knows… even your department heads.”
“Uh, I suppose not.”
Walther stared at his coffee. “Have you heard how Mr. Simes happened to die?”
Max told him what little he had learned from Sam. Walther nodded. “That is essentially correct. Mmmm… It is not good to speak ill of the dead, but Simes was an unstable character. When Captain Blaine passed on, he took it for granted that he was immediately captain of this ship.”
“Well—I suppose it looked that way to him, from the legal standpoint.”
“Not at all! Sorry to correct you, Captain, but that is one hundred percent wrong.”
Max frowned. “I guess I’m dumb—but I thought that was the argument that was used on me?”
“No, sir. The ship being on the ground, command devolved on me, the senior. I am not required to turn command over to an astrogator until—and unless—the ship goes into space. Even then it is not automatically a matter of turning it over to the senior astrogating officer. I have a clearly defined responsibility, with numerous adjudicated cases in point: I must turn command over only to a man I believe can handle it.
“Now I have long had doubts about Mr. Simes, his temperament, I mean. Nevertheless, in this emergency, I would have found it terribly hard not to turn command over to him, once it was decided to raise ship. But before we lost the Captain I had had occasion to dig into Mr. Simes’ ability as an astrogator—partly as a result of a conversation with you. I talked with Kelly—as you have gathered, Kelly is very well thought of. I believe I know now how that last transition went sour; Kelly took pains to show me. That and the fact that Kelly told me bluntly that there wasn’t a member of the Worry gang willing to go into space under Mr. Simes made me decide that, if it ever came up, I’d let this ship sit here forever before I would let Simes be captain. That was just thinking ahead; the Captain was sick and prudence forced me to consider possibilities.
“Then the Captain did die—and Simes announced that he was captain. The fool even moved into the cabin and sent for me. I told him he was not in command and never would be. Then I left, got witnesses and took my chief of police along to eject him. You know what happened. Your life isn’t the only one that Anderson saved; I owe him mine, too.”
Walther abruptly changed the subject. “That phenomenal trick of memory you do—computing without tables or reference books. Can you do it all the time?”
“Uh? Why, yes.”
“Do you know all the tables? Or just some of them?”
“I know all the standard tables and manuals that are what an astrogator calls his ‘working tools.'” Max started to tell about his uncle, Walther interrupted gently.
“If you please, sir. I’m glad to hear it. I’m very glad to hear it. Because the only such books in this ship are the ones in your head.”
Kelly had missed the books, of course—not Walther. When he disclosed his suspicions to Walther the two conducted a search. When that failed, it was announced that one (but only one) set was missing; Walther had offered a reward, and the ship had been combed from stern to astrodome—no manuals.
“I suppose he ditched them dirtside,” Walther finished. You know where that leaves us—we’re in a state of seige. And we’d find them only by accident if we weren’t. So I’m very glad you have the same confidence in your memory that Kelly has.”
Max was beginning to have misgivings—it is one thing to do something as a stunt, quite another to do it of necessity. “It isn’t that bad,” he answered. “Perhaps Kelly never thought of it, but logarithms and binary translation tables can probably be borrowed from engineering—with those we could fudge up methods for any straight hop. The others are needed mostly for anomalous transitions.”
“Kelly thought of that, too. Tell me, Captain, how does a survey ship go back after it penetrates a newly located congruency?”
“Huh? So that is what you want me to do with the ship?”
“It is not for me,” Walther said formally, “to tell the Captain where to take his ship.”
Max said slowly, “I’ve thought about it. I’ve had a lot of time to think lately.” He did not add that he had dwelt on it nights in captivity to save his reason. “Of course, we don’t have the instruments that survey ships carry, nor does applied astrogation go much into the theory of calculating congruencies. And even some survey ships don’t come back.”
“But… ” They were interrupted by a knock on the door. A steward’s mate came in and loaded the table with food. Max felt himself starting to drool.
He spread a slice of toast with butter and jam, and took a big bite. “My, this is good!”
“I should have realized. Have a banana, sir? They look quite good—I believe hydroponics has had to thin them out lately.”
Max shuddered. “I don’t think I’ll ever eat bananas again. Or pawpaws.” “Allergic, Captain?”
“Not exactly. Well… yes.”
He finished the toast and said, “About that possibility. I’ll let you know later.” “Very well, Captain.”
Shortly before the dinner hour Max stood in front of the long mirror in the Captain’s bedroom and looked at himself. His hair was short again and two hours sleep had killed some of his fatigue. He settled a cap on his head at the proper angle—the name in the sweat band was “Hendrix”; he had found it laid out with one of his own uniforms to which captain’s insignia had been added. The sunburst on his chest bothered him—that he was indeed captain he conceded, even though it seemed like a wild dream, but he had felt that he was not entitled to anything but the smaller sunburst and circle, despite his four stripes.
Walther and Samuels had been respectful but firm, with Samuels citing precedents that Max could not check on. Max had given in.
He looked at himself, braced his shoulders, and sighed. He might as well go face them. As he walked down the companionway to the lounge he heard the speakers repeating, “All hands! All passengers! Report to Bifrost Lounge!”
The crowd made way for him silently. He went to the Captain’s table—his table!—and sat down at its head. Walther was standing by the chair. “Good evening, Captain.”
“Evening, Mr. Walther.”
Ellie was seated across from him. She caught his eye and smiled. “Hello, Ellie.” He felt himself blushing.
“Good evening, Captain,” she said firmly. She was dressed in the same high style she had worn the first time he had ever seen her in the lounge; it did not seem possible that this lady could be the same girl whose dirty face had looked at him over three-dee boards scratched in dirt.
“Uh, how are your feet?”
“Bandages and bedroom slippers. But the Surgeon did a fine job. I’ll be dancing tomorrow.” “Don’t rush it.”
She looked at his stripes and his chest. “You should talk.”
Before he could answer the unanswerable Walther leaned over and said quietly, “We’re ready, Captain.” “Oh. Go ahead.” Walther tapped on a water glass.
The First Officer explained the situation in calm tones that made it seem reasonable, inevitable. He concluded by saying, “… and so, in accordance with law and the custom of space, I have relinquished my temporary command to your new captain. Captain Jones!”
Max stood up. He looked around, swallowed, tried to speak, and couldn’t. Then, as effectively as if it had been a dramatic pause and not desperation, he picked up his water tumbler and took a sip. “Guests and fellow crewmen,” he said, “we can’t stay here. You know that. I have been told that our Surgeon calls the system we are up against here’symbiotic enslavement’—like dog to man, only more so, and apparently covering the whole animal kingdom on this planet. Well, men aren’t meant for slavery, symbiotic or any sort. But we are too few to win out now, so we must leave.”
He stopped for another sip and Ellie caught his eye, encouraging him. “Perhaps someday other men will come back—better prepared. As for us, I am going to try to take the Asgard back through the… uh, ‘hole’ you might call it, where we came out. It’s a chancy thing. No one is forced to come along—but it is the only possible way to get home. Anyone who’s afraid to chance it will be landed on the north pole of planet number three—the evening star we have been calling ‘Aphrodite.’ You may be able to survive there, although it is pretty hot even at the poles. If you prefer that alternative, turn your names in this
evening to the Purser. The rest of us will try to get home.” He stopped, then said suddenly, “That’s all,” and sat down.
There was no applause and he felt glumly that he had muffed his first appearance. Conversation started up around the room, crewmen left, and steward’s mates quickly started serving. Ellie looked at him and nodded quietly. Mrs. Mendoza was on his left; she said, “Ma—I mean ‘Captain’—is it really so dangerous? I hardly like the thought of trying anything risky. Isn’t there something else we can do?”
“No.”
“But surely there must be?”
“No. I’d rather not discuss it at the table.”
“But… ” He went on firmly spooning soup, trying not to tremble. When he looked up he was caught by a glittering eye across the table, a Mrs. Montefiore, who preferred to be called “Principessa”—a dubious title. “Dolores, don’t bother him. We want to hear about his adventures—don’t we, Captain?”
“No.”
“Come now! I hear that it was terribly romantic.” She drawled the word and gave Ellie a sly, sidelong look. She looked back at Max with the eye of a predatory bird and showed her teeth. She seemed to have more teeth than was possible. “Tell us all about it!”
“No.”
“But you simply can’t refuse!”
Eldreth smiled at her and said, “Princess darling—your mouth is showing.” Mrs. Montefiore shut up.
After dinner Max caught Walther alone. “Mr. Walther?” “Oh—yes, Captain?”
“Am I correct in thinking that it is my privilege to pick the persons who sit at my table?” “Yes, sir.”
“In that case—that Montefiore female. Will you have her moved, please? Before breakfast?” Walther smiled faintly. “Aye aye, sir.”
THE CAPTAIN OF THE ASGARD
They took Sam down and buried him where he had fallen. Max limited it to himself and Walther and Giordano, sending word to Ellie not to come. There was a guard of honor but it was armed to kill and remained spread out around the grave, eyes on the hills. Max read the service in a voice almost too low to be heard—the best he could manage.
Engineering had hurriedly prepared the marker, a pointed slab of stainless metal. Max looked at it before he placed it and thought about the inscription. “Greater love hath no man”?—no, he had decided that Sam wouldn’t like that, with his cynical contempt of all sentimentality. He had considered, “He played the cards he was dealt”—but that didn’t fit Sam either; if Sam didn’t like the cards, he sometimes slipped in a whole new deck. No, this was more Sam’s style; he shoved it into the ground and read it:
IN MEMORY OF
SERGEANT SAM ANDERSON LATE OF THE
IMPERIAL MARINES
“He ate what was set before him.”
Walther saw the marker for the first time. “So that’s how it was? Somehow I thought so.” “Yes. I never did know his right name. Richards. Or maybe Roberts.”
“Oh.” Walther thought over the implication. “We could get him reinstated, sir, posthumously. His prints will identify him.”
“I think Sam would like that.”
“I’ll see to it, sir, when we get back.” “If we get back.”
“If you please, Captain—when we get back.”
Max went straight to the control room. He had been up the evening before and had gotten the first shock of being treated as captain in the Worry Hole over with. When Kelly greeted him with, “Good morning, Captain,” he was able to be almost casual.
“Morning, Chief. Morning, Lundy.” “Coffee, sir?”
“Thanks. About that parking orbit—is it set up?” “Not yet, sir.”
“Then forget it. I’ve decided to head straight back. We can plan it as we go. Got the films?”
“I picked them up earlier.” They referred to the films cached in Max’s stateroom. Simes had managed to do away with the first set at the time of Captain Blaine’s death; the reserve set was the only record of when and where the Asgard had emerged into this space, including records of routine sights taken immediately after transition.
“Okay. Let’s get busy. Kovak can punch for me.”
The others were drifting in, well ahead of time, as was customary in Kelly’s gang. “If you wish, sir. I’d be
glad to compute for the Captain.”
“Kovak can do it. You might help Noguchi and Lundy with the films.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Data flowed to him presently. He had awakened twice in the night in cold fright that he had lost his unique memory. But when the data started coming, he programmed without effort, appropriate pages opening in his mind. The problem was a short departure to rid themselves of the planet’s influence, an adjustment of position to leave the local sun “behind” for simpler treatment of its field, then a long, straight boost for the neighborhood in which they had first appeared in this space. It need not be precise, for transition would not be attempted on the first pass; they must explore the area, taking many more photographic sights and computing from them, to establish a survey that had never been made.
Departure was computed and impressed on tape for the autopilot and the tape placed in the console long before noon. The ship had been keeping house on local time, about fifty-five standard minutes to the hour; now the ship would return to Greenwich, the time always kept in the control room—dinner would be late and some of the “beasts” would as usual reset their watches the wrong way and blame it on the government.
They synchronized with the power room, the tape started running, there remained nothing to do but press the button a few seconds before preset time and thereby allow the autopilot to raise ship. The phone rang, Smythe took it and looked at Max. “For you, Captain. The Purser.”
“Captain?” Samuels sounded worried. “I dislike to disturb you in the control room.” “No matter. What is it?”
“Mrs. Montefiore. She wants to be landed on Aphrodite.” Max thought a moment. “Anybody else change his mind?” “No, sir.”
“They were all notified to turn in their names last night.”
“I pointed that out to her, sir. Her answers were not entirely logical.”
“Nothing would please me more than to dump her there. But after all, we are responsible for her. Tell her no.
“Aye aye, sir. May I have a little leeway in how I express it?” “Certainly. Just keep her out of my hair.”
Max flipped off the phone, found Kelly at his elbow. “Getting close, sir. Perhaps you will take the console now and check the set up? Before you raise?”
“Eh? No, you take her up, Chief. You’ll have the first watch.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” Kelly sat down at the console, Max took the Captain’s seat, feeling self-conscious. He wished that he had learned to smoke a pipe—it looked right to have the Captain sit back, relaxed and smoking his pipe, while the ship maneuvered.
He felt a slight pulsation and was pressed more firmly into the chair cushions; the Asgard was again on her own private gravity, independent of true accelerations. Moments later the ship raised, but with
nothing to show it but the change out the astrodome from blue sky to star-studded ebony of space.
Max got up and found that he was still holding an imaginary pipe, he hastily dropped it. “I’m going below, Chief. Call me when the departure sights are ready to compute. By the way, what rotation of watches do you plan on?”
Kelly locked the board, got up and joined him. “Well, Captain. I had figured on Kovak and me heel-and-toe, with the boys on one in three. We’ll double up later.”
Max shook his head. “No. You and me and Kovak. And we’ll stay on one in three as long as possible. No telling how long we’ll fiddle around out there before we take a stab at it.”
Kelly lowered his voice. “Captain, may I express an opinion?”
“Kelly, any time you stop being frank with me, I won’t have a chance of swinging this. You know that.”
“Thank you, sir. The Captain should not wear himself out. You have to do all the computing as it is.” Kelly added quietly, “The safety of your ship is more important than—well, perhaps ‘pride’ is the word.”
Max took a long time to reply. He was learning, without the benefit of indoctrination, that a commanding officer is not permitted foibles commonplace in any other role; he himself is ruled more strongly by the powers vested in him than is anyone else. The Captain’s privileges—such as chucking a tiresome female from his table—were minor, while the penalties of the inhuman job had unexpected ramifications.
“Chief,” he said slowly, “is there room to move the coffee mess over behind the computer?” Kelly measured the space with his eye. “Yes, sir. Why?”
“I was thinking that would leave room over here to install a cot.” “You intend to sleep up here, sir?”
“Sometimes. But I was thinking of all of us—you shave up here half the time, as it is. The watches for the next few weeks do not actually require the O.W. to be awake most of the time, so we’ll all doss off when we can. What do you think?”
“It’s against regulations, sir. A bad precedent… and a bad example.” He glanced over at Noguchi and Smythe.
“You would write it up formal and proper, for my signature, citing the regulation and suspending it on an emergency basis ‘for the safety of the ship.'”
“If you say so, sir.”
“You don’t sound convinced, so maybe I’m wrong. Think it over and let me know.”
The cot appeared and the order was posted, but Max never saw either Kelly or Kovak stretched out on the cot. As for himself, had he not used it, he would have had little sleep.
He usually ate in the control room as well. Although there was little to do on their way out to rendezvous with nothingness but take sights to determine the relations of that nothingness with surrounding sky, Max found that when he was not computing he was worrying, or discussing his worries with Kelly.
How did a survey ship find its way back through a newly calculated congruency? And what had gone wrong with those that failed to come back? Perhaps Dr. Hendrix could have figured the other side of an
uncharted congruency using only standard ship’s equipment—or perhaps not. Max decided that Dr. Hendrix could have done it; the man had been a fanatic about his profession, with a wide knowledge of the theoretical physics behind the routine numerical computations—much wider, Max was sure, than most astrogators.
Max knew that survey ships calculated congruencies from both sides, applying to gravitational field theory data gathered on the previously unknown side. He made attempts to rough out such a calculation, then gave up, having no confidence in his results—he was sure of his mathematical operations but unsure of theory and acutely aware of the roughness of his data. There was simply no way to measure accurately the masses of stars light-years away with the instruments in the Asgard.
Kelly seemed relieved at his decision. After that they both gave all their time to an attempt to lay out a “groove” to the unmarked point in the heavens where their photosights said that they had come out—in order that they might eventually scoot down that groove, arriving at the locus just below the speed of light, then kick her over and hope.
A similar maneuver on a planet’s surface would be easy—but there is no true parallel with the situation in the sky. The “fixed” stars move at high speeds and there are no other landmarks; to decide what piece of featureless space corresponds with where one was at another time requires a complicated series of calculations having no “elegant” theoretical solutions. For each charted congruency an astrogator has handed to him a table of precalculated solutions—the “Critical Tables for Charted Anomalies.” Max and Kelly had to fudge up their own.
Max spent so much time in the control room that the First Officer finally suggested that passenger morale would be better if he could show himself in the lounge occasionally. Walther did not add that Max should wear a smile and a look of quiet confidence, but he implied it. Thereafter Max endeavored to dine with his officers and passengers.
He had of course seen very little of Eldreth. When he saw her at the first dinner after Walther’s gentle suggestion she seemed friendly but distant. He decided that she was treating him with respect, which made him wonder if she were ill. He recalled that she had originally come aboard in a stretcher, perhaps she was not as rugged as she pretended to be. He made a mental note to ask the Surgeon—indirectly, of course!
They were dawdling over coffee and Max was beginning to fidget with a desire to get back to the Worry Hole. He reminded himself sharply that Walther expected him not to show anxiety—then looked around and said loudly, “This place is like a morgue. Doesn’t anyone dance here these days? Dumont!”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Let’s have some dance music. Mrs. Mendoza, would you honor me?”
Mrs. Mendoza tittered and accepted. She turned out to be a disgrace to Argentina, no sense of rhythm. But he piloted her around with only minor collisions and got her back to her chair, so timed that he could bow out gracefully. He then exercised the privilege of rank by cutting in on Mrs. Daigler. Maggie’s hair was still short but her splendor otherwise restored.
“We’ve missed you, Captain.”
“I’ve been working. Short-handed, you know.”
“I suppose so. Er… Captain, is it pretty soon now?’
“Before we transit? Not long. It has taken this long because we have had to do an enormous number of fiddlin’ calculations—to be safe, you know.”
“Are we really going home?”
He gave what he hoped was a confident smile. “Absolutely. Don’t start any long book from the ship’s library; the Purser won’t let you take it dirtside.”
She sighed. “I feel better.”
He thanked her for the waltz, looked around, saw Mrs. Montefiore and decided that his obligation to maintain morale did not extend that far. Eldreth was seated, so he went to her. “Feet still bothering you, Ellie?”
“No, Captain. Thank you for asking.” “Then will you dance with me?”
She opened her eyes wide. “You mean the Captain has time for po’ li’l ole me?”
He leaned closer. “One more crack like that, dirty face, and you’ll be tossed into irons.” She giggled and wrinkled her nose. “Aye aye, Captain, sir.”
For a while they danced without talking, with Max a little overpowered by her nearness and wondering why he had not done this sooner. Finally she said, “Max? Have you given up three-dee permanently?”
“Huh? Not at all. After we make this transit I’ll have time to play—if you’ll spot me two starships.”
“I’m sorry I ever told you about that. But I do wish you would say hello to Chipsie sometimes. She was asking this morning, ‘Where Maxie?'”
“Oh, I am sorry. I’d take her up to the control room with me occasionally, except that she might push a button and lose us a month’s work. Go fetch her.”
“The crowd would make her nervous. We’ll go see her.” He shook his head. “Not to your room.”
“Huh? Don’t be silly. I’ve got no reputation left anyhow, and a captain can do as he pleases.”
“That shows you’ve never been a captain. See that vulture watching us?” He indicated Mrs. Montefiore with his eyes. “Now go get Chipsie and no more of your back talk.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
He scratched Chipsie’s chin, fed her sugar cubes, and assured her that she was the finest spider puppy in that part of the sky. He then excused himself.
He was feeling exhilarated and oddly reassured. Seeing Mr. Walther disappearing into his room, he paused at the companionway and on impulse followed him. A matter had been worrying him, this was as good a time as any.
“Dutch? Are you busy?”
The First Officer turned. “Oh. No, Captain. Come in.”
Max waited during the ceremonial coffee, then broached it. “Something on my mind, Mr. Walther—a personal matter.”
“Anything I can do?”
“I don’t think so. But you’re a lot more experienced than I am; I’d like to tell you about it.” “If the Captain wishes.”
“Look, Dutch, this is a ‘Max’ matter, not a ‘Captain’ matter.”
Walther smiled. “All right. But don’t ask me to change my form of address. I might pick up a bad habit.”
“Okay, okay.” Max had intended to sound out Walther about his phony record: had Dr. Hendrix reported it? Or hadn’t he?
But he found it impossible to follow that line; being a captain had forced him into a different mold. “I want to tell you how I got into this ship.” He told it all, not suppressing Sam’s part now that it no longer could hurt Sam. Walther listened gravely.
“I’ve been waiting for you to mention this, Captain,” he said at last. “Dr. Hendrix reported it to me, in less detail, when he put you up for apprentice astrogator. We agreed that it was a matter that need not be raised inside the ship.”
“It’s what happens after we get back that frets me. If we get back.” “When we get back. Are you asking for advice? Or help? Or what?” “I don’t know. I just wanted to tell you.”
“Mmmm… there are two alternatives. One we could handle here, by altering a not very important report. In which…”
“No, Dutch. I won’t have phony reports going out of the Asgard.”
“I was fairly certain you would say that. I feel the same way, except that I would feel obligated for—well, various reasons—to cover up for you if you asked it.”
“I once intended to arrange a phony on it. I even felt justified. But I can’t do it now.”
“I understand. The remaining alternative is to report it and face the music. In which case I’ll see it through with you—and so will the Chief Engineer and the Purser, I feel sure.”
Max sat back, feeling warm and happy. “Thanks, Dutch. I don’t care what they do to me… just as long as it doesn’t keep me out of space.”
“I don’t think they’ll try to do that, not if you bring this ship in. But if they do—well, they’ll know they’ve been in a fight. Meantime try to forget it.”
“I’ll try.” Max frowned. “Dutch? Tell me the truth, what do you think about the stunt I pulled?” “That’s a hard question, Captain. More important is, how do you feel about it?”
“Me? I don’t know. I know how I used to feel—I felt belligerent.” “Eh?”
“I was always explaining—in my mind of course—why I did it, justifying myself, pointing out that the system was at fault, not me. Now I don’t want to justify myself. Not that I regret it, not when I think what I would have missed. But I don’t want to duck out of paying for it, either.”
Walther nodded. “That sounds like a healthy attitude. Captain, no code is perfect. A man must conform with judgment and commonsense, not with blind obedience. I’ve broken rules; some violations I paid for, some I didn’t. This mistake you made could have turned you into a moralistic prig, a ‘Regulation Charlie’ determined to walk the straight and narrow and to see that everyone else obeyed the letter of the law. Or it could have made you a permanent infant who thinks rules are for everyone but him. It doesn’t seem to have had either effect; I think it has matured you.”
Max grinned. “Well, thanks, Dutch.” He stood up. “I’ll get back up to the Hole and mess up a few figures.”
“Captain? Are you getting enough sleep?”
“Me? Oh, sure, I get a nap almost every watch.”
“Minus four hours, Captain.” Max sat up on the cot in the control room, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. The Asgard was in the groove, had been boosting along it for days, working up to that final burst that would squeeze them out of this space and into another—one they knew or some other, depending on how well their “fudging” had conformed to the true structure of the universe.
Max blinked at Kelly. “How long have you been up here?” “Not long, Captain.”
“Did you get any sleep?” “Well, now, Captain…”
“Forget it, you’re incorrigible. Got one ready?” “Yes, sir.”
“Shoot.” Max sat on the cot while they passed data to him, eyes closed while he programmed the problem and translated it into the binary numbers the computer understood. He had not been out of the Hole more than a few minutes at a time for days. He would doze between sights, wake up and process one, then lie down again.
He had kept Kelly and Kovak on watch-and-watch as long as possible—although it was hard to get Kelly to rest. Lundy, Smythe, and Noguchi had continued to rotate, overlapping when the going got faster in order to help each other with plate changing and readings. For Max there could be no relief; he must process each sight, supplying from his card-file memory the information in the missing manuals.
All the Worry gang were there but Lundy. He came up as Max finished and ordered the correction. “Compliments of cookie,” he announced, setting down a gallon of ice cream.
“What flavor?” asked Max. “Chocolate chip, sir.”
“My favorite. Just remember when you are dishing it that efficiency marks will be coming up one of these days.”
“Now, Captain, that’s not fair. The Chief has a lot more mass to feed than you have.” “And I have a very high metabolic rate,” announced Noguchi. “I need more.”
“Noggy, you have a built-in space warp in each leg. We’ll let Kelly dish it and hope that pride will restrain him.” Max turned to Kelly. “What schedule are we on?”
“Twenty minutes, Captain.” “Think we need that so soon?” “Just to be safe, sir.”
“Okay.” They ran another sight and ate the ice cream, after which Max shifted them to transition stations. Kelly did not take the computer. A key punched by Kovak gave the same answer as one punched by Kelly, and Max wanted Kelly on the vernier stereograph where his long experience could make the best of poor data. Lundy assisted Kelly, with Smythe and Noguchi shooting and running.
At minus two hours Max called Compagnon, told him that they were narrowing down; the Chief Engineer assured him that he would nurse boost and vector himself from there on. “Good hunting, Captain.”
On a ten minute schedule Max still found it easy, though he had to admit he wasn’t as fresh as a still-warm egg. But he was kept comfortably busy and the corrections were pleasantly
small—Compagnon must be doing a real job down there. When the preset on the computer said less than one hour to zero, he stood up and stretched. “Everybody all set. Somebody wake up Noggy.
Everybody got a pepper pill in him? And who’s got one for me?”
Kovak leaned back and handed him one, Max popped it into his mouth and downed it with a swig of coffee. “Grab a last sandwich if you’re going to. All right, gang—let’s hit it!”
The data flowed in a steady stream. After a while Max began to tire. He would no more than pick one correction off the lights on the computer and feed it to the power room than Kelly would have more data ready. A correction showed up that seemed off the curve, as if they were “hunting” excessively. He glanced back at the lights before applying it—then realized that a new set of data was being offered.
“Repeat!” he called out.
Kelly repeated. Max ran the figures over in his mind and found that they meant nothing to him. What had that last correction implied? Had he used a legitimate method in surveying this anomaly? Could you even call it surveying? Was this what a survey ship did to get out? How could they expect a man to…
“Captain!” Kelly said sharply.
He shook his head and sat up. “Sorry. Hold the next one.” With a feeling of panic he reviewed the data in his mind and tried to program. He knew at last how it felt to have the deadline bearing down fast as light—and to lose confidence.
He told himself that he must abort—slide past under the speed of light, spend weeks swinging back, and try again. But he knew that if he did, his nerve would never sustain him for a second try.
At that bad moment a feeling came over him that someone was standing behind his chair, resting hands
on his shoulders—quieting him, soothing him. He began clearly and sharply to call off figures to Kovak.
He was still calling them out with the precision of an automaton twenty minutes later. He accepted one more sight, digested it, sent it on to Kovak with his eyes on the preset. He applied the correction, a tiny one, and called out, “Stand by!” He pressed the button that allowed the chronometer to kick it over on the microsecond. Only then did he look around, but there was no one behind him.
“There’s the Jeep!” he heard Kelly say exultantly. “And there’s the Ugly Duckling!” Max looked up. They were back in the familiar sky of Nu Pegasi and Halcyon.
Five minutes later Kelly and Max were drinking cold coffee and cleaning up the remains of a plate of sandwiches while Noguchi and Smythe completed the post-transition sights. Kovak and Lundy had gone below for a few minutes relief before taking the first watch. Max glanced again at the astrodome. “So we made it. I never thought we would.”
“Really, Captain? There was never any doubt in my mind after you took command.” “Hmmm! I’m glad you didn’t know how I felt.”
Kelly ignored this. “You know, sir, when you are programming your voice sounds amazingly like the Doctor’s.”
Max looked at him sharply. “I had a bad time there once,” he said slowly. “Shortly before zip.” “Yes, sir. I know.”
“Then—Look, this was just a feeling, you see? I don’t go for ghosts. But I had the notion that Doc was standing over me, the way he used to, checking what I did. Then everything was all right.”
Kelly nodded. “Yes. He was here. I was sure he would be.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Kelly would not explain. He turned instead to inspect post-transition plates, comparing them happily with standard plates from the chart safe—the first such opportunity since the ship was lost.
“I suppose,” said Max when Kelly was through, “that we had better rough out an orbit for Nu Pegasi before we sack in.” He yawned. “Brother, am I dead!”
Kelly said, “For Nu Pegasi, sir?”
“Well, we can’t shoot for Halcyon itself at this distance. What did you have in mind?” “Nothing, sir.”
“Spill it.”
“Well, sir, I guess I had assumed that we would reposition for transit to Nova Terra. But if that is what the Captain wants—”
Max drummed on the chart safe. It had never occurred to him that anyone would expect him to do anything, after accomplishing the impossible, but to shape course for the easy, target-in-sight destination they had left from, there to wait for competent relief.
“You expected me to take her on through? With no tables and no help?” “I did not intend to presume, Captain. It was an unconscious assumption.”
Max straightened up. “Tell Kovak to hold her as she goes. Phone Mr. Walther to see me at once in my cabin.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The First Officer met him outside his cabin. “Hello, Dutch. Come in.” They entered and Max threw his cap on his desk. “Well, we made it.”
“Yes, sir. I was watching from the lounge.” “You don’t seem surprised.”
“Should I be, Captain?”
Max sprawled in his easy chair, stretching his weary back muscles. “You should be. Yes, sir, you should be.”
“All right. I’m surprised.”
Max looked up and scowled. “Dutch, where is this ship going now?” Walther answered, “The Captain has not yet told me.”
“Confound it! You know what I mean. Our schedule calls for Nova Terra. But there is Halcyon sitting right over there—a blind man could find it with a cane. What destination did you have in mind when you boosted me into command? Tell me what you expected then? Before you tagged me.”
“I had in mind,” Walther answered, “getting a captain for the Asgard.”
“That’s no answer. See here, the passengers have a stake in this. Sure, I had to take this risk for them, no choice. But now there is a choice. Shouldn’t we tell them and let them vote on it?”
Walther shook his head emphatically. “You don’t ask passengers anything, sir. Not in a ship underway. It is not fair to them to ask them. You tell them.”
Max jumped up and strode the length of the cabin. “‘Fair,’ you say. Fair! It’s not fair to me.” He swung and faced Walther. “Well? You’re not a passenger. You’re my First Officer. What do you think we should do?”
Walther stared him in the eye. “I can’t decide that for the Captain. That is why you are Captain.”
Max stood still and closed his eyes. The figures stood out clearly, in neat columns. He went to his phone and savagely punched the call for the control room. “Captain speaking. Is Kelly still there? Oh—good, Chief. We reposition for Nova Terra. Start work—I’ll be up in a minute.”
THE TOMAHAWK
Max liked this time of day, this time of year. He was lying in the grass on the little rise west of the barn, with his head propped up so that he could see to the northwest. If he kept his eyes there, on the exit ring of the C.S.&E. Ring Road, he would be able, any instant now, to see the Tomahawk plunge out and shoot across the gap in free trajectory. At the moment he was not reading, no work was pushing him, he was just being lazy and enjoying the summer evening.
A squirrel sat up near by, stared at him, decided he was harmless and went about its business. A bird swooped past.
There was a breathless hush, then suddenly a silver projectile burst out of the exit ring, plunged across the draw and entered the ring on the far side—just as the sound hit him.
“Boy, oh boy!” he said softly. “It never looks like they’d make it.”
It was all that he had climbed the rise to see, but he did not get up at once. Instead he pulled a letter from his pocket and reread the ending: “… I guess Daddy was glad to get me back in one piece because he finally relented. Putzie and I were married a week ago—and oh Max, I’m so happy! You must visit us the next time you hit dirt at Hespera.” She had added, “P.S. Mr. Chips sends her love—and so do I.”
Quite a gal, Ellie. She usually got her own way, one way or another. He felt a bit sorry for Putzie. Now if they had all stayed on Charity…
Never mind—an astrogator ought not to get married. Fondly he fingered the sunburst on his chest. Too bad he had not been able to stay with the Asgard—but of course they were right; he could not ship as assistant in a ship where he had once been skipper. And assistant astrogator of the Elizabeth Regina was a good billet, too; everybody said the Lizzie was a taut ship.
Besides that, not every young A.A. had a new congruency to his credit, even now being surveyed. He had nothing to kick about. He didn’t even mind the whopping big fine the Council of the Guilds had slapped on him, nor the official admonition that had been entered in his record. They had let him stay in space, which was the important thing, and the admonition appeared right along with the official credit for the “Hendrix” congruency.
And, while he didn’t argue the justice of the punishment—he’d been in the wrong and he knew it—nevertheless the guilds were set up wrong; the rules ought to give everybody a chance. Some day he’d be senior enough to do a little politicking on that point.
In the meantime, if he didn’t get moving, he’d have to buy that taxi. Max got up and started down the slope. The helicab was parked in front of the house and the driver was standing near it, looking out over the great raw gash of the Missouri-Arkansas Power Project. The fields Max once had worked were gone, the cut reached clear into the barn yard. The house was still standing but the door hung by one hinge and some kid had broken all the windows. Max looked at the house and wondered where Maw and the man she had married were now?—not that he really cared and no one around Clyde’s Corners seemed to know. They had told him at the courthouse that Maw had collected her half of the government-condemnation money and the pair of them had left town.
Probably their money was gone by now—Max’s half of the money was gone completely, it hadn’t quite paid his fine. If they were broke, maybe Montgomery was having to do some honest work, for Maw wasn’t the woman to let a man loaf when she was needing. The thought pleased Max; he felt he had a score to settle with Montgomery, but Maw was probably settling it for him.
The driver turned toward him. “Be a big thing when they get this finished. You ready to go, sir?”
Max took a last glance around. “Yes. I’m all through here.” They climbed into the cabin. “Where to? Back to the Corners?”
Max thought about it. He really ought to save money—but shucks, he would save plenty this next trip. “No, fly me over to Springfield and drop me at the southbound ring road station. I’d like to make it in time to catch the Javelin.”
That would put him in Earthport before morning.
The End
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
Posts about the Changes in America
America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
Articles & Links
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
This is the full Text of the novel by Robert Heinlein.
Of all the science fiction that is out there in the world, the fiction that is the closest approximation to the way things REALLY work in this universe is not something from Star Trek, or Star Wars. It is instead more like the Robert Heinlein novel “Glory Road”.
That is a very stark truth. Pay attention. Here, I present this novel in it’s entirety to the reader to consider.
Glory Road
Robert A. Heinlein
BRITANNUS (shocked):
Caesar, this is not proper.
THEODOTUS (outraged):
How?
CAESAR (recovering his self-possession):
Pardon him Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
Caesar and Cleopatra, Act II
-George Bernard Shaw
Chapter 1
I know a place where there is no smog and no parking problem and no population explosion . . . no Cold War and no H-bombs and no television commercials . . . no Summit Conferences, no Foreign Aid, no hidden taxes–no income tax. The climate is the sort that Florida and California claim (and neither has), the land is lovely, the people are friendly and hospitable to strangers, the women are beautiful and amazingly anxious to please-
I could go back. I could-
It was an election year with the customary theme of anything you can do I can do better, to a background of beeping sputniks. I was twenty-one but couldn’t figure out which party to vote against.
Instead I phoned my draft board and told them to send me that notice.
I object to conscription the way a lobster objects to boiling water: it may be his finest hour but it’s not his choice. Nevertheless I love my country. Yes, I do, despite propaganda all through school about how patriotism is obsolete. One of my great-grandfathers died at Gettysburg and my father made that long walk back from Chosen Reservoir, so I didn’t buy this new idea. I argued against it in class–until it got me a “D,” in Social Studies, then I shut up and passed the course.
But I didn’t change my opinions to match those of a teacher who didn’t know Little Round Top from Seminary Ridge.
Are you of my generation? If not, do you know why we turned out so wrong-headed? Or did you just write us off as “juvenile delinquents?”
I could write a book. Brother! But I’ll note one key fact: After you’ve spent years and years trying to knock the patriotism out of a boy, don’t expect him to cheer when he gets a notice reading:
GREETINGS: You are hereby ordered for induction into the Armed Forces of the United States-
Talk about a “Lost Generation!” I’ve read that post-World-War-One jazz–Fitzgerald and Hemingway and so on–and it strikes me that all they had to worry about was wood alcohol in bootleg liquor. They had the world by the tail–so why were they crying?
Sure, they had Hitler and the Depression ahead of them. But they didn’t know that. We had Khrushchev and the H-bomb and we certainly did know.
But we were not a “Lost Generation.” We were worse; we were the “Safe Generation.” Not beatniks. The Beats were never more than a few hundred out of millions. Oh, we talked beatnik jive and dug cool sounds in stereo and disagreed with Playboy’s poll of jazz musicians just as earnestly as if it mattered. We read Salinger and Kerouac and used language that shocked our parents and dressed (sometimes) in beatnik fashion. But we didn’t think that bongo drums and a beard compared with money in the bank. We weren’t rebels. We were as conformist as army worms. “Security” was our unspoken watchword.
Most of our watchwords were unspoken but we followed them as compulsively as a baby duck takes to water. “Don’t fight City Hall.” “Get it while the getting is good.” “Don’t get caught.” High goals, these, great moral values, and they all mean “Security.” “Going steady” (my generation’s contribution to the American Dream) was based on security; it insured that Saturday night could never be the loneliest night for the weak. If you went steady, competition was eliminated.
But we had ambitions. Yes, sir! Stall off your draft board and get through college. Get married and get her pregnant, with both families helping you to stay on as a draft-immune student. Line up a job well thought of by draft boards, say with some missile firm. Better yet, take postgraduate work if your folks (or hers) could afford it and have another kid and get safely beyond the draft–besides, a doctor’s degree was a union card, for promotion and pay and retirement.
Short of a pregnant wife with well-to-do parents the greatest security lay in being 4-F. Punctured eardrums were good but an allergy was best. One of my neighbors had a terrible asthma that lasted till his twenty-sixth birthday. No fake–he was allergic to draft boards. Another escape was to convince an army psychiatrist that your interests were more suited to the State Department than to the Army. More than half of my generation were “unfit for military service.”
I don’t find this surprising. There is an old picture of a people traveling by sleigh through deep woods–pursued by wolves. Every now and then they grab one of their number and toss him to the wolves. That’s conscription even if you call it “selective service” and pretty it up with USOs and “veterans’ benefits”–it’s tossing a minority to the wolves while the rest go on with that single-minded pursuit of the three-car garage, the swimming pool, and the safe & secure retirement benefits.
I am not being holier-than-thou; I was after that same three-car garage myself.
However, my folks could not put me through college. My stepfather was an Air Force warrant officer with all he could handle to buy shoes for his own lads. When he was transferred to Germany just before my high school senior year and I was invited to move in with my father’s sister and her husband, both of us were relieved.
I was no better off financially as my uncle-in-law was supporting a first wife–under California law much like being an Alabama field hand before the Civil War. But I had $35 a month as a “surviving dependent of a deceased veteran.” (Not “war orphan,” which is another deal that pays more.) My mother was certain that Dad’s death had resulted from wounds but the Veterans Administration thought differently, so I was just a “surviving dependent.”
$35 a month did not fill the hole I put in their groceries and it was understood that when I graduated I would root for myself. By doing my military time, no doubt–But I had my own plan; I played football and finished senior year season with the California Central Valley secondary school record for yards gained and a broken nose–and started in at the local State College the next fall with a job “sweeping the gym” at $10 more a month than that pension, plus fees.
I couldn’t see the end out my plan was clear: Hang on, teeth and toenails, and get an engineering degree. Avoid the draft and marriage. On graduation get a deferred-status job. Save money and pick up a law degree, too–because, back in Homestead, Florida, a teacher had pointed out that, while engineers made money, the big money and boss jobs went to lawyers. So I was going to beat the game, yes, sir! Be a Horatio Alger hero. I would have headed straight for that law degree but for the fact that the college did not offer law.
At the end of the season my sophomore year they deemphasized football.
We had had a perfect season–no wins. “Flash” Gordon (that’s me–in the sports write-ups) stood one in yardage and points; nevertheless Coach and I were out of jobs. Oh, I “swept the gym” the rest of that year on basketball, fencing, and track, but the alumnus who picked up the tab wasn’t interested in a basketball player who was only six feet one. I spent that summer pushing an idiot stick and trying to line up a deal elsewhere. I turned twenty-one that summer, which chopped that $35/month, too. Shortly after Labor Day I fell back on a previously prepared position, i.e., I made that phone call to my draft board.
I had in mind a year in the Air Force, then win a competitive appointment to the Air Force Academy–be an astronaut and famous, instead of rich.
Well, we can’t all be astronauts. The Air Force had its quota or something. I was in the Army so fast I hardly had time to pack.
So I set out to be the best chaplain’s clerk in the Army; I made sure that “typing” was listed as one of my skills. If I had anything to say about it, I was going to do my time at Fort Carson, typing neat copies while going to night school on the side.
I didn’t have anything to say about it. Ever been in Southeast Asia? It makes Florida look like a desert. Wherever you step it squishes. Instead of tractors they use water buffaloes. The bushes are filled with insects and natives who shoot at you. It wasn’t a war–not even a “Police Action.” We were “Military Advisers.” But a Military Adviser who has been dead four days in that heat smells the same way a corpse does in a real war.
I was promoted to corporal. I was promoted seven times. To corporal.
I didn’t have the right attitude. So my company commander said. My daddy had been a Marine and my stepfather was Air Force; my only Army ambition had been to be a chaplain’s clerk Stateside. I didn’t like the Army. My company commander didn’t like the Army either; he was a first lieutenant who hadn’t made captain and every time he got to brooding Corporal Gordon lost his stripes.
I lost them the last time for telling him that I was writing to my Congressman to find out why I was the only man in Southeast Asia who was going to be retired for old age instead of going home when his time was up–and that made him so mad he not only busted me but went out and was a hero, and then he was dead. And that’s how I got this scar across my broken nose because I was a hero, too, and should have received the Medal of Honor, only nobody was looking.
While I was recovering, they decided to send me home.
Major Ian Hay, back in the “War to End War,” described the structure of military organizations: Regardless of T.O., all military bureaucracies consist of a Surprise Party Department, a Practical Joke Department, and a Fairy Godmother Department. The first two process most matters as the third is very small; the Fairy Godmother Department is one elderly female GS-5 clerk usually out on sick leave.
But when she is at her desk, she sometimes puts down her knitting and picks a name passing across her desk and does something nice. You have seen how I was whipsawed by the Surprise Party and Practical Joke Departments; this time the Fairy Godmother Department picked Pfc. Gordon.
Like this–When I knew that I was going home as soon as my face healed (little brown brother hadn’t sterilized his bolo), I put in a request to be discharged in Wiesbaden, where my family was, rather than California, home of record. I am not criticizing little brown brother; he hadn’t intended me to heal at all–and he would have managed it if he hadn’t been killing my company commander and too hurried to do a good job on me. I hadn’t sterilized my bayonet but he didn’t complain, he just sighed and came apart, like a doll with its sawdust cut. I felt grateful to him; he not only had rigged the dice so that I got out of the Army, he also gave me a great idea.
He and the Ward surgeon–The Surgeon had said, “You’re going to get well, son. But you’ll be scarred like a Heidelberg student.”
Which got me thinking–You couldn’t get a decent job without a degree, any more than you could be a plasterer without being a son or nephew of somebody in the plasterers’ union. But there are degrees and degrees. Sir Isaac Newton, with a degree from a cow college such as mine, would wash bottles for Joe Thumbfingers–if Joe had a degree from a European university.
Why not Heidelberg? I intended to milk my G.I. benefits; I had that in mind when I put in that too hasty call to my draft board.
According to my mother everything was cheaper in Germany. Maybe I could stretch those benefits
into a doctor’s degree. Herr Doktor Gordon, mit scars on der face from Heidelberg yet!–that would rate an extra $3,000 a year from any missile firm.
Hell, I would fight a couple of student duels and add real Heidelberg scars to back up the dandy I had. Fencing was a sport I really enjoyed (though the one that counted least toward “sweeping the gym”). Some people cannot stand knives, swords, bayonets, anything sharp; psychiatrists have a word for it: aichmophobia. Idiots who drive cars a hundred miles an hour on fifty-mile-an-hour roads will nevertheless panic at the sight of a bare blade.
I’ve never been bothered that way and that’s why I’m alive and one reason why I kept being bucked back to corporal. A “Military Adviser” can’t afford to be afraid of knives, bayonets, and such; he must cope with them. I’ve never been afraid of them because I’m always sure I can do unto another what he is planning to do unto me.
I’ve always been right, except that time I made the mistake of being a hero, and that wasn’t too bad a mistake. If I had tried to bug out instead of staying to disembowel him, he would have chopped my spine in two. As it was, he never got a proper swing at me; his jungle cutter just slashed my face as he came apart–leaving me with a nasty wound that was infected long before the helicopters came. But I never felt it. Presently I got dizzy and sat down in the mud and when I woke up, a medic was giving me plasma.
I rather looked forward to trying a Heidelberg duel. They pad your body and arm and neck and put a steel guard on your eyes and nose and across your ears–this is not like encountering a pragmatic Marxist in the jungle. I once handled one of those swords they use in Heidelberg; it was a light, straight saber, sharp on the edge, sharp a few inches on the back–but a blunt point! A toy, suited only to make pretty scars for girls to admire.
I got a map and whaddayuh know!–Heidelberg is just down the road from Wiesbaden. So I requested my discharge in Wiesbaden.
The ward surgeon said, “You’re an optimist, son,” but initialed it. The medical sergeant in charge of paperwork said, “Out of the question, Soldier.” I won’t say money changed hands but the endorsement the hospital’s C.O. signed read FORWARDED. The ward agreed that I was bucking for a psycho; Uncle Sugar does not give free trips around the world to Pfcs.
I was already so far around that I was as close to Hoboken as to San Francisco–and closer to Wiesbaden. However, policy called for shipping returnees back via the Pacific. Military policy is like cancer: Nobody knows where it comes from but it can’t be ignored.
The Fairy Godmother Department woke up and touched me with its wand.
I was about to climb aboard a bucket called the General Jones bound for Manila, Taipei, Yokohama, Pearl, and Seattle when a dispatch came granting my USAREUR, Heidelberg, Germany, by available military transportation, for discharge, at own request see reference foxtrot. Accumulated leave could be taken or paid, see reference bravo. Subject man was authorized to return to Zone Interior (the States) any time within twelve months of separation, via available military transportation at no further expense to the government. Unquote.
The paper-work sergeant called me in and showed me this, his face glowing with innocent glee. “Only there ain’t no ‘available transportation,’ Soldier–so haul ass aboard the General Jones. You’re going to Seattle, like I said.”
I knew what he meant: The only transport going west in a long, long time had sailed for Singapore thirty-six hours earlier. I stared at that dispatch, thinking about boiling oil and wondering if he had held it back just long enough to keep me from sailing under it.
I shook my head. “I’m going to catch the General Smith in Singapore. Be a real human type, Sarge, and cut me a set of orders for it.”
“Your orders are cut. For the Jones. For Seattle.”
“Gosh,” I said thoughtfully. “I guess I had better go cry on the chaplain.” I faded out fast but I didn’t see the chaplain; I went to the airfield. It took five minutes to find that no commercial nor U.S. military flight was headed for Singapore in time to do me any good.
But there was an Australian military transport headed for Singapore that night. Aussies weren’t even “military advisers” out often were around, as “military observers.” I found the planes skipper, a flight leftenant, and put the situation to him. He grinned and said, “Always room for one more bloke. Wheels up shortly after tea, likely. If the old girl will fly.”
I knew it would fly; it was a Gooney Bird, a C-47, mostly patches and God knows how many millions of miles. It would get to Singapore on one engine if asked. I knew my luck was in as soon as I saw that grand old collection of masking tape and glue sitting on the field.
Four hours later I was in her and wheels up.
I checked in aboard USMTS General Smith the next morning, rather wet–the Pride of Tasmania had flown through storms the night before and a Gooney Birds one weakness is that they leak. But who minds clean rain after jungle mud? The ship was sailing that evening which was grand news.
Singapore is like Hong Kong only flat; one afternoon was enough. I had a drink in the old Raffles, another in the Adelphi, got rained on in the Great World amusement peak walked through Change Alley with a hand on my money and the other on my orders–and bought an Irish Sweepstakes ticket.
I don’t gamble, if you will concede that poker is a game of skill. However this was a tribute to the goddess of fortune, thanks for a long run of luck. If she chose to answer with $140,000 US, I wouldn’t throw it in her face. If she didn’t . . . well, the tickets face value was one pound, $2.80 US; I paid $9.00 Singapore, or $3.00 US–a small gesture from a man who had just won a free trip around the world–not to mention coming out of the jungle still breathing.
But I got my three dollars’ worth at once, as I fled out of Change Alley to avoid two dozen other walking banks anxious to sell me more tickets, Singapore dollars, any sort of money–or my hat if I let go of it–reached the street, hailed a cab, and told the driver to take me to the boat landing. This was a victory of spirit over flesh because I had been debating whether to snatch the chance to ease enormous biological back pressure. Good old Scarface Gordon had been an Eagle Scout awfully long and Singapore is one of the Seven Sinful Cities where anything may be had.
I am not implying that I had remained faithful to the Girl Next Door. The young lady back home who had taught me most about the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, with an amazing send-off the night before I was inducted, had “Dear-Johnned” me in basic training; I felt gratitude but no loyalty. She got married soon after, now has two children, neither of them mine.
The real cause of my biological unease was geographical. Those little brown brothers I had been fitting, with and against, all had little brown sisters, many of whom could be had for a price, or even pour l’amour ou pour le sport.
But that had been all the local talent for a long time. Nurses? Nurses are officers–and the rare USO entertainer who got that far from Stateside was even more thoroughly blocked off than were nurses.
I did not object to little brown sisters because they were brown. I was as brown as they were, in my face, except for a long pink scar. I drew the line because they were little.
I was a hundred and ninety pounds of muscle and no fat, and I could never convince myself that a female four feet ten inches tall and weighing less than ninety pounds and looking twelve years old is in fact a freely consenting adult. To me it felt like a grim sort of statutory rape and produced psychic impotence.
Singapore looked like the place to find a big girl. But when I escaped from Change Alley, I suddenly didn’t like people, big or little, male or female, and headed for the ship–and probably saved myself from pox, Cupid’s catarrh, soft chancre, Chinese rot, saltwater itch, and athletes foot–the wisest decision I had made since, at fourteen, I had declined to wrestle a medium-sized alligator.
I told the driver in English what landing I wanted, repeated it in memorized Cantonese (not too well; its a nine-toned language, and French and German are all I had in school), and showed him a map with the landing marked and its name printed in English and drawn in Chinese.
Everybody who left the ship was given one of these maps. In Asia every cab driver speaks enough English to take you to the Red Light district and to shops where you buy “bargains.” But be is never able to find your dock or boat landing.
My cabbie listened, glanced at the map, and said, “Okay, Mac. I dig it,” and took off and rounded a corner with tires squealing while shouting at peddle cabs, coolies, children, dogs. I relaxed, happy at having found this cabbie among thousands.
Suddenly I sat up and shouted for him to stop.
I must explain something; I can’t get lost.
Call it a “psi” talent, like that study they study at Duke. Mother used to say that sonny had a “bump of direction.” Call it what you will, I was six or seven before I realized that other people could get lost. I always know which way is north, the direction of the point where I started and how far away it is. I can head straight back or retrace my steps, even in dark and jungle. This was the main reason why I was always promoted back to corporal and usually shoved into a sergeant’s job. Patrols I headed always came back–the survivors, I mean. This was comforting to city boys who didn’t want to be in that jungle anyhow.
I had shouted because the driver had swung right when he should have swung left and was about to cut back across his own trade
He speeded up.
I yelled again. He no longer dug English.
It was another mile and several tunas later when he had to stop because of a traffic jam. I got out and he jumped out and started screaming in Cantonese and pointing at the meter in his cab. We were surrounded by Chinese adding to the din and smaller ones plucking at my clothes. I kept my hand on my
money and was happy indeed to spot a cop. I yelled and caught his eye.
He came through the crowd brandishing a long staff. He was a Hindu; I said to him, “Do you speak English?”
“Certainly. And I understand American.” I explained my trouble, showed him the map, and said that the driver had picked me up at Chaise Alley and been driving in aides.
The cop nodded and talked with the driver in a third language–Malayan, I suppose. At last the cop said, “He doesn’t understand English. He thought you said to drive to Johore.”
The bridge to Johore is as far as you can get from the anchorage and still be on the Island of Singapore. I said angrily, “The hell he doesn’t understand English!”
The cap shrugged. “You hired him, you must pay what is on the taximeter. Then I will explain to him where you wish to go and arrange a fixed fee.”
“I’ll see him in hell first!”
“That is possible. The distance is quite short–in this neighborhood. I suggest that you pay. The waiting time is mounting up.”
There comes a time when a man must stand up for his rights, or he can’t bear to look at himself in a mirror to shave. I had already shaved, so I paid–$18.50 Sing., for wasting an hour and ending up farther from the landing. The driver wanted a tip but the cop shut him up and then let me walk with him.
Using both hands I hung onto my orders and money, and the Sweepstakes ticket folded in with the money. But my pen disappeared and cigarettes and handkerchief and a Ronson lighter. When I felt ghost fingers at the strap of my watch, I agreed to the cops suggestion that he had a cousin, an honest man, who would drive me to my landing for a fixed–and moderate–fee.
The “cousin” turned out to be just coming down the street; half an hour later I was aboard ship. I shall never forget Singapore, a most educational city.
Chapter 2
Two months later on the French Riviera. The Fairy Godmother Department watched over me across the Indian Ocean, up the Red Sea, and clear to Napoli. I lived a healthy life, exercising and getting tan every morning, sleeping afternoons, playing poker at night. There are many people who do not. Know the odds (poor, but computable) for improving a poker hand in the draw, but are anxious to learn. When we got to Italy I had a beautiful tan and a sizable nest egg.
Early in the voyage someone went broke and wanted to put a Sweepstakes ticket into the game. After some argument Sweepstakes tickets were made valuta at a discount, $2.00 USA per ticket. I finished the trip with fifty-three tickets.
Hitching a flight from Napoli to Frankfurt took only hours. Then the Fairy Godmother Department handed me back to the Surprise Party and Practical Joke Departments.
Before going to Heidelberg I ducked over to Wiesbaden to see my mother, my stepfather and the kids–and found that they had just left for the States, on their way to Elmendorf AFB in Alaska.
So I went to Heidelberg to be processed, and looked the town over while the led tape unwound.
Lovely town–Handsome castle, good beer, and big girls with rosy cheeks and shapes like Coca-Cola bottles–Yes, this looked like a nice place to get a degree. I started inquiring into rooms and such, and met a young kraut wearing a studenten cap and some face scars as ugly as mine–things were looking up.
I discussed my plans with the first sergeant of the transient company.
He shook his head. “Oh, you poor boy!”
Why? No G.I. benefits for Gordon–I wasn’t a veteran.
Never mind that scar. Never mind that I had killed more men in combat than you could crowd into a–well, never mind. That thing was not a “war” and Congress had not passed a bill providing educational benefits for us “Military Advisers.”
I suppose this was my own fault. All my life there had been “G.I. benefits”–why, I had shared a bench in chem lab with a veteran who was going to school on the G.I. Bill.
This fatherly sergeant said, “Don’t take it hard, son. Go home, get a job, wait a year. They’ll pass it and date it bade, almost certainly. You’re young.”
So here I was on the Riviera, a civilian, enjoying a taste of Europe before using that transportation home. Heidelberg was out of the question. Oh, the pay I hadn’t been able to spend in the jungle, plus accumulated leave, plus my winnings at poker, added up to a sum which would have kept me a year in Heidelberg. But it would never stretch enough for a degree. I had been counting on that mythical “G.I. Bill” for eating money and on my cash as a cushion.
My (revised) plan was obvious. Grab that top home before my year was up–grab it before school opened. Use the cash I had to pay board to Aunt and Uncle, work next summer and see what turned up. With the draft no longer hanging over me I could find some way to sweat out that last year even if I couldn’t be “Heir Doktor Gordon.”
However, school didn’t open until fall and here it was spring. I was damn well going to see a little of Europe before I applied nose to grindstone; another such chance might never come.
There was another reason for waiting; those Sweepstakes tickets. The drawing for horses was coming up.
The Irish Sweepstakes starts as a lottery. First they sell enough tickets to paper Grand Central Station. The Irish hospitals get 25 percent and are the only sure winners. Shortly before the race they draw for horses. Let’s say twenty horses are entered. If your ticket fails to draw a horse, its wastepaper. (Oh, there are minor consolation prizes.)
But if you do draw a horse, you still haven’t won. Some horses won’t start. Of those that do, most of them chase the other horses. However, any ticket that draws any horse at all, even a goat that can barely walk to the paddock, that ticket suddenly acquires a value of thousands of dollars between the drawing and the race. Just how much depends on how good the horse is. But prizes are high and the worst horse in the field has been known to win.
I had fifty-three tickets. If one of them drew a horse, I could sell that ticket for enough to put me through Heidelberg.
So I stayed and waited for the drawings.
Europe needn’t be expensive. A youth hostel is luxury to a man who has come out of the boondocks of Southeast Asia and even the French Riviera isn’t expensive if you approach it from underneath. I didn’t stay on La Promenade des Anglais; I had a tiny room four floors up and two kilometers back, and the shared use of some plumbing. There are wonderful night clubs in, Nice but you need not patronize them as the floor show at the beaches is as good . . . and free. I never appreciated what a high art the fan dance can be until the first time I watched a French girl get out of her clothes and into her bikini in plain sight of citizens, tourists, gendarmes, dogs–and me–all without quite violating the lenient French mores concerning “indecent exposure.” Or only momentarily.
Yes, sir, there are things to see and do on the French Riviera without spending money.
The beaches are terrible. Rocks. But rocks are better than jungle mud and I put on trunks and enjoyed the floor show and added to my tan. It was spring, before the tourist season and not crowded, but it was warm and summery and dry. I lay in the sun and was happy and my only luxury was a deposit box with American Egress and the Paris edition of the N.Y. Herald Tribune and The Star’s & Stripes. These I would glance over to see how the Powers-that-be were mismanaging the world, then look for what was new in the unWar I had just been let out of (usually no mention, although we had been told that we were “saving civilization”), then get down to important matters, i.e., news of the Irish Sweepstakes, plus the possibility that The Stars & Stripes might announce that it had all been a hideous dream and I was entitled to educational benefits after all.
Then came crossword puzzles and “Personal” ads. I always read “Personals”; they are a naked look into private lives. Things like: ‘M.L. phone R.S. before noon. Money.’ Makes you wonder who did what to whom, and who got paid?
Presently I found a still cheaper way to live with an even better floor show. Have you heard of l’Il du Levant? It is an island off the Riviera between Marseilles and Nice, and is much like Catalina. It has a village at one end and the French Navy has blocked off the other for guided missiles; the rest of it is hills and beaches and grottoes. There are no automobiles, nor even bicycles. The people who go there don’t want to be reminded of the outside world.
For ten dollars a day you can enjoy luxury equal to forty dollars a day in Nice. Or you can pay five cents a dry for camping and live on a dollar a day–which I did–and there are good cheap restaurants anytime you get tired of cooking.
It is a place that seems to have no rules of any sort. Wait a minute; there is one. Outside the village, Heliopolis, is a sign: LE NU INTEGRAL EST FORMELLEMENT INTERDIT. (“Complete nakedness is strictly forbidden.”)
This means that everyone, man or woman, must put on a little triangle of cloth, a cache-sexe, a G-string, before going inside the village.
Elsewhere, on beaches and in camping grounds and around the island, you don’t have to wear a damned thing and nobody does.
Save for the absence of automobiles and clothes, the Isle of the Levant is like any other bit of back-country France. There is a shortage of fresh water, but the French don’t drink water and you bathe in the Mediterranean and for a franc you can buy enough fresh water for half a dozen sponge baths to rinse cm the salt. Take the train from Nice or Marseilles, get off at Toulon and take a bus to Lavandou, then by boat (an hour and a few minutes) to l’Ile du Levant–then chuck away your cares with your clothes.
I found I could buy the Herald-Trib, a day old, in the village, at the same place (“Au Minimum,” Mme. Alexandre) where I rented a tent and camping gear. I bought groceries at La Brise Marine and camped above La Plage des Grottes, close to the village, and settled down and let my nerves relax while I enjoyed the floor show.
Some people disparage the female form divine. Sex is too good for them; they should have been oysters. All gals are good to look at (including little brown sisters even though they scared me); the only difference is that some look better than others. Some were fat and some were skinny and some were old and some were young. Some looked as if they had stepped straight out of Les Folies Bergeres. I got acquainted with one of those and I wasn’t far off; she was a Swedish girl who was a “nue” in another Paris revue. She practiced English on me and I practiced French on her, and she promised to cook me a Swedish dinner if I was ever in Stockholm and I cooked her a dinner over an alcohol lamp and we got giggly on vin ordinaire, and she wanted to know how I had acquired my scar and I told some lies. Marjatta was good for an old soldiers nerves and I was sad when she had to leave.
But the floor show went on. Three days later I was sitting on Grotto Beach, leaning against a rock and working the crossword puzzle, when suddenly I got cross-eyed trying not to stare at the most stare-able woman I have ever seen in my life.
Woman, girl–I couldn’t be sure. At first glance I thought she was eighteen, maybe twenty; later when I was able to look her square in her face she still looked eighteen but could have been forty. Or a hundred and forty. She had the agelessness of perfect beauty. Like Helen or Troy, or Cleopatra. It seemed possible that she was Helen of Troy but I knew she wasn’t Cleopatra because she was not a redhead; she was a natural blonde. She was a tawny toast color allover without a hint of bikini marks and her hair was the same shade two tones litter. It flowed, unconfined, in graceful waves down her back and seemed never to have been cut.
She was tall, not much shorter than I am, and not too much litter in weight. Not fat, not fat at all save for that graceful padding that smoothes the feminine form, shading the muscles underneath–I was sure there were muscles underneath; she carried herself with the relaxed power of a lioness.
Her shoulders were broad for a woman, as broad as her very female hips; her waist might have seemed thick on a lesser woman, on her it was deliciously slender. Her belly did not sag at all but carried the lovely double-domed curve of perfect muscle tone. Her breasts–only her big rib cage could carry such large ones without appearing too much of a good thing, they jutted firmly out and moved only a trifle when she moved, and they were crowned with rosy brown confections that were frankly nipples, womanly and not virginal.
Her navel was that jewel the Persian poets praised.
Her legs were long for her height; her hands and feet were not small but were slender, graceful. She was graceful in all ways; it was impossible to think of her in a pose ungraceful. Yet she was so lithe and limber that, like a cat, she could have twisted herself into any position.
Her face–How do you describe perfect beauty except to say that when you see it you can’t mistake it? Her lips were full and her mouth rather wide. It was faintly curved in the ghost of a smile even when her features were at rest. Her lips were red but if she was wearing makeup of any sort it had been applied so skillfully that I could not detect it–and that alone would have made her stand out, for that was a year all other females were wearing “Continental” makeup, as artificial as a corset and as bold as a doxy’s smile.
Her nose was straight and large enough for her face, no button. Her eyes-
She caught me staring at her. Certainly women expect to be locked at and expect it unclothed quite as much as when dressed for the ball. But it is rude to stare openly. I had given up the fight in the first ten seconds and was trying to memorize her, every line, every curve.
Her eyes locked with mine and she stared back and I began to blush but couldn’t look away. Her eyes were so deep a blue that they were dark, darker than my own brown eyes.
I said huskily, “Pardonnez-moi, ma’m’selle,” and managed to tear my eyes away.
She answered, in English, “Oh, I don’t mind. Look all you please,” and looked me up and down as carefully as I had inspected her. Her voice was a warm, fall contralto, surprisingly deep in its lowest register.
She took two steps toward me and almost stood over me. I started to get up and she motioned me to stay seated, with a gesture mat assumed obedience as if she were very used to giving orders. “Rest where you are,” she said. The breeze carried her fragrance to me and I got goose flesh all over. “You are American.”
“Yes.” I was certain she was not, yet I was equally certain she was not French. Not only did she have no trace of French accent but also–well, French women are at least slightly provocative at all times; they can’t help it, it’s ingrained in the French culture. There was nothing provocative about this woman–except that she was an incitement to riot just by existing.
But, without being provocative, she had that rare gift for immediate intimacy; she spoke to me as a very old friend might speak, friends who knew each other’s smallest foibles and were utterly easy tete-a-tete. She asked me questions about myself, some of them quite personal, and I answered all of them, honestly, and it never occurred to me that she had no right to quiz me. She never asked my name, nor I hers–nor any question of her.
At last she stopped and looked me over again, carefully and soberly. Then she said thoughtfully, “You are very beautiful,” and added, “Au ‘voir”–turned and walked down the beach into the water and swam away.
I was too stunned to move. Nobody had ever called me “handsome” even before I broke my nose. As for “beautiful!”
But I don’t think it would have done me any good to have chased her, even if I had thought of it in time. That gal could swim.
Chapter 3
I stayed at the plager until sundown, waiting for her to come back. Then I made a hurried supper of bread and cheese and wine, got dressed in my G-string and walked into town. There I prowled bars and restaurants and did not find her, meanwhile window-peeping into cottages wherever shades were not drawn. When the bistros started shutting down, I gave up, went back to my tent, cursed myself for eight kinds of fool– (why couldn’t I have said, “What’s your name and where do you live and where are you staying here?”)–sacked in and went to sleep.
I was up at dawn and checked the plage, ate breakfast, checked the plage again, got “dressed” and went into the village, checked the shops and post office, and bought my Herald-Trib.
Then I was faced with one of the most difficult decisions of my life: I had drawn a horse.
I wasn’t certain at first, as I did not have those fifty-three serial numbers memorized. I had to run back to my tent, dig out a memorandum and check–and I had! It was a number that had stuck in mind because of its pattern: #XDY 34555. I had a horse!
Which meant several thousand dollars, just how much I didn’t know. But enough to put me through Heidelberg . . . if I cashed in on it at once. The Herald-Trib was always a day late there, which meant the drawing had taken place at least two days earlier–and in the meantime that dog could break a leg or be scratched nine other ways. My ticket was important money only as long as “Lucky Star” was listed as a starter.
I had to get to Nice in a hurry and find out where and how you got the best price for a lucky ticket. Dig the ticket out of my deposit box and sell it!
But how about “Helen of Troy”?
Shylock with his soul-torn cry of “Oh, my daughter! Oh, my ducats!” was no more split than I.
I compromised. I wrote a painful note, identifying myself, telling her that I had been suddenly called away and pleading with her either to wait until I returned tomorrow, or at the very least, to leave a note telling me how to find her. I left it with the postmistress along with a description–blond, so tall, hair this long, magnificent poitrine–and twenty francs with a promise of twice that much if she delivered it and got an answer. The postmistress said that she had never seen her but if cette grande blonde ever set foot in the village the note would be delivered.
That left me just time to rush back, dress in off-island clothes, dump my gear with Mme. Alexandre, and catch the boat. Then I had three hours of travel time to worry through.
The trouble was that Lucky Star wasn’t really a dog. My horse rated no farther down than fifth or sixth, no matter who was figuring form. So? Stop while I was ahead and take my profit?
Or go for broke?
It wasn’t easy. Let’s suppose I could sell the ticket for $10,000. Even if I didn’t try any fancy footwork on taxes, I would still keep most of it and get through school.
But I was going to get through school anyway–and did I really want to go to Heidelberg? That student with the dueling scars had been a slob, with his phony pride in scars from fake danger.
Suppose I hung on and grabbed the big one, ￡50,000, or $140,000-
Do you know how much tax a bachelor pays on $140,000 in the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free?
$103,000, that’s what he pays. That leaves him $37,000.
Did I want to bet about $10,000 against the chance of winning $37,000–with the odds at least 15 to 1 against me?
Brother, that is drawing to an inside straight. The principle is the same whether it’s 37 grand, or jacks-or-better with a two-bit limit.
But suppose I wangled some way to beat the tax, thus betting $10,000 to win $140,000? That made the potential profit match the odds–and $140,000 was not just eating money for college but a fortune that could bring in four or five thousand a year forever.
I wouldn’t be “cheating” Uncle Sugar; the USA had no more moral claim on that money (if I won) than I had on the Holy Roman Empire. What had Uncle Sugar done for me? He had clobbered my father’s life with two wars, one of which we weren’t allowed to win–and thereby made it tough for me to get through college quite aside from what a father may be worth in spiritual intangibles to his son (I didn’t know, I never would know!)–then he had grabbed me out of college and had sent me to fight another unWar and damned near killed me and lost me my sweet girlish laughter.
So how is Uncle Sugar entitled to clip $103,000 and leave me the short end? So he can “lend” it to Poland? Or give it to Brazil? Oh, my back!
There was a way to keep it all (if I won) legal as marriage. Go live in little old tax-free Monaco for a year. Then take it anywhere.
New Zealand, maybe. The Herald-Trib had had the usual headlines, only more so. It looked as if the boys (just big playful boys!) who run this planet were about to hold that major war, the one with ICBMs and H-bombs, any time now.
If a man went as far south as New Zealand there might be something left after the fallout fell out.
New Zealand is supposed to be very pretty and they say that a fisherman there regards a five-pound trout as too small to take home.
I had caught a two-pound trout once.
About then I made a horrible discovery. I didn’t want to go back to school, win, lose, or draw. I no longer gave a damn about three-car garages and swimming pools, nor any other status symbol or “security.” There was no security in this world and only damn fools and mice thought there could be.
Somewhere back in the jungle I had shucked off all ambition of that sort. I had been shot at too many times and had lost interest in supermarkets and exurban subdivisions and tonight is the PTA supper don’t forget dear you promised.
Oh, I wasn’t about to hole up in a monastery. I still wanted-
What did I want?
I wanted a Roc’s egg. I wanted a harem loaded with lovely odalisques less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels, the rust that never stained my sword. I wanted raw red gold in nuggets the size of your fist and feed that lousy claim jumper to the huskies! I wanted to get up feeling brisk and go out and break some lances, Then pick a likely wench for my droit du seigneur–I wanted to stand up to the Baron and dare him to touch my wench! I wanted to hear the purple water chuckling against the skin of the Nancy Lee in the cool of the morning watch and not another sound, nor any movement save the slow tilling of the wings of the albatross that had been pacing us the last thousand miles.
I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, “The game’s afoot!” I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.
I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon. I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be–instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is.
I had had one chance–for ten minutes yesterday afternoon. Helen of Troy, whatever your true name may be–And I had known it . . . aha I had let it slip away.
Maybe one chance is all you ever get.
The train pulled into Nice.
In the American Express office I went to the banking department and to my deposit box, found the ticket and checked the number against the Herald-Trib–XDY 34555, yes! To stop my trembling, I checked the other tickets and they were wastepaper, just as I thought. I shoved them back into the DOX and asked to see the manager.
I had a money problem and American Express is a bank, not just a travel bureau. I was ushered into the manager’s office and we exchanged names. “I need advice,” I said. “You see, I hold one of the winning Sweepstakes tickets.”
He broke into a grin. “Congratulations! You’re the first person in a long time who has come in here with good news rather than a complaint.”
“Thanks. Uh, my problem is this. I know that a ticket that draws a horse is worth quite a bit up until the race. Depending on the horse, of course.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “What horse did you draw?”
“A fairly good one. Lucky Star–and that’s what makes it tough. If I had drawn H-Bomb, or any of the three favorites–Well, you see how it is. I don’t know whether to sell or hang on, because I don’t know how to figure the odds. Do you know what is being offered for Lucky Star?”
He fitted his finger tips together. “Mr. Gordon, American Express does not give tips on horse races, nor broker the resale of Sweepstakes tickets. However–Do you have the ticket with you?”
I got it out and handed it to him. It had been through poker games and was sweat-marked and crumpled. But that lucky number was unmistakable.
He looked at it. “Do you have your receipt?”
“Not with me.” I started to explain that I had given my stepfathers address–and that my mail had been forwarded to Alaska. He cut me off. “That’s all right.” He touched a switch. “Alice, will you ask M’sieur Renault to step in?”
I was wondering if it really was all right. I had had the savvy to get names and new billets from the original ticket holders and each had promised to send his receipt to me when he got it–but no receipts had reached me. Maybe in Alaska–I had checked on this ticket while at the lockbox; it had been bought by a sergeant now in Stuttgart. Maybe I would have to pay him something or maybe I would have to break his arms.
M. Renault looked like a tired schoolteacher. “M’sieur Renault is our expert on this sort of thing,” the manager explained. “Will you let him examine your ticket, please?” The Frenchman looked at it, then his eyes lit up and be reached into a pocket, produced a jeweler’s loupe, screwed it into his eye. “Excellent!” he said approvingly. “One of the best. Hong Kong, perhaps?
“I bought it in Singapore.”
He nodded and smiled. “That follows.”
The manager was not smiling. He reached into his desk and brought out another Sweepstakes ticket and handed it to me. “Mr. Gordon, this one I bought at Monte Carlo. Will you compare it?”
They looked alike to me, except for serial numbers and the fact that his was crisp and clean. “What am I supposed to look for?”
“Perhaps this will help.” He offered me a large reading glass.
A Sweepstakes ticket is printed on special paper and has an engraved portrait on it and is done in several colors. It is a better job of engraving and printing than many countries use for paper money.
I learned long ago that you can’t change a deuce into an ace by staring at it. I handed back his ticket. “Mine is counterfeit.”
“I didn’t say so, Mr. Gordon. I suggest you get an outside opinion. Say at the office of the Bank of France.”
“I can see it. The engraving lines aren’t sharp and even on mine. They’re broken, some places. Under the glass the print job looks smeared.” I turned. “Right, M’sieur Renault?”
The expert gave a shrug of commiseration. “It is beautiful work, of its sort.”
I thanked them and got out. I checked with the Bank of France, not because I doubted the verdict but because you don’t have a. leg cut off, nor chuck away $140,000, without a second opinion. Their expert didn’t bother with a loupe. “Contrefait” he announced. “Worthless.”
It was impossible to get back to l’Ile du Levant that night. I had dinner and then looked up my former landlady. My broom closet was empty and she let me have it overnight. I didn’t lie awake long.
I was not as depressed as I thought I should be. I felt relaxed, almost relieved. For a while I had had the wonderful sensation of being rich–and I had had its complement, the worries of being rich–and both sensations were interesting and I didn’t care to repeat them, not right away.
Now I had no worries. The only thing to settle was when to go home, and with living so cheap on the island there was no hurry. The only thing that fretted me was that rushing off to Nice might have caused me to miss “Helen of Troy,” cette grande blonde! Si grande . . . si belle . . . si majestueuse! I fell asleep thinking of her.
I had intended to catch the early train, then the first boat. But the day before had used up most of the money on me and I had goofed by failing to get cash while at American Express. Besides, I had not asked for mail. I didn’t expect any, other than from my mother and possibly my aunt–the only close friend I had had in the Army had been killed six months back. Still, I might as well pick up mail as long as I had to wait for money.
So I treated myself to a luxury breakfast. The French think that a man can face the day with chicory and milk, and a croissant, which probably accounts for their unstable politics. I picked a sidewalk cafe by a big kiosk, the only one in Nice that stocked The Stars & Stripes and where the Herald-Trib would be on sale as soon as it was in; ordered a melon, cafe complet for TWO, and an omelette aux herbes fines; and sat back to enjoy life.
When the Herald-Trib arrived, it detracted from my sybaritic pleasure. The headlines were worse than ever and reminded me that I was still going to have to cope with the world; I couldn’t stay on l’Ile du Levant forever.
But why not stay there as long as possible? I still did not want to go to school, and that three-car-garage ambition was as dead as that Sweepstakes ticket. If World War III was about to shift to a rolling boil, there was no point in being an engineer at six or eight thousand a year in Santa Monica only to be caught in the fire storm.
It would be better to live it up, gather ye rosebuds, carpe that old diem, with dollars and days at hand, then–Well, join the Marine Corps maybe, like my dad.
I refolded the paper to the “Personals” column.
They were pretty good. Besides the usual offers of psychic readings and how to learn yoga and the veiled messages from one set of initials to another there were several that were novel. Such as-
REWARD!! Are you contemplating suicide? Assign to me the lease on your apartment and I will make your last clays lavish. Box 323, H-T
Or: Hindu gentleman, non-vegetarian, wishes to meet cultured European, African, or Asian lady owning sports car. Object: improving international relations. Box 107
How do you do that in a sports car?
One was ominous–Hermaphrodites of the World, Arise! You have nothing to lose but your chains. Tel. Opera 59-09
The next one started: ARE YOU A COWARD?
Well, yes, certainly. If possible. If allowed a free choice. I read on:
ARE YOU A COWARD? This is not for you. We badly need a brave man. He must be 23 to 25 years old, in perfect health, at least six feet tall, weigh about 190 pounds, fluent English with some French, proficient with all weapons, some knowledge of engineering and mathematics essential, willing to travel, no family or emotional ties, indomitably courageous and handsome of face and figure. Permanent employment, very high pay, glorious adventure, great danger. You must apply in person, 17, rue Dante, Nice, 2me etage, appt. D.
I read that requirement about face and figure with strong relief. For a giddy moment it had seemed as if someone with a skewed sense of humor had aimed a shaggy joke right at me. Somebody who knew my habit of reading the “Personals.”
That address was only a hundred yards from where I was sitting. I read the ad again.
Then I paid the addition, left a careful tip, went to the kiosk and bought The Stars & Stripes, walked to American Express, got money and picked up my mail, and on to the railroad station. It was over an hour until the next train to Toulon, so I went into the bar, ordered a beer and sat down to read.
Mother was sorry I had missed them in Wiesbaden. Her letter itemized the children’s illnesses, the high prices in Alaska, and expressed regret that they had ever had to leave Germany. I shoved it into my pocket and picked up The Stars & Stripes.
Presently I was reading: ARE YOU A COWARD?–same ad, right to the end.
I threw the paper down with a growl.
There were three other letters. One invited me to contribute to the athletic association of my ex-college; the second offered to advise me in the selection of my investments at a special rate of only $48 a year; the last was a plain envelope without a stamp, evidently handed in at American Express.
It contained only a newspaper clipping, starting: ARE You A COWARD?
It was the same as the other two ads except that in the last sentence one word had been underlined: You must apply in person-
I splurged on a cab to rue Dante. If I hurried, there was time to untangle this hopscotch and still catch the Toulon train. No. 17 was a walk-up; I ran up and, as I approached suite D, I met a young man coming out. He was six feet tall, handsome of face and figure, and looked as if he might be a hermaphrodite.
The lettering on the door read: DR. BALSAMO–HOURS BY APPOINTMENT, in both French and English. The name sounded familiar and vaguely phony out I did not stop to figure it out; I pushed on in.
The office inside was cluttered in a fashion known only to old French lawyers and pack rats. Behind the desk was a gnome-like character with a merry smile, hard eyes, the pinkest face and scalp I’ve ever seen, and a fringe of untidy white hair. He looked at me and giggled. “Welcome! So you are a hero?” Suddenly he whipped out a revolver half as long as he was and just as heavy and pointed it at me. You could have driven a Volkswagen down its snout.
“I’m not a hero,” I said nastily. “I’m a coward. I just came here to find out what the joke is.” I moved sideways while slapping that monstrous piece of ordnance the other way, chopped his wrist, and caught it. Then I handed it back to him. “Don’t play with that thing, or I’ll shove it up your deposition. I’m in a hurry. You’re Doctor Balsamo? You ran that ad?”
“Tut, tut,” he said, not at all annoyed. “Impetuous youth. No, Doctor Balsamo is in there.” He pointed his eyebrows at two doors on the left waft, then pushed a bell button on his desk–the only thing in the room later than Napoleon. “Go in. She’s expecting you.”
” ‘She’? Which door?”
“Ah, the Lady or the Tiger? Does it matter? In the long run? A hero will know. A coward will choose the wrong one, being sure that I lie. Allez-y! Vite, vite! Schnell! Get the lead out, Mac.”
I snorted and jerked open the right-hand door.
The doctor was standing with her back to me at some apparatus against the far wall and she was wearing one of those white, high-collared jackets favored by medical men. On my left was a surgeon’s examining table, on my right a Swedish-modern couch; there were stainless-steel and glass cabinets, and some framed certificates; the whole place was as up-to-date at the outer room was not.
As I closed the door she turned and looked at me and said quietly, “I am very glad that you have come.” Then she smiled and said softly, “You are beautiful,” and came into my arms.
Chapter 4
About a minute and forty seconds and several centuries later “Dr. Balsamo-Helen of Troy” pulled her mouth an inch back from mine and said, “Let me go, please, then undress and lie on the examining table.” I felt as if I had had nine hours of sleep, a needle shower, and three slugs of ice-cold akvavit on an empty stomach. Anything she wanted to do, I wanted to do. But the situation seemed to call for witty repartee. “Huh?” I said.
“Please. You are the one, but nevertheless I must examine you.”
“Well . . . all right,” I agreed. “You’re the doctor,” I added and started to unbutton my shirt. “You are a doctor? Of medicine, I mean.” “Yes. Among other things.”
I kicked out of my shoes. “But why do you want to examine me?”
“For witches’ marks, perhaps. Oh, I shan’t find any, I know. But I must search for other things, too. To protect you.”
That table was cold against my skin. Why don’t they pad those things? “Your name is Balsamo?”
“One of my names,” she said absently while gentle fingers touched me here and there. “A family name, that is.”
“Wait a minute. Count Cagliostro!”
“One of my uncles. Yes, he used that name. Though it isn’t truly his, no more than Balsamo. Uncle Joseph is a very naughty man and quite untruthful.” She touched an old, small scar. “Your appendix has been removed.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Let me see your teeth.”
I opened wide. My face may not be much but I could rent my teeth to advertise Pepsodent. Presently she nodded. “Fluoride marks. Good. Now I must have your blood.”
She could have bitten me in the neck for it and I wouldn’t have minded. Nor been much surprised. But she did it the ordinary way, taking ten cc. from the vein inside my left elbow. She took the sample and put it in that apparatus against the wall. It chirred and whirred and she came back to me. “Listen,
Princess,” I said.
“I am not a princess.”
“Well . . . I don’t know your first name, and you inferred that your last name isn’t really ‘Balsamo’–and I don’t want to call you ‘Doc.’ ” I certainly did not want to call her “Doc”–not the most beautiful girl I had ever seen or hoped to see . . . not after a kiss that had wiped out of memory every other kiss I had ever received. No.
She considered it. “I have many names. What would you like to call me?”
“Is one of them ‘Helen’?”
She smiled like sunshine and I learned that she had dimples. She looked sixteen and in her first party
dress. “You are very gracious. No, she’s not even a relative. That was many, many years ago.” Her face turned thoughtful. “Would you like to call me ‘Ettarre’?”
“Is that one of your names?”
“It is much like one of them, allowing for different spelling and accent. Or it could be ‘Esther’ just as closely. Or ‘Aster.’ Or even ‘Estrellita.’ ”
” ‘Aster,’ ” I repeated. “Star. Lucky Star!”
“I hope that I will be your lucky star,” she said earnestly. “As you will. But what shall I call you?”
I thought about it. I certainly was not going to dig up “Flash–I am not a comic strip. The Army nickname I had held longest was entirely unfit to hand to a lady. At that I preferred it to my given name. My daddy had been proud of a couple of his ancestors–but is that any excuse for hanging “Evelyn Cyril” on a male child? It had forced me to Team to fight before I learned to read.
The name I had picked up in the hospital ward would do. I shrugged. “Oh, Scar is a good enough name.”
” ‘Oscar,’ ” she repeated, broadening the “O” into “Aw,” and stressing both syllables. “A noble name. A hero’s name. Oscar.” She caressed it with her voice.
“No, no! Not ‘Oscar’–‘Scar.’ ‘Scarface.’ For this.”
“Oscar is your name,” she said firmly. “Oscar and Aster. Scar and Star.” She barely touched the scar. “Do you dislike your hero’s mark? Shall I remove it?”
“En? Oh, no. I’m used to it now. It lets me know who it is when I see myself in a mirror.”
“Good. I like it, you wore it when I first saw you. But if you change your mind, let me know.” The gear against the wall went whush, chunk! She turned and took a long strip from it, then whistled softly while she studied it.
“This won’t take long,” she said cheerfully and wheeled the apparatus over to the table. “Hold still while the protector is connected with you, quite still and breathe shallowly.” She made half a dozen connections of tubes to me; they stuck where she placed them. She put over her head what I thought was a fancy stethoscope but after she got it on, it covered her eyes.
She chuckled. “You’re pretty inside, too, Oscar. No, don’t talk.” She kept one hand on my forearm and I waited.
Five minutes later she lifted her hand and stripped off the connections. “That’s all,” she said cheerfully. “No more colds for you, my hero, and you won’t be bothered again by that flux you picked up in the jungle. Now we move to the other room.”
I got off the table and grabbed at my clothes. Star said, “You won’t need them where we are going. Full kit and weapons will be provided.”
I stopped with shoes in one hand and drawers in the other. “Star–”
“Yes, Oscar?”
“What is this all about? Did you run that ad? Was it meant for me? Did you really want to hire me for something?”
She took a deep breath and said soberly, “I advertised. It was meant for you and you only. Yes, there is a job to do . . . as my champion. There will be great adventure . . . and greater treasure . . . and even greater danger–and I fear very much that neither one of us will live through it.” She looked me in the eyes. “Well, sir?”
I wondered how long they had had me in the locked ward. But I didn’t tell her so, because, if that was where I was, she wasn’t there at all. And I wanted her to be there, more than I had ever wanted anything. I said, “Princess . . . you’ve hired yourself a boy.”
She caught her breath. “Come quickly. Time is short.” She led me through a door beyond the Swedish modern couch, unbuttoning her jacket, unzipping her skirt, as she went, and letting garments fall anywhere. Almost at once she was as I had first seen her at the plage.
This room had dark walls and no windows and a soft light from nowhere. There were two tow couches side by side, black they were and looking like biers, and no other furniture. As soon as the door was dosed behind us I was suddenly aware that the room was aching, painfully anechoic; the bare walls gave back no sound.
The couches were in the center of a circle which was part of a large design, in chalk, or white paint, on bare floor. We entered the pattern; she turned and squatted down and completed one line, closing it–and ft was true; she was unable to be awkward, even hunkered down, even with her breasts drooping as she leaned over.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A map to take us where we are going.”
“It looks more like a pentagram.”
She shrugged. “All right, it is a pentacle of power. A schematic circuit diagram would be a better tag. But, my hero, I can’t stop to explain it. Lie down, please, at once.”
I took the right-hand couch as she signed me, but I couldn’t let ft be. “Star, are you a witch?”
“If you like. Please, no talking now.” She lay down, stretched out her hand. “And join hands with me, my lord; it is necessary.”
Her hand was soft and warm and very strong. Presently the light faded to red, then died away. I slept.
Chapter 5
I woke to singing birds.
Her hand was still in mine. I turned my head and she smiled at me. “Good morning, my lord.”
“Good morning. Princess.” I glanced around. We were still lying on those black couches but they were outdoors, in a grassy dell, a clearing in trees beside a softly chuckling stream–a place so casually beautiful that it looked as if it had been put together leaf by leaf by old and unhurried Japanese gardeners.
Warm sunshine splashed through leaves and dappled her golden body. I glanced up at the sun and back at her. “Is it morning?” It had been noonish or later and that sun ought to DC–seemed to be–setting, not rising-
“It is again morning, here.”
Suddenly my bump of direction spun like a top and I felt dizzy. Disoriented–a feeling new to me and very unpleasant. I couldn’t find north.
Then things steadied down. North was that way, upstream–and the sun was rising, maybe nine in the morning, and would pass across the north sky. Southern Hemisphere. No sweat.
No trick at all–Just give the kook a shot of dope while examining him, lug him aboard a 707 and jet him to New Zealand, replenishing the Mickey Finn as needed. Wake him up when you want him.
Only I didn’t say this and never did think it. And it wasn’t true.
She sat up. “Are you hungry?”
I suddenly realized that an omelet some hours ago–how many? –was not enough for a growing boy. I sat up and swung my feet to the grass. “I could eat a horse.”
She grinned. “The shop of La Societe Anonyme de Hippopnage is closed I’m afraid. Will you settle for trout? We must wait a bit, so we might as well eat. And don’t worry, this place is defended.”
” ‘Defended’?”
“Safe.”
“All right. Uh, how about a rod and hooks?”
“I’ll show you.” What she showed me was not fishing tackle but how to tickle fish. But I knew how. We waded into that lovely stream, just pleasantly cool, moving as quietly as possible, and picked a place under a bulging rock, a place where trout like to gather and think–the fishy equivalent of a gentlemen’s club.
You tickle trout by gaining their confidence and then abusing it. In about two minutes I got one, between two and three pounds, and tossed it onto the bank, and Star had one almost as large. “How much can you eat?” she asked.
“Climb out and get dry,” I said. “I’ll get another one.”
“Make it two or three,” she amended. “Rufo will be along.” She waded quietly out.
“Who?”
“Your groom.”
I didn’t argue. I was ready to believe seven impossible things before breakfast, so I went on catching breakfast. I let it go with two more as the last was the biggest trout I’ve ever seen. Those beggars fairly queued up to be grabbed.
By then Star had a fire going and was cleaning fish with a sharp rock. Shucks, any Girl Scout or witch can make fire without matches. I could myself, given several hours and plenty of luck, just by rubbing two dry cliches together. But I noticed that the two short biers were gone. Well, I hadn’t ordered them. I squatted down and took over cleaning the trout.
Star came back shortly with fruits that were apple-like but deep purple in color and with quantities of button mushrooms. She was carrying the plunder on a broad leaf, like canna or ti, only bigger. More like banana leaves.
My mouth started to water. “If only we had salt!”
“I’ll fetch it. It will be rather gritty. I’m afraid.”
Star broiled the fish two ways, over the fire on a forked green stick, and on hot flat limestone where he fire had been–she kept brushing the fire along as she fed it and placed fish and mushrooms sizing where it had been. That way was best, I thought. Little fine grasses turned out to be chives, local style, and tiny clover tasted and looked like sheep sorrel. That, with the salt (which was gritty and coarse and may have been licked by animals before we got it–not that I cared) made the trout the best I’ve ever tasted. Well, weather and scenery and company had much to do with it, too, especially the company.
I was trying to think of a really poetic way of saying, “How about you and me shacking up right here for the next ten thousand years? Either legal or informal–are you married?” when we were interrupted. Which was a shame, for I had thought up some pretty language, all new, for the oldest and most practical suggestion in the world.
Old baldy, the gnome with the oversized six-shooter, was standing behind me and cursing.
I was sure it was cursing although the language was new to me. Star turned her head, spoke in quiet reproval in the same language, made room for him and offered him a trout. He took it and ate quite a bit of it before he said, in English, “Next time I won’t pay him anything. You’ll see.”
“You shouldn’t try to cheat him, Rufo. Have some mushrooms. Where’s the baggage? I want to get dressed.”
“Over there.” He went back to wolfing fish. Rufo was proof that some people should wear clothes. He was pink all over and somewhat potbellied. However, he was amazingly well muscled, which I had never suspected, else I would have been more cautious about taking that cannon away from him. I decided that if he wanted to Indian-wrestle, I would cheat.
He glanced at me past a pound and a half of trout and said, “Is it your wish to be outfitted now, my lord?”
“Huh? Finish your breakfast. And what’s this ‘my lord’ routine? Last time I saw you you were waving a gun in my face.”
“I’m sorry, my lord. But She said to do it . . . and what She says must be done. You understand.”
“That suits me perfectly. Somebody has to drive. But call me ‘Oscar.’ ”
Rufo glanced at Star, she nodded. He grinned. “Okay, Oscar. No hard feelings?”
“Not a bit.”
He put down the fish, wiped his hand on his thigh, and stuck it out. “Swell! You knock em down, I’ll stomp on ’em.”
We shook hands and each of us tried for the knuckle-cracking grip. I think I got a little the better of it, but I decided he might have been a blacksmith at some time.
Star looked very pleased and showed dimples again She had been lounging by the fire; looking line a hamadryad on her coffee break; now she suddenly reached out and placed her strong, slender hand over our clasped fists. “My stout friends,” she said earnestly. “My good boys. Rufo, it will be well.”
“You have a Sight?” he said eagerly.
“No, just a feeling. But I am no longer worried.”
“We can’t do a thing,” Rufo said moodily, “until we deal with Igli.”
“Oscar will dicker with Igli.” Then she was on her feet in one smooth motion. “Stuff that fish in your face and unpack. I need clothes.” She suddenly looked very eager.
Star was more different women than a platoon of WACs–which is only mildly a figure of speech. Right then she was every woman from Eve deciding between two fig leaves to a modern woman whose ambition is to be turned loose in Nieman-Marcus, naked with a checkbook. When I first met her, she had seemed rather a sobersides and no more interested in clothes than I was. I’d never had a chance to be interested in clothes. Being a member of the sloppy generation was a boon to my budget at college, where blue jeans were au fait and a dirty sweat shirt was stylish.
The second time I saw her she had been dressed, but in that lab smock and tailored skirt she had been both a professional woman and a warm friend. But today–this morning whenever that was–she was increasingly full of Bubbles. She had delighted so in catching fish that she had had to smother squeals of glee. And she had then been the perfect Girl Scout, with soot smudged on her cheek and her hair pushed back out of hazard of the fire while she cooked.
Now she was the woman of all ages who just has to get her hands on new clothes. I felt that dressing Star was like putting a paint job on the crown jewels–but I was forced to admit that, if we were not to do the “Me Tarzan, you Jane” bit right in that dell from then on till death do us part, then clothes of some sort, if only to keep her perfect skin from getting scratched by brambles, were needed.
Rufo’s baggage turned out to be a little black box about the size and shape of a portable typewriter. He opened it.
And opened it again.
And Kept on opening it–And kept right on unfolding its sides and letting them down until the durn thing was the size of a small moving van and even more packed. Since I was nicknamed “Truthful James” as soon as I learned to talk and am widely known to have won the hatchet every February 22nd all through school, you must now conclude that I was the victim of an illusion caused by hypnosis and/or drugs.
Me, I’m not sure. Anyone who has studied math knows that the inside does not have to be smaller than the outside, in theory, and anyone who has had the doubtful privilege of seeing a fat woman get in or out of a tight girdle knows that this is true in practice, too. Rufo’s baggage just carried the principle further.
The first thing he dragged out was a big teakwood chest. Star opened it and started pulling out filmy lovelies.
“Oscar, what do you think of this one?” She was holding a long, green dress against her with the skirt draped over one hip to display it. “Like it?”
Of course I liked it. If it was an original–and somehow I knew that Star never wore copies–I didn’t want to think about what it must have cost. “It’s a mighty pretty gown,” I told her. “But–Look, are we going to be traveling?”
“Right away.”
“I don’t see any taxicabs. Aren’t you likely to get that torn?”
“It doesn’t tear. However, I didn’t mean to wear it; I just meant to show it to you. Isn’t it lovely? Shall I model it for you? Rufo, I want those high-heeled sandals with the emeralds.”
Rufo answered in that language he had been cursing in when he arrived. Star shrugged and said, “Don’t be impatient, Rufo; Igli will wait. Anyhow, we can’t talk to Igli earlier than tomorrow morning; milord Oscar must learn the language first.” But she put the green gorgeousness back in the chest.
“Now here is a little number,” she went on, holding it up, “which is just plain naughty: it has no other purpose.”
I could see why. It was mostly skirt, with a little bodice that supported without concealing–a style favored in ancient Crete, I hear, and still popular in the Overseas Weekly, Playboy, and many night clubs. A style that turns droopers into bulgers. Not that Star needed it.
Rufo tapped me on the shoulder. “Boss? Want to look over the ordnance and pick out what you need?”
Star said reprovingly, “Rufo, life is to be savored, not hurried.”
“We’ll have a lot more life to savor if Oscar picks out what he can use best.”
“He won’t need weapons until after we reach a settlement with Igli.” But she didn’t insist on showing more clothes and, while I enjoyed looking at Star, I like to check over weapons, too, especially when I might have to use them, as apparently the job called for.
While I had been watching Star’s style show, Rufo had laid out a collection that looked like a cross between an army-surplus store and a museum–swords, pistols, a lance that must have been twenty feet long, a flame-thrower, two bazookas flanking a Tommy gun, brass knucks, a machete, grenades, bows and arrows, a misericorde-
“You didn’t bring a slingshot,” I said accusingly.
He looked smug. “Which kind do you like, Oscar? The forked sort? Or a real sling?”
“Sorry I mentioned it. I can’t hit the floor with either sort.” I picked up the Tommy chopper, checked that it was empty, started stripping it. It seemed almost new, just fired enough to let the moving parts work in. A Tommy isn’t much more accurate than a pitched baseball and hasn’t much greater effective range. But it does have virtues–you hit a man with it, he goes down and stays down. It is short and not too heavy and has a lot of firepower for a short time. It is a bush weapon, or for any other sort of close-quarters work.
But I like something with a bayonet on the end, in case the party gets intimate–and I like that something to be accurate at long range in case the neighbors get unfriendly from a distance. I put it down and picked up a Springfield–Rock Island Arsenal, as I saw by its serial number, but still a Springfield. I feel the way about a Springfield that I do about a Gooney Bird; some pieces of machinery are ultimate perfection of their sort, the only possible improvement is a radical change in design.
I opened the bolt, stuck my thumbnail in the chamber, looked down the muzzle. The barrel was bright and the lands were unworn–and the muzzle had that tiny star on it; it was a match weapon!
“Rufo, what sort of country will we be going through? Like this around us?”
“Today, yes. But–” He apologetically took the rifle out of my hands. “It is forbidden to use firearms here. Swords, Knives, arrows–anything that cuts or stabs or mauls by your own muscle power. No guns.”
“Who says so?”
He shivered. “Better ask Her.”
“If we can’t use them, why bring them? And I don’t see any ammunition around anyhow.”
“Plenty of ammunition. Later on we will be at–another place–where guns may be used. If we live that long. I was just showing you what we have. What do you like of the lawful weapons? Are you a bowman?”
“I don’t know. Show me how.” He started to say something, then shrugged and selected a bow, slipped a leather guard over his left forearm, picked out an arrow. “That tree,” he said, “the one with the white rock at the foot of it. I’ll try for about as high off the ground as a man’s heart.”
He nocked the shaft, raised and bent and let fly, all in one smooth motion.
The arrow quivered in the tree trunk about four feet off the ground.
Rufo grinned. “Care to match that?”
I didn’t answer. I knew I could not, except by accident. I had once owned a bow, a birthday present. I hadn’t hit much with it and soon the arrows were lost. Nevertheless I made a production out of selecting a bow, and picked the longest and heaviest.
Rufo cleared his throat apologetically. “If I may make a suggestion, that one will pull quite hard–for a beginner.”
I strung it. “Find me a leather.”
The leather slipped on as if it had been made for me and perhaps it had. I picked an arrow to match, barely looked at it as they all seemed straight and true. I didn’t have any hope of hitting that bloody tree; it was fifty yards away and not over a foot thick. I simply intended to sight a bit high up on the trunk and hope that so heavy a bow would give me a flattish trajectory. Mostly I wanted to nock, bend, and loose all in one motion as Rufo had done–to look like Robin Hood even though I was not.
But as I raised and bent that bow and felt the power of it, I felt a surge of exultance–this tool was right for me! We fitted.
I let fly without thinking.
My shaft thudded a hand’s breadth from his.
“Well shot!” Star called out.
Rufo looked at the tree and blinked, then looked reproachfully at Star. She looked haughtily back. “I did not,” she stated. “You know I would not do that. It was a fair trial . . . and a credit to you both.”
Rufo looked thoughtfully at me. “Hmm–Would you care to make a small bet–you name the odds–that you can do that again?”
“I won’t bet,” I said. “I’m chicken.” But I picked up another arrow and nocked it. I liked that bow, I even liked the way the string whanged at the guard on my forearm; I wanted to try it, feel married to it, again.
I loosed it.
The third arrow grew out of a spot between the first two, but closer to his. “Nice bow,” I said. “I’ll keep it. Fetch the shafts.”
Rufo trotted away without speaking. I unstrung the bow, then started looking over the cutlery. I hoped that I would never again have to shoot an arrow; a gambler can’t expect to draw a pat hand every deal–my next shot would likely turn around like a boomerang.
There was too much wealth of edges and points, from a two-handed broadsword suitable for chopping down trees to a little dagger meant for a lady’s stocking. But I picked up and balanced them all . . . and found there the blade that suited me the way Excalibur suited Arthur.
I’ve never seen one quite like it so I don’t know what to call it. A saber, I suppose, as the blade was faintly curved and razor sharp on the edge and sharp rather far back on the back. But it had a point as deadly as a rapier and the curve was not enough to keep it from being used for thrust and counter quite as well as chopping away meat-axe style. The guard was a bell curved back around the knuckles into a semi-basket but cut away enough to permit full moulinet from any guard.
It balanced in the forte less than two inches from the guard, yet the blade was heavy enough to chop bone. It was the sort of sword that feels as if it were an extension of your body.
The grip was honest sharkskin, molded to my hand. There was a motto chased onto the blade but it was so buried in curlicues that I did not take time to study it out. This girl was mine, we fitted! I returned it and buckled belt and scabbard to my bare waist, wanting the touch of it and feeling like Captain John Carter, Jeddak of Jeddaks, and the Gascon and his three friends all in one.
“Will you not dress, milord Oscar?” Star asked.
“Eh? Oh, certainly–I was just trying it on for size. But–Did Rufo fetch my clothes?”
“Did you, Rufo?”
“His clothes? He wouldn’t want those things he was wearing in Nice!”
“What’s wrong with wearing Lederhosen with an aloha shirt?” I demanded.
“What? Oh, nothing at all, milord Oscar,” Rufo answered hastily. “Live and let live I always say. I knew a man once who wore–never mind. Let me show you what I fetched for you.”
I had my choice of everything from a plastic raincoat to full armor. I found the latter depressing because its presence implied that it might be needed. Except for an Army helmet I had never worn armor, didn’t want to, didn’t know how–and didn’t care to mix with rude company that made such protection desirable.
Besides, I didn’t see a horse around, say a Percheron or a Clydesdale, and I couldn’t see myself hiking in one of those tin suits. I’d be slow as crutches, noisy as a subway, and hot as a phone booth. Sweat off ten pounds in five miles. The quilted longjohns that go under that ironmongery would have been too much alone for such beautiful weather; steel on top would turn me into a walking oven and leave me too weak and clumsy to fight my way out of a traffic ticket.
“Star, you said that–” I stopped. She had finished dressing and hadn’t overdone it. Soft leather hiking shoes–buskins really–brown tights, and a short green upper garment halfway between a jacket and a skating dress. This was topped by a perky little hat and the whole costume made her look like a musical corner version of an airline hostess, smart, cute, wholesome, and sexy.
Or maybe Maid Marian, as she had added a double-curve bow about half the size of mine, a quiver, and a dagger. “You,” I said, “look like why the riot started.”
She dimpled and curtsied. (Star never pretended. She knew she was female, she knew she looked good, she liked it that way.) “You said something earlier,” I continued, “about my not needing weapons just yet. Is there any reason why I should wear one of these space suits? They don’t look comfortable.”
“I don’t expect any great danger today,” she said slowly. “But this is not a place where one can call the police. You must decide what you need.”
“But–Damn it. Princess, you know this place and I don’t. I need advice.”
She didn’t answer. I turned to Rufo. He was carefully studying a treetop. I said, “Rufo, get dressed.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Milord Oscar?”
“Schnell! Vite, vite! Get the lead out.”
“Okay.” He dressed quickly, in an outfit that was a man’s version of what Star had selected, with shorts instead of tights.
“Arm yourself,” I said, and started to dress the same way, except that I intended to wear field boots. However, there was a pair of those buskins that appeared to be my size, so I tried them on. They snuggled to my feet like gloves and, anyway, my soles were so hardened by a month barefooted on l’Ile du Levant that I didn’t need heavy boots.
They were not as medieval as they looked; they zipped up the front and were marked inside Fabrique en France.
Pops Rufo had taken the bow he had used before, selected a sword, and had added a dagger. Instead of a dagger I picked out a Solingen hunting knife. I looked longingly at a service .45, but didn’t touch it. If “they,” whoever they were, had a local Sullivan Act, I would go along with the gag.
Star told Rufo to pack, then squatted down with me at a sandy place by the stream and drew a sketch map–route south, dropping downgrade and following the stream except for short cuts, until we reached the Singing Waters. There we would camp for the night.
I got it in my head. “Okay. Anything to warn me about? Do we shoot first? Or wait for them to bomb us?”
“Nothing that I expect, today. Oh, there’s a carnivore about three times the size of a lion. But it is a great coward; it won’t attack a moving man.”
“A fellow after my own heart. All right, we’ll keep moving.”
“If we do see human beings–I don’t expect it–it might be well to nock a shaft . . . but not raise your bow until you feel it is necessary. But I’m not telling you what to do, Oscar; you must decide. Nor will Rufo let fly unless he sees you about to do so.”
Rufo had finished packing. “Okay, let’s go,” I said. We set out. Rufo’s little black box was now rigged as a knapsack and I did not stop to wonder how he could carry a couple of tons on his shoulders. An anti-grav device like Buck Rogers, maybe. Chinese coolie blood. Black magic. Hell, that teakwood chest alone could not have fitted into that backpack by a factor of 30 to I, not to mention the arsenal and assorted oddments.
There is no reason to wonder why I didn’t quiz Star as to where we were, why we were there, how we had got there, what we were going to do, and the details of these dangers I was expected to face. Look, Mac, when you are having the most gorgeous dream of your life and just getting to the point, do you stop to tell yourself that it is logically impossible for that particular babe to be in the hay with you–and thereby wake yourself up? I knew, logically, that everything that had happened since I read that silly ad had been impossible.
So I chucked logic.
Logic is a feeble reed, friend. “Logic” proved that airplanes can’t fly and that H-bombs wont work and that stones don’t fall out of the sky. Logic is a way of saying that anything which didn’t happen yesterday won’t happen tomorrow.
I liked the situation. I didn’t want to wake up, whether in bed, or in a headshrinker ward. Most especially I did not want to wake up still back in that jungle, maybe with that face wound still fresh and no helicopter. Maybe little brown brother had done a full job on me and sent me to Valhalla. Okay, I liked Valhalla.
I was swinging along with a sweet sword knocking against my thigh and a much sweeter girl matching my strides and a slave-serf-groom-something sweating along behind us, doing the carrying and being our “eyes-behind.” Birds were singing and the landscape had been planned by master landscape architects and the air smelled sweet and good. If I never dodged a taxi nor read a headline again, that suited me.
That longbow was a nuisance–but so is an M-l. Star had her little bow slung, shoulder to hip. I tried that, but it tended to catch on things. Also, it made me nervous not to have it ready since she had admitted a chance of needing it. So I unslung it and carried it in my left hand, strung and ready.
We had one alarum on the morning hike. I heard Rufo’s bowstring go thwung! –and I whirled and had my own bow ready, arrow nocked, before I saw what was up.
Or down, rather. A bird like a dusky grouse but larger. Rufo had picked it off a branch, right through the neck. I made note not to compete with him again in archery, and to get him to coach me in the fine points.
He smacked his lips and grinned. “Supper!” For the next mile he plucked it as we walked, then hung it from his belt.
We stopped for lunch one o’clockish at a picnic spot that Star assured me was defended, and Rufo opened his box to suitcase size, and served us lunch: cola cuts, crumbly Provencal cheese, crusty French bread, pears, and two bottles of Chablis. After lunch Star suggested a siesta. The idea was appealing; I had eaten heartily and shared only crumbs with the birds, but I was surprised. “Shouldn’t we push on?”
“You must have a language lesson, Oscar.”
I must tell them at Ponce de Leon High School the better way to study languages. You lie down on soft grass near a chuckling stream on a perfect day, and the most beautiful woman in any world bends over you and looks you in the eyes. She starts speaking softly in a language you do not understand.
After a bit her big eyes get bigger and bigger . . . and bigger . . . and you sink into them.
Then, a long time later, Rufo says, “Erbas, Oscar, ‘t knila voorsht.”
“Okay,” I answered, “I am getting up. Don’t rush me.”
That is the last word I am going to set down in a language that doesn’t fit our alphabet. I had several more lessons, and won’t mention them either, and from then on we spoke this lingo, except when I was forced to span gaps by asking in English. It is a language rich in profanity and in words for making love, and richer than English in some technical subjects–but with surprising holes in it. There is no word for “lawyer” for example.
About an hour before sundown we came to the Singing Waters.
We had been traveling over a high, wooded plateau. The brook where we had caught the trout had been joined by other streams and was now a big creek. Below us, at a place we hadn’t reached yet, it would plunge over high cliffs in a super-Yosemite fall. But here, where we stopped to camp, the water had cut a notch into the plateau, forming cascades, before it took that dive.
“Cascades” is a weak word. Upstream, downstream, everywhere you looked, you saw waterfalls–big ones thirty or fifty feet high, little ones a mouse could have jumped up, every size in between. Terraces and staircases of them there were, smooth water green from rich foliage overhead and water white as whipped cream as it splashed into dense foam.
And you heard them. Tiny falls tinkled in silvery soprano, big falls rumbled in basso profundo. On the grassy alp where we camped it was an ever-present chorale; in the middle of the falls you had to snout to make yourself heard.
Coleridge was there in one of his dope dreams:
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil
seething-
Coleridge must have followed that route and reached the Singing Waters. No wonder he felt like killing that “person from Porlock” who broke in on his best dream. When I am dying, lay me beside the Singing Waters and let them be the last I hear and see.
We stopped on a lawn terrace, flat as a promise and soft as a Kiss, and I helped Rufo unpack. I wanted to learn how he did that trick with the box. I didn’t find out. Each side opened as naturally and reasonably as opening up an ironing board–and then when it opened again that was natural and reasonable, too.
First we pitched a tent for Star–no army-surplus job, this; it was a dainty pavilion of embroidered silk and the rug we spread as a floor must have used up three generations of Bukhara artists. Rufo said to me, “Do you want a tent, Oscar?”
I looked up at the sky and over at the not-yet-setting sun. The air was milk warm and I couldn’t believe that it would rain. I don’t like to be in a tent if there is the least chance of surprise attack. “Are you going to use a tent?”
“Me? Oh, no! But She has to have a tent, always. Then, more likely than not. She’ll decade to sleep out on the grass.”
“I won’t need a tent.” (Let’s see, does a “champion” sleep across the door of his lady’s chamber, weapons at hand? I wasn’t sure about the etiquette of such things; they were never mentioned in “Social Studies.”)
She returned then and said to Rufo, “Defended. The wards were all in place.”
“Recharged?” he fretted.
She tweaked his ear. “I am not senile.” She added, “Soap, Rufo. And come along, Oscar; that’s Rufo’s work.”
Rufo dug a cake of Lux out of that caravan load and gave it to her, then looked at me thoughtfully and handed me a bar of Life Buoy.
The Singing Waters are the best bath ever, in endless variety. Still pools from footbath size to plunges you could swim in, sitz baths that tingled your skin, shower baths from just a trickle up to free-springing jets that would beat your brains in if you stood under them too long.
And you could pick your temperature. Above the cascade we used, a hot spring added itself to the main stream and at the base of this cascade a hidden spring welled out icy cold. No need to fool with taps, just move one way or the other for the temperature you like–or move downstream where it evened out to temperature as gently warm as a mother’s kiss.
We played for a while, with Star squealing and giggling when I splashed her, and answering it by ducking me. We both acted like kids; I felt like one, she looked like one, and she played rough, with muscles of steel under velvet.
Presently I fetched the soap and we scrubbed. When she started shampooing her hair, I came up behind her and helped. She let me, she needed help with the lavish mop, six times as much as most gals bother with these days.
That would have been a wonderful time (with Rufo busy and out of the way) to grab her and hug her, then proceed ruggedly to other matters. Nor am I sure that she would nave made even a token protest; she might have cooperated heartily.
Hell, I know she would not have made a “token” protest. She would either have put me in my place with a cold word or a clout in the ear–or cooperated.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even start.
I don’t know why. My intentions toward Star had oscillated from dishonorable to honorable and back again, but had always been practical from the moment I laid eyes on her. No, let me put it this way: My intentions were strictly dishonorable always, but with utter willingness to convert them to honorable, later, as soon as we could dig up a justice of the peace.
Yet I found I couldn’t lay a finger on her other than to help her scrub the soap out of her hair.
While I was puzzling over this, both hands buried in heavy blond hair and wondering what was stopping me from putting my arms around that slender-strong waist only inches away from me, I heard a piercing whistle and my name–my new name. I looked around.
Rufo, dressed in his unlovely skin and with towels over his shoulder, was standing on the bank ten feet away and trying to cut through the roar of water to get my attention.
I moved a few feet toward him. “How’s that again?” I didn’t quite snarl.
“I said, ‘Do you want a shave?’ Or are you growing a beard?”
I had been uneasily aware of my face cactus while I was debating whether or not to attempt criminal assault, and that unease had helped to stop me–Gillette, Aqua Velva, Burma Shave, et al., have made the browbeaten American male, namely me, timid about attempting seduction and/or rape unless freshly planed off. And I had a two-day growth.
“I don’t have a razor,” I called back.
He answered by holding up a straight razor.
Star moved up beside me. She reached up and tried my chin between thumb and forefinger. “You would be majestic in a beard,” she said. “Perhaps a Van Dyke, with sneering mustachios.”
I thought so too, if she thought so. Besides, it would cover most of that scar. “Whatever you say. Princess.”
“But I would rather that you stayed as I first saw you. Rufo is a good barber.” She turned toward him. “A hand, Rufo. And my towel.”
Star walked back toward the camp, toweling herself dry–I would have been glad to help, if asked. Rufo said tiredly, “Why didn’t you assert yourself? But She says to shave you, so now I’ve got to–and rush through my own bath, too, so She won’t be kept waiting.”
“If you’ve got a mirror, I’ll do it myself.”
“Ever used a straight razor?”
“No, but I can learn.”
“You’d cut your throat, and She wouldn’t like that. Over here on the bank where I can stand in the warm water. No, no! Don’t sit on it, lie down with your head at the edge. I can’t shave a man who’s sitting up.” He started working lather into my chin.
“You know why? I learned how on corpses, that’s why, making them pretty so that their loved ones would be proud of them. Hold still! You almost lost an ear. I like to shave corpses; they can’t complain, they don’t make suggestions, they don’t talk back–and they always hold still. Best job I ever had. But now you take this job–” He stopped with the blade against my Adam’s apple and started counting his troubles.
“Do I get Saturday off? Hell, I don t even get Sunday off! And look at the hours! Why, I read just the other day that some outfit in New York–You’ve been in New York?”
“I’ve been in New York. And get that guillotine away from my neck while you’re waving your hands like that.”
“You keep talking, you’re bound to get a little nick now and then. This outfit signed a contract for a twenty-five hour week. Week! I’d like to settle for a twenty-five hour day. You know how long I’ve been on the go, right this minute?”
I said I didn’t.
“There, you talked again. More than seventy hours or I’m a liar! And for what? Glory? Is there glory in a little heap of whitened bones? Wealth? Oscar, I’m telling you the truth; I’ve laid out more corpses than a sultan has concubines and never a one of them cared a soggy pretzel whether they were bedecked in rubies the size of your nose and twice as red . . . or rags. What use is wealth to a dead man? Tell me, Oscar, man to man while She can’t hear: Why did you ever let Her talk you into this?”
“I’m enjoying it, so far.”
He sniffed. “That’s what the man said as be passed the fiftieth floor of the Empire State Building. But the sidewalk was waiting for him, just the same. However,” he added darkly, “until you settle with Igli, it’s not a problem. If I had my kit, I could cover that scar so perfectly that everybody would say, ‘Doesn’t he look natural?’ ”
“Never mind. She likes that scar.” (Damn it, he had me doing it!)
“She would. What I’m trying to get over is, if you walk the Glory Road, you are certain to find mostly rocks. But I never chose to walk it. My idea of a nice way to live would be a quiet little parlor, the only one in town, with a selection of caskets, all prices, and a markup that allowed a little leeway to show generosity to the bereaved. Installment plans for those with the foresight to do their planning in advance–for we all have to die, Oscar, we all have to die, and a sensible man might as well sit down over a friendly glass of beer and make his plans with a well-established firm he can trust.”
He leaned confidentially over me. “Look, milord Oscar . . . if by any miracle we get through this alive, you could put in a good word for me with Her. Make Her see that I’m too old for the Glory Road. I can do a lot to make your remaining days comfortable and pleasant . . . if your intentions toward me are comradely.”
“Didn’t we shake on it?”
“Ah, yes, so we did.” He sighed. “One for all and all for one, and Pikes Peak or Bust. You’re done.”
It was still light and Star was in her tent when we got back–and my clothes were laid out. I started to object when I saw them but Rufo said firmly, “She said ‘informal’ and that means black tie.”
I managed everything, even the studs (which were amazing big black pearls), and that tuxedo either had been tailored for me or it had been bought off the rack by someone who knew my height, weight, shoulders, and waist. The label inside the jacket read The English House, Copenhagen.
But the tie whipped me. Rufo showed up while I was struggling with it, had me lie down (I didn’t ask why) and tied it in a jiffy. “Do you want your watch, Oscar?”
“My watch?” So far as I knew it was in a doctors examining room in Nice. “You have it?”
“Yes, sir. I fetched everything of yours but your”–he shuddered–“clothes.”
He was not exaggerating. Everything was there, not only the contents of my pockets but the contents of my American Express deposit box: cash, passport, I.D., et cetera, even those Change Alley Sweepstakes tickets.
I started to ask how he had gotten into my lockbox but decided not to. He had had the key and it might have been something as simple as a fake letter of authority. Or as complex as his magical black box. I thanked him and he went back to his cooking.
I started to throw that stuff away, all but cash and passport. But one can’t be a litterbug in a place as beautiful as the Singing Waters. My sword belt had a leather pouch on it; I stuffed it in there, even the watch, which had stopped.
Rufo had set up a table in front of Star’s dainty tent and rigged a light from a tree over it and set candles on the table. It was dark before she came out . . . and waited. I finally realized that she was waiting for my arm. I led her to her place and seated her and Rufo seated me. He was dressed in a plum-colored footman’s uniform.
The wait for Star had been worth it; she was dressed in the green gown she had offered to model for me earlier. I still don’t know that she used cosmetics but she looked not at all like the lusty Undine who had been ducking me an hour earlier. She looked as if she should be kept under glass. She looked like Liza Doolittle at the Ball.
“Dinner in Rio” started to play, blending with the Singing Waters.
White wine with fish, rose wine with fowl, red wine with roast–Star chatted and smiled and was witty. Once Rufo, while bending over to me to serve, whispered, “The condemned ate heartily.” I told him to go to hell out of the corner of my mouth.
Champagne with the sweet and Rufo solemnly presented the bottle for my approval. I nodded. What would he have done if I had turned it down? Offered another vintage? Napolean with coffee. And cigarettes.
I had been thinking about cigarettes all day. These were Benson & Hedges No. 5 . . . and I had been smoking those black French things to save money.
While we were smoking, Star congratulated Rufo on the dinner and he accepted her compliments gravely and I seconded them. I still don’t know who cooked that hedonistic meal. Rufo did much of it but Star may have done the hard parts while I was being shaved.
After an unhurried happy time, sitting over coffee and brandy with the overhead light doused and only a single candle gleamed on her jewels and lighting her face. Star made a slight movement back from the table and I got up quickly and showed her to her tent. She stopped at its entrance. “Milord Oscar–”
So I kissed her and followed her in-
Like hell I did! I was so damned hypnotized that I bowed over her hand and kissed it. And that was hat.
That left me with nothing to do but get out of that borrowed monkey suit, hand it back to Rufo, and get a blanket from him. He had picked a spot to sleep at one side of her tent, so I picked one on the other and stretched out. It was still so pleasantly warm that even one blanket wasn’t needed.
But I didn’t go to sleep. The truth is, I’ve got a monkey on my back, a habit worse than marijuana though not as expensive as heroin. I can stiff it out and get to sleep anyway–but it wasn’t helping that I could see light in Stars tent and a silhouette that was no longer troubled by a dress.
The fact is I am a compulsive reader. Thirty-five cents’ worth of Gold Medal Original will put me right to sleep. Or Perry Mason. But I’ll read the ads in an old Paris-Match that has been used to wrap herring before I’ll do without.
I got up and went around the tent. “Psst! Rufo.”
“Yes, milord.” He was up fast, a dagger in his hand.
“Look, is there anything to read around this dump?”
“What sort of thing?”
“Anything, just anything. Words in a row.”
“Just a moment.” He was gone a while, using a flashlight around that beachhead dump of plunder. He came back and offered me a book and a small camp lamp. I thanked him, went back, and lay down.
It was an interesting book, written by Albertus Magnus and apparently stolen from the British Museum. Albert offered a long list of recipes for doing unlikely things: how to pacify storms and fly over clouds, how to overcome enemies, how to make a woman be true to you-
Here’s that last one: “If thou wilt that a woman bee not visions nor desire men, take the private members of a Woolfe, and the haires which doe grow on the cheekes, or the eye-brows of him, and the hairs which bee under his beard, and burne it all, and give it to her to drinke, when she knowethe not, and she shal desire no other man.”
This should annoy the “Woolfe.” And if I were the gal, it would annoy me, too; it sounds like a nauseous mixture. But that’s the exact formula, spelling and all, so if you are having trouble keeping her in line and have a “Woolfe” handy, try it. Let me know the results. By mail, not in person.
There were several recipes for making a woman love you who does not but a “Woolfe” was by far the simplest ingredient. Presently I put the book down and the light out and watched the moving silhouette on that translucent silk. Star was brushing her hair.
Then I quit tormenting myself and watched the stars, I’ve never learned the stars of the Southern Hemisphere; you seldom see stars in a place as wet as Southeast Asia and a man with a bump of direction doesn’t need them.
But that southern sky was gorgeous.
I was staring at one very bright star or planet (it seemed to have a disk) when suddenly I realized it was moving.
I sat up. “Hey! Star!”
She called back, “Yes, Oscar?”
“Come see! A sputnik. A big one!”
“Coming.” The light in her tent went out, she joined me quickly, and so did good old Pops Rufo, yawning and scratching his ribs. “Where, milord?” Star asked.
I pointed. “Right there! On second thought it may not be a sputnik; it might be one of our Echo series. It’s awfully big and bright.”
She glanced at me and looked away. Rufo said nothing. I stared at it a while longer, glanced at her.
She was watching me, not it. I looked again, watched it move against the backdrop of stars.
“Star,” I said, “that’s not a sputnik. Nor an Echo balloon. That’s a moon. A real moon.”
“Yes, milord Oscar.”
“Then this is not Earth.”
“That is true.”
“Hmm–” I looked back at the little moon, moving so fast among the stars, west to east.
Star said quietly, “You are not afraid, my hero?”
“Of what?”
“Of being in a strange world.”
“Seems to be a pretty nice world.”
“It is,” she agreed, “in many ways.”
“I like it,” I agreed. “But maybe it’s time I knew more about it. Where are we? How many light-years, r whatever it is, in what direction?”
She sighed. “I will try, milord. But it will not be easy; you have not studied metaphysical geometry–nor many other things. Think of the pages of a book–” I still had that cookbook of Albert the Great under my arm; she took it. “One page may resemble another very much. Or be very different. One page can be so close to another that it touches, at all points–yet have nothing to do with the page against it. We are as close to Earth–right now–as two pages in sequence in a book. And yet we are so far away that light-years cannot express it.”
“Look,” I said, “no need to get fancy about it. I used to watch ‘Twilight Zone.’ You mean another dimension. I dig it.”
She looked troubled “That’s somewhat the idea but–”
Rufo interrupted. “There’s still Igli in the morning.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “If we have to talk to Igli in the morning, maybe we need some sleep. I’m sorry. By the way, who is Igli?”
“You’ll find out,” said Rufo.
I looked up at that hurtling moon. “No doubt. Well, I’m sorry I disturbed you all with a silly mistake. Good night, folks.”
So I crawled back into my sleeping sills, like a proper hero (all muscles and no gonads, usually), and they sacked in too. She didn’t put the light back on, so I had nothing to look at but the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I had fallen into a book.
Well, I hoped it was a success and that the writer would keep me alive for lots of sequels. It was a pretty nice deal for the hero, up to this chapter at least. There was Dejah Thoris, curled up in her sleeping silks not twenty feet away.
I thought seriously of creeping up to the flap of her tent and whispering to her that I wanted to ask a few questions about metaphysical geometry and like matters. Love spells, maybe. Or maybe just tell her that it was cold outside and could I come in?
But I didn’t. Good old faithful Rufo was curled up just the other side of that tent and he had a disconcerting habit of coming awake fast with a dagger in his hand. And he liked to shave corpses. As I’ve said, given a choice. I’m chicken.
I watched the hurtling moons of Barsoom and fell asleep.
Chapter 6
Singing birds are better than alarm clocks and Barsoom was never like this. I stretched happily and smelled coffee and wondered if there was time for a dip before breakfast. It was another perfect day, blue and clear and the sun just up, and I felt like killing dragons before lunch. Small ones, that is.
I smothered a yawn and rolled to my feet. The lovely pavilion was gone and the black box mostly repacked; it was no bigger than a piano box. Star was kneeling before a fire, encouraging the coffee. She was a cavewoman this morning, dressed in a hide that was fancy but not as fancy as her own. From an ocelot, maybe. Or from du Pont.
“Howdy, Princess,” I said. “What’s for breakfast? And where’s your chef?”
“Breakfast later,” she said. “Just a cup of coffee for you now, too hot and too black–best you be bad tempered. Rufo is starting the talk with Igli.” She served it to me in a paper cup.
I drank half a cup, burned my mouth and spat out grounds. Coffee comes in five descending stages: Coffee, Java, Jamoke, Joe, and Carbon Remover. This stuff was no better than grade four.
I stopped then, having caught sight of Rufo. And company, lots of company. Along the edge of our terrace somebody had unloaded Noah’s Ark. There was everything there from aardvarks to zebus, most of them with long yellow teeth.
Rufo was facing this picket line, ten feet this side and opposite a particularly large and uncouth citizen. About then that paper cup came apart and scalded my fingers.
“Want some more?” Star asked.
I blew on my fingers. “No, thanks. This is Igli?”
“Just the one in the middle that Rufo is baiting. The rest have come to see the fun, you can ignore them.”
“Some of them look hungry.”
“Most of the big ones are like Cuvier’s devil, herbivorous. Those outsized lions would eat us–if Igli wins the argument. But only then. Igli is the problem.”
I looked Igli over more carefully. He resembled that scion of the man from Dundee, all chin and no forehead, and he combined the less appetizing features of giants and ogres in ‘The Red Fairy Book’. I never liked that book much.
He was vaguely human, using the term loosely. He was a couple of feet taller than I am and outweighed me three or four hundred pounds but I am much prettier. Hair grew on him in clumps, like a discouraged lawn; and you just knew, without being told, that he had never used a man’s deodorant for manly men. The knots of his muscles had knots on them and his toenails weren’t trimmed.
“Star,” I said, “what’s the nature of the argument we have with him?”
“You must kill him, milord.”
I looked back at him. “Can’t we negotiate a peaceful coexistence? Mutual inspection, cultural exchange, and so forth?”
She shook her head. “He’s not bright enough for that. He’s here to stop us from going down into the valley–and either he dies, or we die.”
I took a deep breath. “Princess, I’ve reached a decision. A man who always obeys the law is even stupider than one who breaks it every chance. This is no time to worry about that local Sullivan Act. I want the flame-thrower, a bazooka, a few grenades, and the heaviest gun in that armory. Can you show me how to dig them out?”
She poked at the fire. “My hero,” she said slowly, “I’m truly sorry–but it isn’t that simple. Did you notice, last night when we were smoking, that Rufo lighted our cigarettes from candles? Not using even so much as a pocket lighter?”
“Well . . . no. I didn’t give it any thought.”
“This rule against firearms and explosives is not a law such as you have back on Earth. It is more than hat; it is impossible to use such things here. Else such things would be used against us.”
“You mean they won t work?”
“They will not work. Perhaps ‘hexed’ is the word.”
“Star. Look at me. Maybe you believe in hexes. I don’t. And I’ll give you seven to two that Tommy uns don’t, either. I intend to find out. Will you give me a hand in unpacking?”
For the first time she looked really upset. “Oh, milord, I beg of you not to!”
“Why not?”
“Even the attempt would be disastrous. Do you believe that I know more about the hazards and dangers–and laws–of this world than you do? Will you believe me when I say that I would not have you die, that in solemn truth my own life and safety depend on yours? Please!”
It is impossible not to believe Star when she lays it on the line. I said thoughtfully, “Maybe you’re right–or that character over there would be carrying a six-inch mortar as a side arm. Uh, Star, I’ve got a still better idea. Why don’t we high tail it back the way we came and homestead that spot where we caught the fish? In five years well have a nice little farm. In ten years, after the word gets around, we’ll have a nice little motel, too, with a free-form swimming pool and a putting green.”
She barely smiled. “Milord Oscar, there is no turning back.”
“Why not? I could find it with my eyes closed.”
“But they would find us. Not Igli but more like him would be sent to harry and kill us.”
I sighed again. “As you say. They claim motels off the main highway are a poor risk anyhow. There’s a attle-axe in that duffel. Maybe I can chop his feet off before he notices me.” She shook her head again. I said, “What’s the matter now? Do I have to fight him with one foot in a ucket? I thought anything that cut or stabbed–anything I did with my own muscles–was okay?”
“It is okay, milord. But it won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Igli can’t be killed. You see, he is not really alive. He is a construct, made invulnerable for this one urpose. Swords or knives or even axes will not cut him; they bounce off. I have seen it.”
“You mean he is a robot?”
“Not if you are thinking of gears and wheels and printed circuits. ‘Golem’ would be closer. The Igli is an imitation of life.” Star added, “Better than life in some ways, since there is no way–none that I know of–to kill him. But worse, too, as Igli isn’t very bright nor well balanced. He has conceit without judgment. Rufo is working on that now, warming him up for you, getting him so mad he can’t think straight.”
“He is? Gosh! I must be sure to thank Rufo for that. Thank him too much. I think. Well, Princess, what m I supposed to do now?”
She spread her hands as if it were all self-evident. “When you are ready, I will loose the wards–and then you will kill him.”
“But you just said–” I stopped. When they abolished the French Foreign Legion very few cushy billets were left for us romantic types. Umbopa could have handled this. Conan, certainly. Or Hawk Carse. Or even Don Quixote, for that thing was about the size of a windmill. “All right. Princess, let’s get on with it. Is it okay for me to spit on my hands? Or is that cheating?”
She smiled without dimpling and said gravely, “Milord Oscar, we will all spit on our hands; Rufo and I will be fighting right beside you. Either we win . . . or we all die.”
We walked over and joined Rufo. He was making donkeys ears at Igli and shouting, “Who’s your father, Igli? Your mother was a garbage can but who’s your father? Look at him! No belly button! Yaaa!”
Igli retorted, “Your mother barks! Your sister gives green stamps!”–but rather feebly, I thought. It was plain that that remark about belly buttons had cut him to the quick–he didn’t have one. Only reasonable, I suppose.
The above is not quite what either of them said, except the remark about the belly button. I wish I could put it in the original because, in the Nevian language, the insult is a high art at least equal to poetry. In fact the epitome of literary grace is to address your enemy (publicly) in some difficult verse form, say the sestina, with every word dripping vitriol.
Rufo cackled gleefully. “Make one, Igli! Push your finger in and make one. They left you out in the rain and you ran. They forgot to finish you. Call that thing a nose?” He said in an aside to me, in English, “How do you want him. Boss? Rare? Or well done?”
“Keep him busy while I study the matter. He doesn’t understand English?”
“Not a bit.”
“Good. How close can I go to him without getting grabbed?”
“Close as you like as long as the wards are up. But, Boss–look. I’m not supposed to advise you–but when we get down to work, don’t let him get you by the plums.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“You be careful.” Rufo turned his head and shouted, “Yaaa! Igli picks his nose and eats it!” He added, “She is a good doctor, the best, but just the same, you be careful.”
“I will.” I stepped closer to the invisible barrier, looked up at this creature. He glared down at me and made growling noises, so I thumbed my nose at him and gave him a wet, fruity Bronx cheer. I was downwind and it seemed likely that he hadn’t had a bath in thirty or forty years; he smelled worse than a locker room at the half.
It gave me a seed of an idea. “Star, can this cherub swim?”
She looked surprised. “I really don’t know.”
“Maybe they forgot to program him for it. How about you, Rufo?”
Rufo looked smug. “Try me, just try me. I could teach fish. Igli! Tell us why the sow wouldn’t kiss you!”
Star could swim like a seal. My style is more like a ferryboat but I get there. “Star, maybe that thing can’t be killed but it breathes. It’s got some sort of oxygen metabolism, even if it burns kerosene. If we held his head underwater for a while–as long as necessary–I’ll bet the fire would go out.”
She looked wide-eyed. “Milord Oscar . . . my champion . . . I was not mistaken in you.”
“It’s going to take some doing. Ever play water polo, Rufo?”
“I invented it.”
I hoped he had. I had played it–once. Like being ridden on a rail, it is an interesting experience–once. “Rufo, can you lure our chum down toward the bank? I take it that the barrier follows this line of furry and feathery friends? If it does, we can get him almost to that high piece of bank with the deep pool under it–you know, Star, where you dunked me the first time.”
“Nothing to it,” said Rufo. “We move, he’ll come along.”
“I d like to get him running. Star, how long does it take you to unswitch your fence?”
“I can loose the wards in an instant, milord.”
“Okay, here’s the plan. Rufo, I want you to get Igli to chasing you, as fast as possible–and you cut out and head for that high bank just before you reach the stream. Star, when Rufo does that, you chop off the barrier–loose the wards–instantly. Don’t wait for me to say so. Rufo, you dive in and swim like hell; don’t let him grab you. With any luck, if Igli is moving fast, as big and clumsy as he is he’ll go in, too, whether he means to or not. But I’ll be pacing you, flanking you and a bit behind you. If Igli manages to put on the brakes, I’ll hit him with a low tackle and knock him in. Then we all play water polo.”
“Water polo I have never seen,” Star said doubtfully.
“There won’t be any referee. All it means this time is that all three of us jump him, in the water, and shove his head under and keep it there–and help each other to keep him from shoving our heads under. Big as he is, unless he can outswim us he’ll be at a terrible disadvantage. We go on doing this until he is limp and stays limp, never let him get a breath. Then, to make sure, well weigh him down with stones–it won’t matter whether he’s really dead or not. Any questions?”
Rufo grinned like a gargoyle. “This is going to be fun!”
Both those pessimists seemed to think that it would work, so we got started. Rufo shouted an allegation about Igli’s personal habits that even Olympia Press would censor, then dared Igli to race him, offering an obscene improbability as a wager.
It took Igli a lumbering long time to get that carcass moving but when he did get rolling, he was faster than Rufo and left a wake of panicked animals and birds behind him. I’m pretty fast but I was hard pushed to hold position on the giant, flanking and a few paces back, and I hoped that Star would not loose the wards if it appeared that Igli might catch Rufo on dry land.
However, Star did loose the wards just as Rufo cut away from the barrier, and Rufo reached the bank and made a perfect racing dive without slowing down, all to plan.
But nothing else was.
I think Igli was too stupid to twig at once that the barrier was down. He kept on a few paces after Rufo had gone left oblique, then did cut left rather sharply. But he had lost speed and he didn’t have any trouble stopping on dry land.
I hit him a diving tackle, illegal and low, and down he went–but not over into the water. And suddenly I had a double armful of struggling and very smelly Golem.
But I had a wildcat helping me at once, and quickly thereafter Rufo, dripping wet, added his vote.
But it was a stalemate and one that we were bound to lose in time. Igli outweighed all of us put together and seemed to be nothing but muscle and stink and nails and teeth. We were suffering bruises, contusions, and flesh wounds–and we weren’t doing Igli any damage, Oh, he screamed like a TV grunt & groaner every time one of us twisted an ear or bent back a finger, but we weren’t really hurting him and he was decidedly hurting us. There wasn’t a chance of dragging that hulk into the water.
I had started with my arms around his knees and I stayed that way, of necessity, as long as I could, while Star tried to weigh down one of his arms and Rufo the other. But the situation was fluid; Igli thrashed like a rattler with its back broken and was forever getting one limb or another free and trying to gouge and bite. It got us into odd positions and I found myself hanging onto one callused foot, trying to twist it off, while I stared into his open mouth, wide as a bear trap and less appetizing. His teeth needed cleaning.
So I shoved the toe of his foot into his mouth.
Igli screamed, so I kept on shoving, and pretty soon he didn’t have room to scream. I kept on pushing.
When he had swallowed his own left leg up to the knee, be managed to wrench his right arm loose from Star and grabbed at his disappearing leg–and I grabbed his wrist. “Help me!” I yelped to Star.
“Push!”
She got the idea and shoved with me. That arm went into his mouth to the elbow and the leg went farther in, quite a bit of the thigh. By, then Rufo was working with us and forced Igli’s left hand in past his cheek and into the jaws. Igli wasn’t struggling so hard by then, short on air probably, so getting the toe of his right foot started into his mouth simply required determination, with Rufo hauling back on his hairy nostrils while I bore down with a Knee on his chin and Star pushed.
We kept on feeding him into his mouth, gaining an inch at a time and never letting up. He was still quivering and trying to get loose when we had him rolled up clear to his hips, and his rank armpits about to disappear.
It was like rolling a snowball in reverse; the more we pushed, the smaller he got and the more his mouth stretched–ugliest sight I ever have seen. Soon he was down to the size of a medicine ball . . . and then a soccer ball . . . then a baseball and I rolled him between my palms and kept pushing, hard.
–a golf ball, a marble, a pea . . . and finally there was nothing but some dirty grease on my hands.
Rufo took a deep breath. “I guess that’ll teach him not to put his foot in his mouth with his betters. Who’s ready for breakfast?”
“I want to wash my hands first,” I said.
We all bathed, using plenty of soap, then Star took care of our wounds and had Rufo treat hers, under her instructions. Rufo is right; Star is the best medic. The stuff she used on us did not sting, the cuts closed up, the flexible dressings she put over them did not have to be changed, and fell off in time with no infection and no scars. Rufo had one very bad bite, about forty cents’ worth of hamburger out of his left buttock, but when Star was through with him, he could sit down and it didn’t seem to bother him.
Rufo fed us little golden pancakes and big German sausages, popping with fat, and gallons of good coffee. It was almost noon before Star loosed the wards again and we set out for our descent down the cliff.
Chapter 7
The descent beside the great waterfall into Nevia valley is a thousand feet and more than sheer; the cliff overhangs and you go down on a line, spinning slowly like a spider. I don’t advise this; it is dizzy-making and I almost lost those wonderful pancakes.
The view is stupendous. You see the waterfall from the side, free-springing, not wetting the cliff, and falling so far that it shrouds itself in mist before it hits bottom. Then as you turn you face frowning cliff, then a long look out over a valley too lush and green and beautiful to be believed–marsh and forest at the foot of the cliff, cultivated fields in middle distance a few miles away, then far beyond and hazy at the base but sharp at the peaks a mighty wall of snow-covered mountains.
Star had sketched the valley for me. “First we fight our way through the marsh. After that it is easy going–we simply have to look sharp for blood kites. Because we come to a brick road, very nice.”
“A yellow brick road?” I asked.
“Yes. That’s the clay they have. Does it matter?”
“I guess not. Just don’t make a hobbit of it. Then what?”
“After that we’ll stop overnight with a family, the squire of the countryside there. Good people, you’ll enjoy them.”
“And then the going gets tough,” Rufo added.
“Rufo, don’t borrow trouble!” Star scolded. “You will please refrain from comments and allow Oscar to cope with his problems as he comes to them, rested, clear-eyed, and unworried. Do you know anyone else who could have handled Igli?”
“Well, since you put it that way . . . no.”
“I do put it that way. We all sleep in comfort tonight. Isn’t that enough? You’ll enjoy it as much as anyone.”
“So will you.”
“When did I ever fail to enjoy anything? Hold your tongue. Now, Oscar, at the root of the cliff are the Horned Ghosts–no way to avoid them, they’ll see us coming down. With luck we won’t see any of the Cold Water Gang; they stay back in the mists. But if we have the bad luck to encounter both, we may have the good luck that they will fight each other and let us slip away. The path through the marsh is tricky; you had best study, this sketch until you know it. Solid footing is only where little yellow flowers grow no matter how solid and dry a piece looks. But, as you can see, even if you stay carefully on the safe bits, there are so many side trails and dead ends that we could wander all day and be trapped by darkness–and never get out.”
So here I was, coming down first, because the Horned Ghosts would be waiting at the bottom. My privilege. Wasn’t I a “Hero”? Hadn’t I made Igli swallow himself?
But I wished that the Horned Ghosts really were ghosts. They were two-legged animals, omnivorous. They ate anything, including each other, and especially travelers. From the belly up they were described to me as much like the Minotaur; from there down they were splayfooted satyrs. Their upper limbs were short arms but without real hands–no thumbs.
But oh those horns! They had horns like Texas longhorns, but sticking up and forward.
However, there is one way of converting a Horned Ghost into a real ghost. It has a soft place on its skull, like a baby’s soft spot, between those horns. Since the brute charges head down, attempting to impale you, this is the only vulnerable spot that can be reached. All it takes is to stand your ground, don’t flinch, aim for that one little spot–and hit it.
So my task was simple. Go down first, kill as many as necessary to insure that Star would have a safe spot to land, then stand fast and protect her until Rufo was down. After that we were free to carve our way through the marsh to safety. If the Cold Water Gang didn’t join the party-
I tried to ease my position in the sling I was riding–my left leg had gone to sleep–and looked down. A hundred feet below the reception committee had gathered.
It looked like an asparagus patch. Of bayonets.
I signaled to stop lowering. Far above me, Rufo checked the line; I hung there, swaying, and tried to think. If I had them lower me straight into that mob, I might stick one or two before I myself was impaled. Or maybe none–The only certainty was that I would be dead long before my friends could join me.
On the other hand, besides that soft spot between the horns, each of these geeks had a soft underbelly, just made for arrows. If Rufo would lower me a bit-
I signaled to him. I started slowly down, a bit jerkily, and he almost missed my signal to stop again. I had to pull up my feet; some of those babies were a-snorting and a-ramping around and shoving each other for a chance to gore me. One Nijinsky among them did manage to scrape the sole of my left buskin, giving me goose flesh clear to my chin.
Under that strong inducement I pulled myself hand over hand up the line far enough to let me get my feet into the sling instead of my fanny. I stood in it hanging onto the line and standing on one foot and then on the other to work pins and needles out. Then I unslung my bow and strung it. This feat would have been worthy of a trained acrobat–but have you ever tried to bend a bow and let fly while standing in a bight at one end of a thousand-foot line and clinging to the line with one hand?
You lose arrows that way. I lost three and almost lost me.
I tried buckling my belt around the line. That caused me to hang upside down and lost me my Robin Hood hat and more arrows. My audience liked that one; they applauded–I think it was applause–so, for an encore, I tried to shift the belt up around my chest to enable me to hang more or less straight down–and maybe get off an arrow or two.
I didn’t quite lose my sword.
So far, my only results had been to attract customers (“Mama, see the funny man!”) and to make myself swing back and forth like a pendulum.
Bad as the latter was, it did give me an idea. I started increasing that swing, pumping it up like a playground swing. This was slow wore and it took a while to get the hang of it, as the period of that pendulum of which I was the weight was over a minute–and it does no good to try to hurry a pendulum; you have to work with it, not against it. I hoped my friends could see well enough to guess what I was doing and not foul it up.
After an unreasonably long time I was swinging back and forth in a flattish arc about a hundred feet fang, passing very fast over the heads of my audience at the bottom of each swing, slowing to a stop at the end of each swing. At first those spike heads tried to move with me, but they tired of that and squatted near the midpoint and watched, their heads moving as I swung, like spectators of a slow-motion tennis match.
But there is always some confounded innovator. My notion was to drop off at one end of this arc where it just missed the cuff and make a stand there with my back to the wall. The ground was higher there, I would not have so far to drop. But one of those horned horrors figured it out and trotted over to that end of the swing. He was followed by two or three more.
That settled it; I would nave to drop off at the other end. But young Archimedes figured that out, too. He left his buddies at the cliff face and trotted after me. I pulled ahead of him at the low point of the swing–but slowed down and he caught up with me long before I reached the dead point at the end. He had only a hundred feet to do in about thirty seconds–a slow walk. He was under me when I got there.
The odds wouldn’t improve; I kicked my feet clear, hung by one hand and drew sword during that too-slow traverse, and dropped off anyway. My notion was to spit that tender spot on his head before my feet touched the ground.
Instead, I missed and he missed and I knocked him sprawling and sprawled right after him and rolled to my feet and ran for the cuff face nearest me, poking that genius in his belly with my sword without stopping.
That foul blow saved me. His friends and relatives stopped to quarrel over who got the prime ribs before a clot of them moved in my direction. This gave me time to set my feet on a pile of scree at the base of the cliff, where I could play “King of the Castle,” and return my sword and nock an arrow.
I didn’t wait for them to rush me. I simply waited until they were close enough that I could not miss, took a bead on the wishbone of the old bull who was leading them, if he had a wishbone, and let that shaft go with every pound of that heavy bow.
It passed through him and stuck into one behind him.
This led to another quarrel over the price of chops. They ate them, teeth and toenails. That was their weakness: all appetite and too little brain. If they had cooperated, they could have had me in one rush when I first hit the ground. Instead they stopped for lunch.
I glanced up. High above me, Star was a tiny spider on a thread; she grew rapidly larger. I moved crabwise along the wall until I was opposite the point, forty feet from the cliff, where she would touch ground.
When she was about fifty feet up, she signaled Rufo to stop lowering, drew her sword and saluted me. “Magnificent, my Hero!” We were all wearing swords; Star had chosen a dueling sword with a 34″ blade–a big sword for a woman but Star is a big woman. She had also packed her belt pouch with medic’s supplies, an ominous touch had I noticed, but did not, at the time.
I drew and returned her salute. They were not bothering me yet, although some, having finished lunch or having been crowded out, were milling around and looking me over. Then I sheathed again, and nocked an arrow. “Start pumping it up. Star, right toward me. Have Rufo lower you a bit more.”
She returned sword and signaled Rufo. He let her down slowly until she was about nine feet off the ground, where she signaled a stop. “Now pump it up!” I called out. Those bloodthirsty natives had forgotten me; they were watching Star, those not still busy eating Cousin Abbie or Great-Uncle John.
“All right,” she answered. “But I have a throwing line. Can you catch it?”
“Oh!” The smart darling had watched my maneuvers and had figured out what would be needed. “Hold it a moment! Ill make a diversion.” I reached over my shoulder, counted arrows by touch–seven. I had started with twenty and made use of one; the rest were scattered, lost.
I used three in a hurry, right, left, and ahead, picking targets as far away as I dared risk, aiming at midpoint and depending on that wonderful bow to take those shafts straight and flat. Sure enough, the crowd went for fresh meat like a government handout. “Now!”
Ten seconds later I caught her in my arms and collected a split-second kiss for toll.
Ten minutes later Rufo was down by the same tactics, at a cost of three of my arrows and two of Star’s smaller ones. He had to lower himself, sitting in the bight and checking the free end of the line under both armpits; he would have been a sitting duck without help. As soon as he was untangled from the line, he started jerking it down off the cliff, and faking it into a coil.
“Leave that!” Star said sharply. “We haven’t time and it’s too heavy to carry.”
“I’ll put it in the pack.”
“No.”
“It’s a good line,” Rufo persisted. “We’ll need it.”
“You’ll need a shroud if we’re not through the marsh by nightfall.” Star turned to me. “How shall we arch, milord?”
I looked around. In front of us and to the left a few jokers still milled around, apparently hesitant about getting closer. To our right and above us the great cloud at the base of the Tails made iridescent lace in the sky. About three hundred yards in front of us was where we would enter the trees anjust beyond the marsh started.
We went downhill in a tight wedge, myself on point, Rufo and Star following on flank, all of us with arrows nocked. I had told them to draw swords if any Homed Ghost got within fifty feet.
None did. One idiot came straight toward us, alone, and Rufo knocked him over with an arrow at twice that distance. As we came up on the corpse Rufo drew his dagger. “Let it be!” said Star. She eemed edgy.
“I’m just going to get the nuggets and give them to Oscar.”
“And get us all killed. If Oscar wants nuggets, he shall have them.”
“What sort of nuggets?” I asked, without stopping.
“Gold, Boss. Those blighters have gizzards like a chicken. But gold is all they swallow for it. Old ones ield maybe twenty, thirty pounds.”
I whistled.
“Gold is common here,” Star explained. “There is a great heap of it at the base of the falls, inside the loud, washed down over eons. It causes fights between the Ghosts and the Cold Water Gang, ecause the Ghosts have this odd appetite and sometimes risk entering the cloud to satisfy it.”
“I haven’t seen any of the Cold Water Gang yet,” I commented.
“Pray God you don’t,” Rufo answered.
“All the more reason to get deep into the marsh,” Star added. “The Gang doesn’t go into it and even the Ghosts don’t go far in. Despite their splay feet, they can be sucked under.”
“Anything dangerous in the swamp itself?”
“Plenty,” Rufo told me. “So be sure you step on the yellow flowers.”
“Watch where you put your own feet. If that map was right, I won’t lose us. What does a Cold Water Gangster look like?”
Rufo said thoughtfully, “Ever seen a man who had been drowned for a week?” I let the matter drop.
Before we got to the trees I had us sling bows and draw swords. Just inside the cover of trees, they jumped us. Horned Ghosts, I mean, not the Cold Water Gang. An ambush from all sides, I don’t know how many. Rufo killed four or five and Star at least two and I danced around, looking active and trying to survive.
We had to climb up and over bodies to move on, too many to count.
We kept on into the swamp, following the little golden pathfinder flowers and the twists and turns of the map in my head. In about half an hour we came to a clearing big as a double garage. Star said faintly, “This is far enough.” She had been holding one hand pressed to her side but bad not been willing to stop until then, although blood stained her tunic and all down the left leg of her tights.
She let Rufo attend her first, while I guarded the bottleneck into the clearing. I was relieved not to be asked to help, as, after we gently removed her tunic, I felt sick at seeing how badly she had been gored–and never a peep out of her. That golden body–hurt!
As a knight errant, I felt like a slob.
But she was chipper again, once Rufo had followed her instructions. She treated Rufo, then treated me–half a dozen wounds each but scratches compared with the rough one she had taken.
Once she had me patched up she said, “Milord Oscar, how long will it be until we are out of the marsh?”
I ran through it in my head. “Does the going get any worse?”
“Slightly better.”
“Not over an hour.”
“Good. Don’t put those filthy clothes back on. Rufo, unpack a bit and well have clean clothes and more arrows. Oscar, well need them for the blood kites, once we are out of the trees.”
The little black box filled most of the clearing before it was unfolded enough to let Rufo get out clothes and reach the arsenal. But clean clothes and lull quiver made me feel like a new man, especially after Rufo dug out a half liter of brandy and we split it three ways, gurglegurgle! Star replenished her medic’s pouch, then I helped Rufo fold up the luggage.
Maybe Rufo was giddy from brandy and no lunch. Or perhaps from loss of blood. It could have been just the bad luck of an unnoticed patch of slippery mud. He had the box in his arms, about to make the last closure that would fold it to knapsack size, when he slipped, recovered violently, and the box sailed out of his arms into a chocolate-brown pool.
It was far out of reach. I yelled, “Rufo, off with your belt!” I was reaching for the buckle of mine.
“No, no!” screamed Rufo. “Stand back! Get clear!”
A corner of the box was still in sight. With a safety line on me I knew I could get it, even if there was no bottom to the pool. I said so, angrily.
“No, Oscar!” Star said urgently. “He’s right. We march. Quickly.”
So we marched–me leading. Star breathing on my neck, Rufo crowding her heels.
We had gone a hundred yards when there was a mud volcano behind us. Not much noise, just a bass rumble and a slight earthquake, then some very dirty rain. Star quit hurrying and said pleasantly, “Well, that’s that.”
Rufo said, “And all the liquor was in it!”
“I don’t mind that,” Star answered. “Liquor is everywhere. But I had new clothes in there, pretty ones, Oscar. I wanted you to see them; I bought them with you in mind.”
I didn’t answer. I was thinking about a flame-thrower and an M-1 and a couple of cases of ammo. And the liquor, of course.
“Did you hear me, milord?” she persisted. “I wanted to wear them for you.”
“Princess,” I answered, “you have your prettiest clothes right with you, always.”
I heard the happy chuckle that goes with her dimples. “I’m sure that you have often said that before. And no doubt with great success.”
We were out of the swamp long before dark and hit the brick road soon after. Blood kites are no problem. They are such murderous things that if you shoot an arrow in the direction of one of their dives, a kite will swerve and pluck it out of the air, getting the shaft right down its gullet. We usually recovered the arrows.
We were among plowed fields soon after we reached the road and soon the blood kites thinned out. Just at sundown we could see outbuildings and the lights in the manor where Star said that we would spend the night.
Chapter 8
Milord Doral ‘t Giuk Dorali should have been a Texan. I don’t mean that the Doral could have been mistaken for a Texan but he had that you-paid-for-the-lunch-I’ll-pay-for-the-Cadillacs xpansiveness.
His farmhouse was the size of a circus tent and as lavish as a Thanksgiving dinner–rich, sumptuous, fine carvings and inlaid jewels. Nevertheless it had a sloppy, lived-in look and if you didn’t watch where you put your feet, you would step on a child’s toy on a broad, sweeping staircase and wind up with a broken collarbone. There were children and dogs underfoot everywhere and the youngest of each weren’t housebroken. It didn’t worry the Doral. Nothing worried the Doral, he enjoyed life.
We had been passing through his fields for miles (rich as the best Iowa farmland and no winters; Star told me they produced four crops a year)–but it was late in the day and an occasional field hand was all we saw save for one wagon we met on the road. I thought that it was pulled by a team of two pairs of horses. I was mistaken; the team was but one pair and the animals were not horses, they had eight legs each.
All of Nevia valley is like that, the commonplace mixed with the wildly different. Humans were humans, dogs were dogs–but horses weren’t horses. Like Alice trying to cope with the Flamingo, every time I thought I had it licked, t would wiggle loose.
The man driving those equine centipedes stared but not because we were dressed oddly; he was dressed as I was. He was staring at Star, as who wouldn’t? The people working in fields had mostly been dressed in sort of a lava-lava. This garment, a simple wraparound tied off at the waist, is the equivalent in Nevia of overalls or blue jeans for both men and women; what we were wearing was equal to the Gray Flannel Suit or to a woman s basic black. Party or formal clothes–well, that’s another matter.
As we turned into the grounds of the manor we picked up a wake of children and dogs. One kid ran ahead and, when we reached the broad terrace in front of the main house, milord Doral himself came out the great front door. I didn’t pick him for lord of the manor; he was wearing one of those short sarongs, was barefooted and bareheaded. He had thick hair, shot with gray, an imposing beard, and looked like General U. S. Grant.
Star waved and called out, “Jock! Oh, Jocko!” (The name was “Giuk,” but I caught it as “Jock” and Jock he is.)
The Doral stared at us, then lumbered forward like a tank, “Ettyboo! Bless your beautiful blue eyes! Bless your bouncy little bottom! Why didn’t you let me know?” (I have to launder this because Nevian idioms don’t parallel ours. Try translating certain French idioms literally into English and you’ll see what I mean. The Doral was not being vulgar; he was being formally and gallantly polite to an old and highly respected friend.)
He grabbed Star in a hug, lifted her off her feet, kissed her on both cheeks and on the mouth, gnawed one ear, then set her down with an arm around her. “Games and celebrations! Three months of holiday! Races and rassling every day, orgies every night! Prizes for the strongest, the fairest, the wittiest–”
Star stopped him. “Milord Doral–”
“Eh? And a prize of all prizes for the first baby born–”
“Jocko darling! I love you dearly, but tomorrow we must ride. All we ask is a bone to gnaw and a corner to sleep in.”
“Nonsense! You can’t do this to me.”
“You know that I must.”
“Politics be damned! I’ll die at your feet, Sugar Pie. Poor old Jocko’s heart will stop. I feel an attack coming right now.” He felt around his chest. “Someplace here–”
She poked him in the belly. “You old fraud. You’ll die as you’ve lived, and not of heartbreak. Milord Doral–”
“Yes, milady?”
“I bring you a Hero.”
He blinked. “You’re not talking about Rufo? Hi, Rufe, you old polecat! Heard any good ones lately? Get back to the kitchen and pick yourself a lively one.”
“Thank you, milord Doral.” Rufo “made a leg,” bowing deeply, and left us.
Star said firmly, “If the Doral please.”
“I hear.”
Star untangled his arm, stood straight and tall and started to chant:
“By the Singing Laughing Waters
“Came a Hero Fair and Fearless.
“Oscar hight this noble warrior,
“Wise and Strong and never daunted,
“Trapped the Igli with a question,
“Caught him out with paradoxes,
“Shut the Igli’s mouth with Igli.
“Fed him to him, feet and fingers!
“Nevermore the Singing Waters . . .
It went on and on, none of it lies yet none of it quite true–colored like a press agent’s handout. For example, Star told him that I had killed twenty-seven Horned Ghosts, one with my bare hands. I don’t remember that many and as for “bare hands,” that was an accident. I had just stabbed one of those vermin as another one tumbled at my feet, shoved from behind. I didn’t have time to get my sword clear, so I set a foot on one horn and pulled hard on the other with my left hand and his head came apart like snapping a wishbone. But I had done it from desperation, not choice.
Star even ad-libbed a long excursus about my father’s heroism and alleged that my grandaddy had led the chaise at San Juan Hill and then started in on my great-grandfathers. But when she told him how I had picked up that scar that runs from left eye to right jaw, she pulled out all the stops.
Now look, Star had quizzed me the first time I met her and she had encouraged me to tell her more during that long hike the day before. But I did not give her most of the guff she was handing the Doral. She must have had the Surete, the FBI, the Archie Goodwin on me for months. She even named the team we had played against when I busted my nose and I never told her that.
I stood there blushing while the Doral looked me up and down with whistles and snorts of appreciation. When Star ended, with a simple: “Thus it happened,” he let out a long sigh and said, “Could we have that part about Igli over again?”
Star complied, chanting different words and more detail. The Doral listened, frowning and nodding approval. “A heroic solution,” he said. “So he’s a mathematician, too. Where did he study?”
“A natural genius, Jock.”
“It figures.” He stepped up to me, looked me in the eye and put his hands on my shoulders. “The Hero who confounds Igli may choose any house. But he will honor my home by accepting hospitality of roof . . . and table . . . and bed?”
He spoke with great earnestness, holding my eye; I had no chance to look at Star for a hint. And I wanted a hint. The person who says smugly that good manners are the same everywhere and people are just people hasn’t been farther out of Podunk than the next whistle stop. I’m no sophisticate but I had been around enough to learn that. It was a formal speech, stuffed with protocol, and called for a formal answer.
I did the best I could. I put my hands on his shoulders and answered solemnly, “I am honored far beyond any merit of mine, sir.”
“But you accept?” he said anxiously.
“I accept with all my heart.” (“Heart” is close enough. I was having trouble with language.)
He seemed to sigh with relief. “Glorious!” He grabbed me in a bear hug, kissed me on both cheeks, and only some fast dodging kept me from being kissed on the mouth.
Then he straightened up and shouted, “Wine! Beer! Schnapps! Who the dadratted tomfoolery is supposed to be chasing? I’ll skin somebody alive with a rusty file! Chairs! Service for a Hero! Where is everybody?”
That last was uncalled for; while Star was reciting what a great guy I am, some eighteen or fifty people had gathered on the terrace, pushing and shoving and trying to get a better look. Among them must have been the personnel with the day’s duty because a mug of ale was shoved into my hand and a four-ounce glass of 110-proof firewater into the other before the boss stopped yelling. Jocko drank boilermaker style, so I followed suit, then was happy to sit down on a chair that was already behind me, with my teeth loosened, my scalp lifted, and the beer just starting to put out the fire.
Other people plied me with bits of cheese, cold meats, pickled this and that, and unidentified drinking food all tasty, not waiting for me to accept it but shoving it into my mouth if I opened it even to say “Gesundheit!” I ate as offered and soon it blotted up the hydrofluoric acid.
In the meantime the Doral was presenting his household to me. It would have been better had they worn chevrons because I never did get them straightened out as to rank. Clothes didn’t help because, just as the squire was dressed like a field hand, the second scullery maid might (and sometimes did) duck back in and load herself with golden ornaments and her best party dress. Nor were they presented in order of rank.
I barely twigged as to which was the lady of the manor, Jocko’s wife–his senior wife. She was a very comely older woman, a brunette carrying a few pounds extra but with that dividend most fetchingly distributed. She was dressed as casually as Jocko out, fortunately, I noticed her because she went at nce to greet Star and they embraced warmly, two old friends. So I had my ears spread when she was presented to me a moment later–as (and I caught it) the Doral (just as Jocko was the Doral) but with the feminine ending.
I jumped to my feet, grabbed her hand, bowed over it and pressed it to my lips. This isn’t even faintly a Nevian custom but it brought cheers and Mrs. Doral blushed and looked pleased and Jocko grinned proudly.
She was the only one I stood up for. Each of the men and boys made a leg to me, with a bow; all the gals from six to sixty curtsied–not as we know it, but Nevian style. It looted more like a step of the Twist. Balance on one foot and lean back as far as possible, then balance on the other while leaning forward, all the while undulating slowly. This doesn’t sound graceful but it is, and it proved that there was not a case of arthritis nor a slipped disk anywhere on the Doral spread.
Jocko hardly ever bothered with names. The females were “Sweetheart” and “Honeylamb” and “Pretty Puss” and he called all the males, even those who seemed to be older than he was, “Son.”
Possibly most of them were his sons. The setup in Nevia I don’t fully understand. This looked like a feudalism out of our own history–and maybe it was–but whether this mob was the Doral’s slaves, his serfs, his hired hands, or all members of one big family I never got straight. A mixture, I think. Titles didn’t mean anything. The only title Jocko held was that he was singled out by a grammatical inflection as being THE Doral instead of just any of a couple of hundred Dorals. I’ve scattered the tag “milord” here and there in this memoir because Star and Rufo used it, but it was simply a courteous form of address paralleling one in Nevian. “Freiherr” does not mean “free man, and “monsieur” does not mean “my lord”–these things don’t translate well. Star sprinkled her speech with “milords” because she was much too polite to say “Hey, Mac!” even with her intimates.
(The very politest endearments in Nevian would win you a clout in the teeth in the USA.)
Once all hands had been presented to the Gordon, Hero First Class, we adjourned to get ready for the banquet that Jocko, cheated of his three months of revelry, had swapped for his first intention. It Split me off from Star as well as from Rufo; I was escorted to my chambers by my two valettes.
That’s what I said. Female. Plural. It is a good thing that I had become relaxed to female attendants in men’s washrooms, European style, and still more relaxed by Southeast Asia and l’Ile du Levant; they don’t teach you how to cope with valettes in American public schools. Especially when they are young and cute and terribly anxious to please . . . and I had had a long, dangerous day. I learned, first time out on patrol, that nothing hikes up that old biological urge like being shot at and living through it.
It there had been only one, I might have been late to dinner. As it was, they chaperoned each other, though not intentionally, I believe. I patted the redhead on her fanny when the other one wasn’t looking and reached, I thought, an understanding for a later time.
Well, having your back scrubbed is fun, too. Shorn, shampooed, shined, shaved, showered, smelling like a belligerent rose, decked out in the fanciest finely since Cecil B. deMille rewrote the Bible, I was delivered by them to the banquet hall on time.
But the proconsul’s dress uniform I wore was a suit of fatigues compared with Star’s getup. She had
lost all her pretty clothes earlier in the day but our hostess had been able to dig up something.
First a dress that covered Star from chin to ankle–like plate glass. It seemed to be blue smoke, it clung to her and billowed out behind. Underneath was “underwear.” She appeared to be wrapped in twining ivy–but this ivy was gold, picked out in sapphires. It curved across her beautiful belly, divided into strands and cupped her breasts, the coverage being about like a bikini minimum but more startling and much more effective.
Her shoes were sandals in an S-curve of something transparent and springy. Nothing appeared to hold them on, no straps, no clips; her lovely feet, bare, rested on them. It made her appear as if she were on tiptoe about four inches off the floor.
Her great mane of blond hair was built up into a structure as complex as a full-rigged ship, and studded with sapphires. She was wearing a fortune or two of sapphires here and there on her body, too; I won’t itemize.
She spotted me just as I caught sight of her. Her face lit up and she called out, in English, “My Hero, you are beautiful!”
I said “Uh–”
Then I added, “You haven’t been wasting your time, either. Do I sit with you? I’ll need coaching.”
“No, no! You sit with the gentlemen, I sit with the ladies. You won’t have any trouble.”
This is not a bad way to arrange a banquet. We each had separate low tables, the men in a row facing the ladies, with about fifteen feet between them. It wasn’t necessary to make chitchat with the ladies and they all were worth looking at. The Lady Doral was opposite me and was giving Star a run for the Golden Apple. Her costume was opaque some places but not the usual places. Most of it was diamonds. I believe they were diamonds; I don’t think they make rhinestones that big.
About twenty were seated; two or three times that many were serving, entertaining, or milling around. Three girls did nothing but see to it that I did not starve nor die of thirst–I didn’t have to learn how to use their table tools; I never touched them. The girls knelt by me; I sat on a big cushion. Later in the evening Jocko lay flat on his back with his head in a lap so that his maids could pop food into his mouth or hold a cup to his lips.
Jocko had three maids as I did; Star and Mrs. Jocko had two each; the rest struggled along with one apiece. These serving maids illustrate why I had trouble telling the players without a program. My hostess and my Princess were dressed fit to kill, sure–but one of my flunkies, a sixteen-year-old strong contender for Miss Nevia, was dressed only in jewelry but so much of it that she was more “modestly” dressed than Star or Doral Letva, the Lady Doral.
Nor did they act like servants except for their impassioned determination to see that I got drunk and stuffed. They chattered among themselves in teen-age argot and me wisecracks about how big my muscles were, etc., as if I had not been present. Apparently heroes are not expected to talk, for every time I opened my mouth something went into it.
There was always something doing–dancers, jugglers, recitations of poetry–in the space between the tables. Kids wandered around and grabbed tidbits from platters before they reached the tables. One little doll about three years old squatted down in front of me, all big eyes and open mouth, and stared, letting dancers avoid her as best they could. I tried to get her to come to me, but she just stared and played with her toes.
A damsel with a dulcimer strolled among the tables, singing and playing. It could have been a dulcimer, she might have been a damsel.
About two hours along in the feast, Jocko stood up, roared for silence, belched loudly, shook off maids who were trying to steady him, and started to recite.
Same verse, different tune–he was reciting my exploits. I would have thought that he was too drunk to recite a limerick but he sounded off endlessly, in perfect scansion with complex inner rhymes and rippling alliterations, an astounding feat of virtuosity in rhetoric.
He stuck to Star’s story line but embroidered it. I listened with growing admiration, both for him as a poet and for good old Scar Gordon, the one-man army. I decided that I must be a purty goddam hot hero, so when he sat down, I stood up.
The girls had been more successful in getting me drunk than in getting me fed. Most of the food was strange and it was usually tasty. But a cold dish had been fetched in, little frog-like creatures in ice, served whole. You dipped them in a sauce and took them in two bites.
The gal in the jewels grabbed one, dipped it and put it up for me to bite. And it woke up.
This little fellow–call him “Elmer”–Elmer rolled his eyes and looked at me, just as I was about to bite him.
I suddenly wasn’t hungry and jerked my head back.
Miss jewelry Shop laughed heartily, dipped him again, and showed me how to do it. No more Elmer-
I didn’t eat for quite a while and drank more than too much. Every ime a bite was offered me I would see Elmers feet disappearing, and gulp, and have another drink.
That’s why I stood up.
Once up, there was dead silence. The music stopped because the musicians were waiting to see what o improvise as background to my poem.
I suddenly realized that I didn’t have anything to say.
Not anything. There wasn’t a prayer that I could adlib a poem of thanks, a graceful compliment to my
host–m Nevian. Hell, I couldn’t have done it in English.
Star’s eyes were on me. She looked gravely confident.
That did it. I didn’t risk Nevian; I couldn’t even remember how to ask my way to the men’s room. So I ave it to ’em, both barrels, in English. Vachel Lindsay’s “Congo.”
As much of it as I could remember, say about four pages. What I did give them was that compelling rhythm and rhyme scheme double-talking and faking on any fluffs and really slamming it on “beating on a table with the handle of a broom! Boom! Boom! Boomlay boom!” and the orchestra caught the spirit and we rattled the dishes.
The applause was wonderful and Miss Tiffany grabbed my ankle and kissed it.
So I gave them Mr. E. A. Foe’s “Bells” for dessert. Jocko kissed me on my left eye and slobbered on my shoulder.
Then Star stood up and explained, in scansion and rhyme, that in my own land, in my own language, among my own people, warriors and artists all, I was as famous a poet as I was a hero (Which was true. Zero equals zero), and that I had done them the honor of composing my greatest work, in the jewels of my native tongue, a fitting thanks to the Doral and house Doral for Hospitality of roof, of table, of bed–and that she would, in time, do her poor best to render my music into their language.
Between us we got the Oscar.
Then they brought in the piece de resistance, a carcass roasted whole and carried by four men. From the size and shape it might have been roast peasant under glass. But it was dead and it smelled wonderful and I ate a lot of it and sobered up. After the roast there were only eight or nine other things, soups and sherbets and similar shilly-shallying. The party got looser and people didn’t stay at their own tables. One of my girls fell asleep and spilled my wine cup and about then I realized that most of the crowd had gone.
Doral Letva, flanked by two girls, led me to my chambers and put me to bed. They dimmed the lights and withdrew while I was still trying to phrase a gallant good night in their language.
They came back, having shucked all jewelry and other encumbrances and posed at my bedside, the Three Graces. I had decided that the younger ones were mama’s daughters. The older girl was maybe eighteen, full ripe, and a picture of what mama must have been at that age; the younger one seemed five years younger, barely nubile, as pretty for her own age and quite self-conscious. She blushed and dropped her eyes when I looked at her. But her sister stared back with sultry eyes, boldly provocative.
Their mother, an arm around each waist, explained simply but in rhyme that I had honored their roof and their table–and now their bed. What was a Hero’s pleasure? One? Or two? Or all three?
I’m chicken. We know that. If it hadn’t been that little sister was about the size of the little brown sisters who had scared me in the past, maybe I could have shown aplomb.
But, hell, those doors didn’t close. Just arches. And Jocko me bucko might wake up anytime; I didn’t know where he was. I won’t say I’ve never bedded a married woman nor a man’s daughter in his own house–but I’ve followed American cover-up conventions in such matters. This flat-footed proposition scared me worse than the Horned Goats. I mean “Ghosts.”
I struggled to put my decision in poetic language.
I didn’t manage it but I put over the idea of negative,
The little girl started to bawl and fled. Her sister looked daggers, snorted. “Hero!” and went after her. Mama just looked at me and left.
She came back in about two minutes. She spoke very formally, obviously exercising great control, and prayed to know if any woman in this house had met with the Hero’s favor? Her name, please? Or could I describe her? Or would I have them paraded so that I might point her out?
I did my best to explain that, were a choice to be made, she herself would be my choice–but that I was tired and wished to sleep alone.
Letva blinked back tears, wished me a hero’s rest, and left a second time, even faster. For an instant I thought she was going to slap me.
Five seconds later I got up and tried to catch her. But she was gone, the gallery was dark.
I fell asleep and dreamt about the Cold Water Gang. They were even uglier than Rufo had suggested and they were trying to make me eat big gold nuggets all with the eyes of Elmer.
Chapter 9
Rufo shook me awake. “Boss! Get up! Right now!”
I buried my head in the covers. “Go way!” My mouth tasted of spoiled cabbage, my head buzzed, and my ears were on crooked.
“Right now! She says to.”
I got up. Rufo was dressed in our Merry Men clothes and wearing sword, so I dressed the same way and buckled on mine. My valettes were not in sight, nor my borrowed finery. I stumbled after Rufo into the great dining hall. There was Star, dressed to travel, and looking grim. The fancy furnishings of the night before were gone; it was as bleak as an abandoned barn. A bare table was all, and on it a joint of meat, cold in congealed grease and a knife beside it.
I looked at it without relish. “What’s that?”
“Your breakfast, if you want it. But I shall not stay under this roof and eat cold shoulder.” It was a tone, a manner, I had never heard from her.
Rufo touched my sleeve. “Boss. Let’s get out of here. Now.”
So we did. Not a soul was in sight, indoors or out, not even children or dogs. But three dashing steeds were waiting. Those eight-legged tandem ponies, I mean, the horse version of a dachshund, saddled and ready to go. The saddle rigs were complex; each pair of legs had a leather yoke over it and the load was distributed by poles flexing laterally, one on each side, and mounted on this was a chair with a back, a padded seat, and arm rests. A tiller rope ran to each armrest.
A lever on the left was both brake and accelerator and I hate to say how suggestions were conveyed to the beast. However, the “horses” didn’t seem to mind.
They weren’t horses. Their heads were slightly equine but they had pads rather than hoofs and were omnivores, not hayburners. But you grow to like these beasties. Mine was black with white points–beautiful. I named her “Ars Longa.” She had soulful eyes.
Rufo lashed my bow and quiver to a baggage rack behind my chair and showed me how to get aboard, adjust my seat belt, and get comfortable with feet on foot rests rather than stirrups and my back supported–as comfy as first-class seats in an airliner. We took off fast and hit a steady pace of ten miles an hour, single-footing (the only gait longhorses have) but smoothed by that eight-point suspension so that it was like a car on a gravel road.
Star rode ahead, she hadn’t spoken another word. I tried to speak to her but Rufo touched my arm. “Boss, don’t,” he said quietly. “When She is like this, all you can do is wait.”
Once we were underway, Rufo and I knee to knee and Star out of earshot ahead, I said “Rufo, what in the world happened?”
He frowned. “We’ll never know. She and the Doral had a row, that’s clear. But best we pretend it never happened.”
He shut up and so did I. Had Jocko been obnoxious to Star? Drunk he certainly was and amorous he might have been. But I couldn’t visualize Star not being able to handle a man so as to avoid rape without hurting his feelings.
That led to further grim thoughts. If the older sister had come in alone–If Miss Tiffany hadn’t passed out–If my valette with the fiery hair had showed up to undress me as I had understood she would–Oh hell!
Presently Rufo eased his seat belt, lowered his back rest and raised his foot rests to reclining position, covered his face with a kerchief and started to snore. After a while I did the same; it had been a short night, no breakfast, and I had a king-size hangover. My “horse” didn’t need any help; the two held position on Star’s mount.
When I woke I felt better, aside from hunger and thirst. Rufo was still sleeping; Star’s steed was still fifty paces ahead. The countryside was still lush, and ahead perhaps a half-mile was a house–not a lordly manor out a farmhouse. I could see a well sweep and thought of moss-covered buckets, cool and wet and reeking of typhoid–well, I had had my booster shots in Heidelberg; I wanted a drink. Water, I mean. Better yet, beer–they made fine beer hereabouts.
Rufo yawned, put away his kerchief, and raised his seat. “Must have dozed off,” he said with a silly grin.
“Rufo, you see that house?”
“Yes. What about it?”
“Lunch, that’s what. I’ve gone far enough on an empty stomach. And I’m so thirsty that I could squeeze a stone and drink the whey from it.”
“Then best you do so.”
“Huh?”
“Milord, I’m sorry–I’m thirsty, too–but we aren’t stopping there. She wouldn’t like it.”
“She wouldn’t, eh? Rufo, let me set you straight. Just because milady Star is in a pet is no reason for me to ride all day with no food or water. You do as you see fit; I’m stopping for lunch. Uh, do you have any money on you? Local money?”
He shook his head. “You don’t do it that way, not here. Boss. Wait another hour. Please.”
“Why?”
“Because we are still on the Doral’s land, that’s why. I don’t know that he has sent word ahead to have us shot on sight; Jock is a goodhearted old blackguard. But I would rather be wearing full armor; a flight of arrows wouldn’t surprise me. Or a drop net just as we turned in among those trees.”
“You really think so?”
“Depends on how angry he is. I mind once, when a man really offended him, the Doral had this poor rube stripped down and tied by his family jewels and placed–no, I can’t tell that one.” Rufo gulped and looked sick. “Big night last night. I’m not myself. Better we speak of pleasant things. You mentioned squeezing whey from a rock. No doubt you were thinking of the Strong Muldoon?”
“Damn it, don’t change the subject!” My head was throbbing. “I won’t ride under those trees and the man who lets fly a shaft at me had better check his own skin for punctures. I’m thirsty.”
“Boss, Rufo pleaded. “She will neither eat nor drink on the Doral’s land–even if they begged her to. And She’s right. You don’t know the customs. Here one accepts what is freely given . . . but even a child is too proud to touch anything begrudged. Five miles more. Can’t the hero who killed Igli before breakfast hold out another five miles?”
“Well . . . all right, all right! But this is a crazy sort of country, you must admit. Utterly insane.” “Mmmm . . .” he answered. “Have you ever been in Washington, D.C.?” “Well–” I grinned wryly. “Touche! And I forgot that this is your native land. No offense intended.”
“Oh, but it’s not. What made you think so?”
“Why–” I tried to think. Neither Rufo nor Star had said so, but–“You know the customs, you speak the language like a native.” “Milord Oscar, I’ve forgotten how many languages I speak. When I hear one of them, I speak it.”
“Well, you’re not an American. Nor a Frenchman, I think.”
He grinned merrily. “I could show you birth certificates from both countries–or could until we lost our baggage. But, no, I’m not from Earth.”
“Then where are you from?”
Rufo hesitated. “Best you get your facts from Her.”
“Tripe! I’ve got both feet hobbled and a sack over my head. This is ridiculous.”
“Boss,” he said earnestly, “She will answer any question you ask. But you must ask them.”
“I certainly shall!”
“So let’s speak of other matters. You mentioned the Strong Muldoon–”
“You mentioned him.”
“Well, perhaps I did. I never met Muldoon myself, though I’ve been in that part of Ireland. A fine country and the only really logical people on Earth. Facts won’t sway them in the face of higher truth. An admirable people. I heard of Muldoon from one of my uncles, a truthful man who for many years was a ghostwriter of political speeches. But at this time, due to a mischance while writing speeches for rival candidates, he was enjoying a vacation as a free-lance correspondent for an American syndicate specializing in Sunday feature stories. He heard of the Strong Muldoon and tracked him down, taking train from Dublin, then a local bus, and at last Shank’s Mares. He encountered a man plowing a field with a one-horse plow . . . but this man was shoving the plow ahead of himself without benefit of horse, turning a neat eight-inch furrow. ‘Aha!’ said my uncle and called out, ‘Mr. Muldoon!’
“The farmer stopped and called back, ‘Bless you for the mistake, friend!’–picked up the plow in one hand, pointed with it and said, ‘You’ll be finding Muldoon that way. Strong, he is.’
“So my uncle thanked him and went on until he found another man setting out fence posts by shoving them into the ground with his bare hand . . . and in stony soil, it’s true. So again my uncle hailed him as Muldoon.
“The man was so startled he dropped the ten or dozen six-inch posts he had tucked under the other arm. ‘Get along with your blarney, now!’ he called back. You must know that Muldoon lives farther on down this very same road. He’s strong.’
“The next local my uncle saw was building a stone fence. Dry-stone work it was and very neat. This man was trimming the rock without hammer or trowel, splitting them with the edge of his hand and doing the fine trim by pinching off bits with his fingers. So again my uncle addressed a man by that glorious name.
“The man started to speak but his throat was dry from all that stone dust; his voice failed him. So he grabbed up a large rock, squeezed it the way you squeezed Igli–forced water out of it as if it had been a goatskin, drank. Then he said, ‘Not me, my friend. He’s strong, as everyone knows. Why, many is the time that I have seen him insert his little finger–‘ ”
My mind was distracted from this string of lies by a wench pitching hay just across the ditch from the road. She had remarkable pectoral muscles and a lava-lava just suited her. She saw me eyeing her and gave me the eye right back, with a wiggle tossed in.
“You were saying?” I asked.
“Eh? ‘–just to the first joint . . . and hold himself at arm’s length for hours!”
“Rufo,” I said, “I don’t believe it could have been more than a few minutes. Strain on the tissues, and so forth.”
“Boss,” he answered in a hurt tone, “I could take you to the very spot where the Mighty Dugan used to perform this stunt.”
“You said his name was Muldoon.”
“He was a Dugan on his mother’s side, very proud of her he was. You’ll be pleased to know, milord, that the boundary of the Doral’s land is now in sight. Lunch in minutes only.”
“I can use it. With a gallon of anything, even water.”
“Passed by acclamation. Truthfully, milord, I’m not at my best today. I need food and drink and a long siesta before the fighting starts, or I’ll yawn when I should parry. Too large a night.”
“I didn’t see you at the banquet.”
“I was there in spirit. In the kitchen the food is hotter, the choice is better, and the company less formal. But I had no intention of making a night of it. Early to bed is my motto. Moderation in all things. Epictetus. But the pastry cook–Well, she reminds me of another girl I once knew, my partner in a legitimate business, smuggling. But her motto was that anything worth doing at all is worth overdoing–and she did. She smuggled on top of smuggling, a sideline of her own unmentioned to me and not taken into account–for I was listing every item with the customs officers, a copy with the bribe, so that they would know I was honest.
“But a girl can’t walk through the gates fat as a stuffed goose and walk back through them twenty minutes later skinny as the figure one–not that she was, just a manner of speaking–without causing thoughtful glances. If it hadn’t been for the strange thing the dog did in the night, the busies would have nabbed us.”
“What was the strange thing the dog did in the night?”
“Just what I was doing last night. The noise woke us and we were out over the roof and free, but with nothing to show for six months’ hard work but skinned knees. But that pastry cook–You saw her, milord. Brown hair, blue eyes, a widow’s peak and the rest remarkably like Sophia Loren.”
“I have a vague memory of someone like that.”
“Then you didn’t see her, there is nothing vague about Nalia. As may be, I had intended to lead the life sanitary last night, knowing that there would be bloodshed today. You know:
‘Once at night and outen the light;
‘Once in the morning, a new day a-borning’
“–as the Scholar advised. But I hadn’t reckoned with Nalia. So here I am with no sleep and no breakfast and if I’m dead before nightfall in a pool of my own blood, it’ll be partly Nalia’s doing.”
“I’ll shave your corpse, Rufo; that’s a promise.” We had passed the marker into the next county but Star didn’t slow down. “Bye the bye, where did you learn the undertakers trade?”
“The what? Oh! That was a far place indeed. The top of that rise, behind those trees, is a house and that’s where we’ll be having lunch. Nice people.”
“Good!” The thought of lunch was a bright spot as I was again regretting my Boy Scout behavior of the night before. “Rufo, you had it all wrong about the strange thing the dog did in the night.”
“Milord?”
“The dog did nothing in the night, that was the strange thing.”
“Well, it certainly didn’t sound that way,” Rufo said doubtfully.
“Another dog, another far place. Sorry. What I started to say was: A funny thing happened to me on the way to bed last night–and I did lead the life sanitary.”
“Indeed, milord?”
“In deed, if not in thought.” I needed to tell somebody and Rufo was the sort of scoundrel I could trust. I told him the Story of the Three Bares.
“I should have risked it,” I concluded. “And, swelp me, I would have, if that lad had been put to bed–alone–when she should have been. Or I think I would have, regardless of White Shotgun or jumping out windows. Rufo, why do the prettiest gals always have fathers or husbands? But I tell you the truth, there they were–the Big Bare, the Middle-Sized Bare, and the Littlest Bare, close enough to touch and all of them anxious to keep my bed warm–and I didn’t do a damn thing! Go ahead and laugh. I deserve it.”
He didn’t laugh. I turned to look at him and his expression was piteous. “Milord! Oscar my comrade! Tell me it isn’t true!”
“It is true,” I said huffily. “And I regretted it at once. Too late. And you complained about your night!”
“Oh, my Cod!” He threw his mount into high gear and took off. Ars Longa looked back inquiringly over her shoulder, then continued on.
Rufo caught up with Star; they stopped, short of the house where lunch was to be expected. They waited and I joined them. Star was wearing no expression; Rufo looked unbearably embarrassed.
Star said, “Rufo, go beg lunch for us. Fetch it here. I would speak with milord alone.”
“Yes, milady!” He got out fast.
Star said to me, still with no expression, “Milord Hero, is this true? What your groom reports to me?”
“I don’t know what he reported.”
“It concerned your failure–your alleged failure–last night.”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘failure.’ If you want to know what I did after the banquet . . . I slept alone. Period.”
She sighed but her expression did not change. “I wanted to hear it from your lips. To be just.” Then her expression did change and I have never seen such anger. In a low almost passionless voice she began chewing me out:
“Quiet, I am not finished with you. Insulting three innocent ladies offending a staunch–”
“SHUT UP!!!”
The blast blew her hair back. I started in before she could rev up again. “Don’t ever again speak to me that way. Star. Never.”
“But–”
“Hold your tongue, you bad-tempered brat! You have not earned the right to speak to me that way. Nor will any girl ever earn the right. You will always–always!–address me politely and with respect. One more word of your nasty rudeness and I’ll spank you until the tears fly.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Get your hand away from that sword or I’ll take it away from you, down your pants right here on the road, and spank you with it. Till your arse is red and you beg for mercy. Star, I do not fight females–but I do punish naughty children. Ladies I treat as ladies. Spoiled brats I treat as spoiled brats. Star, you could be the Queen of England and the Galactic Overlord all rolled into one–but ONE MORE WORD out of line from you, and down come your tights and you won’t be able to sit for a week. Understand e?”
At last she said in a small voice, “I understand, milord.”
“And besides that. I’m resigning from the hero business. I won’t listen to such talk twice, I won’t work for a person who treats me that way even once.” I sighed, realizing that I had just lost my corporal’s stripes again. But I always felt easier and freer without them.
“Yes, milord.” I could barely hear her. It occurred to me that it was a long way back to Nice. But it didn’t worry me.
“All right, let’s forget it.”
“Yes, milord.” She added quietly, “But may I explain why I spoke as I did?”
“No.”
“Yes, milord.”
A long silent time later Rufo returned. He stopped out of earshot, I motioned him to join us.
We ate silently and I didn’t eat much but the beer was good. Rufo tried once to make chitchat with an impossibility about another of his uncles. It couldn’t have fallen flatter inBoston .
After lunch Star turned her mount–those “horses” have a small turning circle for their wheelbase but t’s easier to bring them full circle in a tight place by leading them. Rufo said, “Milady?”
She said impassively, “I am returning to the Doral.”
“Milady! Please not!”
“Dear Rufo,” she said warmly but sadly. “You can wait up at that house–and if I’m not back in three days, you are free.” She looked at me, looked away. “I hope that milord Oscar will see fit to escort me. But I do not ask it. I have not the right.” She started off.
I was slow in getting Ars Longa turned; I didn’t have the hang of it. Star was a good many bricks down the road; I started after her.
Rufo waited until I was turned, biting his nails, then suddenly climbed aboard and caught up with me. We rode knee to knee, a careful fifty paces behind Star, Finally he said, “This is suicide. You know that, don’t you?”
“No, I didn’t know it.”
“Well, it is.”
I said, “Is that why you are not bothering to say ‘sir’?”
“Milord?” He laughed shortly and said, “I guess it is. No point in that nonsense when you are going to die soon.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“Huh?”
” ‘Huh, milord,’ if you please. Just for practice. But from now on, even if we last only thirty minutes. Because I am running the show now–and not just as her stooge. I don’t want any doubt in your mind as to who is boss once the fighting starts. Otherwise turn around and I’ll give your mount a slap on the rump to get you moving. Hear me?”
“Yes, milord Oscar.” He added thoughtfully, “I knew you were boss as soon as I got back. But I don’t see how you did it. Milord, I have never seen Her meek before. May one ask?”
“One may not. But you have my permission to ask her. If you think it is safe. Now tell me about this ‘suicide’ matter–and don’t say she doesn’t want you to give me advice. From here on you’ll give advice any time I ask–and keep your lip buttoned if I don’t.”
“Yes, milord. All right, the suicide prospects. No way to figure the odds. It depends on how angry the Doral is. But it won’t be a fight, can’t be. Either we get clobbered the instant we poke our noses in . . . or we are safe until we leave his land again, even if he tells us to turn around and ride away.” Rufo looked very thoughtful. “Milord, if you want a blind guess–Well, I figure you’ve insulted the Doral the worst he has ever been hurt in the course of a long and touchy life. So it’s about ninety to ten that, two shakes after we turn off the road, we are all going to be sprouting more arrows than Saint Sebastian.”
“Star, too? She hasn’t done anything. Nor have you.” (Nor I, either, I added to myself. What a country!)
Rufo sighed. “Milord, each world has its own ways. Jock won’t want to hurt Her. He likes Her. He’s terribly fond of Her. You could say that he loves Her. But if he kills you, he has got to loll Her. Anything else would be inhumane by his standards–and he’s a very moral bloke; he’s noted for it. And kill me, too, of course, but I don’t count. He must kill Her even though it will start a chain of events that will wipe him out just as dead once the news gets out. The question is: Does he have to kill you? I figure be has to, knowing these people. Sorry . . . milord.”
I mulled it over. “Then why are you here, Rufo?”
“Milord?”
“You can cut the ‘sirs’ down to one an hour. Why are you here? If your estimate is correct, your one word and one bow can’t affect the outcome. She gave you a fair chance to chicken out. So what is it? Pride? Or are you in love with her?”
“Oh, my God, no!”
Again I saw Rufo really shocked. “Excuse me,” he went on. “You caught me with my guard down.” He thought about it. “Two reasons, I suppose. The first is that if Jock allows us to parley–well. She is quite a talker. In the second place”–he glanced at me–“I’m superstitious, I admit it. You’re a man with luck. I’ve seen it. So I want to be close to you even when reason tells me to run. You could fall in a cesspool and–”
“Nonsense. You should hear my hard-luck story.”
“Maybe in the past. But I’m betting the dice as they roll.” He shut up.
A bit later I said, “You stay here.” I speeded up and joined Star. “Here are the plans,” I told her.
“When we get there, you stay out on the road with Rufo. I’m going in alone.”
She gasped. “Oh, milord! No!”
“Yes.”
“But–”
“Star, do you want me back? As your champion?”
“With all my heart!”
“All right. Then do it my way.”
She waited before answering. “Oscar–”
“Yes, Star.”
“I will do as you say. But will you let me explain before you decide what you will say?”
“Go on.”
“In this world, the place for a lady to ride is by her champion. And that is where I would want to be, my Hero, when in peril. Especially when in peril. But I’m not pleading for sentiment, nor for empty form. Knowing what I now know I can prophesy with certainty that, if you go in first, you will die at once, and I will die–and Rufo–as soon as they can chase us down. That will be quickly, our mounts are tired. On the other hand, if I go in alone–”
“No.”
“Please, milord. I was not proposing, it. If I were to go in alone, I would be almost as likely to die at once as you would be. Or perhaps, instead of feeding me to the pigs, be would simply have me feed the pigs and be a plaything of the pig boys–a fate merciful rather than cold justice in view of my utter degradation in returning without you. But the Doral is fond of me and I think he might let me live . . . as a pig girl and no better than pigs. This I would risk if necessary and wait my chance to escape, for I cannot afford pride; I have no pride, only necessity.” Her voice was husky with tears.
“Star, Star!”
“My darling!”
“Huh? You said–”
“May I say it? We may not have much time. My Hero . . . my darling.” She reached out blindly, I took her hand; she leaned toward me and pressed it to her breast.
Then she straightened up but kept my hand. “I’m all right now. I am a woman when I least expect it. No, my darling Hero, there is only one way for us to go in and that is side by side, proudly. It is not only safest, it is the only way I would wish it–could I afford pride. I can afford anything else. I could buy you theEiffelTower for a trinket, and replace it when you broke it. But not pride.”
“Why is it safest?”
“Because he may–I say ‘may’–let us parley. If I can get in ten words, he’ll grant a hundred. Then a thousand. I may be able to heal his hurt.”
“All right. But–Star, what did I do to hurt him? I didn’t! I went to a lot of trouble not to hurt him.”
She was silent a while, then–“You are an American.”
“What’s that got to do with it? Jock doesn’t know it.”
“It has, perhaps, everything to do with it. No, America is at most a name to the Doral for, although he has studied the Universes, he has never traveled. But–You will not be angry with me again?”
“Uh . . . let’s call a King’s-X on that. Say anything you need to say but explain things. Just don’t chew me out. Oh, hell, chew me out if you like–this once. Just don’t let it be a habit . . . my darling.”
She squeezed my hand. “Never will I again! The error lay in my not realizing that you are American. I don’t know America , not the way Rufo does. If Rufo had been present–But he wasn’t; he was wenching in the kitchen. I suppose I assumed, when you were offered table and root and bed, that you would behave as a Frenchman would. I never dreamed that you would refuse it. Had I known, I could have spun a thousand excuses for you. An oath taken. A holy day in your religion. Jock would have been disappointed but not hurt; he is a man of honor.”
“But–Damn it, I still don’t see why he wants to shoot me for not doing something I would expect, back home, that he might snoot me for doing. In this country, is a plan forced to accept any proposition a gal makes? And why did she run and complain? Why didn’t she keep it secret? Hell, she didn’t even try. She dragged in her daughters.”
“But, darling, it was never a secret. He asked you publicly and publicly you accepted. How would you feel if your bride, on your wedding night, kicked you out of the bedroom? ‘Table, and roof, and bed.’ You accepted.”
” ‘Bed.’ Star, inAmerica beds are multiple-purpose furniture. Sometimes we sleep in them. Just sleep. I didn’t dig it.”
“I know now. You didn’t know the idiom. My fault. But do you now see why he was completely–and publicly–humiliated?”
“Well, yes, but he brought it on himself. He asked me in public. It would have been worse if I had said No then.”
“Not at all. You didn’t have to accept. You could have refused graciously. Perhaps the most graceful way, even though it be a white lie, is for the hero to protest his tragic inability–temporary or permanent–from wounds received in the very battle that proved him a hero.”
“I’ll remember that. But I still don’t see why he was so astoundingly generous in the first place.”
She turned and looked at me. “My darling, is it all right for me to say that you have astounded me every time I have talked with you? And I had thought I had passed beyond all surprises, years ago.”
“It’s mutual. You always astound me. However, I like it–except one time.”
“My lord Hero, how often do you think a simple country squire has a chance to gain for his family a Hero’s son, and raise it as his own? Can you not feel his gall-bitter disappointment at what you snatched from him after he thought you had promised this boon? His shame? His wrath?”
I considered it. “Well, I’ll be dogged. It happens inAmerica , too. But they don’t boast about it.”
“Other countries, other customs. At the very least, he had thought that he had the honor of a hero treating him as a brother. And with luck he expected the get of a hero for house Doral.”
“Wait a minute! Is that why he sent me three? To improve the odds?”
“Oscar, he would eagerly have sent you thirty . . . if you had hinted that you felt heroic enough to attempt it. As it was, he sent his chief wife and his two favorite daughters.” She hesitated. “What I still don’t understand–” She stopped and asked me a blunt question.
“Hell, no!” I protested, blushing. “Not since I was fifteen. But one thing that put me off was that mere child. She’s one. I think.”
Star shrugged. “She may be. But she is not a child; in Nevia she is a woman. And even if she is unbroached as yet, I’ll wager she’s a mother in another twelvemonth. But if you were loath to tap her, why didn’t you shoo her out and take her older sister? That quaint hasn’t been virgin since she’s had breasts, to my certain knowledge–and I hear that Muri is ‘some dish,’ if that is the American idiom.”
I muttered. I had been thinking the same thing. But I didn’t want to discuss it with Star.
She said, “Pardonne-moi, mon cher? Tu as dit?”
“I said I had given up sex crimes for Lent!”
She looked puzzled. “But Lent is over, even on Earth. And it is not, here, at all.”
“Sorry.”
“Still I’m pleased that you didn’t pick Muri over Letva; Muri would have been unbearably stuck-up with her mother after such a thing. But I do understand that you will repair this, if I can straighten it out?” She added, “It makes great difference in how I handle the diplomacies.”
(Star, Star–you are the one I want to bed!) “This is what you wish . . . my darling?”
“Oh, how much it would help!”
“Okay. You’re the doctor. One . . . three . . . thirty–I’ll die trying. But no little kids!” “No problem.
Let me think. If the Doral lets me get in just five words–” She fell silent. Her hand was pleasantly warm. I did some thinking, too. These strange customs had ramifications, some of which I had still shied away from. How was it, if Letva had immediately told her husband what a slob I was-
“Star? Where did you sleep last night?”
She looked around sharply. “Milord . . . is it permitted to ask you, please, to mind your own business?”
“I suppose so. But everybody seems to be minding mine.”
“I am sorry. But I am very much worried and my heaviest worries you do not know as yet. It was a fair question and deserves a fair answer. Hospitality balances, always, and honors flow both ways. I slept in the Doral’s bed. However, if it matters–and it may to you; I still do not understand Americans–I was wounded yesterday, it still bothered me. Jock is a sweet and gentle soul. We slept. Just slept.”
I tried to make it nonchalant. “Sorry about the wound. Does it hurt now?”
“Not at all. The dressing will fall off by tomorrow. However–Last night was not the first time I enjoyed table and roof and bed at house Doral. Jock and I are old friends, beloved friends–which is why I think I can risk that he may grant me a few seconds before killing me.”
“Well, I had figured out most of that.”
“Oscar, by your standards–the way you have been raised–I am a bitch.”
“Oh, never! A princess.”
“A bitch. But I am not of your country and I was reared by another code. By my standards, and they seem good to me, I am a moral woman. Now . . . am I still your darling’?”
“My darling!”
“My darling Hero. My champion. Lean close and kiss me. If we die, I would my mouth be warm with your lips. The entrance is just around this bend.”
“I know.”
A few moments later we rode, swords sheathed and bows unstrung, proudly into the target area.
Chapter 10
Three days later we rode out again.
This time breakfast was sumptuous. This time musicians lined our exit. This time the Doral rode with us.
This time Rufo reeled to his mount, each arm around a wench, a bottle in each hand, then, after busses from a dozen more, was lifted into his seat and belted in the reclining position. He fell asleep, snoring before we set out.
I was kissed good-bye more times than I could count and by some who had no reason to do it so thoroughly–for I was only an apprentice hero, still learning the trade.
It’s not a bad trade, despite long hours, occupational hazards, and utter lack of security; it has fringe benefits, with many openings and rapid advancement for a man with push and willingness to learn. The Doral seemed well pleased with me.
At breakfast he had sung my prowess up to date in a thousand intricate lines. But I was sober and did not let his praises impress me with my own greatness; I knew better. Obviously a little bird had reported to him regularly–but that bird was a liar. John Henry the Steel-Drivin’ Man couldn’t have done what Jocko’s ode said I did.
But I took it with my heroic features noble and impassive, then I stood up and gave them “Casey at the Bat,” putting heart and soul into “Mighty Casey has struck OUT!”
Star gave it a free interpretation. I had (so she sang) praised the ladies of Doral, the ideas being ones associated with Madame Pompadour, Nell Gwyn, Theodora, Ninon de l’Enclos, and Rangy Lil. She didn’t name those famous ladies; instead she was specific, in Nevian eulogy that would have startled Francois Villon.
So I had to come up with an encore. I gave them “Relic’s daughter,” then “Jabberwocky,” with gestures.
Star had interpreted me in spirit; she had said what I would have said had I been capable of extemporizing poetry. Late on the second day I had chanced on Star in the steam room of the manor’s baths. For an hour we lay wrapped in sheets on adjacent slabs, sweating it out and restoring the tissues. Presently I blurted out to her how surprised–and delighted–I was. I did it sheepishly but Star was one to whom I dared bare my soul.
She had listened gravely. When I ran down, she said quietly, “My Hero, as you know, I do not know America. But from what Rufo tells me your culture is unique, among all the Universes.”
“Well, I realize that the USA is not sophisticated in such things, not the way France is.”
” ‘France!’ ” She shrugged, beautifully. ” ‘Latins are lousy lovers.’ I heard that somewhere, I testify that it is true. Oscar, so far as I know, your culture is the only semicivilized one in which love is not recognized as the highest art and given the serious study it deserves.”
“You mean the way they treat it here. Whew! ‘Much too good for the common people!’ ”
“No, I do not mean the way it is treated here.” She spoke in English. “Much as I love our friends here, this is a barbarous culture and their arts are barbaric. Oh, good art of its sort, very good; their approach is honest. But–if we live through this, after our troubles are over–I want you to travel among the Universes. You’ll see what I mean.” She got up, folding her sheet into a toga. I’m glad you are pleased, my Hero. I’m proud of you.”
I lay there a while longer, thinking about what she had said. The “highest art”–and back home we didn’t even study it, much less make any attempt to teach it. Ballet takes years and years. Nor do they hire you to sing at the Met just because you have a loud voice.
Why should “love” be classed as an “instinct”?
Certainly the appetite for sex is an instinct–but did another appetite make every glutton a gourmet, every fry cook a Cordon Bleu? Hell, you had to learn even to be a fry cook.
I walked out of the steam room whistling “The Best Things in Life Are Free”–then chopped it off in sudden sorrow for all my poor, unhappy compatriots cheated of their birthright by the most mammoth hoax in history.
A mile out the Doral bade us good-bye, embracing me, kissing Star and mussing her hair; then he and his escort drew swords and remained at salute until we passed over the next rise. Star and I rode knee to knee while Rufo snored behind us.
I looked at her and her mouth twitched. She caught my eye and said demurely, “Good morning, milord.”
“Good morning, milady. You slept well?”
“Very well, thank you, milord. And you?”
“The same, thank you.”
“So? ‘What was the strange thing the dog did in the night?’ ”
” ‘The dog did nothing in the night, that was the strange thing,’ ” I answered with a straight face. “Really? So gay a dog? Then who was that knight I last saw with a lady?” ”
‘Twasn’t night, ’twas brillig.”
“And your vorpal blade went snicker-snack! My beamish boy!”
“Don’t try to pin your jabberwocking on me, you frolicsome wench,” I said severely. “I’ve got friends, I have–I can prove an alibi. Besides, ‘my strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.’ ”
“And the line before that one. Yes, I know; your friends told me about it, milord.” Suddenly she grinned and slapped me on the thigh and started bellowing the chorus of “Reilly’s Daughter.” Vita Brevis norted; Ars Longa pricked up her ears and looked around reprovingly.
“Stop it,” I said. “You’re shocking the horses.”
“They aren’t horses and you can’t shock them. Have you seen how they do it, milord? In spite of all those legs? First–”
“Hold your tongue! Ars Longa is a lady, even if you aren’t.”
“I warned you I was a bitch. First she sidles up–”
“I’ve seen it. Muri thought it would amuse me. Instead it gave me an inferiority complex that lasted all afternoon.”
“I venture to disbelieve that it was all afternoon, milord Hero. Let’s sing about Reilly then. You lead, I’ll harmonize.”
“Well–Not too loud, we’ll wake Rufo.”
“Not him, he’s embalmed.”
“Then you’ll wake me, which is worse. Star darling, when and where was Rufo an undertaker? And ow did he get from that into this business? Did they run him out of town?”
She looked puzzled. “Undertaker? Rufo? Not Rufo.”
“He was most circumstantial.”
“So? Milord, Rufo has many faults. But telling the truth is not one of them. Moreover, our people do ot have undertakers.”
“You don’t? Then what do you do with leftover carcasses? Can’t leave them cluttering the parlor. Untidy.”
“I think so, too, but our people do just that: keep them in the parlor. For a few years at least. An overly sentimental custom but we are a sentimental people. Even so, it can be overdone. One of my great aunts kept all her former husbands in her bedchamber–a dreadful clutter and boring, too, because she talked about them, repeating herself and exaggerating. I quit going to see her.”
“Well. Did she dust them?”
“Oh, yes. She was a fussy housekeeper.”
“Uh–How many were there?”
“Seven or eight, I never counted.”
“I see. Star? Is there black-widow blood in your family?”
“What? Oh! But, darling, there is black-widow blood in every woman.” She dimpled, reached over and patted my knee. “But Auntie didn’t kill them. Believe me, my Hero, the women in my family are much too fond of men to waste them. No, Auntie just hated to let them go. I think that is foolish. Look forward, not back.”
” ‘And let the dead past bury its dead.’ Look, if your people keep dead homes around the house, you must have undertakers. Embalmers at least. Or doesn’t the air get thick?”
“Embalming? Oh, no! Just place a stasis on them once you’re sure they are dead. Or dying. Any schoolboy can do that.” She added, “Perhaps I wronged Rufo. He has spent much time on your Earth–he likes the place, it fascinates him–and he may have tried undertaking. But it seems to me an occupation too honest and straightforward to attract him.”
“You never did tell me what your people eventually do with a cadaver.”
“Not bury it. That would shock them silly.” Star shivered. “Even myself and I’ve traveled the
Universes, learned to be indifferent to almost any custom.”
“But what?”
“Much what you did to Igli. Apply a geometrical option and get rid of it.”
“Oh. Star, where did Igli go?”
“I couldn’t guess, milord. I had no chance to calculate it. Perhaps the ones who made him know. But I hink they were even more taken by surprise than I was.”
“I guess I’m dense. Star. You call it geometry; Jocko referred to me as a ‘mathematician.’ But I did what was forced on me by circumstances; I didn’t understand it.”
“Forced on Igli, you should say, milord Hero. What happens when you place an insupportable strain on a mass, such that it cannot remain where it is? While leaving it nowhere to go? This is a schoolboy problem in metaphysical geometry and the eldest proto-paradox, the one about the irresistible force and the immovable body. The mass implodes. It is squeezed out of its own world into some other. This is often the way the people of a universe discover the Universes–but usually as disastrously as you forced it on Igli; it may take millennia before they control it. It may hover around the fringes as ‘magic’ for a long time, sometimes working, sometimes failing, sometimes backfiring on the magician.”
“And you call this ‘mathematics’?”
“How else?”
“I’d call it magic.”
“Yes, surely. As I told Jocko, you have a natural genius. You could be a great warlock.”
I shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t believe in magic.”
“Nor do I,” she answered, “the way you put it. I believe in what is.”
“That’s what I mean, Star. I don’t believe in hocus-pocus. What happened to Igli–I mean, ‘what ppeared to happen to Igli’–could not have happened because it would violate the law of conservation of mass-energy. There must be some other explanation.”
She was politely silent.
So I brought to bear the sturdy common sense of ignorance and prejudice. “Look, Star, I’m not going to believe the impossible simply because I was there. A natural law is a natural law. You have to admit that.”
We rode a few rods before she answered, “May it please milord Hero, the world is not what we wish it to be. It is what it is. No, I have over-assumed. Perhaps it is indeed what we wish it to be.
Either way, it is what it is. Le voila! Behold it, self-demonstrating. Das Ding an sich. Bite it. It is. Ai-je raison? Do I speak truly?”
“That’s what I was saying! The universe is what it is and can’t be changed by jiggery-pokery. It works by exact rules, like a machine.” (I hesitated, remembering a car we had had that was a hypochondriac. It would “fall sick,” then “get well” as soon as a mechanic tried to touch it.) I went on firmly, “Natural law never takes a holiday. The invariability of natural law is the cornerstone of science.”
“So it is.”
“Well?” I demanded.
“So much the worse for science.”
“But–” I shut up and rode in huffy silence.
Presently a slender hand touched my forearm, caressed it. “Such a strong sword arm,” she said softly.
“Milord Hero, may I explain?”
“Talk ahead,” I said. “If you can sell me, you can convert the Pope to Mormonism. I’m stubborn.”
“Would I have picked you out of hundreds of billions to be my champion were you not?”
” ‘Hundreds of billions?’ You mean millions, don’t you?”
“Hear me, milord. Indulge me. Let us be Socratic. I’ll frame the trick questions and you make the tupid answers–and we’ll learn who shaved the barber. Then it will be your turn and I’ll be the silly stooge. Okay?”
“All right, put a nickel in.”
“Very well. Question: Are the customs at house Doral the customs you used at home?”
“What? You know they aren’t. I’ve never been so flabbergasted since the time the preacher’s daughter took me up into the steeple to show me the Holy Ghost.” I chuckled sheepishly. “I’d be blushing yet but I’ve burned out my fuses.”
“Yet the basic difference between Nevian customs and yours lies in only one postulate. Milord, there axe worlds in which males kill females as soon as eggs are laid–and others in which females eat males even as they are being fructified–like that black widow you made cousin to me.”
“I didn’t mean that, Star.”
“I was not offended, my love. An insult is like a drink; it affects one only if accepted. And pride is too heavy baggage for my journey; I have none. Oscar, would you find such worlds stranger than this one?”
“You’re talking about spiders or some such. Not people.”
“I speak of people, the dominant race of each its world. Highly civilized.”
“Ugh!”
“You will not say ‘ugh’ when you see them. They are so different from us that their home life cannot atter to us. Contrariwise, this planet is very like your Earth–yet your customs would shock old Jocko out of song. Darling, your world has a custom unique in the Universes. That is, the Twenty Universes known to me, out of thousands or millions or googols of universes. In the known Twenty Universes only Earth has this astounding custom.”
“Do you mean “War”?”
“Oh, no! Most worlds have warfare. This planet Nevia is one of the few where lolling is retail, rather than wholesale. Here there be Heroes, killing is done with passion. This is a world of love and slaughter, both with gay abandon. No, I mean something much more shocking. Can you guess?”
“Uh . . . television commercials?”
“Close in spirit, but wide of the mark. You have an expression ‘the oldest profession.’ Here–and in all ther known worlds–it isn’t even the youngest. Nobody has heard of it and wouldn’t believe it if he did. We few who visit Earth don’t talk about it. Not that it would matter; most people don’t believe travelers’ tales.”
“Star, are you telling me that there is no prostitution elsewhere in the Universe?”
“The Universes, my darling. None.”
“You know,” I said thoughtfully, “that’s going to be a shock to my first sergeant. None at all?”
“I mean,” she said bluntly, “that whoring seems to have been invented by Earth people and no thers–and the idea would shock old Jocko into impotence. He’s a straitlaced moralist.”
“I’ll be damned! We must be a bunch of slobs.”
“I did not mean to offend, Oscar; I was reciting facts. But this oddity of Earth is not odd in its own context. Any commodity is certain to be sold–bought, sold, leased, rented, bartered, traded, discounted, price-stabilized, inflated, bootlegged, and legislated–and a woman’s ‘commodity’ as it was called on Earth in franker days is no exception. The only wonder is the wild notion of thinking of it as a commodity. Why, it so surprised me that once I even–Never mind. Anything can be made a commodity. Someday I will show you cultures living in spaces, not on planets–nor on fundaments of any sort; not all universes have planets–cultures where the breath of life is sold like a kilo of butter in Provence. Other places so crowded that the privilege of staying alive is subject to tax–and delinquents are killed out of hand by the Department of Eternal Revenue and neighbors not only do not interfere, they are pleased.”
“Good God! Why?”
“They solved death, milord, and most of them won’t emigrate despite endless roomier planets. But we were speaking of Earth. Not only is whoring unknown elsewhere, but its permutations are unknown–dower, bridal price, alimony, separate maintenance, all the variations that color all Earth’s institutions–every custom related even remotely to the incredible notion that what all women have an endless supply of is nevertheless merchandise, to be hoarded and auctioned.”
Ars Longa gave a snort of disgust. No, I don’t think she understood. She understands some Nevian but Star spoke English; Nevian lacks the vocabulary.
“Even your secondary customs,” she went on, “are shaped by this unique institution. Clothing–you’ve noticed that there is no real difference here in how the two sexes dress. I’m in tights this morning and you are in shorts but had it been the other way around no one would have noticed.”
“The hell they wouldn’t! Your tights wouldn’t fit me.”
“They stretch. And body shyness, which is an aspect of sex-specialized clothing. Here nakedness is as unnoteworthy as on that pretty little island where I found you. All hairless peoples sometimes wear clothing and all peoples no matter how hirsute wear ornaments–but nakedness taboo is found only where flesh is merchandise to be packaged or displayed . . . that is to say, on Earth. It parallels ‘Don’t pinch the grapefruit’ and putting false bottoms in berry boxes. If something is never haggled over, there is no need to make a mystery of it.”
“So if we get rid of clothes we get rid of prostitution?”
“Heavens, no! You’ve got it backwards.” She frowned. “I don’t see how Earth could ever get rid of whoring; it’s too much a part of everything you do.”
“Star, you’ve got your facts wrong. There is almost no prostitution in America.”
She looked startled. “Really? But–Isn’t ‘alimony’ an American word? And ‘gold digger’? And ‘coming-out party’?”
“Yes, but prostitution has almost died out. Hell, I wouldn’t know how to go about finding a whorehouse even in an Army town. I’m not saying that you don’t wind up in the nay. But it’s not commercialized. Star, even with an American girl who is well-known to be an easy make-out, if you offered her five bucks–or twenty–it’s ten to one she would slap your face.”
“Then how is it done?”
“You’re nice to her instead. Take her to dinner, maybe to a show. Buy her flowers, girls are suckers for flowers. Then approach the subject politely.”
“Oscar, doesn’t this dinner and show, and possibly flowers, cost more than five dollars? Or even twenty? I understood that American prices were as high as French prices.”
“Well, yes, but you can’t just tip your hat and expect a girl to throw herself on her back. A tightwad–”
“I rest the case. All I was trying to show was that customs can be wildly different in different worlds.”
“That’s true, even on Earth. But–”
“Please, milord. I won’t argue the virtue of American women, nor was I criticizing. Had I been reared in America I think I would want at least an emerald bracelet rather than dinner and a show. But I was leading up to the subject of ‘natural law.’ Is not the invariability of natural” law an unproved assumption? Even on Earth?”
“Well–You haven’t stated it fairly. It’s an assumption, I suppose. But there has never been a case in which it failed to stand up.”
“No black swans? Could it not be that an observer who saw an exception preferred not to believe his eyes? Just as you do not want to believe that Igli ate himself even though you, my Hero, forced him to?
Never mind. Let’s leave Socrates to his Xanthippe. Natural law may be invariable throughout a universe–seems to be, in rigid universes. But it is certain that natural laws vary from universe to universe–and believe this you must, milord, else neither of us will live long!”
I considered it. Damn it, where had Igli gone? “Most unsettling.”
“No more unsettling, once you get used to it, than shifting languages and customs as you shift countries.
How many chemical elements are there on Earth?”
“Uh, ninety-two and a bunch of Johnny-Come-Latelies. A hundred and six or seven.”
“Much the same here. Nevertheless a chemist from Earth would suffer some shocks. The elements aren’t quite the same, nor do they behave quite the same way. H-bombs won’t work here and dynamite won’t explode.”
I said sharply, “Now wait! Are you telling me that electrons and protons aren’t the same here, to get down to basics?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps, perhaps not. What is an electron but a mathematical concept? Have you tasted one lately? Or put salt on the tail of a wavicle? Does it matter?”
“It damn well would matter. A man can starve as dead from lack of trace elements as from lack of bread.”
“True. In some universes we humans must carry food if we visit them–which we sometimes must, if only to change trains. But here, and in each of the universes and countless planets where we humans live, you need not worry; local food will nourish you. Of course, if you lived here many years, then went back to Earth and died soon after and an autopsy were done with fussiest microanalysis, the analyst might not believe his results. But your stomach wouldn’t care.”
I thought about this, my belly stuffed with wonderful food and the air around me sweet and good–certainly my body did not care if there were indeed the differences Star spoke of.
Then I recalled one aspect of life in which little differences cause big differences. I asked Star about it.
She looked blandly innocent. “Do you care, milord? You will be long gone before it matters to Doral. I thought your purpose these three days was simply to help me in my problem? With pleasure in your work, I realize–you threw yourself into the spirit of the occasion.”
“Damn it, quit pulling my leg! I did it to help you. But a man can’t help wondering.”
She slapped my thigh and laughed. “Oh, my very darling! Stop wondering; human races throughout the Universes can crossbreed. Some crosses fruit but seldom and some mule out. But this is not one of them. You will live on here, even if you never return. You’re not sterile; that was one of many things I checked when I examined your beautiful body in Nice. One is never sure how the dice will roll, but–I think the Doral will not be disappointed.”
She leaned toward me. “Would you give your physician data more accurate than that which Jocko sang? I might offer a statistical probability. Or even a Sight.”
“No, I would not! Nosy.”
“It is a long nose, isn’t it? As you wish, milord. In a less personal vein the fact of crossbreeding among humans of different universes–and some animals such as dogs and cats–is a most interesting question. The only certainty is that human beings flourish only in those universes having chemistries so similar that elements that make up deoxyribonucleic acids are so alike as not to matter. As for the rest, every scholar has his theory. Some hold to a teleologic explanation, asserting that Man evolves alike in all essential particulars in every universe that can support him because of Divine Plan–or through blind necessity, depending on whether the scholar takes his religion straight or chases it with soda.
“Some think that we evolved just once–or were created, as may be–and leaked across into other universes. Then they fight over which universe was the home of the race.”
“How can there be any argument?” I objected. “Earth has fossil evidence covering the evolution of man. Other planets either have it or not, and that should settle it.”
“Are you sure, milord? I thought that, on Earth, man’s family tree has as many dotted lines as there are bastards in European royal lines.”
I shut up. I had simply read some popular books. Perhaps she was right; a race that could not agree as to who did what to whom in a war only twenty years back probably didn’t know what Alley Oop did to the upstairs maid a million years ago, when the evidence was only scattered bones. Hadn’t there been hoaxes? The Piltdown Man, or some such?
Star went on, “Whatever the truth, there are leakages between worlds. On your own planet disappearances run to hundreds of thousands and not all are absconders or wife-deserters; see any police department’s files. One usual place is the battlefield. The strain becomes too great and a man slides through a hole he didn’t know was there and winds up ‘missing in action.’ Sometimes–not often–a man is seen to disappear. One of your American writers, Bierce or Pierce, got interested and collected such cases. He collected so many that he was collected, too. And your Earth experiences reverse leakage, the ‘Kaspar Hausers,’ persons from nowhere, speaking no known language and never able to account for themselves.”
“Wait a minute? Why just people?”
“I didn’t say ‘just people.’ Have you never heard of rains of frogs? Of stones? Of blood? Who questions a stray cat’s origin? Are all flying saucers optical illusions? I promise you they are not; some are poor lost astronauts trying to find their way home. My people use space travel very little, as faster-than-light is the readiest way to lose yourself among the Universes. We prefer the safer method of metaphysical geometries–or ‘magic’ in the vulgar speech.”
Star looked thoughtful. “Milord, your Earth may be the home of mankind. Some scholars think so.”
“Why?”
“It touches so many other worlds. It’s the top of the list as a transfer point. If its people render it unfit for life–unlikely, but possible–it will disrupt traffic of a dozen universes. Earth has had its fairy rings, and Gates, and Bifrost Bridges for ages; that one we used in Nice was there before the Romans came.”
“Star, how can you talk about points on Earth ‘touching’ other planets–for centuries on end? The Earth moves around the Sun at twenty miles a second or such, and spins on its axis, not to mention other motions that add up to an involved curve at unthinkable speed. So how can it ‘touch’ other worlds?”
Again we rode in silence. At last Star said, “My Hero, how long did it take you to learn calculus?”
“Why, I haven’t learned it. I’ve studied it a couple of years.”
“Can you tell me how a particle can be a wave?”
“What? Star, that’s quantum mechanics, not calculus. I could give an explanation but it wouldn’t mean anything; I don’t have the math. An engineer doesn’t need it.”
“It would be simplest,” she said diffidently, “to answer your question by saying ‘magic’ just as you answered mine with ‘quantum mechanics.’ But you don’t like that word, so all I can say is that after you study higher geometries, metaphysical and conjectural as well as topological and judicial–if you care to make such study–I will gladly answer. But you won’t need to ask.”
(Ever been told: “Wait till you grow up, dear; then you will understand”? As a kid I didn’t like it from grownups; I liked it still less from a girl I was in love with when I was fully grown.)
Star didn’t let me sulk; she shifted the talk. “Some crossbreedings are from neither accidental slippages nor planned travel. You’ve heard of incubi and succubi?”
“Oh, sure. But I never bother my head with myths.”
“Not myths, darling, no matter how often the legend has been used to explain embarrassing situations. Witches and warlocks are not always saints and some acquire a taste for rape. A person who has learned to open Gates can indulge such vice; he–or she–can sneak up on a sleeping person–maid, chaste wife, virgin boy–work his will and be long gone before cockcrow.” She shuddered.
“Sin at its nastiest. If we catch them, we kill them. I’ve caught a few, I killed them. Sin at its worst, even if the victim learns to like it.” She shuddered again.
“Star, what is your definition of ‘sin’?”
“Can there be more than one? Sin is cruelty and injustice, all else is peccadillo. Oh, a sense of sin comes from violating the customs of your tribe. But breaking custom is not sin even when it feels so; sin is wronging another person.”
“How about ‘sinning against God’?” I persisted.
She looked at me sharply. “So again we shave the barber? First, milord, tell me what you mean by
‘God.’ ”
“I just wanted to see if you would walk into it.”
“I haven’t walked into that one in a mort of years. I’d as lief thrust with a bent wrist, or walk a pentacle in clothes. Speaking of pentacles, my Hero, our destination is not what it was three days ago. Now we go to a Gate I had not expected to use. More dangerous but it can’t be helped.”
“My fault! I’m sorry, Star.”
“My fault, milord. But not all loss. When we lost our luggage I was more worried than I dared show–even though I was never easy about carrying firearms through a world where they may not be used. But our foldbox carried much more than firearms, things we are vulnerable without. The time you spent in soothing the hurt to the Doral’s ladies I spent–in part–in wheedling the Doral for a new kit, almost everything heart could wish but firearms. Not all loss.”
“We are going to another world now?”
“Not later than tomorrow dawn, if we live.”
“Damn it, Star, both you and Rufo talk as if each breath might be our last.”
“As it might be.”
“You’re not expecting an ambush now; we’re still on Doral land. But Rufo is as full of dire forebodings as a cheap melodrama. And you are almost as bad.”
“I’m sorry. Rufo does fret–but he is a good man at your back when trouble starts. As for me, I have been trying to be fair, milord, to let you know what to expect.”
“Instead you confuse me. Don’t you think it’s time you put your cards face up?”
She looked troubled. “And if the Hanging Man is the first card turned?”
“I don’t give a hoot! I can face trouble without fainting–”
“I know you can, my champion.”
“Thanks. But not knowing makes me edgy. So talk.”
“I will answer any question, milord Oscar. I have always been willing to.” “But you know that I don’t know what questions to ask. Maybe a carrier pigeon doesn’t need to know what the war is about–but I feel like a sparrow in a badminton game. So start from the beginning.”
“As you say, milord. About seven thousand years ago–” Star stopped. “Oscar, do you want to know–now all the interplay of politics of a myriad worlds and twenty universes over millennia in arriving at the present crisis? I’ll try if you say, but just to outline it would take more time than remains until we must pass through that Gate. You are my true champion; my life hangs on your courage and skill. Do you want the politics behind my present helpless, almost hopeless predicament–save for you! Or shall I concentrate on the tactical situation?”
(Damn it! I did want the whole story.) “Let’s stick to the tactical situation. For now.”
“I promise,” she said solemnly, “that if we live through it, you shall have every detail. The situation is this: I had intended us to cross Nevia by barge, then through the mountains to reach a Gate beyond the Eternal Peaks. That route is less risky but long.
“But now we must hurry. We will turn off the road late this afternoon and pass through some wild country, and country still worse after dark. The Gate there we must reach before dawn; with luck we may sleep. I hope so, because this Gate takes us to another world at a much more dangerous exit.
“Once there, in that world–Hokesh it is called, or Karth–in Karth-Hokesh we shall be close, too close, to a tall tower, mile high, and, if we win to it, our troubles start. In it is the Never-Born, the Eater of Souls.”
“Star, are you trying to scare me?”
“I would rather you were frightened now, if such is possible, than have you surprised later. My thought, milord, had been to advise you of each danger as we reached it, so that you could concentrate on one at a time. But you overruled me.”
“Maybe you were right. Suppose you give me details on each as we come to it, just the outline now. So I’m to fight the Eater of Souls, am I? The name doesn’t scare me; if he tries to eat my soul, he’ll throw up. What do I fight him with? Spit?”
“That is one way,” she said seriously, “but, with luck, we won’t fight him–it–at all. We want what it guards.”
“And what is that?”
“The Egg of the Phoenix.”
“The Phoenix doesn’t lay eggs.”
“I know, milord. That makes it uniquely valuable.”
“But–”
She hurried on. “That is its name. It is a small object, somewhat larger than an ostrich egg and black. If I do not capture it, many bad things will happen. Among them is a small one: I will die. I mention that because it may not seem small to you–my darling! –and it is easier to tell you that one truth than it is to explain the issues.”
“Okay. We steal the Egg. Then what?”
“Then we go home. To my home. After which you may return to yours. Or remain in mine. Or go where you list, through Twenty Universes and myriad worlds. Under any choice, whatever treasure you fancy is yours; you will have earned it and more . . . as well as my heartfelt thanks, milord Hero, and anything you ask of me.”
(The biggest blank check ever written–If I could cash it.) “Star, you don’t seem to think we will live through it.”
She took a deep breath. “Not likely, milord. I tell you truth. My blunder has forced on us a most desperate alternative.”
“I see. Star, will you marry me? Today?”
Then I said, “Easy there! Don’t fall!” She hadn’t been in danger of falling; the seat belt held her. But she sagged against it. I leaned over and put my arm around her shoulders. “Nothing to cry about. Just give me a yes or a no–and I fight for you anyway. On, I forgot. I love you. Anyhow I think it’s love. A funny, fluttery feeling whenever I look at you or think about you–which is mostly.”
“I love you, milord,” she said huskily. “I have loved you since I first saw you. Yes, a ‘funny, fluttery feeling’ as if everything inside me were about to melt down.”
“Well, not quite that,” I admitted. “But it’s probably opposite polarity for the same thing. Fluttery, anyhow. Chills and lightnings. How do we get married around here?”
“But, milord–my love–you always astound me. I knew you loved me. I hoped that you would tell me before–well, in time. Let me hear it once. I did not expect you to offer to marry me!”
“Why not? I’m a man, you’re a woman. It’s customary?”
“But–Oh, my love, I told you! It isn’t necessary to marry me. By your rules . . . I’m a bitch.”
“Bitch, witch, Sing Along with Mitch! What the hell, honey? That was your word, not mine. You have about convinced me that the rules I was taught are barbarous and yours are the straight goods. Better blow your nose–here, want my hanky?
Star wiped her eyes and blew her nose but instead of the yes-darling I wanted to hear she sat up straight and did not smile. She said formally, “Milord Hero, had you not best sample the wine before you buy the barrel?”
I pretended not to understand.
“Please, milord love,” she insisted. “I mean it. There’s a grassy bit on your side of the road, just ahead. You can lead me to it this moment and willingly I will go.”
I sat high and pretended to peer. “Looks like crab grass. Scratchy.”
“Then p-p-pick your own grass! Milord . . . I am willing, and eager, and not uncomely–but you will learn that I am a Sunday painter compared with artists you will someday meet. I am a working woman. I haven’t been free to give the matter the dedicated study it deserves. Believe me! No, try me. You can’t know that you want to marry me.”
“So you’re a cold and clumsy wench, eh?”
“Well . . . I didn’t say that. I’m only entirely unskilled–and I do have enthusiasm.”
“Yes, like your auntie with the cluttered bedroom–it runs in your family, so you said. Let it stand that I ant to marry you in spite of your obvious faults.”
“But–”
“Star, you talk too much.”
“Yes, milord,” she said meekly.
“We’re getting married. How do we do it? Is the local lord also justice of the peace? If he is, there will be no droit du seigneur; we haven’t time for frivolities.” “Each squire is the local justice,” Star agreed thoughtfully, “and does perform marriages, although most Nevians don’t bother. But–Well, yes, he would expect droit du seigneur and, as you pointed out, we haven’t time to waste.”
“Nor is that my idea of a honeymoon. Star–look at me. I don’t expect to keep you in a cage; I know you weren’t raised that way. But we won’t look up the squire. What’s the local brand of preacher? A celibate brand, by choice.”
“But the squire is the priest, too. Not that religion is an engrossing matter in Nevia; fertility rites are all they bother with. Milord love, the simplest way is to jump over your sword.”
“Is that a marriage ceremony where you come from, Star?”
“No, it’s from your world:
‘Leap rogue, and jump whore,
‘And married be forevermore–‘
“–it’s very old.”
“Mmm–I don’t care for the marriage lines. I may be a rogue but I know what you think of whores. What other chances are there?”
“Let me see. There’s a rumormonger in a village we pass through soon after lunch. They sometimes marry townies who want it known far and wide; the service includes spreading the news.”
“What sort of service?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t care, milord love. Married we will be!”
“That’s the spirit! We won’t stop for lunch.”
“No, milord,” she said firmly, “if wife I am to be, I shall be a good wife and not permit you to skip meals.”
“Henpecking already. I think I’ll beat you.”
“As you will, milord. But you must eat, you are going to need your strength–”
“I certainly will!’
“–for fighting. For now I am ten times as anxious that we both live through it. Here is a place for
lunch.” She turned Vita Brevis off the road; Ars Longa followed. Star looked back over her shoulder and dimpled. “Have I told you today that you are beautiful . . . my love!”
Chapter 11
Rufo’s longhorse followed us onto the grassy verge Star picked for picnicking. He was still limp as a wet sock and snoring. I would have let him sleep but Star was shaking him.
He came awake fast, reaching for his sword and shouting, “A moi! M’aidez! Les vaches!” Fortunately some friend had stored his sword and belt out of reach on the baggage rack aft, along with bow, quiver, and our new foldbox.
Then he shook his head and said, “How many were there?”
“Down from there, old friend,” Star said cheerfully. “We’ve stopped to eat.”
“Eat!” Rufo gulped and shuddered. “Please, milady. No obscenity.” He fumbled at his seat belt and fell out of his saddle; I steadied him. Star was searching through her pouch; she pulled out a vial and offered it to Rufo. He shied back.
“Milady!”
“Shall I hold your nose?” she said sweetly.
“I’ll be all right. Just give me a moment . . . and the hair of the dog.”
“Certainly you’ll be all right. Shall I ask milord Oscar to pin your arms?”
Rufo glanced at me appealingly; Star opened the little bottle. It fizzed and fumes rolled out and down.
“Now!”
Rufo shuddered, held his nose, tossed it down.
I won’t say smoke shot out of his ears. But he flapped like torn canvas in a gale and horrible noises came out.
Then he came into focus as suddenly as a TV picture. He appeared heavier and inches taller and had finned out. His skin was a rosy glow instead of death pallor. “Thank you, milady,” he said cheerfully, his oice resonant and virile. “Someday I hope to return the favor.”
“When the Greeks reckon time by the kalends,” she agreed.
Rufo led the longhorses aside and fed them, opening the foldbox and digging out haunches of bloody eat. Ars Longa ate a hundredweight and Vita Brevis and Mors Profunda even more; on the road these beasts need a high-protein diet. That done, he whistled as he set up table and chairs for Star and myself.
“Sugar pie,” I said to Star, “what’s in that pick-me-up?”
“An old family recipe:
‘Eye of newt and toe of frog,
‘Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
‘Adders fork and blind-worm’s sting,
‘Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing–‘ ”
“Shakespeare!” I said. “Macbeth.”
” ‘Cool it with a baboon’s blood–‘ No, Will got it from me, milord love. That’s the way with writers; they’ll steal anything, file off the serial numbers, and claim it for their own. I got it from my aunt–another aunt–who was a professor of internal medicine. The rhyme is a mnemonic for the real ingredients which are much more complicated–never can tell when you’ll need a hangover cure. I compounded it last night, knowing that Rufo, for the sake of our skins, would need to be at his sharpest today–two doses, in fact, in case you needed one. But you surprised me, my love; you break out with nobility at the oddest times.”
“A family weakness. I can’t help it.”
“Luncheon is served, milady.”
I offered Star my arm. Hot foods were hot, cold ones chilled; this new foldbox, in Lincoln green embossed with the Doral chop, had equipment that the lost box lacked. Everything was delicious and the wines were superb.
Rufo ate heartily from his serving board while keeping an eye on our needs. He had come over to pour the wine for the salad when I broke the news. “Rufo old comrade, milady Star and I are getting married today. I want you to be my best man and help prop me up.”
He dropped the bottle.
Then he was busy wiping me and mopping the table. When at last he spoke, it was to Star. “Milady,” he said tightly, “I have put up with much, uncomplaining, for reasons I need not state. But this is going too far. I won’t let–”
“Hold your tongue!”
“Yes,” I agreed, “hold it while I cut it out. Will you have it fried? Or boiled?”
Rufo looked at me and breathed heavily. Then he left abruptly, withdrawing beyond the serving board.
Star said softly, “Milord love, I am sorry.”
“What twisted his tail?” I said wonderingly. Then I thought of the obvious. “Star! Is Rufo jealous?”
She looked astounded, started to laugh and chopped it off. “No, no, darling! It’s not that at all.
Rufo–Well, Rufo has his foibles but he is utterly dependable where it counts. And we need him. Ignore it. Please, milord.”
“As you say. It would take more than that to make me unhappy today.”
Rufo came back, face impassive, and finished serving. He repacked without speaking and we hit the road.
The road skirted the village green; we left Rufo there and sought out the rumormonger. His shop, a crooked lane away, was easy to spot; an apprentice was beating a drum in front of it and shouting teasers of gossip to a crowd of locals. We pushed through and went inside.
The master rumormonger was reading something in each hand with a third scroll propped against his feet on a desk. He looked, dropped feet to floor, jumped up and made a leg while waving us to seats.
“Come in, come in, my gentles!” be sang out. “You do me great honor, my day is made! And yet if I may say so you have come to the right place whatever your problem whatever your need you have only to speak good news bad news every sort but sad news reputations restored events embellished history rewritten great deeds sung and all work guaranteed by the oldest established news agency in all Nevia news from all worlds all universes propaganda planted or uprooted offset or rechanneled satisfaction guaranteed honesty is the best policy but the client is always right don’t tell me I know I know I have spies in every kitchen ears in every bedroom the Hero Gordon without a doubt and your fame needs no heralds milord but honored am I that you should seek me out a biography perhaps to match your matchless deeds complete with old nurse who recalls in her thin and ancient and oh so persuasive voice the signs and portents at your birth–”
Star chopped him off. “We want to get married.”
His mouth shut, he looked sharply at Star’s waistline and almost bought a punch in the nose. “It is a pleasure. And I must add that I heartily endorse such a public-spirited project. All this modern bundling and canoodling and scuttling without even three cheers or a by-your-leave sends taxes up and profits down that’s logic. I only wish I had time to get married myself as I’ve told my wife many’s the time. Now as to plans, if I may make a modest suggestion–”
“We want to be married by the customs of Earth.”
“Ah, yes, certainly.” He turned to a cabinet near his desk, spun dials. After a bit he said, “Your pardon, gentles, but my head is crammed with a billion facts, large and small, and–that name? Does it start with one ‘R’ or two?”
Star moved around, inspected the dials, made a setting.
The rumormonger blinked. “That universe? We seldom have a call for it. I’ve often wished I had time to travel but business business business–LIBRARY!”
“Yes, Master?” a voice answered.
“The planet Earth, Marriage Customs of–that’s a capital ‘Urr’ and a soft theta.” He added a five-group serial number. “Snap it up!”
In very short time an apprentice came running with a thin scroll. “Librarian says careful how you handle it, Master. Very brittle, he says. He says–”
“Shut up. Your pardon, gentles.” He inserted the scroll in a reader and began to scan.
His eyes bugged out and he sat forward. “Unbeliev–” Then he muttered, “Amazing! Whatever made them think of that!” For several minutes he appeared to forget we were there, simply giving vent to: “Astounding! Fantastic!” and like expressions.
I tapped his elbow. “We’re in a hurry.”
“Eh? Yes, yes, milord Hero Gordon–milady.” Reluctantly he left the scanner, fitted his palms together, and said, “You’ve come to the right place. Not another rumormonger in all Nevia could handle a project this size. Now my thought is–just a rough idea, talking off the top of my head–for the procession we’ll need to call in the surrounding countryside although for the charivari we could make do with just townspeople if you want to keep it modest in accordance with your reputation for dignified simplicity–say one day for the procession and a nominal two nights of charivari with guaranteed noise levels of–”
“Hold it.”
“Milord? I’m not going to make a profit on this; it will be a work of art, a labor of love–just expenses plus a little something for my overhead. It’s my professional judgment, too, that a Samoan pre-ceremony would be more sincere, more touching really, than the optional Zulu rite. For a touch of comedy relief–at no extra charge; one of my file clerks just happens to be seven months along, she’d be glad to run down the aisle and interrupt the ceremony–and of course there is the matter of witnesses to the consummation, how many for each of you, but that needn’t be settled this week; we have the street decorations to think of first, and–”
I took her arm. “We’re leaving.”
“Yes, milord,” Star agreed.
He chased after us, shouting about broken contracts. I put hand to sword and showed six inches of blade; his squawks shut off.
Rufo seemed to be all over his mad; he greeted us civilly, even cheerfully. We mounted and left. We had been riding south a mile or so when I said, “Star darling–”
“Milord love?”
“That ‘jumping over the sword’–that really is a marriage ceremony?”
“A very old one, my darling. I think it dates back to the Crusades.”
“I’ve thought of an updated wording:
‘Jump rogue, and princess leap,
‘My wife art thou and mine to keep!’
“–would that suit you?”
“Yes, yes!”
“But for the second line you say:
‘–thy wife I vow and thine to keep.’
“Got it?”
Star gave a quick gasp. “Yes, my love!”
We left Rufo with the longhorses, giving no explanation, and climbed a little wooded hill. All of Nevia is beautiful, with never a beer can nor a dirty Kleenex to mar its Eden loveliness, but here we found an outdoor temple, a smooth grassy place surrounded by arching trees, an enchanted sanctuary.
I drew my sword and glanced along it, feeling its exquisite balance while noting again the faint ripples left by feather-soft hammer blows of some master swordsmith. I tossed it and caught it by the forte.
“Read the motto. Star.”
She traced it out. ” ‘Dum vivimus, vivamus!’–‘While we live, let us live!’ Yes, my love, yes!” She kissed it and handed it back; I placed it on the ground.
“Know your lines?” I asked.
“Graved in my heart.”
I took her hand in mine. “Jump high. One . . . two . . . three!”
Chapter 12
When I led my bride back down that blessed hill, arm around her waist, Rufo helped us mount without comment. But he could hardly miss that Star now addressed me as: “Milord husband.” He mounted and tailed in, a respectful distance out of earshot.
We rode hand in hand for at least an hour. Whenever I glanced at her, she was smiling; whenever she caught my eye, the smile grew dimples. Once I asked, “How soon must we keep lockout?”
“Not until we leave the road, milord husband.”
That held us another mile. At last she said timidly, “Milord husband?”
“Yes, wife?”
“Do you still think that I am ‘a cold and clumsy wench’?”
“Mmm . . .” I answered thoughtfully, ” ‘cold’–no, I couldn’t honestly say you were cold. But ‘clumsy’–Well, compared with an artist like Muri, let us say–”
“Milord husband!”
“Yes? I was saying
“Are you honing for a kick in the belly?” She added, “American!”
“Wife . . . would you kick me in the belly?”
She was slow in answering and her voice was very low. “No, milord husband. Never.”
“I’m pleased to hear it. But if you did, what would happen?”
“You–you would spank me. With my own sword. But not with your sword. Please, never with your sword . . . my husband.”
“Not with your sword, either. With my hand. Hard. First I would spank you. And then–”
“And then what?”
I told her. “But don’t give me cause. According to plans I have to fight later. And don’t interrupt me in the future.”
“Yes, milord husband.”
“Very well. Now let’s assign Muri an arbitrary score of ten. On that scale you would rate–Let me hink.”
“Three or four, perhaps? Or even five?”
“Quiet. I make it about a thousand. Yes, a thousand, give or take a point. I haven’t a slide rule.”
“Oh, what a beast you are, my darling! Lean close and loss me–and just wait till I tell Muri.”
“You’ll say nothing to Muri, my bride, or you will be paddled. Quit fishing for compliments. You know hat you are, you sword-jumping wench.”
“And what am I?”
“My princess.”
“Oh.”
“And a mink with its tail on fire–and you know it.”
“Is that good? I’ve studied American idiom most carefully but sometimes I am not sure.”
“It’s supposed to be tops. A figure of speech, I’ve never known a mink that well. Now get your mindon other matters, or you may be a widow on your bridal day. Dragons, you say?”
“Not until after nightfall, milord husband–and they aren’t really dragons.”
“As you described them, the difference could matter only to another dragon. Eight feet high at the houlders, a few tons each, and teeth as long as any forearm–all they need is to breathe flame.”
“Oh, but they do! Didn’t I say?”
I sighed. “No, you did not.”
“They don’t exactly breathe fire. That would kill them. They hold their breaths while flaming. It’s wamp gas–methane–from the digestive tract. It’s a controlled belch, with a hypergolic effect from an enzyme secreted between the first and second rows of teeth. The gas bursts into flame on the way out.”
“I don’t care how they do it; they’re flame-throwers. Well? How do you expect me to handle them?”
“I had hoped that you would have ideas. You see,” she added apologetically, “I hadn’t planned on it, I didn’t expect us to come this way.”
“Well–Wife, let’s go back to that village. Set up in competition with our friend the rumormonger–I’ll bet we could outgabble him.”
“Milord husband!”
“Never mind. If you want me to kill dragons every Wednesday and Saturday, I’ll be on call. This flaming methane–Do they spout it from both ends?”
“Oh, just the front end. How could it be both?”
“Easy. See next year’s model. Now quiet; I’m thinking over a tactic. Ill need Rufo. I suppose he has killed dragons before?”
“I don’t know that a man has ever killed one, milord husband.”
“So? My princess, I’m flattered by the confidence you place in me. Or is it desperation? Don’t answer, I don’t want to know. Keep quiet and let me think.”
At the next farmhouse Rufo was sent in to arrange returning the longhorses. They were ours, gifts from the Doral, but we had to send them home, as they could not live where we were going–Muri had promised me that she would keep an eye on Ars Longa and exercise her. Rufo came back with a bumpkin mounted on a heavy draft animal bareback–he Kept shifting numbly between second and third pairs of legs to spare the animal’s back and controlled it by voice.
When we dismounted, retrieved our bows and quivers, and prepared to hoof it, Rufo came up. “Boss, Manure Foot craves to meet the hero and touch his sword. Brush him off?”
Rank hath its duties as well as its privileges. “Fetch him.”
The lad, overgrown and fuzz on his chin, approached eagerly, stumbling over his feet, then made a leg so long he almost fell. “Straighten up, son,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Pug, milord Hero,” he answered shrilly. (“Pug” will do. The Nevian meaning was as rugged as Jocko’s jokes.) “A stout name. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“A hero, milord! Like yourself.”
I thought of telling him about those rocks on the Glory Road. But he would find them soon enough if ever he tramped it–and either not mind, or turn back and forget the silly business. I nodded approvingly and assured him that there was always room at the top in the Hero business for a lad with spirit–and that the lower the start, the greater the glory . . . so work hard and study hard and wait his opportunity. Keep his guard up but always speak to strange ladies; adventure would come his way. Then I let him touch my sword–but not take it in hand. The Lady Vivamus is mine and I’d rather share my toothbrush.
Once, when I was young, I was presented to a Congressman. He had handed me the same fatherly guff I was now plagiarizing. Like prayer, it can’t do any harm and might do some good, and I found that I was sincere when I said it and no doubt the Congressman was, too. Oh, possibly some harm, as the youngster might get himself killed on the first mile of that road. But that is better than sitting over the fire in your old age, sucking your gums and thinking about the chances you missed and the gals you didn’t tumble. Isn’t it?
I decided that the occasion seemed so important to Pug that it should be marked, so I groped in my pouch and found a U.S. quarter. “What’s the rest of your name. Pug?”
“Just ‘Pug,’ milord. Of house Lerdki, of course.”
“E. C.” to “Easy” because of my style of broken-field running–I never ran harder nor dodged more than the occasion demanded.
“By authority vested in me by Headquarters United States Army Southeast Asia Command, I, the Hero Oscar, ordain that you shall be known henceforth as Lerdki’t Pug Easy. Wear it proudly.”
I gave him the quarter and showed him George Washington on the obverse. “This is the father of my house, a greater hero than I will ever be. He stood tall and proud, spoke the truth, and fought for the right as he saw it, against fearful odds. Try to be like him. And here”–I turned it over–“is the chop of my house, the house he founded. The bird stands for courage, freedom, and ideals soaring high.” (I didn’t tell him that the American Eagle eats carrion, never tackles anything its own size, and will soon be extinct–it does stand for those ideals. A symbol means what you put into it.)
Pug Easy nodded violently and tears started to flow. I had not presented him to my bride; I didn’t know that she would wish to meet him. But she stepped forward and said gently, “Pug Easy, remember the words of milord Hero. Treasure them and they will last you all your life.”
The lad dropped to his knees. Star touched his hair and said, “Stand, Lerdki’t Pug Easy. Stand tall.”
I said good-bye to Ars Longa, told her to be a good girl and I would be back someday. Pug Easy readed back with longhorses tailed up and we set out into the woods, arrows nocked and Rufo eyes-behind. There was a sign where we left the yellow brick road; freely translated it read: ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE.
(A literal translation is reminiscent of Yellowstone Park: “Warning–the varmints in these woods are not tame. Travelers are warned to stay on the road, as their remains will not be returned to their kin. The Lerdki, His Chop.”)
Presently Star said, “Milord husband–”
“Yes, pretty foots?” I didn’t look at her; I was watching my side and a bit of hers, and keeping an eye overhead as well, as we could be bombed here–something like blood kites but smaller and goes for the eyes.
“My Hero, you are truly noble and you have made your wife most proud.”
“Huh? How?” I had my mind on targets–two kinds on the ground here: a rat big enough to eat cats and willing to eat people, and a wild hog about the same size and not a ham sandwich on him anyplace, all rawhide and bad temper. The hogs were easier targets, I had been told, because they charge straight at you. But don’t miss. And have your sword loosened, you won’t nock a second shaft.
“That lad, Pug Easy. What you did for him.”
“Him? I fed him the old malarkey. Cost nothing.”
“It was a kingly deed, milord husband.”
“Oh, nonsense, diddycums. He expected big talk from a hero, so I did.”
“Oscar my beloved, may a loyal wife point it out to her husband when he speaks nonsense of himself? I have known many heroes and some were such oafs that one would feed them at the back door if their eeds did not claim a place at the table. I have known few men who were noble, for nobility is scarcer far than heroism. But true nobility can always be recognized . . . even in one as belligerently shy about showing it as you are. The lad expected it, so you gave it to him–out noblesse oblige is an emotion felt only by those who are noble.”
“Well, maybe. Star, you are talking too much again. Don’t you think these varmints have ears?”
“Your pardon, milord. They have such good ears that they hear footsteps through the ground long before they hear voices. Let me have the last word, today being my bridal day. If you are–no, when you are gallant to some beauty, let us say Letva–or Muri, damn her lovely eyes! –I do not count it as nobility; it must be assumed to spring from a much commoner emotion than noblesse oblige. But when you speak to a country lout with pigsty on his feet, garlic on his breath, the stink of sweat all over him, and pimples on his face–speak gently and make him feel for the time as noble as you are and let him hope one day to be your equal–I know it is not because you hope to tumble him.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Boys that age are considered a treat in some circles. Give him a bath, perfume him, curl his hair–”
“Milord husband, is it permitted for me to think about kicking you in the belly?”
“Can’t be court-martialed for thinking, that’s the one thing they can’t take away from you. Okay, I prefer girls; I’m a square and can’t help it. What’s this about Muri’s eyes? Longlegs, are you jealous?”
I could hear dimples even though I couldn’t stop to see them. “Only on my wedding day, milord husband; the other days are yours. If I catch you in sportiveness, I shall either not see it, or congratulate you, as may be.”
“I don’t expect you’ll catch me.”
“And I trust you’ll not catch me, milord rogue,” she answered serenely.
She did get the last word, for just then Rufo’s bowstring went Fwung! He called out, “Got ‘im!” and then we were very busy. Hogs so ugly they made razorbacks look like Poland-Chinas–I got one by arrow, down his slobbering throat then fed steel to his brother a frozen second later. Star got a fair hit at hers but it deflected on bone and kept coming and I kicked it in the shoulder as I was still trying to free my blade from its cousin. Steel between its ribs quieted it and Star coolly nocked another shaft and let fly while I was killing it. She got one more with her sword, leaning the point in like a matador at the moment of truth, dancing aside as it came on, dead and unwilling to admit it.
The fight was over. Old Rufo had got three unassisted and a nasty goring; I had a scratch and my bride was unhurt, which I made sure of as soon as things were quiet. Then I mounted guard while our surgeon took care of Rufo, after which she dressed my lesser cut.
“How about it, Rufo?” I asked. “Can you walk?”
“Boss, I won’t stay in this forest if I have to crawl, Let’s mush. Anyhow,” he added, nodding at the worthless pork around us, “we won’t be bothered by rats right away.”
I rotated the formation, placing Rufo and Star ahead with his good leg on the outside and myself taking rear guard, where I should have been all along. Rear guard is slightly safer than point under most conditions but these weren’t most conditions. I had let my blind need to protect my bride personally ffect my judgment.
Having taken the hot spot I then went almost cross-eyed trying not only to see behind but ahead as well, so that I could close fast if Star–yes, and Rufo–got into trouble. Luckily we had a breathing spell in which I sobered down and took to heart the oldest lesson on patrol: You can’t do the other man’s job. Then I gave all my attention to our rear. Rufo, old as he was and wounded, would not die without slaughtering an honor guard to escort him to hell in style–and Star was no fainting heroine. I would bet long odds on her against anyone her own weight, name your weapon or barehanded, and I pity the man who ever tried to rape her; he’s probably still searching for his cojones.
Hogs didn’t bother us again but as evening approached we began to see and oftener to hear those giant rats; they paced us, usually out of sight; they never attacked berserk the way the hogs had; they looked for the best of it, as rats always do.
Rats give me the horrors. Once when I was a kid, my dad dead and Mother not yet remarried, we were flat broke and living in an attic in a condemned building. You could hear rats in the walls and twice rats ran over me in my sleep.
I still wake up screaming.
It doesn’t improve a rat to blow it up to the size of a coyote. These were real rats, even to the whiskers, and shaped like rats save that their legs and pads were too large–perhaps the cube-square law on animal proportions works anywhere.
We didn’t waste an arrow on one unless it was a fair shot and we zigzagged to take advantage of such openness as the forest had–which increased the hazard from above. However, the forest was so dense that attacks from the sky weren’t our first worry.
I got one rat that tailed too closely and just missed another. We had to spend an arrow whenever they got bold; it caused the others to be more cautious. And once, while Rufo was drawing a bow on one and Star was ready with her sword to back him up, one of those vicious little hawks dived on Rufo.
Star cut him out of the air at the bottom of his stoop. Rufo hadn’t even seen it; he was busy nailing brother rat.
We didn’t have to worry about underbrush; this forest was park-like, trees and grass, no dense undergrowth. Not too bad, that stretch, except that we began to run out of arrows. I was fretting about that when I noticed something. “Hey, up ahead! You’re off course. Cut to the right.” Star had set course for me when we left the road but it was up to me to hold it; her bump of direction was erratic and Rufo’s no better.
“Sorry, milord leader,” Star called back. “The going was a trifle steep.”
I closed in. “Rufo, how’s the leg?” There was sweat on his forehead.
Instead of answering me, he said, “Milady, it will be dark soon.”
“I know,” she answered calmly, “so time for a bite of supper. Milord husband, that great flat rock up ahead seems a nice place.”
I thought she had slipped her gears and so did Rufo, but for another reason. “But, milady, we are far ehind schedule.”
“And much later we shall be unless I attend to your leg again.”
“Better you leave me behind,” he muttered.
“Better you keep quiet until your advice is asked,” I told him. “I wouldn’t leave a Horned Ghost to be eaten by rats. Star, how do we do this?”
The great flat rock sticking up like a skull in the trees ahead was the upper surface of a limestone boulder with its base buried. I stood guard in its center with Rufo seated beside me while Star set out wards at cardinal and semi-cardinal points. I didn’t get to see what she did because my eyes had to be peeled for anything beyond her, shaft nocked and ready to knock it down or scare it off, while Rufo watched the other side. However, Star told me later that the wards weren’t even faintly “magic” but were within reach of Earth technology once some bright boy got the idea–an “electrified fence” without the fence, as radio is a telephone without wires, an analogy that won’t hold up.
But it was well that I kept honest lockout instead of trying to puzzle out how she sat up that charmed circle, as she was attacked by the only rat we met that had no sense. He came straight at her, my arrow past her ear warned her, and she finished him off by sword. It was a very old male, missing teeth and white whiskers and likely weak in his mind. He was as large as a wolf, and with two death wounds still a red-eyed, mangy fury.
Once the last ward was placed Star told me that I could stop worrying about the sky; the wards roofed as well as fenced the circle. As Rufo says, if She says it, that settles it. Rufo had partly unfolded the foldbox while he watched; I got out her surgical case, more arrows for all of us, and food. No nonsense about manservant and gentlefolk, we ate together, sitting or sprawling and with Rufo lying flat to give his leg a chance while Star served him, sometimes popping food into his mouth in Nevian hospitality.
She had worked a long time on his leg while I held a light and handed her things. She packed the wound with a pale jelly before sealing a dressing over it. If it hurt, Rufo didn’t mention it.
While we ate it grew dark and the invisible fence began to be lined with eyes, glowing back at us with the light we ate by, and almost as numerous as the crowd the morning Igli ate himself. Most of them I judged to be rats. One group kept to themselves with a break in the circle on each side; I decided these must be hogs; the eyes were higher off the ground.
“Milady love,” I said, “will those wards hold all night?”
“Yes, milord husband.”
“They had better. It is too dark for arrows and I can’t see us hacking our way through that mob. I’m afraid you must revise your schedule again.”
“I can’t, milord Hero. But forget those beasts. Now we fly.”
Rufo groaned. “I was afraid so. You know it makes me seasick.”
“Poor Rufo,” Star said softly. “Never fear, old friend I have a surprise for you. Again such chance as this, I bought Dramamine in Cannes–you know, the drug that saved the Normandy invasion back on Earth. Or perhaps you don’t know.”
Rufo answered, ” ‘Know’? I was in that invasion, milady–and I’m allergic to Dramamine; I fed fish all the way to Omaha Beach. Worst night I’ve ever had–why, I’d rather be here!”
“Rufo,” I asked, “were you really at Omaha Beach?”
“Hell, yes, Boss. I did all of Eisenhower’s thinking.”
“But why? It wasn’t your fight.”
“You might ask yourself why you’re in this fight, Boss. In my case it was French babes. Earthy and uninhibited and always cheerful about it and willing to learn. I remember one little mademoiselle from Armentieres”–he pronounced it correctly–“who hadn’t been–”
Star interrupted. “While you two pursue your bachelor reminiscences, I’ll get the flight gear ready.” She got up and went to the foldbox.
“Go ahead, Rufo,” I said, wondering how far he would stretch this one.
“No,” he said sullenly. “She wouldn’t like it. I can tell. Boss, you’ve had the damnedest effect on Her. More ladylike by the minute and that isn’t like Her at all. First thing you know She will subscribe to Vogue and then there’s no telling how far it will go. I don’t understand it, it can’t be your looks. No offense meant.”
“And none taken. Well, tell me another time. If you can remember it.”
“I’ll never forget her. But, Boss, seasickness isn’t the half of it. You think these woods are infested. Well, the ones we are coming to–wobbly in the knees, at least I will be–those woods have dragons.”
“I know.”
“So She told you? But you have to see it to believe it. The woods are full of ’em. More than there are
Doyles in Boston. Big ones, little ones, and the two-ton teen-age size, hungry all the time. You may fancy
being eaten by a dragon; I don’t. It’s humiliating. And final. They ought to spray the place with
dragonbane, that’s what they ought to do. There ought to be a law.”
Star had returned. “No, there should not be a law,” she said firmly. “Rufo, don’t sound off about things you don’t understand. Disturbing the ecological balance is the worst mistake any government can make.”
Rufo shut up, muttering. I said, “My true love, what use is a dragon? Riddle me that.”
“I’ve never cast a balance sheet on Nevia, it’s not my responsibility. But I can suggest the imbalances that might follow any attempt to get rid of dragons–which the Nevians could do; you’ve seen that their technology is not to be sneered at. These rats and hogs destroy crops. Rats help to keep the hogs down by eating piglets. But rats are even worse than hogs, on food crops. The dragons graze through these very woods in the daytime–dragons are diurnal, rats are nocturnal and go into their holes in the heat of the day. The dragons and hogs keep the underbrush cropped back and the dragons keep the lower limbs trimmed off. But dragons also enjoy a tasty rat, so whenever one locates a rat hole, it gives it a shot of flame, not always killing adults as they dig two holes for each nest, but certainly killing any babies–and then the dragon digs in and has his favorite snack. There is a long-standing agreement, amounting to a treaty, that as long as the dragons stay in their own territory and keep the rats in check, humans will not bother them.”
“But why not kill the rats, and then clean up the dragons?”
“And let the hogs run wild? Please, milord husband, I don’t know all the answers in this case; I simply know that disturbing a natural balance is a matter to be approached with fear and trembling–and a very versatile computer. The Nevians seem content not to bother the dragons.”
“Apparently we’re going to bother them. Will that break the treaty?”
“It’s not really a treaty, it’s folk wisdom with the Nevians, and a conditioned reflex–or possibly instinct–with the dragons. And we aren’t going to bother dragons if we can help it. Have you discussed tactics with Rufo? There won’t be time when we get there.”
So I discussed how to loll dragons with Rufo, while Star listened and finished her preparations. “All right,” Rufo said glumly, “it beats sitting tight, like an oyster on the half shell waiting to be eaten. More dignified. I’m a better archer than you are–or at least as good–so I’ll take the hind end, as I’m not as agile tonight as I should be.”
“Be ready to switch jobs fast if he swings around.”
“You be ready, Boss. I’ll be ready for the best of reasons–my favorite skin.”
Star was ready and Rufo had packed and reslung the foldbox while we conferred. She placed round garters above each knee of each of us, then had us sit on the rock facing our destination. “That oak arrow, Rufo.”
“Star, isn’t this out of the Albertus Magnus book?”
“Similar,” she said. “My formula is more reliable and the ingredients I use on the garters don’t spoil. If you please, milord husband, I must concentrate on my witchery. Place the arrow so that it points at the cave.”
I did so. “Is that precise?” she asked.
“If the map you showed me is correct, it is. That’s aimed just the way I’ve been aiming since we left the road.”
“How far away is the Forest of Dragons?”
“Uh, look, my love, as long as we’re going by air why don’t we go straight to the cave and skip the dragons?”
She said patiently, “I wish we could. But that forest is so dense at the top that we can’t drop straight down at the cave, no elbow room. And the things that live in those trees, high up, are worse than dragons. They grow–”
“Please!” said Rufo. “I’m airsick already and we’re not off the ground.”
“Later, Oscar, if you still want to know. In any case we daren’t risk encountering them–and won’t; they stay up higher than the dragons can reach, they must. How tar to the forest?”
“Mmm, eight and a half miles, by that map and how far we’ve come–and not more than two beyond that to the Cave of the Gate.”
“All right. Arms tight around my waist, both of you, and as much body contact as possible; it’s got to work on all of us equally.” Rufo and I settled each an arm in a hug about her and clasped hands across her tummy. That’s good. Hang on tight.” Star wrote figures on the rock beside the arrow.
It sailed away into the night with us after it.
I don’t see how to avoid calling this magic, as I can’t see any way to build Buck Rogers belts into elastic garters. Oh, if you like, Star hypnotized us, then used psi powers to teleport us eight and a half miles. “Psi” is a better word than “magic”; monosyllables are stronger than polysyllables–see Winston Churchill’s speeches. I don’t understand either word, any more than I can explain why I never get lost. I just think it’s preposterous that other people can.
When I fly in dreams, I use two styles: one is a swan dive and I swoop and swirl and cut didos; the other is sitting Turk fashion like the Little Lame Prince and sailing along by sheer force of personality.
The latter is how we did it, like sailing in a glider with no glider. It was a fine night for flying (all nights in Nevia are fine; it rains just before dawn in the rainy season, they tell me) and the greater moon silvered the ground below us. The woods opened up and became clumps of trees; the forest we were heading for showed black against the distance, much higher and enormously more imposing than the pretty woods behind us. Far off to the left I could glimpse fields of house Lerdki.
We had been in the air about two minutes when Rufo said, “Pa’don me!” and turned his head away. He doesn’t have a weak stomach; he didn’t get a drop on us. It arched like a fountain. That was the only incident of a perfect flight.
Just before we reached the tall trees Star said crisply, “Amech!” We checked like a heli and settled straight down to a three-fanny landing. The arrow rested on the ground in front of us, again dead. Rufo returned it to his quiver. “How do you feel?” I asked. “And how’s your leg?”
He gulped. “Leg’s all right. Ground’s going up and down.”
“Hush!” Star whispered. “Hell be all right. But hush, for your lives!”
We set out moments later, myself leading with drawn sword, Star behind me, and Rufo dogging her, an arrow nocked and ready.
The change from moonlight to deep shadow was blinding and I crept along, feeling for tree trunks and praying that no dragon would be in the path my bump of direction led. Certainly I knew that the dragons slept at night, but I place no faith in dragons. Maybe the bachelors stood watches, the way bachelor baboons do. I wanted to surrender that place of honor to St. George and take a spot farther back.
Once my nose stopped me, a whiff of ancient musk. I waited and slowly became aware of a shape the size of a real estate office–a dragon, sleeping with its head on its tail. I led them around it, making no noise and hoping that my heart wasn’t as loud as it sounded.
My eyes were doing better now, reaching out for every stray moonbeam that trickled down–and something else developed. The ground was mossy and barely phosphorescent the way a rotten log sometimes is. Not much. Oh, very little. But it was the way a darkroom light, almost nothing when you go inside, later is plenty of light. I could see trees now and the ground–and dragons.
I had thought earlier, Oh, what’s a dozen or so dragons in a big forest? Chances are we won’t see one, any more than you cath sight of deer most days in deer country.
The man who gets the all-night parking concession in that forest will make a fortune if he figures out a way to make dragons pay up. We never were out of sight of one after we could see.
Of course these aren’t dragons. No, they are uglier. They are saurians, more like tyrannosaurus rex than anything else–big hindquarters and heavy hind legs, heavy tail, and smaller front legs that they use either in walking or to grasp their prey. The head is mostly teeth. They are omnivores whereas I understand that T. rex ate only meat. This is no help; the dragons eat meat when they can get it, they prefer it. Furthermore, these not-so-fake dragons have evolved that charming trick of burning their own sewer gas. But no evolutionary quirk can be considered odd if you use the way octopi make love as a comparison.
Once, far off to the left, an enormous jet lighted up, with a grunting bellow like a very old alligator. The light stayed on several seconds, then died away. Don’t ask me–two males arguing over a female, maybe. We kept going, but I slowed after the light went out, as even that much was enough to affect our eyes until our night sight recovered.
I’m allergic to dragons–literally, not just scared silly. Allergic the way poor old Rufo is to Dramamine but more the way cat fur affects some people.
My eyes were watering as soon as we were in that forest, then my sinuses started to clog up and before we had gone half a mile I was using my left fist to rub my upper lip as hard as I could, trying to kill a sneeze with pain. At last I couldn’t make it and jammed fingers up my nostrils and bit my lips and the contained explosion almost burst my eardrums. It happened as we were skirting the south end of a truck-and-trailer-size job; I stopped dead and they stopped and we waited. It didn’t wake up.
When I started up, my beloved closed on me, grasped my arm; I stopped again. She reached into her pouch, silently found something, rubbed it on my nose and up my nostrils, then with a gentle push signed that we could move on.
First my nose burned cold, as with Vick’s salve, then it felt numb, and presently it began to clear.
After more than an hour of this agelong spooky sneak through tall trees and giant shapes, I thought we were going to win “home free.” The Cave of the Gate should be not more than a hundred yards ahead and I could see the rise in ground where the entrance would be–and only one dragon in our way and that not in direct line.
I hurried.
There was this little fellow, no bigger than a wallaby and about the same shape, aside from baby teeth four inches long. Maybe he was so young he had to wake to potty in the night, I don’t know. All I know is that I passed close to a tree he was behind and stepped on his tail, and he squealed!
He had every right to. But that’s when it hit the fan. The adult dragon between us and the cave woke up at once. Not a big one–say about forty feet, including the tail.
Good old Rufo went into action as if he had had endless time to rehearse, dashing around to the brute’s south end, arrow nocked and bow bent, ready to loose in a hurry. “Get its tail up!” he called out.
I ran to the front end and tried to antagonize the beast by shouting and waving my sword while wondering how far that flame-thrower could throw. There are only four places to put an arrow into a Nevian dragon; the rest is armored like a rhino only heavier. Those four are his mouth (when open), his eyes (a difficult shot; they are little and piggish), and that spot right under his tail where almost any animal is vulnerable. I had figured that an arrow placed in that tender area should add mightily to that “itching, burning” sensation featured in small ads in the backs of newspapers, the ones that say AVOID SURGERY!
My notion was that, if the dragon, not too bright, was unbearably annoyed at both ends at once, his coordination should go all to hell and we could peck away at him until he was useless, or until he got sick of it and ran. But I had to get his tail up, to let Rufo get in a shot. These creatures, satchel-heavy like old
T. rex, charge head up and front legs up and balance this by lifting the tail. The dragon was weaving its head back and forth and I was trying to weave the other way, so as not to be lined up if it turned on the flame–when suddenly I got my first blast of methane, whiffing it before it lighted, and retreated so fast that I backed into that baby I had stepped on before, went clear over it, landed on my shoulders and rolled, and that saved me. Those flames shoot out about twenty feet. The grown-up dragon had reared up and still could have fried me, but the baby was in the way. It chopped off the flame–but Rufo yelled, “Bull’s-eye!”
The reason that I backed away in time was halitosis. It says here that “pure methane is a colorless, odorless gas.” The GI tract methane wasn’t pure; it was so loaded with homemade ketones and aldehydes that it made an unlimed outhouse smell like Shalimar.
I figure that Stars giving me that salve to open up my nose saved my life. When my nose clamps down I can’t even smell my upper lip.
The action didn’t stop while I figured this out; I did all my thinking either before or after, not during. Shortly after Rufo shot it in the bull’s-eye, the beast got a look of utter indignation, opened its mouth again without flaming and tried to reach its fanny with both hands. It couldn’t–forelegs too short–but it tried. I had returned sword in a hurry once I saw the length of that flame jet and had grabbed my bow. I had time to get one arrow into its mouth, left tonsil maybe.
This message got through faster. With a scream of rage that shook the ground it started for me, belching flame–and Rufo yelled, “A wart seven!”
I was too busy to congratulate him; those critters are fast for their size. But I’m fast, too, and had more incentive. A thing that big can’t change course very fast, but it can swing its head and with it the flame. I got my pants scorched and moved still faster, trying to cut around it.
Star carefully put an arrow into the other tonsil, right where the flame came out, while I was dodging. Then the poor thing tried so hard to turn both ways at both of us that it got tangled in its feet and fell over, a small earthquake. Rufo sank another arrow in its tender behind, and Star loosed one that passed through its tongue and stuck on the fletching, not damaging it but annoying it dreadfully.
It pulled itself into a ball, got to its feet, reared up and tried to flame me again. I could tell it didn’t like me.
And the flame went out.
This was something I had hoped for. A proper dragon, with castles and captive princesses, has as much fire as it needs, like six-shooters in TV oaters. But these creatures fermented their own methane and couldn’t have too big a reserve tank nor under too high pressure–I hoped. If we could nag one into using all its ammo fast, there was bound to be a lag before it recharged.
Meanwhile Rufo and Star were giving it no peace with the pincushion routine. It made a real effort to light up again while I was traversing rapidly, trying to keep that squealing baby dragon between me and the big one, and it behaved like an almost dry Ronson; the flame flickered and caught, shot out a pitiful six feet and went out. But it tried so hard to get me with that last flicker that it fell over again.
I took a chance that it would be sluggy for a second or two like a man who’s been tackled hard, ran in and stuck my sword in its right eye.
It gave one mighty convulsion and quit.
(A lucky poke. They say dinosaurs that big have brains the size of chestnuts. Let’s credit this beast with one the size of a cantaloupe–but it’s still luck if you thrust through an eye socket and get the brain right off. Nothing we had done up to then was more than mosquito bites. But it died from that one poke. St. Michael and St. George guided my blade.)
And Rufo yelled, “Boss! Git fer home!”
A drag race of dragons was closing on us. It felt like that drill in basic where you have to dig a foxhole, then let a tank pass over you.
“This way!” I yelled. “Rufo! This way, not that! Star!” Rufo skidded to a stop, we got headed the same way and I saw the mouth of the cave, black as sin and inviting as a mother’s arms. Star hung back; I shoved her in and Rufo stumbled after her and I turned to face more dragons for my lady love.
But she was yelling, “Milord! Oscar! Inside, you idiot! I must set the wards!”
So I got inside fast and she did, and I never did chew her out for calling her husband an idiot.
Chapter 13
The littlest dragon followed us to the cave, not belligerently (although I don’t trust anything with teeth that size) out more, I think, the way a baby duck follows anyone who leads. It tried to come in after us, drew back suddenly as its snout touched the invisible curtain, like a kitten hit by a static spark. Then it hung around outside, making wheepling noises.
I began to wonder whether or not Stars wards could stop flame. I found out as an old dragon arrived right after that, shoved his head into the opening, jerked it back indignantly just as the kid had, then eyed us and switched on his flame-thrower.
No, the wards don’t stop flame.
We were far enough inside that we didn’t get singed but the smoke and stink and heat were ghastly and just as deadly if it went on long.
An arrow whoofed past my ear and that dragon gave up interest in us. He was replaced by another who wasn’t convinced. Rufo, or possibly Star, convinced him before he had time to light his blowtorch. The air cleared; from somewhere inside there was an outward draft.
Meanwhile Star had made a light and the dragons were holding an indignation meeting. I glanced behind me–a narrow, low passage that dropped and turned. I stopped paying attention to Star and Rufo and the inside of the cave; another committee was calling.
I got the chairman in his soft palate before he could belch. The vice-chairman took over and got in a brief remark about fifteen feet long before he, too, changed his mind. The committee backed off and bellowed bad advice at each other.
The baby dragon hung around all during this. When the adults withdrew he again came to the door, just short of where he had burned his nose. “Koo-werp?” he said plaintively. “Koo-werp? Keet!” Plainly he wanted to come in.
Star touched my arm. “If milord husband pleases, we are ready.”
“Keet!”
“Right away,” I agreed, then yelled, “Beat it, kid! Back to your mama.”
Rufo stuck his head alongside mine. “Probably can’t,” he commented. “Likely that was its mama we ruined.”
I didn’t answer as it made sense; the adult dragon we had finished off had come awake instantly when I stepped on the kid’s tail. This sounds like mother love, if dragons go in for mother love–I wouldn’t know.
But it’s a hell of a note when you can’t even kill a dragon and feel lighthearted afterwards.
We meandered back into that hill, ducking stalactites and stepping around stalagmites while Rufo led with a torch. We arrived in a domed chamber with a floor glazed smooth by unknown years of calcified deposit. It had stalactites in soft pastel shades near the walls and a lovely, almost symmetrical chandelier from the center but no stalagmite under it. Star and Rufo had stuck lumps of the luminescent putty, which is the common night light in Nevia at a dozen points around the room; it bathed the room in a soft light and pointed up the stalactites.
Among them Rufo showed me webs. “Those spinners are harmless,” he said. “Just big and ugly. They don’t even bite like a spider. But–mind your step!” He pulled me back. “These things are poisonous even to touch. Blindworms. That’s what took us so long. Had to be sure the place was clean before warding it. But now that She is settig wards at the entrances I’ll give it one more check.”
The so-called blindworms were translucent, iridescent things the size of large rattlesnakes and slimy-soft like angleworms; I was glad they were dead. Rufo speared them on his sword, a grisly shishkebab, and carried them out through the entrance we had come in.
He was back quickly and Star finished warding. “That’s better,” he said with a sigh as he started cleaning his blade. “Don’t want their perfume around the house. They rot pretty fast and puts me in mind of green hides. Or copra. Did I ever tell you about the time I shipped as a cook out of Sydney? We had a second mate aboard who never bathed and kept a penguin in his stateroom. Female, of course. This bird was no more cleanly than he was and it used to–”
“Rufo,” said Star, “will you help with the baggage?”
“Coming, milady.”
We got out food, sleeping mats, more arrows, things that Star needed for her witching or whatever, and canteens to fill with water, also from the foldbox. Star had warned me earlier that Karth-Hokesh was a place where the local chemistry was not compatible with human life; everything we ate or drank we must fetch with us.
I eyed those one-liter canteens with disfavor. “Baby girl, I think we are cutting rations and water too fine.”
She shook her head. “We won’t need more, truly.”
“Lindbergh flew the Atlantic on just a peanut butter sandwich,” Rufo put in. “But I urged him to take more.”
“How do you know we won’t need more?” I persisted. “Water especially.”
“I’m filling mine with brandy,” Rufo said. “You divvy with me, I’U divvy with you.”
“Milord love, water is heavy. If we try to hang everything on us against any emergency, like the White Knight, we’ll be too weighted down to fight. I’m going to have to strain to usher through three people, weapons, and a minimum of clothing. Living bodies are easiest; I can borrow power from you both. Once-living materials are next; you’ve noticed, I think, that our clothing is wool, our bows of wood, and strings are of gut. Things never living are hardest, steel especially, yet we must have swords and, if we still had firearms, I would strain to the limit to get them through, for now we need them. However, milord Hero, I am simply informing you. You must decide–and I feel sure I can handle, oh, even half a hundredweight more of dead things if necessary. If you will select what your genius tells you.”
“My genius has gone fishing. But, Star my love, there is a simple answer. Take everything.”
“Milord?”
“Jocko set us out with half a ton of food, looks like, and enough wine to float a loan, and a little water. Plus a wide variety of Nevia’s best tools for killing, stabbing, and mayhem. Even armor. And more things. In that foldbox is enough to survive a siege, without eating or drinking anything from Karth-Hokesh. The beauty of it is that it weighs only about fifteen pounds, packed–not the fifty pounds you said you could swing by straining. I’ll strap it on my own back and won’t notice it. It won’t slow me down; it may armor me against a swing at my back. Suits?”
Star’s expression would have fitted a mother whose child has just caught onto the Stork hoax and is wondering how to tackle an awkward subject. “Milord husband, the mass is much too great. I doubt if any witch or warlock could move it unassisted.”
“But folded up?”
“It does not change it, milord; the mass is still there–still more dangerously there. Think of a powerful spring, wound very tight and small, thus storing much energy. It takes enormous power to put a foldbox through a transition in its compacted form, or it explodes.
I recalled a mud volcano that had drenched us and quit arguing. “All right. I’m wrong. But one question–If the mass is there always, why does it weigh so little when folded?”
Star got the same troubled expression. “Your pardon, milord, but we do not share the language–the mathematical language–that would permit me to answer. As yet, I mean; I promise you chance to study if you wish. As a tag, think of it as a tame spacewarp. Or think of the mass being so extremely far away–in a new direction–from the sides of the foldbox that local gravitation hardly matters.”
(I remembered a time when my grandmother had asked me to explain television to her–the guts, not the funny pictures. There are things which cannot be taught in ten easy lessons, nor popularized for the masses; they take years of skull sweat. This be treason in an age when ignorance has come into its own and one man’s opinion is as good as another’s. But there it is. As Star says, the world is what it is–and doesn’t forgive ignorance.)
But I was still curious. “Star, is there any way to tell me why some things go through easier than others? Wood easier than iron, for example?”
She looked rueful. “No, because I don’t know myself. Magic is not science, it is a collection of ways to do things–ways that work but often we don’t know why.”
“Much like engineering. Design by theory, then beef it up anyhow.”
“Yes, milord husband. A magician is a rule-of-thumb engineer.”
“And,” put in Rufo, “a philosopher is a scientist with no thumbs. I’m a philosopher. Best of all professions.”
Star ignored him and got out a sketch block, showed me what she knew of the great tower from which we must steal the Egg of Phoenix. This block appeared to be a big cube of Plexiglas; it looked like it, felt like it, and took thumbprints like it.
But she had a long pointer which sank into it as if the block were air. With its tip she could sketch in three dimensions; it left a thin glowing line whenever she wanted it–a 3-dimensional blackboard.
This wasn’t magic; it was advanced technology–and it will beat the hell out of our methods of engineering drawing when we learn how, especially for complex assemblies such as aviation engines and UHF circuitry–even better than exploded isometric with transparent overlays. The block was about thirty inches on a side and the sketch inside could be looked at from any angle–even turned over and studied from underneath.
The Mile-High Tower was not a spire but a massy block, somewhat like those stepped-back buildings in New York, but enormously larger.
Its interior was a maze.
“Milord champion,” Star said apologetically, “when we left Nice there was in our baggage a finished
sketch of the Tower. Now I must work from memory. However, I had studied the sketch so very long that I believe I can get relations right even if proportions suffer. I feel sure of the true paths, the paths that lead to the Egg. It is possible that false paths and dead ends will not be as complete; I did not study them as hard.”
“Can’t see that it matters,” I assured her. “If I know the true paths, any I don’t know are false ones. Which we won’t use. Except to hide in, in a pinch.”
She drew the true paths in glowing red, false ones in green–and there was a lot more green than red. The critter who designed that tower had a twisty mind. What appeared to be the main entrance went in, up, branched and converged, passed close to the Chamber of the Egg–then went back down by a devious route and dumped you out, like P. T. Barnum’s “This Way to the Egress.”
Other routes went inside and lost you in mazes that could not be solved by follow-the-left-wall. If you did, you’d starve. Even routes marked in red were very complex. Unless you knew where the Egg was guarded, you could enter correctly and still spend this year and next January in fruitless search.
“Star, have you been in the Tower?”
“No, milord. I have been in Karth-Hokesh. But far back in the Grotto Hills. I’ve seen the Tower only from great distance.”
“Somebody must have been in it. Surely your–opponents–didn’t send you a map.”
She said soberly, “Milord, sixty-three brave men have died getting the information I now offer you.”
(So now we try for sixty-four!) I said, “Is there any way to study just the red paths?”
“Certainly, milord.” She touched a control, green lines faded. The red paths started each from one of the three openings, one “door” and two “windows.”
I pointed to the lowest level. “This is the only one of thirty or forty doors that leads to the Egg?”
“That is true.”
“Then just inside that door they’ll be waiting to clobber us.”
“That would seem likely, milord.”
“Hmmm . . .” I turned to Rufo. “Rufe, got any long, strong, lightweight line in that plunder?”
“I’ve got some Jocko uses for hoisting. About like heavy fishing line, breaking strength around fifteen hundred pounds.”
“Good boy!” “Figured you might want it. A thousand yards enough?”
“Yes. Anything lighter than that?”
“Some silk trout line.”
In an hour we had made all preparations I could think of and that maze was as firmly in my head as the alphabet. “Star hon, we’re ready to roll. Want to whomp up your spell?”
“No, milord.”
“Why not? ‘Twere best done quickly.”
“Because I can’t, my darling. These Gates are not true gates; there is always a matter of timing. This one will be ready to open, for a few minutes, about seven hours from now, then cannot be opened again for several weeks.” I had a sour thought. “If the buckos we are after know this, they’ll hit us as we come out.”
“I hope not, milord champion. They should be watching for us to appear from the Grotto Hills, as they know we have a Gate somewhere in those hills–and indeed that is the Gate I planned to use. But this Gate, even if they know of it, is so badly located–for us–that I do not think they would expect us to dare it.”
“You cheer me up more all the time. Have you thought of anything to tell me about what to expect? Tanks? Cavalry? Big green giants with hairy ears?”
She looked troubled. “Anything I say would mislead you, milord. We can assume that their troops will be constructs rather than truly living creatures . . . which means they can be anything. Also, anything may be illusion. I told you about the gravity?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Forgive me. I’m tired and my mind isn’t sharp. The gravity varies, sometimes erratically. A level stretch will seem to be downhill, then quickly uphill. Other things . . . any of which may be illusion.”
Rufo said, “Boss, if it moves, shoot it. If it speaks, cut its throat. That spoils most illusions. You don’t need a program; there’ll be just us–and all the others. So when in doubt, kill it. No sweat.”
I grinned at him. “No sweat. Okay, well worry when we get there. So let’s quit talking.”
“Yes, milord husband,” Star seconded. “We had best get several hours’ sleep.”
Something in her voice had changed. I looked at her and she was subtly different, too. She seemed smaller, softer, more feminine and compliant than the Amazon who had fired arrows into a beast a hundred times her weight less than two hours before.
“A good idea,” I said slowly and looked around. While Star had been sketching the mazes of the Tower, Rufo had repacked what we couldn’t take and–I now noticed–put one sleeping pad on one side of the cave and the other two side by side as far from the first as possible.
I silently questioned her by glancing at Rufo and shrugging an implied, “What now?”
Her answering glance said neither yes nor no. Instead she called out, “Rufo, go to bed and give that leg a chance. Don’t lie on it. Either belly down or face the wall.”
For the first time Rufo showed his disapproval of what we had done. He answered abruptly, not what Star said but what she may have implied: “You couldn’t hire me to look!”
Star said to me in a voice so low I barely heard it, “Forgive him, milord husband. He is an old man, he has his quirks. Once he is in bed I will take down the lights.”
I whispered, “Star my beloved, it still isn’t my idea of how to run a honeymoon.”
She searched my eyes. “This is your will, milord love?”
“Yes. The recipe calls for a jug of wine and a loaf of bread. Not a word about a chaperon. I’m sorry.”
She put a slender hand against my chest, looked up at me. “I am glad, milord.”
“You are?” I didn’t see why she had to say so.
“Yes. We both need sleep. Against the morrow. That your strong sword arm may grant us many morrows.”
I felt better and smiled down at her. “Okay, my princess. But I doubt if I’ll sleep.”
“Ah, but you will!”
“Want to bet?”
“Hear me out, milord darling. Tomorrow . . . after you have won . . . we go quickly to my home. No more waitings, no more troubles. I would that you knew the language of my home, so that you will not feel a stranger. I want it to be your home, at once. So? Will milord husband dispose himself for bed? Lie back and let me give him a language lesson? You will sleep, you know that you will.”
“Well . . . it’s a fine idea. But you need sleep even more than I do.”
“Your pardon, milord, but not so. Four hours’ sleep puts spring in my step and a song on my lips.”
“Well . . . ”
Five minutes later I was stretched out, staring into the most beautiful eyes in any world and listening to
her beloved voice speak softly in a language strange to me . . .
Chapter 14
Rufo was shaking my shoulder. “Breakfast, Boss!” He shoved a sandwich into my hand and a pot of beer into the other. “That’s enough to fight on and lunch is packed. I’ve laid out fresh clothes and your weapons and I’ll dress you as soon as you finish. But snap it up. We’re on in a few minutes.” He was already dressed and belted.
I yawned and took a bite of sandwich (anchovies, ham and mayonnaise, with something that wasn’t quite tomato and lettuce)–and looked around. The place beside me was empty but Star seemed to have just gotten up; she was not dressed. She was on her knees in the center of the room, drawing some large design on the floor.
“Morning, chatterbox,” I said. “Pentacle?”
“Mmm–” she answered, not looking up.
I went over and watched her work. Whatever it was, it was not based on a five-cornered star. It had three major centers, was very intricate, had notations here and there–I recognized neither language nor script–and the only sense I could abstract from it was what appeared to be a hypercube seen face on. “Had breakfast, hon?”
“I fast this morning.”
“You’re skinny now. Is that a tesseract?”
“Stop it!”
I made a leg. “Your pardon, milady.”
“Don’t be formal with me, darling. Love me anyhow and give me a quick kiss–then let me be.”
So I leaned over and gave her a high-caloric kiss, with mayonnaise, and let her be. I dressed while I finished the sandwich and beer, then sought out a natural alcove just short of the wards in the passage, one which had been designated the men’s room. When I came back Rufo was waiting with my sword belt “Boss, you’d be late for your own hanging.”
“I hope so.”
A few minutes later we were standing on that diagram, Star on pitcher’s mound with Rufo and myself at first and third bases. He and I were much hung about, myself with two canteens and Star’s sword belt (on its last notch) as well as my own, Rufo with Star’s bow slung and with two quivers, plus her medic’s kit and lunch. We each had longbow strung and tucked under left arm; we each had drawn sword. Star’s tights were under my belt behind in an untidy tail, her jacket was crumpled under Rufo’s belt, while her buskins and hat were crammed into pockets–etc. We looked like a rummage sale. But this did leave Rufo’s left hand and mine free. We faced outward with swords at ready, reached behind us and Star clasped us each firmly by hand. She stood in the exact center, feet apart and planted solidly and was wearing that required professionally of witches when engaged in heavy work, i.e., not even a bobby pin. She looked magnificent, hair shaggy, eyes shining, and face flushed, and I was sorry to turn my back.
“Ready, my gallants?” she demanded, excitement in her voice.
“Ready,” I confirmed.
“Ave, Imperatrix, nos morituri te–”
“Stop that, Rufo! Silence!” She began to chant in a language unknown to me. The back of my neck prickled.
She stopped, squeezed our hands much harder, and shouted, “Now!”
Sudden as a slammed door, I find I’m a Booth Tarkington hero in a Mickey Spillane situation.
I don’t have time to moan. Here is this thing in front of me, about to chop me down, so I run my blade through his guts and yank it free while he makes up his mind which way to fall; then I dose his buddy the same way. Another one is squatting and trying to get a shot at my legs past the legs of his squad mates. I’m as busy as a one-armed beaver with paperhangers and hardly notice a yank at my belt as Star recovers her sword.
Then I do notice as she kills the hostile who wants to shoot me. Star is everywhere at once, naked as a frog and twice as lively. There was a dropped-elevator sensation at transition, and suddenly reduced gravitation could have been bothersome had we time to indulge it.
Star makes use of it. After stabbing the laddie who tries to shoot me, she sails over my head and the head of a new nuisance, poking him in the neck as she passes and he isn’t a nuisance any longer.
I think she helps Rufo, but I can’t stop to look. I hear his grunts behind me and that tells me that he is still handing out more than he’s catching.
Suddenly he yells, “Down!” and something hits the back of my knees and I go down–land properly limp and am about to roll to my feet when I realize Rufo is the cause. He is belly down by me and shooting what has to be a gun at a moving target out across the plain, himself behind the dead body of one of our playmates.
Star is down, too, but not fighting. Something has poked a hole through her right arm between elbow and shoulder.
Nothing else seemed to be alive around me, but there were targets four to five hundred feet away and opening rapidly. I saw one fall, heard Zzzzt, smelled burning flesh near me. One of those guns was lying across a body to my left; I grabbed it and tried to figure it out. There was a shoulder brace and a tube which should be a barrel; nothing else looked familiar.
“Like this, my Hero.” Star squirmed to me, dragging her wounded arm and leaving a trail of blood. “Race it like a rifle and sight it so. There is a stud under your left thumb. Press it. That’s all–no windage, no elevation.”
And no recoil, as I found when I tracked one of the running figures with the sights and pressed the stud. There was a spurt of smoke and down he went. “Death ray,” or Laser beam, or whatever–line it up, press the stud, and anyone on the far end quit the party with a hole burned in him.
I got a couple more, working right to left, and by then Rufo had done me out of targets. Nothing moved, so far as I could see, anywhere.
Rufo looked around. “Better stay down, Boss.” He rolled to Star, opened her medic’s kit at his own belt, and put a rough and hasty compress on her arm.
Then he turned to me. “How bad are you hurt, Boss?”
“Me? Not a scratch.”
“What’s that on your tunic? Ketchup? Someday somebody is going to offer you a pinch of snuff. Let’s see it.”
I let him open my jacket. Somebody, using a saw-tooth edge, had opened a hole in me on my left side below the ribs. I had not noticed it and hadn’t felt it–until I saw it and then it hurt and I felt queasy. I strongly disapprove of violence done to me. While Rufo dressed it, I looked around to avoid looking at it.
We had killed about a dozen of them right around us, plus maybe half that many who had fled–and had shot all who fled, I think. How? How can a 60-lb. dog armed only with teeth take on, knock down, and hold prisoner an armed man? Ans: By all-out attack.
I think we arrived as they were changing the guard at that spot known to be a Gate–and had we arrived even with swords sheathed we would have been cut down. As it was, we killed a slew before most of them knew a fight was on. They were routed, demoralized, and we slaughtered the rest, including those who tried to bug out. Karate and many serious forms of combat (boxing isn’t serious, nor anything with rules)–all these work that same way: go-for-broke, all-out attack with no wind up. These are not so much skills as an attitude.
I had time to examine our late foes; one was faced toward me with his belly open. “Iglis” I would call them, but of the economy model. No beauty and no belly buttons and not much brain–presumably constructed to do one thing: fight, and try to stay alive. Which describes us, too–but we did it faster.
Looking at them upset my stomach, so I looked at the sky. No improvement–it wasn’t decent sky and wouldn’t come into focus. It crawled and the colors were wrong, as jarring as some abstract paintings. I looked back at our victims, who seemed almost wholesome compared with that “sky.”
While Rufo was doctoring me, Star squirmed into her tights and put on her buskins. “Is it all right for me to sit up to get into my jacket?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Maybe they’ll think we’re dead.” Rufo and I helped her finish dressing without any of us rising up above the barricade of flesh. I’m sure we hurt her arm but all she said was, “Sling my sword left-handed. What now, Oscar?”
“Where are the garters?”
“Got em. But I’m not sure they will work. This is a very odd place.”
“Confidence,” I told her. “That’s what you told me a few minutes ago. Put your little mind to work believing you can do it.” We ranged ourselves and our plunder, now enhanced by three “rifles” plus side arms of the same sort, then laid out the oaken arrow for the top of the Mile-High Tower. It dominated one whole side of the scene, more a mountain than a building, black and monstrous.
“Ready?” asked Star. “Now you two believe, tool” She scrawled with her finger in the sand. “Go!”
We went. Once in the air, I realized what a naked target we were–but we were a target on the ground, too, for anyone up on that tower, and worse if we had hoofed it. “Faster!” I yelled in Stars ear. “Make us go faster!”
We did. Air shrilled past our ears and we bucked and dipped and side-slipped as we passed over those gravitational changes Star had warned me about–and perhaps that saved us; we made an evasive target. However, if we got all of that guard party, it was possible that no one in the Tower knew we had arrived.
The ground below was gray-black desert surrounded by a mountain ringwall like a lunar crater and the Tower filled the place of a central peak. I risked another look at the sky and tried to figure it out. No sun. No stars. No black sky nor blue–light came from all over and the “sky” was ribbons and boiling shapes and shadow holes of all colors.
“What in God’s name land of planet is this?” I demanded.
“It’s not a planet,” she yelled back. “It’s a place, in a different sort of universe. It’s not fit to live in.”
“Somebody lives here.” I indicated the Tower.
“No, no, nobody lives here. That was built just to guard the Egg.”
The monstrousness of that idea didn’t soak in right then. I suddenly recalled that we didn’t dare eat or drink here–and started wondering how we could breathe the air if the chemistry was that poisonous. My chest felt tight and started to burn. So I asked Star and Rufo moaned. (He rated a moan or two; he hadn’t thrown up. I don’t think he had.)
“Oh, at least twelve hours,” she said. “Forget it. No importance.”
Whereupon my chest really hurt and I moaned, too.
We were dumped on top of the Tower right after that; Star barely got out “Amech!” in time to keep us from zooming past.
The top was flat, seemed to be black glass, was about two hundred yards square–and there wasn’t a fiddlewinking thing to fasten a line to. I had counted on at least a ventilator stack.
The Egg of the Phoenix was about a hundred yards straight down. I had had two plans in mind if we ever reached the Tower. There were three openings (out of hundreds) which led to true paths to the Egg–and to the Never-Born, the Eater of Souls, the M.P. guarding it. One was at ground level and I never considered it. A second was a couple of hundred feet off the ground and I had given that serious thought: loose an arrow with a messenger line so that the line passed over any projection above that hole; use that to get the strong line up, then go up the line–no trick for any crack Alpinist, which I wasn’t but Rufo was.
But the great Tower turned out to have no projections, real modern simplicity of design–carried too far.
The third plan was, if we could reach the top, to let ourselves down by a line to the third non-fake entrance, almost on level with the Egg. So here we were, all set–and no place to hitch.
Second thoughts are wonderful thoughts–why hadn’t I had Star drive us straight into that hole in the wall?
Well, it would take very fine sighting of that silly arrow; we might hit the wrong pigeonhole. But the important reason was that I hadn’t thought of it.
Star was sitting and nursing her wounded arm. I said, “Honey, can you fly us, slow and easy, down a couple of setbacks and into that hole we want?”
She looked up with drawn face. “No.”
“Well. Too bad.”
“I hate to tell you–but I burned out the garters on that speed run. They won’t be any good until I can recharge them. Not things I can get here. Green mug-wort, blood of a hare–things like that.”
“Boss,” said Rufo, “how about using the whole top of the Tower as a hitching post?”
“How do you mean?”
“We’ve got lots of line.”
It was a workable notion–walk the line around the top while somebody else held the bitter end, then
tie it and go down what hung over. We did it–and finished up with only a hundred feet too little of line out of a thousand yards.
Star watched us. When I was forced to admit that a hundred feet short was as bad as no line at all, she said thoughtfully, “I wonder if Aaron’s Rod would help?”
“Sure, if it was stuck in the top of this overgrown ping-pong table. What’s Aaron’s Rod?”
“It makes stiff things limp and limp things stiff. No, no, not that. Well, that, too, but what I mean is to lay this line across the roof with about ten feet hanging over the far side. Then make that end and the crossing part of the line steel hard–sort of a hook.”
“Can you do it?”
“I don’t know. It’s from The Key of Solomon and it’s an incantation. It depends on whether I can remember it–and on whether such things work in this universe.”
“Confidence, confidence! Of course you can.”
“I can’t even think how it starts. Darling, can you hypnotize? Rufo can’t–or at least not me.”
“I don’t know a thing about it.”
“Do just the way I do with you for a language lesson. Look me in the eye, talk softly, and tell me to remember the words. Perhaps you had better lay out the line first.”
We did so and I used a hundred feet instead of ten for the bill of the hook, on the more-is-better principle. Star lay back and I started talking to her, softly (and without conviction) but over and over again.
Star closed her eyes and appeared to sleep. Suddenly she started to mumble in tongues.
“Hey, Boss! Damn thing is hard as rock and stiff as a life sentence!”
I told Star to wake up and we slid down to the setback below as fast as we could, praying that it wouldn’t go limp on us. We didn’t shift the line; I simply had Star cause more of it to starch up, then I went on down, made certain that I had the right opening, three rows down and fourteen over, then Star slid down and I caught her in my arms; Rufo lowered the baggage, weapons mostly, and followed. We were in the Tower and had been on the planet–correction: the “place”–we had been in the place called Karth-Hokesh not more than forty minutes.
I stopped, got the building matched in my mind with the sketch block map, fixed the direction and location of the Egg, and the “red line” route to it, the true path.
Okay, go on in a few hundred yards, snag the Egg of the Phoenix and go! My chest stopped hurting.
Chapter 15
“Boss,” said Rufo, “Look out over the plain.”
“At what?”
“At nothing,” he answered. “Those bodies are gone. You sure as hell ought to be able to see them, against black sand and not even a bush to break the view.”
I didn’t look. “That’s the moose’s problem, damn it! We’ve got work to do. Star, can you shoot left-handed? One of these pistol things?”
“Certainly, milord.”
“You stay ten feet behind me and shoot anything that moves. Rufo, you follow Star, bow ready and an arrow nocked. Try for anything you see. Sling one of those guns–make a sling out of a bit of line.” I frowned. “We’ll have to abandon most of this. Star, you can’t bend a bow, so leave it behind, pretty as it is, and your quiver. Rufo can sling my quiver with his; we use the same arrows. I hate to abandon my bow, it suits me so. But I must. Damn.”
“I’ll carry it, my Hero.”
“No, any clutter we can’t use must be junked.” I unhooked my canteen, drank deeply, passed it over. “You two finish it and throw it away.” While Rufo drank, Star slung my bow. “Milord husband? It weighs nothing this way and doesn’t hamper my shooting arm. So?”
“Well–If it gets in your way, cut the string and forget it. Now drink your fill and we go.” I peered
down the corridor we were in–fifteen feet wide and the same high, lighted from nowhere and curving away to the right, which matched the picture in my mind. “Ready? Stay closed up. If we can’t slice it, shoot it, or shaft it, we’ll salute it.” I drew sword and we set out, quick march.
Why my sword, rather than one of those “death ray” guns? Star was carrying one of those and knew more about one than I did. I didn’t even know how to tell if one was charged, nor had I judgment in how long to press the button. She could shoot, her bowmanship proved that, and she was at least as cool in a fight as Rufo or myself.
I had disposed weapons and troops as well as I knew how. Rufo, behind with a stock of arrows, could use them if needed and his position gave him time to shift to either sword or Buck Rogers “rifle” if his judgment said to–and I didn’t need to advise him; he would.
So I was backed up by long-range weapons ancient and ultramodern in the hands of people who knew how to use them and temperament to match–the latter being the more important. (Do you know how many men in a platoon actually shoot in combat? Maybe six. More likely three. The rest freeze up.) Still, why didn’t I sheathe my sword and carry one of those wonder weapons?
A properly balanced sword is the most versatile weapon for close quarters ever devised. Pistols and guns are all offense, no defense; close on him fast and a man with a gun can’t shoot, he has to stop you before you reach him. Close on a man carrying a blade and you’ll be spitted like a roast pigeon–unless you have a blade and can use it better than he can.
A sword never jams, never has to be reloaded, is always ready. Its worst shortcoming is that it takes great skill and patient, loving practice to gain that skill; it can’t be taught to raw recruits in weeks, nor even months.
But most of all (and this was the real reason) to grasp the Lady Vivamus and feel her eagerness to bite gave me courage in a spot where I was scared spitless.
They (whoever “they” were) could shoot us from ambush, gas us, booby-trap us, many things. But they could do those things even if I carried one of those strange guns. Sword in hand, I was relaxed and unafraid–and that made my tiny “command” more nearly safe. If a C.O. needs to carry a rabbit’s foot, he should–and the grip of that sweet sword was bigger medicine than all the rabbits’ feet in Kansas.
The corridor stretched ahead, no break, no sound, no threat. Soon the opening to the outside could no longer be seen. The great Tower felt empty but not dead; it was alive the way a museum is alive at night, with crowding presence and ancient evil. I gripped my sword tightly, then consciously relaxed and flexed my fingers.
We came to a sharp left turn. I stopped short. “Star, this wasn’t on your sketch.”
She didn’t answer. I persisted, “Well, it wasn’t. Was it?”
“I am not sure, milord.”
“Well, I am. Hmm–”
“Boss,” said Rufo, “are you dead sure we entered by the right pigeonhole?”
“I’m certain. I may be wrong but I’m not uncertain–and if I’m wrong, we’re dead pigeons anyhow. Mmm–Rufo, take your bow, put your hat on it, stick it out where a man would IOOK around that corner if he were standing–and time it as I do look out, but lower down.” I got on my belly.
“Ready . . . now!” I sneaked a look six inches above the floor while Rufo tried to draw fire higher up.
Nothing in sight, just bare corridor, straight now.
“Okay, follow me! We hurried around the corner.
I stopped after a few paces. “What the hell?”
“Something wrong Boss?”
“Plenty.” I turned and sniffed. “Wrong as can be. The Egg is up that way,” I said, pointing, “maybe two hundred yards–by the sketch block map.”
“Is that bad?”
“I’m not sure. Because it was that same direction and angle, off on the left, before we turned that corner. So now it ought to be on the right.”
Rufo said, “Look, Boss, why don’t we just follow the passageways you memorized? You may not remember every little–”
“Shut up. Watch ahead, down the corridor. Star, stand there in the corner and watch me. I’m going to try something.”
They placed themselves, Rufo “eyes ahead” and Star where she could see both ways, at the right-angle bend. I went back into the first reach of corridor, then returned. Just short of the bend I closed my eyes and kept on.
I stopped after another dozen steps and opened my eyes. “That proves it,” I said to Rufo.
“Proves what?”
“There isn’t any bend in the corridor.” I pointed to the bend.
Rufo looked worried. “Boss, how do you feel?” He tried to touch my cheek.
I pulled back. “I’m not feverish. Come with me, both of you.” I led them back around that right angle some fifty feet and stopped. “Rufo, loose an arrow at that wall ahead of us at the bend. Lob it so that it hits the wall about ten feet up.”
Rufo sighed but did so. The arrow rose true, disappeared in the wall. Rufo shrugged. “Must be pretty soft up there. You’ve lost us an arrow. Boss.”
“Maybe. Places and follow me.” We took that corner again and here was the spent arrow on the floor somewhat farther along than the distance from loosing to bend. I let Rufo pick it up; he looked closely at the Doral chop by the fletching, returned it to quiver. He said nothing. We kept going.
We came to a place where steps led downward–but where the sketch in my head called for steps leading up. “Mind the first step,” I called back. “Feel for it and don’t fall.”
The steps felt normal, for steps leading downward–with the exception that my bump of direction told me that we were climbing, and our destination changed angle and distance accordingly. I closed my eyes for a quick test and found that I was indeed climbing, only my eyes were deceived. It was like one of those “crooked houses” in amusement parks, in which a “level” floor is anything but level–like that but cubed.
I quit questioning the accuracy of Star’s sketch and tracked its trace in my head regardless of what my eyes told me. When the passageway branched four ways while my memory showed only a simple branching, one being a dead end, I unhesitatingly closed my eyes and followed my nose–and the Egg stayed where it should stay, in my mind.
But the Egg did not necessarily get closer with each twist and turn save in the sense that a straight line is not the shortest distance between two points–is it ever? The path was as twisted as guts in a belly; the architect had used a pretzel for a straight edge. Worse yet, another time when we were climbing “up” stairs–at a piece level by the sketch–a gravitational anomaly caught us with a lull turn and we were suddenly sliding down the ceiling.
No harm done save that it twisted again as we hit bottom and dumped us from ceiling to floor. With both eyes peeled I helped Rufo gather up arrows and off we set again. We were getting close to the lair of the Never-Born–and the Egg.
Passageways began to be narrow and rocky, the false twists tight and hard to negotiate–and the light began to fail.
That wasn’t the worst. I’m not afraid of dark nor of tight places; it takes a department store elevator on Dollar Day to give me claustrophobia. But I began to hear rats.
Rats, lots of rats, running and squeaking in the walls around us, under us, over us. I started to sweat and was sorry I had taken that big drink of water. Darkness and closeness got worse, until we were crawling through a rough tunnel in rock, then inching along on our bellies in total darkness as if tunneling out of Chateau d’If . . . and rats brushed past us now, squeaking and chittering.
No, I didn’t scream. Star was behind me and she didn’t scream and she didn’t complain about her wounded arm–so I couldn’t scream. She patted me on the foot each time she inched forward, to tell me that she was all right and to report that Rufo was okay, too. We didn’t waste strength on talk.
I saw a faint something, two ghosts of light ahead, and stopped and stared and blinked and stared again. Then I whispered to Star, “I see something. Stay put, while I move up and see what it is. Hear me?”
“Yes, milord Hero.”
“Tell Rufo.”
Then I did the only really brave thing I have ever done in my life: I inched forward. Bravery is going on anyhow when you are so terrified your sphincters won’t hold and you can’t breathe and your heart threatens to stop, and that is an exact description for that moment of E. C. Gordon, ex-Pfc. and hero by trade. I was fairly certain what those two faint lights were and the closer I got the more certain I was–I could smell the damned thing and place its outlines.
A rat. Not the common rat that lives in city dumps and sometimes gnaws babies, but a giant rat, big enough to block that rat hole but enough smaller than I am to have room to maneuver in attacking me–room I didn’t have at all. The best I could do was to wriggle forward with my sword in front of me and try to Keep the point aimed so that I would catch him with it, make mm eat steel–because if he dodged past that point I would have nothing but bare hands and no room to use them. He would be at my face.
I gulped sour vomit and inched forward. His eyes seemed to drop a little as if he were crouching to charge.
But no rush came. The lights got more definite and wider apart, and when I had squeezed a foot or two farther I realized with shaking relief that they were not rat’s eyes but something else–anything, I didn’t care what.
I continued to inch forward. Not only was the Egg in that direction but I still didn’t know what it was and I had best see before telling Star to move up.
The “eyes” were twin pinholes in a tapestry that covered the end of that rat hole. I could see its embroidered texture and I found I could look through one of its imperfections when I got up to it.
There was a large room beyond, the floor a couple of feet lower than where I was. At the far end, fifty feet away, a man was standing by a bench, reading a book. Even as I watched he raised his eyes and glanced my way. He seemed to hesitate.
I didn’t. The hole had eased enough so that I managed one foot under and lunged forward, brushing the arras aside with my sword. I stumbled and bounced to my feet, on guard.
He was at least as fast. He had slapped the book down on the bench and drawn sword himself, advanced toward me, while I was popping out of that hole. He stopped, knees bent, wrist straight, left arm back, and point for me, perfect as a fencing master, and looked me over, not yet engaged by three or four feet between our steels.
I did not rush him. There is a go-for-broke tactic, “the target,” taught by the best swordmasters, which consists in headlong advance with arm, wrist, and blade in full extension–all attack and no attempt to parry. But it works only by perfect timing when you see your opponent slacken up momentarily.
Otherwise it is suicide.
This time it would have been suicide; he was as ready as a tomcat with his back up. So I sized him up while he looked me over. He was a smallish neat man with arms long for his height–I might or might not have reach on him, especially as his rapier was an old style, longer than Lady Vivamus (but slower thereby, unless he had a much stronger wrist)–and he was dressed more for the Paris of Richelieu than for Karth-Hokesh. No, that’s not fair; the great black Tower had no styles, else I would have been as out of style in my fake Robin Hood getup. The Iglis we had killed had worn no clothes.
He was an ugly cocky little man with a merry grin and the biggest nose west of Durante–made me think of my first sergeant’s nose, very sensitive he was about being called “Schnozzola.” But the resemblance stopped there; my first sergeant never smiled and had mean, piggish eyes; this man’s eyes were merry and proud.
“Are you Christian?” he demanded.
“What’s it to you?”
“Nothing. Blood’s blood, either way. If Christian you be, confess. If pagan, call your false gods. I’ll allow you no more than three stanzas. But I’m sentimental, I like to know what I’m killing.”
“I’m American.”
“Is that a country? Or a disease? And what are you doing in Hoax?”
” ‘Hoax’? Hokesh?”
He shrugged only with his eyes, his point never moved. “Hoax, Hokesh–a matter of geography and accent; this chateau was once in the Carpathians, so ‘Hokesh’ it is, if ’twill make your death merrier. Come now, let us sing.”
He advanced so fast and smoothly that he seemed to apport and our blades rang as I parried his attack in sixte and riposted, was countered–remise, reprise, beat-and-attack–the phrase ran so smoothly, so long, and in such variation that a spectator might have thought that we were running through Grand Salute.
But I knew! That first lunge was meant to kill me, and so was his every move throughout the phrase. At the same time he was feeling me out, trying my wrist, looking for weaknesses, whether I was afraid of low line and always returned to high or perhaps was a sucker for a disarm. I never lunged, never had a chance to; every part of the phrase was forced on me, I simply replied, tried to stay alive.
I knew in three seconds that I was up against a better swordsman than myself, with a wrist like steel yet supple as a striking snake. He was the only swordsman I have ever met who used prime and octave–used them, I mean, as readily as sixte and carte. Everyone learns them and my own master made me practice them as much as the other six–but most fencers don’t use them; they simply may be forced into them, awkwardly and just before losing a point.
I would lose, not a point, but my life–and I knew, long before the end of that first long phrase, that my life was what I was about to lose, by all odds.
Yet at first clash the idiot began to sing!
“Lunge and counter and thrust,
“Sing me the logic of steel!
“Tell me, sir, how do you feel?
“Riposte and remise if you must
“In logic long known to be just.
“Shall we argue, rebut and refute
“In enthymeme clear as your eye?
“Tell me, sir, why do you sigh?
“Tu es fatigue, sans doute?
“Then sleep while I’m counting the loot.”
The above was long enough for at least thirty almost successful attempts on my life, and on the last word he disengaged as smoothly and unexpectedly as he had engaged.
“Come, come, lad!” he said. “Pick it up! Would let me sing alone? Would die as a clown with ladies watching? Sing! –and say good-bye gracefully, with your last rhyme racing your death rattle.” He banged his right boot in a flamenco stomp. “Try! The price is the same either way.”
I didn’t drop my eyes at the sound of his boot; it’s an old gambit, some fencers stomp on every advance, every feint, on the chance that the noise will startle opponent out of timing, or into rocking back, and thus gain a point. I had last fallen for it before I could shave.
But his words gave me an idea. His lunges were short–full extension is fancy play for foils, too dangerous for real work. But I had been retreating, slowly, with the wall behind me. Shortly, when he re-engaged, I would either be a butterfly pinned to that wall, or stumble over something unseen, go arsy-versy, then spiked like wastepaper in the park. I didn’t dare leave that wall behind me.
Worst, Star would be coming out of that rat hole behind me any moment now and might be killed as she emerged even if I managed to kill him at the same time. But if I could turn him around–My beloved was a practical woman; no “sportsmanship” would keep her steel stinger out of his back.
But the happy counter-thought was that if I went along with his madness, tried to rhyme and sing, he might play me along, amused to hear what I could do, before he killed me.
But I couldn’t afford to stretch it out. Unfelt, he had pinked me in the forearm. Just a bloody scratch that Star could make good as new in minutes–but it would weaken my wrist before long and it disadvantaged me for low line: Blood makes a slippery grip.
“First stanza,” I announced, advancing and barely engaging, foible-a-foible. He respected it, not attacking, playing with the end of my blade, tiny counters and leather-touch parries.
That was what I wanted. I started circling right as I began to recite–and he let me:
“Tweedledum and Tweedledee
“Agreed to rustle cattle.
“Said Tweedledum to Tweedledee
“I’ll use my nice new saddle.”
“Come, come, my old!” he said chidingly. “No stealing. Honor among beeves, always. And rhyme and scansion limp. Let your Carroll fall trippingly off the tongue.”
“I’ll try,” I agreed, still moving right. “Second stanza-
“I sing of two lasses in Birmingham,
“Shall we weep at the scandal concerning them?”-
–and I rushed him.
It didn’t quite work. He had, as I hoped, relaxed the tiniest bit, evidently expecting that I would go on with mock play, tips of Hades alone, while I was reciting.
It caught him barely off guard but he failed to fall back, parrying strongly instead and suddenly we were in an untenable position, corps-a-corps, forte-a-forte, almost tete-a-tete.
He laughed in my face and sprang back as I did, landing us back en garde. But I added something. We had been fencing point only. The point is mightier than the edge but my weapon had both and a man used to the point is sometimes a sucker for a cut. As we separated I flipped my blade at his head.
I meant to split it open. No time for that, no force behind it, but it sliced his right forehead almost to
eyebrow. “Touche” he shouted. “Well struck. And well sung. Let’s have the rest of it.”
“All right,” I agreed, fencing cautiously and waiting for blood to run into his eyes. A scalp wound is the bloodiest of flesh wounds and I had great hopes for this one. And swordplay is an odd thing; you don’t really use your mind, it is much too fast for that. Your wrist thinks and tells your feet and body what to do, bypassing your brain–any thinking you do is for later, stored instructions, like a programmed computer.
I went on:
“They’re now in the dock
“For lifting the–”
No help to me–A right-handed fencer hates to take on a southpaw; it throws everything out of balance, whereas a southpaw is used to the foibles of the right-handed majority–and this son of a witch was just as strong, just as skilled, with his left hand. Worse, he now had toward me the eye undimmed by blood.
He pinked me again, in the kneecap, hurting like fire and slowing me. Despite his wounds, much worse than mine, I knew I couldn’t go on much longer. We settled down to grim work.
There is a riposte in seconde, desperately dangerous but brilliant–if you bring it off. It had won me several matches in 6pee with nothing at stake but a score. It starts from sixte; first your opponent counters. Instead of parrying to carte, you press and bind, sliding all the way down and around his blade and corkscrewing in till your point finds flesh. Or you can beat, counter, and bind, starting from sixte, thus setting it off yourself.
Its shortcoming is that, unless it is done perfectly, it is too late for parry and riposte; you run your own chest against his point.
I didn’t try to initiate it, not against this swordsman; I just thought about it.
We continued to fence, perfectly each of us. Then he stepped back slightly while countering and barely
skidded in his own blood.
My wrist took charge; I corkscrewed in with a perfect bind to seconde–and my blade went through his body. He looked surprised, brought his bell up in salute, and crumpled at the knees as the grip fell from his hand. I had to move forward with my blade as he fell, then started to pull it out of him.
He grasped it. “No, no, my friend, please leave it there. It corks the wine, for a time. Your logic is sharp and touches my heart. Your name, sir?”
“Oscar of Gordon.”
“A good name. One should never be killed by a stranger. Tell me, Oscar of Gordon, have you seen Carcassonne?”
“No.”
“See it. Love a lass, kill a man, write a book, fly to the Moon–I have done all these.” He gasped and foam came out of his mouth, pink. “I’ve even had a house fall on me. What devastating wit! What price honor when timber taps thy top? ‘Top?’ tap? taupe, tape–tonsor! –when timber taps thy tonsor. You shaved mine.”
He choked and went on: “It grows dark. Let us exchange gifts and part friends, if you will. My gift first, in two parts: Item: You are lucky, you shall not die in bed.”
“I guess not.”
“Please. Item: Friar Guillaume’s razor ne’er shaved the barber, it is much too dull. And now your gift, my old–and be quick, I need it. But first–now did that limerick end?”
I told him. He said, very weakly, almost in rattle, “Very good. Keep trying. Now grant me your gift, I am more than ready.” He tried to Sign himself.
So I granted him grace, stood wearily up, went to the bench and collapsed on it, then cleaned both blades, first wiping the little Solingen, then most carefully grooming the Lady Vivamus. I managed to stand and salute him with a clean sword. It had been an honor to know him.
I was sorry I hadn’t asked him his name. He seemed to think I knew it.
I sat heavily down and looked at the arras covering the rat hole at the end of the room and wondered why Star and Rufo hadn’t come out. All that clashing steel and talk–I thought about walking over and shouting for them. But I was too weary to move just yet. I sighed and closed my eyes-
Through sheer boyish high spirits (and carelessness I had been chided for, time and again) I had broken a dozen eggs. My mother looked down at the mess and I could see that she was about to cry. So I clouded up too. She stopped her tears, took me gently by the shoulder, and said, “It’s all right, son. Eggs aren’t that important.” But I was ashamed, so I twisted away and ran.
Downhill I ran, heedless and almost flying–then was shockingly aware that I was at the wheel and the car was out of control. I groped for the brake pedal, couldn’t find it and felt panic . . . then did find it–and felt it sink with that mushiness that means you’ve lost brake-fluid pressure. Something ahead in the road and I couldn’t see. Couldn’t even turn my head and my eyes were clouded with something running down into them. I twisted the wheel and nothing happened–radius rod gone.
Screams in my car as we hit! –and I woke up in bed with a jerk and the screams were my own. I was going to be late to school, disgrace not to be borne. Never born, agony shameful, for the schoolyard was empty; the other kids, scrubbed and virtuous, were in their seats and I couldn’t find my classroom. Hadn’t even had time to go to the bathroom and here I was at my desk with my pants down about to do what I had been too hurried to do before I left home and all the other kids had their hands up but teacher was calling on me. I couldn’t stand up to recite; my pants were not only down I didn’t have any on at all if I stood up they would see it the boys would laugh at me the girls would giggle and look away and tilt their noses. But the unbearable disgrace was that I didn’t know the answer!
“Come, come!” my teacher said sharply. “Don’t waste the class’s time, E.G. You Haven’t Studied Your Lesson.”
Well, no, I hadn’t. Yes, I had, but she had written “Problems 1-6” on the blackboard and I had taken that as “1 and 6”–and this was number 4. But She would never believe me; the excuse was too thin. We pay off on touchdowns, not excuses.
“That’s how it is, Easy,” my Coach went on, his voice more in sorrow than in anger. “Yardage is all very well but you don’t make a nickel unless you cross that old goal line with the egg tucked underneath your arm.” He pointed at the football on his desk. “There it is. I had it gilded and lettered clear back at the beginning of the season, you looked so good and I had so much confidence in you–it was meant to be yours at the end of the season, at a victory banquet.” His brow wrinkled and he spoke as if trying to be fair. “I won’t say you could have saved things all by yourself. But you do take things too easy. Easy–maybe you need another name. When the road gets rough, you could try harder.” He sighed. “My fault, I should have cracked down. Instead, I tried to be a father to you. But I want you to know you aren’t the only one who loses by this–at my age it’s not easy to find a new job.”
I pulled the covers up over my head; I couldn’t stand to look at him. But they wouldn’t let me alone; somebody started shaking my shoulder. “Gordon!”
“Le’me ‘lone!”
“Wake up, Gordon, and get your ass inside. You’re in trouble.”
I certainly was, I could tell that as soon as I stepped into the office. There was a sour taste of vomit in my mouth and I felt awful–as if a herd of buffaloes had walked over me, stepping on me here and there. Dirty ones.
The First Sergeant didn’t look at me when I came in; he let me stand and sweat first. When he did look up, he examined me up and down before speaking.
Then he spoke slowly, letting me taste each word. “Absent Over Leave, terrorizing and insulting native women, unauthorized use of government property . . . scandalous conduct . . . insubordinate and obscene language . . . resisting arrest . . . striking an M.P.–Gordon, why didn’t you steal a horse? We hang horse thieves in these parts. It would make it all so much simpler.”
He smiled at his own wit. The old bastard always had thought he was a wit. He was half right.
But I didn’t give a damn what he said. I realized dully that it had all been a dream, just another of those dreams I had had too often lately, wanting to get out of this aching jungle. Even She hadn’t been real. My–what was her name? –even her name I had made up. Star. My Lucky Star–Oh, Star, my darling, you aren’t!
He went on: “I see you took off your chevrons. Well, that saves time but that’s the only thing good about it. Out of uniform. No shave. And your clothes are filthy! Gordon, you are a disgrace to the Army of the United States. You know that, don’t you? And you can’t sing your way out of this one. No I.D. on you, no pass, using a name not your own. Well, Evelyn Cyril my fine lad, we’ll use your right name now. Officially.”
He swung around in his swivel chair–he hadn’t had his fat ass out of it since they sent him to Asia, no patrols for him. “Just one thing I’m curious about. Where did you get that? And whatever possessed you to try to steal it?” He nodded at a file case behind his desk.
I recognized what was sitting on it, even though it had been painted with gold gilt the last time I recalled seeing it whereas now it was covered with the special black gluey mud they grow in Southeast Asia. I started toward it. “That’s mine!”
“No, no!” he said sharply. “Burny, burny, boy.” He moved the football farther back. “Stealing it doesn’t make it yours. I’ve taken charge of it as evidence. For your information, you phony hero, the docs think he’s going to die.”
“Who?”
“Why should you care who? Two bits to a Bangkok tickul you didn’t know his name when you clobbered him. You can’t go around clobbering natives just because you’re feeling brisk–they’ve got rights, maybe you hadn’t heard. You’re supposed to clobber them only when and where you are told to.”
Suddenly he smiled. It didn’t improve him. With his long, sharp nose and his little bloodshot eyes I suddenly realized how much he looked like a rat.
But he went on smiling and said, “Evelyn my boy, maybe you took off those chevrons too soon.”
“Huh?”
“Yes. There may be a way out of this mess. Sit down.” He repeated sharply, ” ‘Sit down,’ I said. If I had my way we’d simply Section-Eight you and forget you–anything to get rid of you. But the Company Commander has other ideas–a really brilliant idea that could close your whole file. There’s a raid planned for tonight. So”–he leaned over, got a bottle of Four Roses and two cups out of his desk, poured two drinks–“have a drink.”
Everybody knew about that bottle–everybody but the Company Commander, maybe. But the top sergeant had never been known to offer anyone a drink–save one time when he had followed it by telling his victim that he was being recommended for a general court-martial.
“No, thanks.”
“Come on, take it. Hair of the dog. You’re going to need it. Then go take a shower and get yourself looking decent even if you aren’t, before you see the Company Commander.”
I stood up. I wanted that drink, I needed it. I would have settled for the worst rotgut–and Four Roses is pretty smooth–but I would have settled for the firewater old–what was his name? –had used to burst my eardrums.
But I didn’t want to drink with him. I should not drink anything at all here. Nor eat any-
I spat in his face.
He looked utterly shocked and started to melt. I drew my sword and had at him.
It got dark but I kept on laying about me, sometimes connecting, sometimes not.
Chapter 16
Someone was shaking my shoulder. “Wake up!”
“Le’me lone!”
“You’ve got to wake up. Boss, please wake up.”
“Yes, my Hero–please!”
I opened my eyes, smiled at her, then tried to look around. Kee-ripes, what a shambles! In the middle of it, close to me, was a black glass pillar, thick and about five feet high. On top was the Egg. “Is that it?”
“Yep!” agreed Rufo. “That’s it! He looked battered but gay.
“Yes, my Hero champion,” Star confirmed, “that is the true Egg of the Phoenix. I have tested.”
“Uh–” I looked around. “Then where’s old Soul-Eater?”
“You killed it. Before we got here. You still had sword in hand and the Egg tucked tightly under your left arm. We had much trouble getting them loose so that I could work on you.” I looked down my front, saw what she meant, and looked away. Red just isn’t my color. To take my mind off surgery I said to Rufo, “What took you so long?”
Star answered, “I thought we would never find you!”
“How did you find me?”
Rufo said, “Boss, we couldn’t exactly lose you. We simply followed your trail of blood–even when it dead-ended into blank walls. She is stubborn.”
“Uh . . . see any dead men?”
“Three or four. Strangers, no business of ours. Constructs, most likely. We didn’t dally.” He added,
“And we won’t dally getting out, either, once you’re patched up enough to walk. Time is short.”
I flexed my right knee, cautiously. It still hurt where I had been pinked on the kneecap, but what Star had done was taking the soreness out. “My legs are all right. I’ll be able to walk as soon as Star is through. But”–I frowned–“I don’t relish going through that rat tunnel again. Rats give me the willies.”
“What rats, Boss? In which tunnel?”
So I told him.
Star made no comment. Just went on plastering me and sticking on dressings. Rufo said, “Boss, you did get down on your knees and crawl–in a passage just like all the others. I couldn’t see any sense to it but you had proved that you knew what you were doing, so we didn’t argue, we did it. When you told us to wait while you scouted, we did that, too–until we had waited a long time and She decided that we had better try to find you.”
I let it drop.
We left almost at once, going out the “front” way and had no trouble, no illusions, no traps, nothing but the fact that the “true path” was long and tedious. Rufo and I stayed alert, same formation, with Star in the middle carrying the Egg.
Neither Star nor Rufo knew whether we were still likely to be attacked, nor could we have held off
anything stronger than a Cub Scout pack. Only Rufo could bend a bow and I could no longer wield a sword. However, the single necessity was to give Star time to destroy the Egg rather than let it be captured. “But that’s nothing to worry about,” Rufo assured me. “About like being at ground-zero with an A-weapon. You’ll never notice it.”
Once we were outside it was a longish hike to the Grotto Hills and the other Gate. We lunched as we hiked–I was terribly hungry–and shared Rufo’s brandy and Stars water without too much water. I felt pretty good by the time we reached the cave of this Gate; I didn’t even mind sky that wasn’t sky but some sort of roof, nor the odd shifts in gravitation.
A diagram or “pentacle” was already in this cave. Star had only to freshen it, then we waited a bit–that had been the rush, to get there before that “Gate” could be opened; it wouldn’t be available for weeks or perhaps months thereafter–much too long for any human to live in Karth-Hokesh.
We were in position a few minutes early. I was dressed like the Warlord of Mars–just me and sword belt and sword. We all lightened ship to the limit as Star was tired and pulling live things through would be strain enough. Star wanted to save my pet longbow but I vetoed it. She did insist that I keep the Lady Vivamus and I didn’t argue very hard; I didn’t want ever to be separated from my sword again. She touched it and told me that it was not dead metal, but now part of me.
Rufo wore only his unpretty pink skin, plus dressings; his attitude was that a sword was a sword and he had better ones at home. Star was, for professional reasons, wearing no more.
“How long?” asked Rufo, as we joined hands.
“Count down is minus two minutes,” she answered. The clock in Star’s head is as accurate as my bump of direction. She never used a watch.
“You’ve told him?” said Rufo.
“No.”
Rufo said, “Haven’t you any shame? Don’t you think you’ve conned him long enough?” He spoke with surprising roughness and I was about to tell him that he must not speak to her that way. But Star cut him off.
“QUIET!” She began to chant. Then–“Now!”
Suddenly it was a different cave. “Where are we?” I asked. I felt heavier.
“On Nevia’s planet,” Rufo answered. “Other side of the Eternal Peaks–and I’ve got a good mind to get off and see Jocko.”
“Do it,” Star said angrily. “You talk too much.”
“Only if my pal Oscar comes along. Want to, old comrade? I can get us there, take about a week. No dragons. They’ll be glad to see you–especially Muri.”
“You leave Muri out of this!” Star was actually shrill.
“Can’t take it, huh?” he said sourly. “Younger woman and all that.”
“You know that’s not it!”
“Oh, how very much it is!” he retorted. “And how long do you think you can get away with it? It’s not fair, it never was fair. It–”
“Silence! Count down right now!” We joined hands again and whambo! we were in another place.
This was still another cave with one side partly open to the outdoors; the air was very thin and bitterly cold and snow had sifted in. The diagram was let into rock in raw gold. “Where is this?” I wanted to know.
“On your planet,” Star answered. “A place called Tibet.”
“And you could change trains here,” Rufo added, “if She weren’t so stubborn. Or you could walk out–although it’s a long, tough walk; I did it once.” I wasn’t tempted. The last I had heard, Tibet was in the hands of unfriendly peace-lovers. “Will we be here long?” I asked. “This place needs central heating.” I wanted to hear anything but more argument. Star was my beloved and I couldn’t stand by and hear anyone be rude to her–but Rufo was my blood brother by much lost blood; I owed my life to him several times over.
“Not long,” answered Star. She looked drawn and tired. “But time enough to get this straightened out,” added Rufo, “so that you can make up your own mind and not be carried around like a cat in a sack. She should have told you long since. She–”
“Positions!” snapped Star. “Count down coming up. Rufo, if you don’t shut up, I’ll leave you here and let you walk out again–in deep snow barefooted to your chin.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “Threats make me as stubborn as you are. Which is surprising. Oscar, She is–” “SILENCE!”
“–Empress of the Twenty Universes–“
Chapter 17
We were in a large octagonal room, with lavishly beautiful silvery walls. “–and my grandmother,” Rufo finished.
Not ‘Empress,’ ” Star protested. “That’s a silly word for it.”
“Near enough.” “And as for the other, that’s my misfortune, not my fault.” Star jumped to her feet, no longer looking tired, and put one arm around my waist as I got up, while she held the Egg of the Phoenix with the other.
“Oh, darling I’m so happy! We made it! Welcome home, my Hero!”
“Where?” I was sluggy–too many time zones, too many ideas, too fast.
“Home. My home. Your home now–if you’ll have it. Our home.”
“Uh, I see . . . my Empress.” She stomped her foot. “Don’t call me that!”
“The proper form of address,” said Rufo, “is ‘Your Wisdom.’ Isn’t it, Your Wisdom?”
“Oh, Rufo, shut up. Go fetch clothes for us.”
He shook his head. “War’s over and I just got paid off. Fetch ’em yourself. Granny.”
“Rufo, you’re impossible.”
“Sore at me, Granny?”
“I will be if you don’t stop calling me ‘Granny.’ ” Suddenly she handed the Egg to me, put her arms around Rufo and kissed him. “No, Granny’s not sore at you,” she said softly. “You always were a naughty child and I’ll never quite forget the time you put oysters in my bed. But I guess you came by it honestly–from your grandmother.” She kissed him again and mussed his fringe of white hair. “Granny loves you. Granny always will. Next to Oscar, I think you are about perfect–aside from being an unbearable, untruthful, spoiled, disobedient, disrespectful brat.”
“That’s better,” he said. “Come to think of it, I feel the same way about you. What do you want to wear?”
“Mmm . . . get out a lot of things. It’s been so long since I had a decent wardrobe.” She turned back to me. “What would you like to wear, my Hero?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Whatever you think is appropriate–Your Wisdom.”
“Oh, darling, please don’t call me that. Not ever.” She seemed suddenly about to cry.
“All right. What shall I call you?”
“Star is the name you gave me. If you must call me something else, you could call me your ‘princess.’ I’m not a princess–and I’m not an ’empress’ either; that’s a poor translation. But I like being ‘your princess’–the way you say it. Or it can be ‘lively wench’ or any of lots of things you’ve been calling me.” She looked up at me very soberly. “Just like before. Forever.”
“I’ll try . . . my princess.”
“My Hero.”
“But there seems to be a lot I don’t know.”
She shifted from English to Nevian. “Milord husband, I wished to tell all. I sighed to tell you. And milord will be told everything. But I held mortal fear that milord, if told too soon, would refuse to come with me. Not to the Black Tower, but to here. Our home.”
“Perhaps you chanced wisely,” I answered in the same language. “But I am here, milady wife–my princess. So tell me. I wish it.”
She shifted back to English. “I’ll talk, I’ll talk. But it will take time. Darling, will you hold your horses just a bit longer? Having been patient with me–so very patient, my love! –for so long?”
“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll string along. But, look, I don’t know the streets in this neighborhood, I’ll need some hints. Remember the mistake I made with old Jocko just from not knowing local customs.”
“Yes, dear, I will. But don’t worry, customs are simple here. Primitive societies are always more complex than civilized ones–and this one isn’t primitive.” Rufo dumped then a great heap of clothing at her feet. She turned away, a hand still on my arm, put a finger to her mouth with a very intent, almost worried look. “Now let me see. What shall I wear?”
“Complex” is a relative matter; I’ll sketch only the outlines.
Center is the capital planet of the Twenty Universes. But Star was not “Empress” and it is not an empire.
I’ll go on calling her “Star” as hundreds of names were hers and I’ll call it an “empire” because no other word is close, and I’ll refer to “emperors” and “empresses”–and to the Empress, my wife.
Nobody knows how many universes there are. Theory places no limit: any and all possibilities in unlimited number of combinations of “natural” laws, each sheaf appropriate to its own universe. But this is just theory and Occam’s Razor is much too dull. All that is known in Twenty Universes is that twenty have been discovered, that each has its own laws, and that most of them have planets, or sometimes “places,” where human beings live. I won’t try to say what lives elsewhere.
The Twenty Universes include many real empires. Our Galaxy in our universe has its stellar empires–yet so huge is our Galaxy that our human race may never meet another, save through the Gates that link the universes. Some planets have no known Gates. Earth has many and that is its single importance; otherwise it rates as a backward slum.
Seven thousand years ago a notion was born for coping with political problems too big to handle. It was modest at first: How could a planet be run without ruining it? This planet’s people included expert cyberneticists but otherwise were hardly farther along than we are; they were still burning the barn to get the rats and catching their thumbs in machinery. These experimenters picked an outstanding ruler and tried to help him.
Nobody knew why this bloke was so successful but he was and that was enough; they weren’t hipped on theory. They gave him cybernetic help, taping for him all crises in their history, all known details, what was done, and the outcomes of each, all organized so that he could consult it almost as you consult your memory.
It worked. In time he was supervising the whole planet–Center it was, with another name then. He didn’t rule it, he just untangled hard cases.
They taped also everything this first “Emperor” did, good and bad, for guidance of his successor.
The Egg of the Phoenix is a cybernetic record of the experiences of two hundred and three “emperors” and “empresses,” most of whom “ruled” all the known universes. Like a foldbox, it is bigger inside than out. In use, it is more the size of the Great Pyramid.
Phoenix legends abound throughout the Universes: the creature that dies but is immortal, rising ever young from its own ashes. The Egg is such a wonder, for it is far more than a taped library now; it is a print, right down to their unique personalities, of all experience of all that line from His Wisdom IX through Her Wisdom CCIV, Mrs. Oscar Gordon.
The office is not hereditary. Star’s ancestors include His Wisdom I and most of the other wisdoms–but millions of others have as much “royal” blood. Her grandson Rufo was not picked although he shares all her ancestors. Or perhaps he turned it down. I never asked, it would have reminded him of a time one of his uncles did something obscene and improbable. Nor is it a question one asks.
Once tapped, a candidate’s education includes everything from how to cook tripe to highest mathematics–including all forms of personal combat for it was realized millennia ago that, no matter how well he was guarded, the victim would wear better if he himself could fight like an angry buzz saw. I stumbled on this through asking my beloved an awkward question.
I was still trying to get used to the fact that I had married, a grandmother, whose grandson looked older than I did and was even older than he looked. The people of Center live longer than we do anyway and both Star and Rufo had received “Long-Life” treatment. This takes getting used to. I asked Star, “How long do you ‘wisdoms’ live?”
“Not too long,” she answered almost harshly. “Usually we are assassinated.”
(My big mouth–)
A candidate’s training includes travel in many worlds–not all planets-places inhabited by human beings; nobody lives that long. But many. After a candidate completes all this and if selected as heir, postgraduate work begins: the Egg itself. The heir has imprinted in him (her) the memories, the very personalities, of past emperors. He (She) becomes an integration of them. Star-Plus. A supernova. Her Wisdom.
The living personality is dominant but all that mob is there, too. Without using the Egg, Star could recall experiences that happened to people dead many centuries. With the Egg–herself hooked into the cybernet–she had seven thousand years of sharp, just-yesterday memories.
Star admitted to me that she had hesitated ten years before accepting the nomination. She hadn’t wanted to be all those people; she had wanted to go on being herself, living as she pleased. But the methods used to pick candidates (I don’t know them, they are lodged in the Egg) seem almost infallible; only three have ever refused.
When Star became Empress she had barely started the second half of her training, having had imprinted in her only seven of her predecessors. Imprinting does not take long but the victim needs recovery time between prints–for she gets every damned thing that ever happened to him, bad and good: the time he was cruel to a pet as a child and his recalled shame of it in his mature years, the loss of his virginity, the unbearably tragic time that he goofed a really serious one–all of it.
“I must experience their mistakes,” Star told me. “Mistakes are the only certain way to learn.”
So the whole weary structure is based on subjecting one person to all the miserable errors of seven thousand years.
Mercifully the Egg doesn’t have to be used often. Most of the time Star could be herself, no more bothered by imprinted memories than you are over that nasty remark in second grade. Most problems Star could solve shooting from the hip–no recourse to the Black Room and a full hookup.
For the one thing that stood out as this empirical way of running an empire grew up was that the answer to most problems was: Don’t do anything.
Always King Log, never King Stork–“Live and let live.” “Let well enough alone.” “Time is the best physician.” “Let sleeping dogs lie.” “Leave them alone and they’ll come home, wagging their tails behind them.”
Even positive edicts of the Imperium were usually negative in form: Thou Shalt Not Blow Up Thy Neighbors’ Planet. (Blow your own if you wish.) Hands off the guardians of the Gates. Don’t demand justice, you too will be judged.
Above all, don’t put serious problems to a popular vote. Oh, there is no rule against local democracy, just in imperial matters. Old Rufo–excuse me; Doctor Rufo, a most distinguished comparative culturologist (with a low taste for slumming)–Rufo told me that every human race tries every political form and that democracy is used in. many primitive societies . . . but he didn’t know of any civilized planet using it, as Vox Populi, Vox Dei translates as: “My God! How did we get in this mess!”
But Rufo claimed to enjoy democracy–any time he felt depressed he sampled Washington, and the antics of the French Parliament were second only to the antics of French women.
I asked him how advanced societies ran things.
His brow wrinkled. “Mostly they don’t.”
That described the Empress of Twenty Universes: Mostly she didn’t.
But sometimes she did. She might say: “This mess will clear up if you will take that troublemaker there–What’s your name? You with the goatee–out and shoot him. Do it now.” (I was present. They did it now. He was head of the delegation which had brought the problem to her–some fuss between intergalactic trading empires in the VIIth Universe–and his chief deputy pinned his arms and his own delegates dragged him outside and killed him. Star went on drinking coffee. It’s better coffee than we get back home and I was so upset that I poured myself a cup.)
An Emperor has no power. Yet, if Star decided that a certain planet should be removed, people would get busy and there would be a nova in that sky. Star has never done this but it has been done in the past. Not often–His Wisdom will search his soul (and the Egg) a long time before decreeing anything so final even when his hypertrophied horse sense tells him that there is no other solution.
The Emperor is sole source of Imperial law, sole judge, sole executive–and does very little and has no way to enforce his rulings. What he or she does have is enormous prestige from a system that has worked for seven millennia. This non-system holds together by having no togetherness, no uniformity,
never seeking perfection, no Utopias–just answers good enough to get by, with lots of looseness and room for many ways and attitudes.
Local affairs are local. Infanticide? –they’re your babies, your planet. PTAs, movie censorship, disaster relief–the Empire is ponderously unhelpful.
The Crisis of the Egg started long before I was born. His Wisdom CCIII was assassinated and the Egg stolen at the same time. Some baddies wanted power–and the Egg, by its unique resources, has latent in it key to such power as Genghis Khan never dreamed.
Why should anybody want power? I can’t understand it. But some do, and they did.
So Star came to office hall-trained, faced by the greatest crisis the Empire had ever suffered, and cut off from her storehouse of Wisdom.
But not helpless. Imprinted in her was the experience of seven hypersensible men and she had all the cyber-computer system save that unique part known as the Egg. First she had to find out what had been done with the Egg. It wasn’t safe to mount an attack on the planet of the baddies; it might destroy the Egg.
Available were ways to make a man talk if one didn’t mind using him up. Star didn’t mind. I don’t mean anything so crude as rack and tongs. This was more like peeling an onion, and they peeled several.
Karth-Hokesh is so deadly that it was named for the only explorers to visit it and come back alive. (We were in a “garden subdivision,” the rest is much worse.) The baddies made no attempt to stay there; they just cached the Egg and set guards and booby traps around it and on the routes to it.
I asked Rufo, “What use was the Egg there?”
“None,” he agreed. “But they soon learned that it was no use anywhere–without Her. They needed either its staff of cyberneticists . . . or they needed Her Wisdom. They couldn’t open the Egg. She is the only one who can do that unassisted. So they baited a trap for Her. Capture Her Wisdom, or kill Her–capture by preference, kill Her if need be and then try for key people here at Center. But they didn’t dare risk the second while She was alive.”
Star started a search to determine the best chance of recovering the Egg. Invade Karth-Hokesh? The machines said, “Hell, no!” I would say no, too. How do you mount an invasion into a place where a man not only can’t eat or drink anything local but can’t breathe the air more than a few hours? When a massive assault will destroy what you are after? When your beachheads are two limited Gates?
The computers kept coming up with a silly answer, no matter how the question was framed.
Me.
A “Hero,” that is–a man with a strong back, a weak mind, and a high regard for his own skin. Plus other traits. A raid by a thus-and-so man, if aided by Star herself, might succeed. Rufo was added by a hunch Star had (hunches of Their Wisdoms being equal to strokes of genius) and the machines confirmed this. “I was drafted,” said Rufo. “So I refused. But I never have had any sense where She is concerned, damn it; She spoiled me when I was a kid.”
There followed years of search for the specified man. (Me, again–I’ll never know why.) Meanwhile brave men were feeling out the situation and, eventually, mapping the Tower. Star herself reconnoitered, and got acquainted in Nevia, too.
(Is Nevia part of the “Empire?” It is and it isn’t. Nevia’s planet has the only Gates to Karth-Hokesh other than one from the planet of the baddies; that is its importance to the Empire–and the Empire isn’t important to Nevia at all.)
This “Hero” was most likely to be found on a barbaric planet such as Earth. Star checked, and turned down, endless candidates winnowed from many rough peoples before her nose told her that I might do.
I asked Rufo what chance the machines gave us.
“What makes you say that?” he demanded.
“Well, I know a little of cybernetics.”
“You think you do. Still–There was a prediction. Thirteen percent success, seventeen percent no game–and seventy percent death for us all.”
I whistled. “You should whistle!” he said indignantly. “You didn’t know any more than a cavalry horse knows. You had nothing to be scared of.”
“I was scared.”
“You didn’t have time to be. It was planned so. Our one chance lay in reckless speed and utter surprise. But I knew. Son, when you told us to wait, there in the Tower, and disappeared and didn’t come back, why, I was so scared I caught up on my regretting.”
Once set up, the raid happened as I told it. Or pretty much so, although I may have seen what my mind could accept rather than exactly what happened. I mean “magic.” How many times have savages concluded “magic” when a “civilized” man came along with something the savage couldn’t understand? How often is some tag, such as “television,” accepted by cultural savages (who nevertheless twist dials) when “magic” would be the honest word?
Still, Star never insisted on that word. She accepted it when I insisted on it.
But I would be disappointed if everything I saw turned out to be something Western Electric will build once Bell Labs works the bugs out. There ought to be some magic, somewhere, just for flavor.
Oh, yes, putting me to sleep for the first transition was to keep from scaring a savage silly. Nor did the “black biers” cross over–that was posthypnotic suggestion, by an expert: my wife.
Did I say what happened to the baddies? Nothing. Their Gates were destroyed; they are isolated until they develop star travel. Good enough, by the sloppy standards of the Empire. Their Wisdoms never carry grudges.
Chapter 18
Center is a lovely planet, Earth-like but lacking Earth’s faults. It has been retailored over millennia to make it a Never-Never Land. Desert and snow and jungle were saved enough for pleasure; floods and other disasters were engineered out of existence.
It is uncrowded but has a large population for its size–that of Mars but with oceans. Surface gravity is almost that of Earth. (A higher constant, I understand.) About half the population is transient, as its great beauty and unique cultural assets–focus of twenty universes–make it a tourist’s paradise. Everything is done for the comfort of visitors with an all-out thoroughness like that of the Swiss but with technology not known on Earth.
Star and I had residences a dozen places around the planet (and endless others in other universes); they ranged from palaces to a tiny fishing lodge where Star did her own cooking. Mostly we lived in apartments to an artificial mountain that housed the Egg and its staff; adjacent were halls, conference rooms, secretariat, etc. If Star felt like working she wanted such things at hand. But a system ambassador or visiting emperor of a hundred systems had as much chance of being invited into our private home as a hobo at the back door of a Beverly Hills mansion has of being invited into the drawing room.
But if Star happened to like him, she might fetch him home for a midnight snack. She did that once–a funny little leprechaun with four arms and a habit of tap-dancing his gestures. But she did no official entertaining and felt no obligation to attend social affairs. She did not hold press conferences, make speeches, receive delegations of Girl Scouts, lay cornerstones, proclaim special “Days,” make ceremonial appearances, sign papers, deny rumors, nor any of the time-gnawing things that sovereigns and VIPs do on Earth.
She consulted individuals, often summoning them from other universes, and she had at her disposal all the news from everywhere, organized in a system that had been developed over centuries. It was through this system that she decided what problems to consider. One chronic complaint was that the Imperium ignored “vital questions”–and so it did. Her Wisdom passed judgment only on problems she selected; the bedrock of the system was that most problems solved themselves.
We often went to social events; we both enjoyed parties and, for Her Wisdom and Consort, there was endless choice. There was one negative protocol: Star neither accepted nor regretted invitations, showed up when she pleased and refused to be fussed over. This was a drastic change for capital society as her predecessor had imosed protocol more formal than that of the Vatican.
One hostess complained to me about how dull society had become under the new rules–maybe I could do something?
I did. I looked up Star and told her the remark whereupon we left and joined a drunken artists’ ball–a luau!
Center is such a hash of cultures, races, customs, and styles that it has few rules. The one invariant custom was: Don’t impose your customs on me. People wore what they did at home, or experimented with other styles; any social affair looked like a free-choice costume ball. A guest could show up at a swank party stark naked without causing talk–and some did, a small minority. I don’t mean non-humans or hirsute humans; clothes are not for them. I mean humans who would look at home in New York in American clothes–and others who would attract notice even in l’Ile du Levant because they have no hair at all, not even eyebrows. This is a source of pride to them; it shows their “superiority” to us hairy apes,
they are as proud as a Georgia cracker is of his deficiency in melanin. So they go naked oftener than other human races. I found their appearance startling but one gets used to it.
Star wore clothes outside our home, so I did. Star would never miss a chance to dress up, an endearing weakness that made it possible to forget, at times, her Imperial status. She never dressed twice alike and was ever trying something new–and disappointed if I didn’t notice. Some of her choices would cause heart failure even on a Riviera beach. She believed that a woman’s costume was a failure unless it made men want to tear it off.
One of Star’s most effective outfits was the simplest. Rufo happened to be with us and she got a sudden notion to dress as we had on the Quest of the Egg–and biff, bang, costumes were available, or manufactured to order, as may be; Nevian clothes are most uncommon in Center.
Bows, arrows, and quivers were produced with the same speed and Merry Men were we. It made me feel good to buckle on the Lady Vivamus; she had been hanging untouched on a wall of my study ever since the great black Tower.
Star stood, feet planted wide, fists on hips, head thrown back, eyes bright, and cheeks flushed. “Oh, this is fun! I feel good, I feel young! Darling, promise me, promise me truly, that someday we will again go on an adventure! I get so damn sick of being sensible.”
She spoke English, as the language of Center is ill suited to such ideas. It’s a pidgin language with thousands of years of imports and changes and is uninflected, positional, and flat.
“Suits,” I agreed. “How about it, Rufo? Want to walk that Glory Road?”
“After they pave it.”
“Guff. You’ll come, I know you. Where and when, Star? Never mind ‘where’–just ‘when.’ Skip the party and start right now!”
Suddenly she was not merry. “Darling, you know I can’t. I’m less than a third of the way through my training.”
“I should have busted that Egg when I found it.”
“Don’t be cross, darling. Let’s go to the party and have fun.”
We did. Travel on Center is by apports, artificial “Gates” that require no “magic” (or perhaps still more); one sets destination like punching buttons in an elevator, so there is no traffic problem in cities–nor a thousand other unpleasant things; they don’t let the bones show in their cities. Tonight Star chose to get off short of destination, swagger through a park, and make an entrance. She knows how well tights suit her long legs and solid buttocks; she rolled her hips like a Hindu woman.
Folks, we were a sensation! Swords aren’t worn in Center, save possibly by visitors. Bows and arrows are hen’s teeth, too. We were as conspicuous as a knight in armor on Fifth Avenue.
Star was as happy as a kid playing trick-or-treat. So was I. I felt two axe handles across the shoulders and wanted to hunt dragons.
It was a ball not unlike one on Earth. (According to Rufo, all our races everywhere have the same basic entertainment: get together in mobs to dance, drink, and gossip. He claimed that the stag affair and the hen party are symptoms of a sick culture. I won’t argue.) We swaggered down a grand staircase, music stopped, people stared and gasped–and Star enjoyed being noticed. Musicians got raggedly back to work and guests went back to the negative politeness the Empress usually demanded. But we still got attention. I had thought that the story of the Quest of the Egg was a state secret as I had never heard it mentioned. But, even if known, I still would have expected the details to be known only to us three.
Not so. Everyone knew what those costumes meant, and more. I was at the buffet, sopping up brandy and a Dagwood of my own invention, when I was cornered by Schherazade’s sister, the pretty one. She was of one of the human-but-not-like-us races. She was dressed in rubies the size of your thumb and reasonably opaque cloth. She stood about five-five, barefooted, weighed maybe one twenty and her waist couldn’t have been over fifteen inches, which exaggerated two other measurements that did not need it. She was brunette, with the slantiest eyes I’ve ever seen. She looked like a beautiful cat and looked at me the way a cat looks at a bird.
“Self,” she announced.
“Speak.”
“Sverlani. World–” (Name and code–I had never heard of it.) “Student food designer, mathematicosybaritic.”
“Oscar Gordon. Earth. Soldier.” I omitted the I.D. for Earth; she knew who I was.
“Questions?”
“Ask.”
“Is sword?”
“Is.”
She looked at it and her pupils dilated, “Is-was sword destroy construct guard Egg?” (“Is this sword now present the direct successor in space-time sequential change, aside from theoretical anomalies involved in between-universe transitions, of the sword used to loll the Never-Born?” The double tense of the verb, present-past, stipulates and brushes aside the concept that identity is a meaningless abstraction–is this the sword you actually used, in the everyday meaning, and don’t kid me, soldier. I’m no child.)
“Was-is,” I agreed. (“I was there and I guarantee that I followed it all the way here, so it still is.”)
She gave a little gasp and her nipples stood up. Around each was painted, or perhaps tattooed, the multi-universal design we call “Wall of Troy”–and so strong was her reaction that Ileum’s ramparts crumbled again.
“Touch?” she said pleadingly.
“Touch.”
“Touch twice?” (“Please, may I handle it enough to get the feel of it? Pretty please, with sugar on it! I ask too much and it is your right to refuse, but I guarantee not to hurt it”–they get mileage out of words, but the flavor is in the manner.)
I didn’t want to, not the Lady Vivamus. But I’m a sucker for pretty girls. “Touch . . . twice,” I grudged. I drew it and handed it to her guard foremost, alert to grab it before she put somebody’s eye out or stabbed herself in the foot.
She accepted it gingerly, eyes and mouth big, grasping it by the guard instead of the grip. I had to show her. Her hand was far too small for it; her hands and feet, like her waist, were ultra slender.
She spotted the inscription. “Means?”
Dum vivimus, vivamus doesn’t translate well, not because they can’t understand the idea but because it’s water to a fish. How else would one live? But I tried. “Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.”
She nodded thoughtfully, then poked the air, wrist bent and elbow out. I couldn’t stand it, so I took it from her, dropped slowly into a foil guard, lunged in high line, recovered–a move so graceful that big hairy men look good in it. It’s why ballerinas study fencing.
I saluted and gave it back to her, then adjusted her right elbow and wrist and left arm–this is why ballerinas get half rates, it’s fun for the swordmaster. She lunged, almost pinking a guest in his starboard ham.
I took it back, wiped the blade, sheathed it. We had gathered a solid gallery. I picked up my Dagwood from the buffet, but she wasn’t done with me. “Self jump sword?”
I choked. If she understood the meaning–or if I did–I was being propositioned the most gently I had ever been, in Center. Usually it’s blunt. But surely Star hadn’t spread the details of our wedding ceremony? Rufo? I hadn’t told him but Star might have.
When I didn’t answer, she made herself clear and did not keep her voice down. “Self unvirgin unmother unpregnant fertile.”
I explained as politely as the language permits, which isn’t very, that I was dated up. She dropped the subject, looked at the Dagwood. “Bite touch taste?”
That was another matter; I passed it over. She took a hearty bite, chewed thoughtfully, looked pleased. “Xenic. Primitive. Robust. Strong dissonance. Good art.” Then she drifted away, leaving me wondering. Inside of ten minutes the question was put to me again. I received more propositions than at any other party in Center and I’m sure the sword accounted for the bull market. To be sure, propositions came my way at every social event; I was Her Wisdom’s consort. I could have been an orangutan and offers still would have been made. Some hirsutes looked like orangutans and were socially acceptable but I could have smelled like one. And behaved worse. The truth was that many ladies were curious about what the Empress took to bed, and the fact that I was a savage, or at best a barbarian, made them more curious. There wasn’t any taboo against laying it on the line and quite a few did.
But I was still on my honeymoon. Anyhow, if I had accepted all those offers, I would have gone up with the window shade. But I enjoyed hearing them once I quit cringing at the “Soda? –or ginger ale?” bluntness; it’s good for anybody’s morale to be asked.
As we were undressing that night I said, “Have fun, pretty things?” Star yawned and grinned. “I certainly did. And so did you, old Eagle Scout. Why didn’t you bring that kitten home?”
“What kitten?”
“You know what kitten. The one you were teaching to fence.”
“Meeow!”
“No, no, dear. You should send for her. I heard her state her profession, and there is a strong
connection between good cooking and good–”
“Woman, you talk too much!”
She switched from English to Nevian. “Yes, milord husband. No sound I shall utter that does not break unbidden from love-anguished lips.”
“Milady wife beloved . . . sprite elemental of the Singing Waters–”
Nevian is more useful than the jargon they talk on Center.
Center is a fun place and a Wisdom’s consort has a cushy time. After our first visit to Star’s fishing lodge, I mentioned how nice it would be to go back someday and tickle a few trout at that lovely place, the Gate where we had entered Nevia. “I wish it were on Center.”
“It shall be.”
“Star. You would move it? I know that some Gates, commercial ones, can handle real mass, but, even so–”
“No, no. But just as good. Let me see. It will take a day or so to have it stereoed and measured and air-typed and so forth. Water flow, those things. But meanwhile–There’s nothing much beyond this wall, just a power plant and such. Say a door here and the place where we broiled the fish a hundred yards beyond. Be finished in a week, or we’ll have a new architect. Suits?”
“Star, you’ll do no such thing.”
“Why not, darling?”
“Tear up the whole house to give me a trout stream? Fantastic!”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, it is. Anyhow, sweet, the idea is not to move that stream here, but to go there. A vacation.”
She sighed. “How I would love a vacation.”
“You took an imprint today. Your voice is different.”
“It wears off, Oscar.”
“Star, you’re taking them too fast. You’re wearing yourself out.”
“Perhaps. But I must be the judge of that, as you know.”
“As I don’t know! You can judge the whole goddamn creation–as you do and I know it–but I, your husband, must judge whether you are overworking–and stop it.”
“Darling, darling!”
There were too many incidents like that.
I was not jealous of her. That ghost of my savage past had been laid in Nevia, I was not haunted by it
again.
Nor is Center a place such ghost is likely to walk. Center has as many marriage customs as it has cultures–thousands. They cancel out. Some humans there are monogamous by instinct, as swans are said to be. So it can’t be classed as “virtue.” As courage is bravery in the face of fear, virtue is right conduct in the face of temptation. If there is no temptation, there can be no virtue. But these inflexible monogamists were no hazard. If someone, through ignorance, propositioned one of these chaste ladies, he risked neither a slap nor a knife; she would turn him down and go right on talking. Nor would it matter if her husband overheard; jealousy is never learned in a race automatically monogamous. Not that I ever tested it; to me they looked–and smelled–like spoiled bread dough. Where there is no temptation there is no virtue. But I had chances to show “virtue.” That kitten with the wasp waist tempted me–and I learned that she was of a culture in which females may not marry until they prove themselves pregnable, as in parts of the South Seas and certain places in Europe; she was breaking no taboos of her tribe. I was tempted more by another gal, a sweetie with a lovely figure, a delightful sense of humor, and one of the best dancers in any universe. She didn’t write it on the sidewalk; she just let me know that she was neither too busy nor uninterested, using that argot with skillful indirection.
This was refreshing. Downright “American.” I did inquire (elsewhere) into the customs of her tribe and found that, while they were rigid as to marriage, they were permissive otherwise. I would never do as a son-in-law but the window was open even though the door was locked.
So I chickened. I gave myself a soul-searching and admitted curiosity as morbid as that of any female who propositioned me simply because I was Star’s consort. Sweet little Zhai-ee-van was one of those who didn’t wear clothes. She grew them on the spot; from tip of her nose to her tiny toes she was covered in soft, sleek, gray fur, remarkably like chinchilla. Gorgeous!
I didn’t have the heart, she was too nice a kid.
But this temptation I admitted to Star–and Star implied gently that I must have muscles between my ears; Zhai-ee-van was an outstanding artiste even among her own people, who were esteemed as most talented devotees of Eros.
I stayed chicken. A romp with a kid that sweet should involve love, some at least, and it wasn’t love, just that beautiful fur–along with a fear that a romp with Zhai-ee-van could turn into love and she couldn’t marry me even if Star turned me loose.
Or didn’t turn me loose–Center has no rule against polygamy. Some religions there have rules for and against this and that out this mixture of cultures has endless religions and they cancel each other the way conflicting customs do. Culturologists state a “law” of religious freedom which they say is invariant: Religious freedom in a cultural complex is inversely proportional to the strength of the strongest religion. This is supposed to be one case of a general invariant, that all freedoms arise from cultural conflicts because a custom which is not opposed by its negative is mandatory and always regarded as a “law of nature.”
Rufo didn’t agree; he said his colleagues stated as equations things which are not mensurate and not definable–holes in their heads! –and that freedom was never more than a happy accident because the common jerk, all human races, hates and fears all freedom, not only for his neighbors but for himself, and stamps it out whenever possible.
Back to Topic “A”–Centrists use every sort of marriage contract. Or none. They practice domestic partnership, coition, propagation, friendship, and love–but not necessarily all at once nor with the same person. Contracts could be as complex as a corporate merger, specifying duration, purposes, duties, responsibilities, number and sex of children, genetic selection methods, whether host mothers were to be hired, conditions for canceling and options for extension–anything but “marital fidelity.” It is axiomatic there that this is unenforceable and therefore not contractual.
But marital fidelity is commoner there than it is on Earth; it simply is not legislated. They have an ancient proverb reading Women and Cats. It means: “Women and Cats do as they please, and men and dogs might as well relax to it.” It has its opposite: Men and Weather which is blunter and at least as old, since the weather has long been under control.
The usual contract is no contract; he moves his clothes into her home and stays–until she dumps them outside the door. This form is highly thought of because of its stability: A woman who “tosses his shoes” has a tough time finding another man brave enough to risk her temper.
My “contract” with Star was no more than that if contracts, laws, and customs applied to the Empress, which they did not and could not. But that was not the source of my increasing unease.
Believe me, I was not jealous.
But I was increasingly fretted by those dead men crowding her mind.
One evening as we were dressing for some whing-ding she snapped at me. I had been prattling about how I had spent my day, being tutored in mathematics, and no doubt had been as entertaining as a child reporting a day in kindergarten. But I was enthusiastic, a new world was opening to me–and Star was always patient.
But she snapped at me in a baritone voice.
I stopped cold. “You were imprinted today!”
I could feel her shift gears. “Oh, forgive me, darling! No, I’m not myself, I’m His Wisdom CLXXXII.”
I did a fast sum. “That’s fourteen you’ve taken since the Quest–and you took only seven in all the years before that. What the hell are you trying to do? Burn yourself out? Become an idiot?”
She started to scorch me. Then she answered gently, “No, I am not risking anything of the sort.”
“That isn’t what I near.”
“What you may have heard has no weight, Oscar, as no one else can judge–either my capacity, or what it means to accept an imprint. Unless you have been talking to my heir?”
“No.” I knew she had selected him and I assumed that he had taken a print or two–a standard precaution against assassination. But I hadn’t met him, didn’t want to, and didn’t know who he was.
“Then forget what you’ve been told. It is meaningless.” She sighed. “But, darling, if you don’t mind, I won’t go tonight; best I go to bed and sleep. Old Stinky CLXXXII is the nastiest person I’ve ever been–a brilliant success in a critical age, you must read about him. But inside he was a bad-tempered beast who hated the very people he helped. He’s fresh in me now, I must keep him chained.”
“Okay, let’s go to bed.”
Star shook her head. ” ‘Sleep,’ I said. I’ll use autosuggestion and by morning you won’t know he’s been here. You go to the party. Find an adventure and forget that you have a difficult wife.”
I went but I was too bad-tempered even to consider “adventures.”
Old Nasty wasn’t the worst. I can hold my own in a row–and Star, Amazon though she is, is not big enough to handle me. If she got rough, she would at last get that spanking. Nor would I fear interference from guards; that had been settled from scratch: When we two were alone together, we were private. Any third person changed that, nor did Star have privacy alone, even in her bath. Whether her guards were male or female I don’t know, nor would she have cared. Guards were never in sight. So our spats were private and perhaps did us both good, as temporary relief.
But “the Saint” was harder to take than Old Nasty. He was His Wisdom CXLI and was so goddam noble and spiritual and holier-than-thou that I went fishing for three days. Star herself was robust and full of ginger and joy in life; this bloke didn’t drink, smoke, chew gum, nor utter an unkind word. You could almost see Star’s halo while she was under his influence.
Worse, he had renounced sex when he consecrated himself to the Universes and this had a shocking effect on Star; sweet submissiveness wasn’t her style. So I went fishing.
I’ve one good thing to say for the Saint. Star says that he was the most unsuccessful emperor in all that long line, with genius for doing the wrong thing from pious motives, so she learned more from him than any other; he made every mistake in the book. He was assassinated by disgusted customers after only fifteen years, which isn’t long enough to louse up anything as ponderous as a multi-universe empire.
His Wisdom CXXXVII was a Her–and Star was absent two days. When she came home she explained. “Had to, dear. I’ve always thought I was a rowdy bitch–but she shocked even me.”
“How?”
“I ain’t talkin’, Guv’nor. I gave myself intensive treatment to bury her where you’ll never meet her.”
“I’m curious.”
“I know you are and that’s why I drove a stake through her heart–rough job, she’s my direct ancestor. But I was afraid you might like her better than you do me. That unspeakable trull!”
I’m still curious.
Most of them weren’t bad Joes. But our marriage would have been smoother if I had never known they were there. It’s easier to have a wife who is a touch batty than one who is several platoons–most of them men. To be aware of their ghostly presence even when Star’s own personality was in charge did my libido no good. But I must concede that Star knew the male viewpoint better than any other woman in any history. She didn’t have to guess what would please a man; she knew more about it than I did, from “experience”–and was explosively uninhibited about sharing her unique knowledge.
I shouldn’t complain.
But I did, I blamed her for being those other people. She endured my unjust complaints better than I endured what I felt to be the injustice in my situation vis-a-vis all that mob of ghosts.
Those ghosts weren’t the worst fly in the soup.
I did not have a job. I don’t mean nine-to-five and cut the grass on Saturdays and get drunk at the country club that night; I mean I didn’t have any purpose. Ever look at a male lion in a zoo? Fresh meat on time, females supplied, no hunters to worry about–He’s got it made, hasn’t he?
Then why does he look bored!
I didn’t know I had a problem, at first. I had a beautiful and loving wife; I was so wealthy that there was no way to count it; I lived in a most luxurious home in a city more lovely than any on Earth; everybody I met was nice to me; and best second only to my wonderful wife, I had endless chance to “go to college” in a marvelous and un-Earthly sense, with no need to chase a pigskin. Nor a sheepskin. I need never stop and had any conceivable help. I mean, suppose Albert Einstein drops everything to help with your algebra, pal, or Rand Corporation and General Electric team up to devise visual aids to make something easier for you. This is luxury greater than riches.
I soon found that I could not drink the ocean even held to my lips. Knowledge on Earth alone has grown so out of hand that no man can grasp it–so guess what the bulk is in Twenty Universes, each with its laws, its histories, and Star alone knows how many civilizations.
In a candy factory, employees are urged to eat all they want. They soon stop.
I never stopped entirely; knowledge has more variety. But my studies lacked purpose. The Secret Name of God is no more to be found in twenty universes than in one–and all other subjects are the same size unless you have a natural bent.
I had no bent, I was a dilettante–and I realized it when I saw that my tutors were bored with me. So I let most of them go, stuck with math and multi-universe history, quit trying to know it all.
I thought about going into business. But to enjoy business you must be a businessman at heart (I’m
not), or you have to need dough. I had dough; all I could do was lose it–or, if I won, I would never know whether word had gone out (from any government anywhere): Don’t buck the Empress’s consort, we will make good your losses.
Same with poker. I introduced the game and it caught on fast–and I found that I could no longer play it. Poker must be serious or it’s nothing–out when you own an ocean of money, adding or losing a few drops mean nothing.
I should explain–Her Wisdom’s “civil list” may not have been as large as the expenditures of many big spenders in Center; the place is rich. But it was as big as Star wanted it to be, a bottomless well of wealth. I don’t know how many worlds split the tab, but call it twenty thousand with three billion people each–it was more than that.
A penny each from 60,000,000,000,000 people is six hundred billion dollars. The figures mean nothing except to show that spreading it so thin that nobody could feel it still meant more money than I could dent. Star’s non-government of her un-Empire was an expense, I suppose–but her personal expenses, and mine, no matter how lavish, were irrelevant.
King Midas lost interest in his piggy bank. So did I.
Oh, I spent money. (I never touched any–unnecessary.) Our “flat” (I won’t call it a palace)–our home had a gymnasium more imaginative than any university gym; I had a salle d’armes added and did a lot of fencing, almost every day with all sorts of weapons. I ordered foils made to match the Lady Vivamus and the best swordmasters in several worlds took turns helping me. I had a range added, too, and had my bow picked up from that Gate cave in Karth-Hokesh, and trained in archery and in other aimed weapons. Oh, I spent money as I pleased.
But it wasn’t much fun.
I was sitting in my study one day, doing not a damn thing but brood, while I played with a bowlful of jewels.
I had fiddled with jewelry design a while. It had interested me in high school; I had worked for a jeweler one summer. I can sketch and was fascinated by lovely stones. He lent me books, I got others from the library–and once he made up one of my designs.
I had a Calling.
But jewelers are not draft-deferred so I dropped it–until Center.
You see, there was no way for me to give Star a present unless I made it. So I did. I made costume jewelry of real stones, studying it (expert help, as usual), sending for a lavish selection of stones, drawing designs, sending stones and drawings out to be made up.
I knew that Star enjoyed jeweled costumes; I knew she liked them naughty–not in the sense of crowding the taboos, there weren’t any–but provocative, gilding the lily, accentuating what hardly needs it.
The things I designed would have seemed at home in a French revue–but of real gems. Sapphires and gold suited Star’s blond beauty and I used them. But she could wear any color and I used other gems, too.
Star was delighted with my first try and wore it that evening. I was proud of it; I had swiped the design from memory of a costume worn by a showgirl in a Frankfurt night club my first night out of the Army–a G-string deal, transparent long skirt open from the hip on one side and with sequins on it (I used sapphires), a thing that wasn’t a bra but an emphasizer, completely jeweled, and a doohickey in her hair to match. High golden sandals with sapphire heels.
Star was warmly grateful for others that followed.
But I learned something. I’m not a jewelry designer. I saw no hope of matching the professionals who catered to the wealthy in Center. I soon realized that Star wore my designs because they were my gift, just as mama pins up the kindergarten drawings that sonny brings home. So I quit.
This bowl of gems had been kicking around my study for weeks–fire opals, sardonyx, carnelians, diamonds and turquoise and rubies, moonstones and sapphires and garnets, peridot, emeralds, chrysolite–many with no English names. I ran them through my fingers, watching the many-colored fire falls, and felt sorry for myself. I wondered how much these pretty marbles would cost on Earth? I couldn’t guess within a million dollars.
I didn’t bother to lock them up at night. And I was the bloke who had quit college for lack of tuition and hamburgers.
I pushed them aside and went to my window–there because I had told Star that I didn’t like not having a window in my study. That was on arrival and I didn’t find out for months how much had been torn down to please me; I had thought they had just cut through a wall.
It was a beautiful view, more a park than a city, studded but not cluttered with lovely buildings. It was hard to realize that it was a city bigger than Tokyo; its “bones” didn’t show and its people worked even half a planet away.
There was a murmur soft as bees, like the muted roar one can never escape in New York–but softer, just enough to make me realize that I was surrounded by people, each with his job, his purpose, his function.
My function? Consort.
Gigolo!
Star, without realizing it, had introduced prostitution into a world that had never known it. An innocent world, where man and woman bedded together only for the reason that they both wanted to.
A prince consort is not a prostitute. He has his work and it is often tedious, representing his sovereign mate, laying cornerstones, making speeches. Besides that, he has his duty as royal stud to ensure that the line does not die.
I had none of these. Not even the duty of entertaining Star–hell, within ten miles of me were millions of men who would jump at the chance.
The night before had been bad. It started badly and went on into one of those weary pillow conferences which married couples sometimes have, and aren’t as healthy as a bang-up row. We had had one, as domestic as any working stiff worried over bills and the boss.
Star had done something she had never done before: brought work home. Five men, concerned with some intergalactic hassle–I never knew what as the discussion had been going on for hours and they sometimes spoke a language not known to me.
They ignored me, I was furniture. On Center introductions are rare; if you want to talk to someone, you say “Self,” and wait. If he doesn’t answer, walk off. If he does, exchange identities. None of them did, and I was damned if I would start it. As strangers in my home it was up to them. But they didn’t act as if it was my home.
I sat there, the Invisible Man, getting madder and madder.
They went on arguing, while Star listened. Presently she summoned maids and they started undressing her, brushing her hair. Center is not America, I had no reason to feel shocked. What she was doing was being rude to them, treating them as furniture (she hadn’t missed how they treated me).
One said pettishly, “Your Wisdom, I do wish you would listen as you agreed to.” (I’ve expanded the argot.)
Star said coldly, “I am judge of my conduct. No one else is capable.”
True. She could judge her conduct, they could not. Nor, I realized bitterly, could I. I had been feeling angry at her (even though I knew it didn’t matter) for calling in her maids and starting to ready for bed with these lunks present–and I had intended to tell her not to let it happen again. I resolved not to raise that issue.
Shortly Star chopped them off. “He’s right. You’re wrong. Settle it that way. Get out.”
But I did intend to sneak it in by objecting to her bringing “tradespeople” home.
Star beat me to the punch. The instant we were alone she said, “My love, forgive me. I agreed to hear this silly mix-up and it dragged on and on, then I thought I could finish it quickly if I got them out of chairs, made them stand up here, and made clear that I was bored. I never thought they would wrangle another hour before I could squeeze out the real issue. And I knew that, if I put it over till tomorrow, they would stretch it into hours. But the problem was important, I couldn’t drop it.” She sighed. “That ridiculous man–Yet such people scramble to high places. I considered having him fool-killed. Instead I must let him correct his error, or the situation will break out anew.”
I couldn’t even hint that she had ruled the way she had out of annoyance; the man she had chewed out was the one in whose favor she had ruled. So I said, “Let’s go to bed, you’re tired”–and then didn’t have sense enough to refrain from judging her myself.
Chapter 19
We went to bed.
Presently she said, “Oscar, you are displeased.”
“I didn’t say so.”
“I feel it. Nor is it Just tonight and those tedious clowns. You have been withdrawing yourself, unhappy.” She waited.
“It’s nothing.”
“Oscar, anything which troubles you can never be ‘nothing’ to me. Although I may not realize it until I know what it is.”
“Well–I feel so damn useless!”
She put her soft, strong hand on my chest. “To me you are not useless. Why do you feel useless to yourself?”
“Well–look at this bed!” It was a bed the like of which Americans never dream; it could do everything but kiss you good night–and, like the city, it was beautiful, its bones did not show. “This sack, at home, would cost more–if they could build it–than the best house my mother ever lived in.”
She thought about that. “Would you like to send money to your mother?” She beckoned the bedside communicator. “Is Elmendorf Air Force Base of America address enough?”
(I don’t recall ever telling her where Mother lived.) “No, no!” I gestured at the talker, shutting it off. “I do not want to send her money. Her husband supports her. He won’t take money from me. That’s not the point.”
“Then I don’t see the point as yet. Beds do not matter, it is who is in a bed that counts. My darling, if you don’t like this bed, we can get another. Or sleep on the floor. Beds do not matter.”
“This bed is okay. The only thing wrong is that I didn’t pay for it. You did. This house. My clothes. The food I eat. My–my toys! Every damned thing I have you gave me. Know what I am. Star? A gigolo! Do you Know what a gigolo is? A somewhat-male prostitute.”
One of my wife’s most exasperating habits was, sometimes, to refuse to snap back at me when she knew I was spoiling for a row. She looked at me thoughtfully. “America is a busy place, isn’t it? People work all the time, especially men.”
“Well . . . yes.”
“It isn’t the custom everywhere, even on Earth. A Frenchman isn’t unhappy if he has free time; he orders another cafe au lait and lets the saucers pile up. Nor am I fond of work. Oscar, I ruined our evening from laziness, too anxious to avoid having to redo a weary task tomorrow. I will not make that mistake twice.”
“Star, that doesn’t matter. That’s over with.”
“I know. The first issue is rarely the key. Nor the second. Nor, sometimes, the twenty-second. Oscar, you are not a gigolo.”
“What do you call it? When it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and acts like a duck, I call it a duck. Call it a bunch of roses. It still quacks.”
“No. All this around us–” She waved. “Bed. This beautiful chamber. The food we eat. My clothes and yours. Our lovely pools. The night majordomo on watch against the chance that you or I might demand a singing bird or a ripe melon. Our captive gardens. All we see or touch or use or fancy–and a thousand times as much in distant places, all these you earned with your own strong hands; they are yours, by right.”
I snorted. “They are,” she insisted. “That was our contract. I promised you great adventure, and greater treasure, and even greater danger. You agreed. You said, ‘Princess, you’ve hired yourself a boy.’ ” She smiled. “Such a big boy. Darling, I think the dangers were greater than you guessed . . . so it has pleased me, until now, that the treasure is greater than you were likely to have guessed. Please don’t be shy about accepting it. You have earned it and more–as much as you are ever willing to accept”
“Uh–Even if you are right, it’s too much. I’m drowning in marshmallows!”
“But, Oscar, you don’t have to take one bit you don’t want. We can live simply. In one room with bed folded into wall if it pleases you.”
“That’s no solution.”
“Perhaps you would like bachelor digs, out in town?”
” ‘Tossing my shoes,’ eh?”
She said levelly, “My husband, if your shoes are ever tossed, you must toss them. I jumped over your
sword. I shall not jump back.” “Take it easy!” I said. “It was your suggestion. If I took it wrong, I’m sorry. I know you don t go back on your word. But you might be regretting it.”
“I am not regretting it. Are you?”
“No, Star, no! But–”
“That’s a long pause for so short a word,” she said gravely. “Will you tell me?”
“Uh . . . that’s just it. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell what, Oscar? There are so many things to tell.”
“Well, a lot of things. What I was getting into. About you being the Empress of the whole works, in particular . . . before you let me jump over the sword with you.”
Her face did not change but tears rolled down her cheeks. “I could answer that you did not ask me–”
“I didn’t know what to ask!”
“That is true. I could assert, truthfully, that had you asked I would have answered. I could protest that
I did not ‘let you’ jump over the sword, that you overruled my protests that it was not necessary to offer
me the honor of marriage by the laws of your people . . . that I was a wench you could tumble at will. I could point out that I am not an empress, not royal, but a working woman whose job does not permit her even the luxury of being noble. All these are true. But I will not hide behind them; I will meet your question.” She slipped into Nevian. “Milord Hero, I feared sorely that if I did not bend to your will, you would leave me!”
“Milady wife, truly did you think that your champion would desert you in your peril?” I went on in English, “Well, that nails it to the barn. You married me because the Egg damned well had to be recovered and Your Wisdom told you that I was necessary to the job–and might bug out if you didn’t. Well, Your Wisdom wasn’t sharp on that point; I don’t bug out. Stupid of me but I’m stubborn.” I started to get out of bed.
“Milord love!” She was dying openly.
“Excuse me. Got to find a pair of shoes. See how far I can throw them.” I was being nasty as only a man can be who has had his pride wounded.
“Please, Oscar, please! Hear me first.”
I heaved a sigh. “Talk ahead.”
She grabbed my hand so hard I would have lost fingers had I tried to pull loose. “Hear me out. My beloved, it was not that at all. I knew that you would not give up our quest until it was finished or we were dead. I knew! Not only had I reports reaching back years before I ever saw you but also we had shared joy and danger and hardship; I knew your mettle. But, had it been needed, I could have bound you with a net of words, persuaded you to agree to betrothal only–until the quest was over. You are a romantic, you would have agreed. But, darling, darling! I wanted to many you . . . bind you to me by your rules, so that”–she stopped to sniff back tears–“so that, when you saw all this, and this, and this, and the things you call ‘your toys,’ you still would stay with me. It was not politics, it was low–love romantic and unreasoned, love for your own sweet self.”
She dropped her face into her hands and I could barely hear her. “But I know so little of love. Love is a butterfly that lights when it listeth, leaves as it chooses; it is never bound with chains. I sinned. I tried to bind you. Unjust I knew it was, cruel to you I now see it to be.” Star looked up with crooked smile. “Even Her Wisdom has no wisdom when it comes to being a woman. But, though silly wench I be, I am not too stubborn to know that I have wronged my beloved when my face is rubbed in it. Go, go, get your sword; I will jump back over it and my champion will be free of his silken cage. Go, milord Hero, while my heart is firm.”
“Go fetch your own sword, wench. That paddling is long overdue.”
Suddenly she grinned, all hoyden. “But, darling, my sword is in Karth-Hokesh. Don’t you remember?”
“You can’t avoid it this time!” I grabbed her. Star is a handful and slippery, with amazing muscles. But I’m bigger and she didn’t fight as hard as she could have. Still I lost skin and picked up bruises before I got her legs pinned and one arm twisted behind her. I gave her a couple of hearty spanks, hard enough to print each finger in pink, then lost interest.
Now tell me, were those words straight from her heart–or was it acting by the smartest woman in twenty universes?
Later, Star said, “I’m glad your chest is not a scratchy rug, like some men, my beautiful.”
“I was a pretty baby, too. How many chests have you checked?”
“A random sample. Darling, have you decided to keep me?”
“A while. On good behavior, you understand.”
“I’d rather be kept on bad behavior. But–while you’re feeling mellow–if you are–I had best tell you
another thing–and take my spanking if I must.”
“You’re too anxious. One a day is maximum, hear me?”
“As you will, sir. Yassuh, Boss man. I’ll have my sword fetched in the morning and you can spank me
with it at your leisure. If you think you can catch me. But I must tell this and get it off my chest.”
“There’s nothing on your chest. Unless you count–”
“Please! You’ve been going to our therapists.”
“Once a week.” The first thing Star had ordered was an examination for me so complete as to make an Army physical seem perfunctory. “The Head Sawbones insists that my wounds aren’t healed but I don’t believe him; I’ve never felt better.”
“He, is stalling, Oscar–by my order. You’re healed, I am not unskilled, I was most careful. But–darling, I did this for selfish reasons and now you must tell me if I have been cruel and unjust to you again. I admit I was sneaky. But my intentions were good. However, I know, as the prime lesson of my profession, that good intentions are the source of more folly than all other causes put together.”
“Star, what are you prattling about? Women are the source of all folly.”
“Yes, dearest. Because they always have good intentions–and can prove it. Men sometimes act from rational self-interest, which is safer. But not often.”
“That’s because half their ancestors are female. Why have I been keeping doctor’s appointments if I don t need them?”
“I didn’t say you don’t need them. But you may not think so. Oscar, you are far advanced with
Long-Life treatments.” She eyed me as if ready to parry or retreat.
“Well, I’ll be damned!”
“You object? At this stage it can be reversed.”
“I hadn’t thought about it.” I knew that Long-Life was available on Center but knew also that it was rigidly restricted. Anybody could have it–just before emigrating to a sparsely settled planet. Permanent residents must grow old and die. This was one matter in which one of Star’s predecessors had interfered in local government. Center, with disease practically conquered, great prosperity, and lodestone of a myriad peoples, had grown too crowded, especially when Long-Life sent skyward the average age of death.
This stern rule had thinned the crowds. Some people took Long-Life early, went through a Gate and took their chances in wilderness. More waited until that first twinge that brings awareness of death, then decided that they weren’t too old for a change. And some sat tight and died when their time came.
I knew that twinge; it had been handed to me by a bolo in a jungle. “I guess I have no objection.”
She sighed with relief. “I didn’t know and should not have slipped it into your coffee. Do I rate a spanking?”
“We’ll add it to the list you already rate and give them to you all at once. Probably cripple you. Star, how long is ‘Long-Life’?”
“That’s hard to answer. Very few who have had it have died in bed. If you live as active a life as I know you will–from your temperament–you are most unlikely to die of old age. Nor of disease.”
“And I never grow old?” It takes getting used to.
“Oh, yes, you can grow old. Worse yet, senility stretches in proportion. If you let it. If those around you allow it. However–Darling, how old do I look? Don’t tell me with your heart, tell me with your eyes. By Earth standards. Be truthful, I know the answer.”
It was ever a joy to look at Star but I tried to look at her freshly, for hints of autumn–outer corners of eyes, her hands, for tiny changes in skin–hell, not even a stretch mark, yet I knew she had a grandchild.
“Star, when I first saw you, I guessed eighteen. You turned around and I upped the ante a little. Now, looking closely and not giving you any breaks–not over twenty-five. And that is because your features seem mature. When you laugh, you’re a teen-ager; when you wheedle, or look awestruck, or suddenly delighted with a puppy or kitten or something, you’re about twelve. From the chin up, I mean; from the chin down you can’t pass for less than eighteen.”
“A buxom eighteen,” she added. “Twenty-five Earth years–by rates of growth on Earth–is right on the mark I was shooting at. The age when a woman stops growing and starts aging. Oscar, your apparent age under Long-Life is a matter of choice. Take my Uncle Joseph–the one who sometimes calls himself ‘Count Cagliostro.’ He set himself at thirty-five, because he says that anything younger is a boy. Rufo prefers to look older. He says it gets him respectful treatment, keeps him out of brawls with lounger men–and still lets him give a younger man a shock if one does pick a fight because, as you know, Rufo’s older age is mostly from chin up.”
“Or the shock he can give younger women,” I suggested.
“With Rufo one never knows. Dearest, I didn’t finish telling you. Part of it is teaching the body to repair itself. Your language lessons here–there hasn’t been a one but what a hypno-therapist was waiting to give your body a lesson through your sleeping mind, after your language lesson. Part of apparent age is cosmetic therapy–Rufo need not be bald–but more is controlled by the mind. When you decide what age you like, they can start imprinting it.”
“I’ll think about it. I don’t want to look too much older than you.”
Star looked delighted. “Thank you, dear! You see how selfish I’ve been.”
“How? I missed that point.”
She put a hand over mine. “I didn’t want you to grow old–and die! –while I stayed young.” I blinked at her. “Gosh, lady, that was selfish of you, wasn’t it? But you could varnish me and keep me in the bedroom. Like your aunt.”
She made a face. “You’re a nasty man. She didn’t varnish them.”
“Star, I haven’t seen any of those keepsake corpses around here.”
She looked surprised. “But that’s on the planet where I was born. This universe, another star. Very pretty place. Didn’t I ever say?”
“Star, my darling, mostly you’ve never said.”
“I’m sorry. Oscar, I don’t want to hand you surprises. Ask me. Tonight. Anything.”
I considered it. One thing I had wondered about, a certain lack. Or perhaps the women of her part of
the race had another rhythm. But I had been stopped by the fact that I had married a grandmother–how old? “Star, are you pregnant?”
“Why, no, dear. Oh! Do you want me to be? You want us to have children?”
I stumbled, trying to explain that I hadn’t been sure it was possible–or maybe she was. Star looked troubled. “I’m going to upset you again. I had best tell it all. Oscar, I was no more brought up to luxury than you were. A pleasant childhood, my people were ranchers. I married young and was a simple mathematics teacher, with a hobby research in conjectural and optional geometries. Magic, I mean. Three children. My husband and I got along well . . . until I was nominated. Not selected, just named for examination and possible training. He knew I was a genetic candidate when he married me–but so many millions are. It didn’t seem important.
“He wanted me to refuse. I almost did. But when I accepted, he–well, he ‘tossed my shoes.’ We do it formally there; he published a notice that I was no longer his wife.”
“He did, eh? Mind if I look him up and break his arms?”
“Dear, dear! That was many years ago and far away; he is long dead. It doesn’t matter.”
“In any case he’s dead. Your three kids–one of them is Rufo’s father? Or mother?”
“Oh, no! That was later.”
“Well?”
Star took a deep breath. “Oscar, I have about fifty children.”
That did it. Too many shocks and I guess I showed it, for Star’s face reflected deep concern. She
rushed through the explanation.
When she was named heir, changes were made in her, surgical, biochemical, and endocrinal. Nothing
as drastic as spaying and to different ends and by techniques more subtle than ours. But the result was
that about two hundred tiny bits of Star–ova alive and latent–were stored near absolute zero.
Some fifty had been quickened, mostly by emperors long dead but “alive” in their stored seed–genetic gambles on getting one or more future emperors. Star had not borne them; an heir’s time is too precious. She had never seen most of them; Rufo’s father was an exception. She didn’t say, but I think Star liked to have a child around to play with and love–until the strenuous first years of her reign and the Quest for the Egg left her no time.
This change had a double purpose: to get some hundreds of star-line children from a single mother, and to leave the mother free. By endocrine control of some sort, Star was left free of Eve’s rhythm but in all ways young–not pills nor hormone injections; this was permanent. She was simply a healthy woman who never had “bad days.” This was not for her convenience but to insure that her judgment as the Great Judge would never be whipsawed by her glands. “This is sensible,” she said seriously. “I can remember there used to be days when I would bite the head off my dearest friend for no reason, then burst into tears. One can’t be judicial in that sort of storm.”
“Uh, did it affect your interest? I mean your desire for–”
She gave me a hearty grin. “What do you think?” She added seriously, “The only thing that affects my libido–changes it for the worse, I mean–are . . . is? –English has the oddest structure–is-are those pesky imprintings. Sometimes up, sometimes down–and you’ll remember one woman whose name we won’t mention who affected me so carnivorously that I didn’t dare come near you until I had exorcised her black soul! A fresh imprint affects my judgment as well, so I never hear a case until I have digested the latest one. I’ll be glad when they’re over!”
“So will I.”
“Not as glad as I will be. But, aside from that, darling, I don t vary much as a female and you know it. Just my usual bawdy self who eats young boys for breakfast and seduces them into jumping over swords.” “How many swords?”
She looked at me sharply. “Since my first husband kicked me out I have not been married until I married you, Mr. Gordon. If that is not what you meant, I don’t think you should hold against me things that happened before you were born. If you want details since then, I’ll satisfy your curiosity. Your morbid curiosity, if I may say so.”
“You want to boast. Wench, I won’t pamper it.”
“I do not want to boast! I’ve little to boast about. The Crisis of the Egg left me almost no time in which to be a woman, damn it! Until Oscar the Rooster came along. Thank you, sir.”
“And keep a civil tongue in your head.”
“Yes, sir. Nice Rooster! But you’ve led us far from our muttons, dear. If you want children–yes, darling! There are about two hundred and thirty eggs left and they belong to me. Not to posterity. Not to the dear people, bless their greedy little hearts. Not to those God-playing genetic manipulators. Me! It’s all I own. All else is ex offico. But these are mine . . . and if you want them, they are yours, my only dear.”
I should have said, “Yes!” and kissed her. What I did say was, “Uh, let’s not rush it.”
Her face fell. “As milord Hero husband pleases.”
“Look, don’t get Nevian and formal. I mean, well, it takes getting used to. Syringes and things, I suppose, and monkeying by technicians. And, while I realize you don’t have time to have a baby yourself–”
I was trying to say that, ever since I got straightened out about the Stork, I had taken for granted the usual setup, and artificial insemination was a dirty trick to play even on a cow–and that this job, subcontracted on both sides, made me think of slots in a Horn & Hardart, or a mail-order suit. But give me time and I would adjust. Just as she had adjusted to those damned imprints-
She gripped my hands. “Darling, you needn’t!”
“Needn’t what?”
“Be monkeyed with by technicians. And I will take time to have your baby. If you don’t mind seeing my body get gross and huge–it does, it does, I remember–then happily I will do it. All will be as with other people so far as you are concerned. No syringes. No technicians. Nothing to offend your pride. Oh, I’ll have to be worked on. But I’m used to being handled like a prize cow; it means no more than having my hair shampooed.”
“Star, you would go through nine months of inconvenience–and maybe die in childbirth–to save me a few moments’ annoyance?”
“I shall not die, Three children, remember? Normal deliveries, no trouble.”
“But, as you pointed out, that was ‘many years ago.’ ”
“No matter.”
“Uh, how many years?” (“How old are you, woman?” The question I never dared ask.)
She looked upset. “Does it matter, Oscar?”
“Uh, I suppose not. You know more about medicine than I do–”
She said slowly, “You were asking how old I am, were you not?”
I didn’t say anything. She waited, then went on, “An old saw from your world says that a woman is as young as she feels. And I feel young and I am young and I have zest for life and I can bear a baby–or many babies–m my own belly. But I know–oh, I know! –that your worry is not just that I am too rich and occupy a position not easy for a husband. Yes, I know that part too well; my first husband rejected me for that. But be was my age. The most cruel and unjust thing I have done is that I knew that my age could matter to you–and I kept still. That was why Rufo was so outraged. After you were asleep that night in the cave of the Forest of Dragons he told me so, in biting words. He said he knew I was not above enticing young boys but he never thought that I would sink so low as to trap one into marriage without first telling him. He’s never had a high opinion of his old granny, he said, but this time–”
“Shut up, Star!”
“Yes, milord.”
“It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference!”–and I said it so flatly that I believed it–and do now. “Rufo doesn’t know what I think. You are younger than tomorrow’s dawn–you always will be. That’s the last I want to hear about it!”
“Yes, milord.”
“And knock that off, too. Just say, ‘Okay, Oscar.’ ”
“Yes, Oscar! Okay!”
“Better. Unless you’re honing for another spanking. And I’m too tired.” I changed the subject. “About this other matter–There’s no reason to stretch your pretty tummy if other ways are at hand. I’m a country jake, that’s all; I’m not used to big city ways. When you suggested that you do it yourself, did you mean that they could put you back together the way you were?”
“No. I would simply be host-mother as well as genetic mother.” She smiled and I knew I was making progress. “But saving a tidy sum of that money you don’t want to spend. Those healthy, sturdy women who have other people’s babies charge high. Four babies, they can retire–ten makes them wealthy.”
“I should think they would charge high! Star, I don’t object to spending money. I’ll concede, if you say so, that I’ve earned more than I spend, by my work as a professional hero. That’s a tough racket, too.”
“You’ve earned it.”
“This citified way of having babies–Can you pick it? Boy, or girl?”
“Of course. Male-giving wigglers swim faster, they can be sorted out. That’s why Wisdoms are usually men–I was an unplanned candidate. You shall have a son, Oscar.”
“Might prefer a girl. I’ve a weakness for little girls.”
“A boy, a girl–or both. Or as many as you want.”
“Star, let me study it. Lots of angles–and I don’t think as well as you do.”
“Pooh!”
“If you don’t think better than I do, the cash customers are getting rooked. Mmm, male seed can be stored as easily as eggs?”
“Much easier.”
“That’s all the answer we need now. I’m not too jumpy about syringes; I’ve stood in enough Army queues. I’ll go to the clinic or whatever it is, then we can settle it slowly. When we decide”–I shrugged–“mail the postcard and when it goes clunk! –we’re parents. Or some such. From there on the technicians and those husky gals can handle it.”
“Yes, milo–Okay, darling!”
All better. Almost her little girl face. Certainly her sixteen-year-old face, with new party dress and boys a shivery, delightful danger. “Star, you said earlier that it was often not the second issue out even the twenty-second that matters.”
“Yes.”
“I know what’s wrong with me. I can tell you–and maybe Her Wisdom knows the answer.”
She blinked. “If you can tell me, sweetheart–Her Wisdom will solve it, even if I have to tear the place down and put it back up differently–from here to the next galaxy–or I’ll go out of the Wisdom business!”
“That sounds more like my Lucky Star. All right, it’s not that I’m a gigolo. I’ve earned my coffee and cakes, at least; the Soul-Eater did damn near eat my soul, he knew its exact shape–he . . . it–it knew things I had long forgotten. It was rough and the pay ought to be high. It’s not your age, dearest. Who cares how old Helen of Troy is? You’re the right age forever–can a man be luckier? I’m not jealous of your position; I wouldn’t want it with chocolate icing. I’m not jealous of the men in your life–the lucky stiffs! Not even now, as long as I don’t stumble over them getting to the bathroom.”
“There are no other men in my life now, milord husband.”
“I had no reason to think so. But there is always next week, and even you can’t have a Sight about
that, my beloved. You’ve taught me that marriage is not a form of death–and you obviously aren’t dead, you lively wench.”
“Perhaps not a Sight,” she admitted. “But a feeling.”
“I won’t bet on it. I’ve read the Kinsey Report.”
“What report?”
“He disproved the Mermaid theory. About married women. Forget it. Hypothetical question: If Jocko visited Center, would you still have the same feeling? We should have to invite him to sleep here.”
“The Doral will never leave Nevia.”
“Don’t blame him, Nevia is wonderful. I said If–If he does, will you offer him ‘roof, table, and bed’?”
“That,” she said firmly, “is your decision, milord.”
“Rephrase it: Will you expect me to humiliate Jocko by not returning his hospitality? Gallant old Jocko, who let us live when he was entitled to kill us? Whose bounty–arrows and many things, including a new medic’s kit–kept us alive and let us win back the Egg?”
“By Nevian customs of roof and table and bed,” she insisted, “the husband decides, milord husband.”
“We aren’t in Nevia and here a wife has a mind of her own. You’re dodging, wench.”
She grinned naughtily. “Does that ‘if’ of yours include Muri? And Letva? They’re his favorites, he
wouldn’t travel without them. And how about little what’s-her-name? –the nymphet?”
“I am aware of it, my Hero,” she said levelly. “All I can say is that I intend that this wench shall never give her Hero a moment’s unease–and my intentions are usually carried out. I am not ‘Her Wisdom’ for nothing.”
“Fair enough. I never thought you would cause me that sort of unease. I was trying to show that the task may not be too difficult. Damn it, we’ve wandered off. Here’s my real problem. I’m not good for anything. I’m worthless.”
“Why, my dearest! You’re good for me.”
“But not for myself. Star, gigolo or not, I can’t be a pet poodle. Not even yours. Look, you’ve got a job. It keeps you busy and it’s important. But me? There is nothing for me to do, nothing at all! –nothing better than designing bad jewelry. You know what I am? A hero by trade, so you told me; you recruited me. Now I’m retired. Do you know anything in all twenty universes more useless than a retired hero?”
She mentioned a couple. I said, “You’re stalling. Anyhow they break up the blankness of the male chest. I’m serious, Star. This is the issue that has made me unfit to live with. Darling, I’m asking you to put your whole mind on it–and all those ghostly helpers. Treat it the way you treat an Imperial problem. Forget I’m your husband. Consider my total situation, all you know about me–and tell me what I can do with hands and head and time that is worth doing. Me, being what I am.”
She held still for long minutes, her face in that professional calm she had worn the times I had audited her work. “You are right,” she said at last. “There is nothing worth your powers on this planet.”
“Then what do I do?”
She said tonelessly, “You must leave.”
“Huh?”
“You think I like the answer, my husband? Do you think I like most answers I must give? But you asked me to consider it professionally. I obeyed. That is the answer. You must leave this planet–and me.”
“So my shoes get tossed anyhow?”
“Be not bitter, milord. That is the answer. I can evade and be womanish only in my private life; I cannot refuse to think if I agree to do so as ‘Her Wisdom.’ You must leave me. But, no, no, no, your shoes are not tossed! You will leave, because you must. Not because I wish it.” Her face stayed calm but tears streamed again. “One cannot ride a cat . . . nor hurry a snail . . . nor teach a snake to fly. Nor make a poodle of a Hero. I knew it, I refused to look at it. You will do what you must do. But your shoes will remain ever by my bed, I am not sending you away!” She blinked back tears. “I cannot lie to you, even by silence. I will not say that no other shoes will rest here . . . if you are gone a long time. I have been lonely. There are no words to say how lonely this job is. When you go . . . I shall be lonelier than ever. But you will find your shoes here when you return.”
“When I return? You have a Sight?”
“No, milord Hero. I have only a feeling . . . that if you live . . . you will return. Perhaps many times. But Heroes do not die in bed. Not even this one.” She blinked and tears stopped and her voice was steady. “Now, milord husband, if it please you, shall we dim the lights and rest?”
We did and she put her head on my shoulder and did not cry. But we did not sleep. After an aching time I said, “Star, do you hear what I hear?”
She raised her head. “I hear nothing.”
“The City. Can’t you hear it? People. Machines. Even thoughts so thick your bones feel it and your ear almost catches it.”
“Yes. I know that sound.”
“Star, do you like it here?”
“No. It was never necessary that I like it.”
“Look, damn it! You said that I would leave. Come with me!”
“Oh, Oscar!”
“What do you owe them? Isn’t recovering the Egg enough? Let them take a new victim. Come walk the Glory Road with me again! There must be work in my line somewhere.”
“There is always work for Heroes.”
“Okay, we set up in business, you and I. Heroing isn’t a bad job. The meals are irregular and the pay uncertain–out it’s never dull. We’ll run ads: ‘Gordon & Gordon, Heroing Done Reasonable. No job too large, no job too small. Dragons exterminated by contract, satisfaction guaranteed or no pay. Free estimates on other work. Questing, maiden-rescuing, golden fleece located night or day?’ ”
I was trying to jolly her but Star doesn’t jolly. She answered in sober earnest. “Oscar, if I am to retire, I should train my heir first. True, no one can order me to do anything–but I have a duty to train my replacement.”
“How long will that take?”
“Not long. Thirty years, about.”
“Thirty years!”
“I could force it to twenty-five, I think.”
I sighed. “Star, do you know how old I am?”
“Yes. Not yet twenty-five. But you will get no older!”
“But right now I’m still that age. That’s all the time there has ever been for me. Twenty-five years as a pet poodle and I won’t be a hero, nor anything. I’ll be out of my silly mind.”
She thought about it. “Yes. That is true.”
She turned over, we made a spoon and pretended to sleep.
Later I felt her shoulders shaking and knew that she was sobbing. “Star?”
She didn’t turn her head. All I heard was a choking voice, “Oh, my dear, my very dear! If I were even a hundred years younger!”
Chapter 20
I let the precious, useless gems dribble through my fingers, listlessly pushed them aside. If I were only a hundred years older-
But Star was right. She could not leave her post without relief. Her notion of proper relief, not mine nor anyone else’s. And I couldn’t stay in this upholstered jail much longer without beating my head on the bars.
Yet both of us wanted to stay together.
The real nasty hell of it was that I knew–just as she knew–that each of us would forget. Some, anyhow. Enough so that there would be other shoes, other men, and she would laugh again.
And so would I–She had seen that and had gravely, gently, with subtle consideration for another’s feelings, told me indirectly that I need not feel guilty when next I courted some other girl, in some other land, somewhere.
Then why did I feel like a heel?
How did I get trapped with no way to turn without being forced to choose between hurting my beloved and going clean off my rocker?
I read somewhere about a man who lived on a high mountain, because of asthma, the choking, killing land, while his wife lived on the coast below him, because of heart trouble that could not stand altitude. Sometimes they looked at each other through telescopes.
In the morning there had been no talk of Stars retiring. The unstated quid-pro-quo was that, if she planned to retire, I would hang around (thirty years!) until she did. Her Wisdom had concluded that I could not, and did not speak of it. We had a luxurious breakfast and were cheerful, each with his secret thoughts.
Nor were children mentioned. Oh, I would find that clinic, do what was needed. If she wanted to mix
her star line with my common blood, she could, tomorrow or a hundred years hence. Or smile tenderly
and have it cleaned out with the rest of the trash. None of my people had even been mayor of Podunk
and a plow horse isn’t groomed for the Irish Sweepstakes. If Star put a child together from our genes, it
would be sentiment, a living valentine–a younger poodle she could pet before she let it run free. But
sentiment only, as sticky if not as morbid as that of her aunt with the dead husbands, for the Imperium
could not use my bend sinister.
I looked up at my sword, hanging opposite me. I hadn’t touched it since the party, long past, when Star chose to dress for the Glory Road. I took it down, buckled it on and drew it–felt that surge of liveness and had a sudden vision of a long road and a castle on a hill.
What does a champion owe his lady when the quest is done?
Quit dodging, Gordon! What does a husband owe his wife? This very sword–“Jump Rogue and Princess leap. My wife art thou and mine to keep.” “–for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse . . . to love and to cherish, till death do us part.” That was what I meant by that doggerel and Star had known it and I had known it and knew it now.
When we vowed, it had seemed likely that we would be parted by death that same day. But that didn’t reduce the vow nor the deepness with which I had meant it. I hadn’t jumped the sword to catch a tumble on the grass before I died; I could have had that free. No, I had wanted “–to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, till death do us part”!
Star had kept her vow to the letter. Why did I have itchy feet?
Scratch a hero and find a bum.
And a retired hero was as silly as those out-of-work kings that clutter Europe.
I slammed out of our “flat,” wearing sword and not giving a damn about stares, apported to our therapists, found where I should go, went there, did what was necessary, told the boss biotechnician that Her Wisdom must be told, and jumped down his throat when he asked questions.
Then back to the nearest apport booth and hesitated–I needed companionship the way an Alcoholics-Anonymous needs his hand held. But I had no intimates, just hundreds of acquaintances. It isn’t easy for the Empress’s cosort to have friends.
Rufo it had to be. But in all the months I had been on Center I had never been in Rufo’s home. Center does not practice the barbarous custom of dropping in on people and I had seen Rufo only at the Residence, or on parties; Rufo had never invited me to his home. No, no coldness there; we saw him often, but always he had come to us.
I looked for him in apport listings–no luck. Then as little with see-speak lists. I called the Residence, got the communication officer. He said that “Rufo” was not a surname and tried to brush me off. I said, “Hold it, you overpaid clerk! Switch me off and you’ll be in charge of smoke signals in Timbuktu an hour from now. Now listen. This bloke is elderly, baldheaded, one of his names is ‘Rufo’ I think, and he is a distinguished comparative culturologist. And he is a grandson of Her Wisdom. I think you know who he is and have been dragging your feet from bureaucratic arrogance. You have five minutes. Then I talk to Her Wisdom and ask her, while you pack!”
(“Stop! Danger you! Other old bald Rufo (?) top compculturist. Wisdom egg-sperm-egg. Five-minutes. Liar and/or fool. Wisdom? Catastrophe!”)
In less than five minutes Rufo’s image filled the tank. “Well!” he said. “I wondered who had enough weight to crash my shutoff.”
“Rufo, may I come see you?”
His scalp wrinkled. “Mice in the pantry, son? Your face reminds me of the time my uncle–”
“Please, Rufo!”
“Yes, son,” he said gently. “I’ll send the dancing girls home. Or shall I keep them?”
“I don’t care. How do I find you?”
He told me, I punched his code, added my charge number, and I was there, a thousand miles around the horizon. Rufo’s place was a mansion as lavish as Jocko’s and thousands of years more sophisticated. I gathered an impression that Rufo had the biggest household on Center, all female. I was wrong. But all female servants, visitors, cousins, daughters, made themselves a reception committee–to look at Her Wisdom’s bedmate. Rufo shooed them away and took me to his study. A dancing girl (evidently a secretary) was fussing over papers and tapes. Rufo slapped her fanny out, gave me a comfortable chair, a drink, put cigarettes near me, sat down and said nothing.
Smoking isn’t popular on Center, what they use as tobacco is the reason. I picked up a cigarette.
“Chesterfields! Good God!”
“Have ’em smuggled,” he said. “But they don’t make anything like Sweet Caps anymore. Bridge sweepings and chpped hay.”
I hadn’t smoked in months. But Star had told me that cancer and such I could now forget. So I lit it–and coughed like a Nevian dragon. Vice requires constant practice.
” ‘What news on the Rialto?’ ” Rufo inquired. He glanced at my sword.
“Oh, nothing.” Having interrupted Rufo’s work, I now shied at baring my domestic troubles.
Rufo sat and smoked and waited. I needed to say something and the American cigarette reminded me of an incident, one that had added to my unstable condition. At a party a week earlier, I had met a man thirty-five in appearance, smooth, polite, but with that supercilious air that says: “Your fly is unzipped, old man, but I’m too urbane to mention it.”
But I had been delighted to meet him, he had spoken English!
I had thought that Star, Rufo, and myself were the only ones on Center who spoke English. We often spoke it. Star on my account, Rufo because he liked to practice. He spoke Cockney like a costermonger, Bostonese like Beacon Hill, Aussie like a kangaroo; Rufo knew all English languages.
This chap spoke good General American. “Nebbi is the name, he said, shaking hands where no one shakes hands, “and you’re Gordon, I know. Delighted to meet you.”
“Me, too,” I agreed. “It’s a surprise and a pleasure to hear my own language.”
“Professional knowledge, my dear chap. Comparative culturologist, linguisto-historo-political. You’re American, I know. Let me place it–Deep-South, not born there. Possibly New England. Overlaid with displaced Middle Western, California perhaps. Basic speech, lower-middle class, mixed.”
The smooth oaf was good. Mother and I lived in Boston while my father was away, 1942-45. I’ll never forget those winters; I wore overshoes from November to April. I had lived Deep South, Georgia and Florida, and in California at La Jolla during the Korean unWar and, later, in college. “Lower-middle class”? Mother had not thought so.
“Near enough,” I agreed. “I know one of your colleagues.”
“I know whom you mean, ‘the Mad Scientist.’ Wonderful wacky theories. But tell me: How were things when you left? Especially, how is the United States getting along with its Noble Experiment?”
” ‘Noble Experiment’?” I had to think; Prohibition was gone before I was born. “Oh, that was repealed.”
“Really? I must go back for a field trip. What have you now? A king? I could see that your country was headed that way but I did not expect it so soon.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “I was talking about Prohibition.”
“Oh, that. Symptomatic but not basic. I was speaking of the amusing notion of chatter rule. ‘Democracy.’ A curious delusion–as if adding zeros could produce a sum. But it was tried in your tribal land on a mammoth scale. Before you were born, no doubt. I thought you meant that even the corpse had been swept away.” He smiled. “Then they still have elections and all that?”
“The last time I looked, yes.”
“Oh, wonderful. Fantastic, simply fantastic. Well, we must get together, I want to quiz you. I’ve been studying your planet a long time–the most amazing pathologies in tile explored complex. So long. Don’t take any wooden nickels, as your tribesmen say.”
I told Rufo about it. “Rufe, I know I came from a barbarous planet. But does that excuse his rudeness? Or was it rudeness? I haven’t really got the hang of good manners here.”
Rufo frowned. “It is bad manners anywhere to sneer at a person’s birthplace, tribe, or customs. A man does it at his own risk. If you kill him, nothing will happen to you. It might embarrass Her Wisdom a little. If She can be embarrassed.”
“I won’t kill him, it’s not that important.”
“Then forget it. Nebbi is a snob. He knows a little, understands nothing, and thinks the universes would be better if he had designed them. Ignore him.”
“I will. It was just–look, Rufo, my country isn’t perfect. But I don t enjoy hearing it from a stranger.”
“Who does? I like your country, it has flavor. But–I’m not a stranger and this is not a sneer. Nebbi was right.”
“Huh?”
“Except that he sees only the surface. Democracy can’t work. Mathematicians, peasants, and animals, that’s all there is–so democracy, a theory based on the assumption that mathematicians and peasants are equal, can never work. Wisdom is not additive; its maximum is that of the wisest man in a given group.
“But a democratic form of government is okay, as long as it doesn’t work. Any social organization does well enough if it isn’t rigid. The framework doesn’t matter as long as there is enough looseness to permit that one man in a multitude to display his genius. Most so-called social scientists seem to think that organization is everything. It is almost nothing–except when it is a straitjacket. It is the incidence of heroes that counts, not the pattern of zeros.”
He added, “Your country has a system free enough to let its heroes work at their trade. It should last a long time–unless its looseness is destroyed from inside.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am right. This subject I know and I’m not stupid, as Nebbi thinks. He’s right about the futility of ‘adding zeros’–but he doesn’t realize that he is a zero.”
I grinned. “No point in letting a zero get my goat.”
“None. Especially as you are not. Wherever you go, you will make yourself felt, you won’t be one of the nerd. I respect you, and I don’t respect many. Never people as a whole, I could never be a democrat at heart. To claim to ‘respect’ and even to ‘love’ the great mass with their yaps at one end and smelly feet at the other requires the fatuous, uncritical, saccharine, blind, sentimental slobbishness found in some nursery supervisors, most spaniel dogs, and all missionaries. It isn’t a political system, it’s a disease. But be of good cheer; your American politicians are immune to this disease . . . and your customs allow the non-zero elbow room.”
Rufo glanced at my sword again. “Old friend, you didn’t come here to bitch about Nebbi.” “No.” I looked down at that keen blade. “I fetched this to shave you, Rufo.”
“Eh?”
“I promised I would shave your corpse. I owe it to you for the slick job you did on me. So here I am,
to shave the barber.”
He said slowly, “But I’m not yet a corpse.” He did not move. But his eyes did, estimating distance between us. Rufo wasn’t counting on my being “chivalrous”; he had lived too long.
“Oh, that can be arranged,” I said cheerfully, “unless I get straight answers from you.”
He relaxed a touch. “I’ll try, Oscar.”
“More than try, please. You’re my last chance. Rufo, this must be private. Even from Star.”
“Under the Rose. My word on it.”
“With your fingers crossed, no doubt. But don’t risk it, I’m serious. And straight answers, I need them. I want advice about my marriage.”
He looked glum. “And I meant to go out today. Instead I worked. Oscar, I would rather criticize a woman’s firstborn, or even her taste in hats. Much safer to teach a shark to bite. What if I refuse?”
“Then I shave you!”
“You would, you heavy-handed headsman!” He frowned. ” ‘Straight answers–‘ You don’t want them, you want a shoulder to cry on.”
“Maybe that, too. But I do want straight answers, not the lies you can tell in your sleep.”
“So I lose either way. Telling a man the truth about his marriage is suicide. I think I’ll sit tight and see if
you have the heart to cut me down in cold blood.”
“Oh, Rufo, I’ll put my sword under your lock and key if you like. You know I would never draw against you.”
“I know no such thing,” he said querulously. “There’s always that first time. Scoundrels are predictable, but you’re a man of honor and that frightens me. Can’t we handle this over the see-speak?”
“Come off it, Rufo. I’ve nobody else to turn to. I want you to speak frankly. I know that a marriage counselor has to lay it on the line, pull no punches. For the sake of blood we’ve lost together I ask you to advise me. And frankly, of course!”
” ‘Of course,’ is it? The last time I risked it you were for cutting the tongue out of me.” He looked at me moodily. “But I was ever a fool where friendship speaks. Hear, I’ll dicker ye a fair dicker. You talk, I’ll listen . . . and if it should come about that you’re taking so long that my tired old kidneys complain and I’m forced to leave your welcome company for a moment . . . why, then you’ll misunderstand and go away in a huff and we’ll say no more about it. Eh?”
“Okay.”
“The Chair recognizes you. Proceed.”
So I talked. I talked out my dilemma and frustration, sparing neither self nor Star (it was for her sake, too, and it wasn’t necessary to speak of our most private matters; those, at least, were dandy). But I told our quarrels and many matters best kept in the family, I had to.
Rufo listened. Presently he stood up and paced, looking troubled. Once he tut-tutted over the men Star had brought home. “She shouldn’t have called her maids in. But do forget it, lad. She never remembers that men are shy, whereas females merely have customs. Allow Her this.”
Later he said, “No need to be jealous of Jocko, son. He drives a tack with a sledgehammer.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“That’s what Menelaus said. But leave room for give and take. Every marriage needs it.”
Finally I ran down, having told him Star’s prediction that I would leave. “I’m not blaming her for anything and talking about it has straightened me out. I can sweat it out now, behave myself, and be a good husband. She does make terrible sacrifices to do her job–and the least I can do is make it easier. She’s so sweet and gentle and good.”
Rufo stopped, some distance away with his back to his desk. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
“She’s an old bag!”
I was out of my chair and at him at once. I didn’t draw. Didn’t think of it, wouldn’t have anyhow. I wanted to get my hands on him and punish him for talking that way about my beloved.
He bounced over the desk like a ball and by the time I covered the length of the room, Rufo was behind it, one hand in a drawer.
“Naughty, naughty,” he said. “Oscar, I don’t want to shave you.”
“Come out and fight like a man!”
“Never, old friend. One step closer and you’re dog meat. All your fine promises, your pleadings. ‘Pull no punches’ you said. ‘Lay it on the line’ you said. ‘Speak frankly’ you said. Sit down in that chair.”
” ‘Speaking frankly’ doesn’t mean being insulting!”
“Who’s to judge? Can I submit my remains for approval before I make them? Don’t compound your broken promises with childish illogic. And would you force me to buy a new rug? I never keep one I’ve killed a friend on; the stains make me gloomy. Sit down in that chair.”
I sat down.
“Now,” said Rufo, staying where he was, “you will listen while I talk. Or perhaps you will get up and walk out. In which case I might be so pleased to see the last of your ugly face that that might be that. Or I might be so annoyed at being interrupted that you would drop dead in the doorway, for I’ve much pent up and ready to spill over. Suit yourself.
“I said,” he went on, “that my grandmother is an old bag. I said it brutally, to discharge your tension–and now you’re not likely to take too much offense at many offensive things I still must say. She’s old, you know that, though no doubt you find it easy to forget, mostly. I forget it myself, mostly, even though She was old when I was a babe making messes on the floor and crowing at the dear sight of Her. Bag, She is, and you know it. I could have said ‘experienced woman’ but I had to rap your teeth with it; you’ve been dodging it even while you’ve been telling me how well you know it–and how you don’t care. Granny is an old bag, we start from there.
“And why should She be anything else? Tell yourself the answer. You’re not a fool, you’re merely young. Ordinarily She has but two possible pleasures and the other She can’t indulge.”
“What’s the other one?”
“Handing down bad decisions through sadistic spite, that’s the one She dare not indulge. So let us be thankful that Her body has built into it this harmless safety valve, else we would all suffer grievously before somebody managed to kill Her. Lad, dear lad, can you dream how mortal tired She must be of most things? Your own zest soured in only months. Think what it must be to hear the same old weary mistakes year after year with nothing to hope for but a clever assassin. Then be thankful that She still pleasures in one innocent pleasure. So She’s an old bag and I mean no disrespect; I salute a beneficent balance between two things She must be to do her job.
“Nor did She stop being what She is by reciting a silly rhyme with you one bright day on a hilltop. You think She has taken a vacation from it since, sticking to you only. Possibly She has, if you have quoted Her exactly and I read the words rightly; She always tells the truth.
“But never all the truth–who can? –and She is the most skillful liar by telling the truth you’ll ever meet. I misdoubt your memory missed some innocent-sounding word that gave an escape yet saved your feelings.
“If so, why should She do more than save your feelings? She’s fond of you, that’s dear–but must She be fanatic about it? All Her training, Her special bent, is to avoid fanaticism always, find practical answers. Even though She may not have mixed up the shoes, as yet, if you stay on a week or a year or twenty and time comes when She wants to. She can find ways, not lie to you in words–and hurt Her conscience not at all because She hasn’t any. Just Wisdom, utterly pragmatic.”
Rufo cleared his throat. “Now refutation and counterpoint and contrariwise. I like my grandmother and love Her as much as my meager nature permits and respect Her right down to Her sneaky soul–and I’ll kill you or anyone who gets in Her way or causes Her unhappiness–and only part of this is that She has handed on to me a shadow of Her own self so that I understand Her. If She is spared assassins knife or blast or poison long enough, She’ll go down in history as ‘The Great.’ But you spoke of Her ‘terrible sacrifices.’ Ridiculous! She likes being ‘Her Wisdom,’ the Hub around which all worlds turn. Nor do I believe that She would give it up for you or fifty better. Again, She didn’t lie, as you’ve told it–She said ‘if’ . . . knowing that much can happen in thirty year’s, or twenty-five, among which is the near certainty that you wouldn’t stay that long. A swindle.
“But that’s the least of swindles She’s put over on you. She conned you from the moment you first saw Her and long before. She cheated both ways from the ace, forced you to pick the shell with the pea, sent you like any mark anxious for the best of it, cooled you off when you started to suspect, herded you back into line and to your planned fate–and made you like it. She’s never fussy about method and would con the Virgin Mary and make a pact with the Old One all in one breath, did it suit Her purpose. Oh, you got paid, yes, and good measure to boot; there’s nothing small about Her. But its time you knew you were conned. Mind you, I’m not criticizing Her, I’m applauding–and I helped . . . save for one queasy moment when I felt sorry for the victim. But you were so conned you wouldn’t listen, thank any saints who did. I lost my nerve for a bit, thinking that you were going to a sticky death with your innocent eyes wide. But She was smarter than I am. She always has been.
“Now! I like Her. I respect Her. I admire Her. I even love Her a bit. All of Her, not just Her pretty aspects but also all the impurities that make Her steel as hard as it must be. How about you, sir? What’s your feeling about Her now . . . knowing She conned you, knowing what She is?”
I was still sitting. My drink was by me, untouched all this long harangue.
I took it and stood up. “Here’s to the grandest old bag in twenty universes!”
Rufo bounced over the desk again, grabbed his glass. “Say that loud and often! And to Her, She’d love it! May She be blessed by God, Whoever He is, and kept safe. We’ll never see another like Her, mores the pity! –for we need them by the gross!”
We tossed it down and smashed our grasses. Rufo fetched fresh ones, poured, settled in his chair, and said, “Now for serious drinking. Did I ever tell you about the time my–”
“You did. Rufo, I want to know about this swindle.”
“Such as?”
“Well, I can see much of it. Take that first time we flew–”
He shuddered. “Lets not.”
“I never wondered then. But, since Star can do this, we could have skipped Igli, the Horned Ghosts, the marsh, the time wasted with Jocko–”
“Wasted?”
“For her purpose. And the rats and hogs and possibly the dragons. Flown directly from that first Gate to the second. Right?”
He shook his head. “Wrong.”
“I don’t see it.”
“Assuming that She could fly us that far, a question I hope never to settle, She could have flown us to the Gate She preferred. What would you have done then? If popped almost directly from Nice to Karth-Hokesh? Charged out and fought like a wolverine, as you did? Or said ‘Miss, you’ve made a mistake. Show me the exit from this Fun House–I’m not laughing.’ ”
“Well–I wouldn’t have bugged out”
“But would you have won? Would you have been at that keen edge of readiness it took?”
“I see. Those first rounds were live ammo exercises in my training. Or was it live ammo? Was all that first part swindle? Maybe with hypnotism, to make it feel right? God knows she’s expert. No danger till we reached the Black Tower?”
He shuddered again. “No, no! Oscar, any of that could have killed us. I never fought harder in my life, nor was ever more frightened. None of it could be skipped. I don’t understand all Her reasons. I’m not Her Wisdom. But She would never risk Herself unless necessary. She would sacrifice ten million brave men, were it needed, as the cheaper price. She knows what She’s worth. But She fought beside us with all She has–you saw! Because it had to be.”
“I still don’t understand all of it.”
“Nor will you. Nor will I. She would have sent you in alone, had it been possible. And at that last supreme danger, that thing called ‘Eater of Souls’ because it had done just that to many braves before you . . . had you lost to it, She and I would have tried to fight our way out–I was ready, any moment; I couldn’t tell you–and if we had escaped–unlikely–She would have shed no tears for you. Or not many. Then worked another twenty or thirty or a hundred years to find and con and train anther champion–and fought just as hard by his side. She has courage, that cabbage. She knew how thin our chances were; you didn’t. Did She flinch?”
“No.”
“But you were the key, first to be found, then ground to fit. You yourself act, you’re never a puppet, or
you could never have won. She was the only one who could nudge and wheedle such a man and place
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
him where he would act; no lesser person than She could handle the scale of hero She needed. So She searched until She found him . . . and honed him fine. Tell me, why did you take up the sword? It’s no common in America.”
“What?” I had to think. Reading ‘King Arthur’ and ‘The Three Musketeers’, and Burroughs wonderful Mars stories–But every kid does that. “When we moved to Florida, I was a Scout. The Scoutmaster was a Frenchman, taught high school. He started some of us lads. I liked it, it was something I did well. Then in college–”
“Ever wonder why that immigrant got that job in that town? And volunteered for Scout work? Or why your college had a fencing team when many don’t? No matter, if you had gone elsewhere, there would have been fencing in a YMCA or something. Didn’t you have more combat than most of your category?”
“Hell, yes!”
“Could have been killed anytime, too–and She would have turned to another candidate already being honed. Son, I don’t know how you were selected, nor now you were converted from a young punk into the hero you potentially were. Not my job. Mine was simpler–just more dangerous–your groom and your ‘eyes-behind.’ Look around. Fancy quarters for a servant, eh?”
“Well, yes. I had almost forgotten that you were supposed to be my groom.”
” ‘Supposed,’ hell! I was. I went three times to Nevia as Her servant, training for it. Jocko doesn’t know to this day. If I went back, I would be welcome, I think. But only in the kitchen.”
“But why? That part seems silly.”
“Was it? When we snared you, your ego was in feeble shape, it had to be built up–and calling you ‘Boss’ and serving your meals while I stood and you sat, with Her, was part of it.” He gnawed a knuckle and looked annoyed. “I still think She witched your first two arrows. Someday I’d like a return match–with Her not around.”
“I may fool you. I’ve been practicing.”
“Well, forget it. We got the Egg, that’s the important thing. And here’s this bottle and that’s important, too.” He poured again. “Will that be all, ‘Boss’?”
“Damn you, Rufo! Yes, you sweet old scoundrel. You’ve straightened me out. Or conned me again, I don’t know which.”
“No con, Oscar, by the blood we’ve shed. I’ve told the truth as straight as I know it, though it hurt me. I didn’t want to, you’re my friend. Walking that rocky road with you I shall treasure all the days of my life.”
“Uh . . . yes. Me, too. All of it.”
“Then why are you frowning?”
“Rufo, I understand her now–as well as an ordinary person can–and respect her utterly . . . and love her more than ever. But I can’t be anybody’s fancy man. Not even here.”
“I’m glad I didn’t have to say that. Yes. She’s right She’s always right, damn Her! You must leave. For both of you. Oh, She wouldn’t be hurt too much but staying would ruin you, in time. Destroy you, if you’re stubborn.
“I had better get back–and toss my shoes.” I felt better, as if I had told the surgeon: Go ahead. Amputate.
“Don’t do that!”
“What?”
“Why should you? No need for anything final If a marriage is to last a long time–and yours might, even a very long time–then holidays should be long, too. And off the leash, son, with no date to report back and no promises. She knows that knights errant spend their nights erring, She expects it. It has always been so, un droit de la vocation–and necessary. They just don’t mention it in kiddies’ stories where you come from. So go see what’s stirring in your line of work elsewhere and don’t worry. Come back in four or forty years or something, you’ll be welcome. Heroes always sit at the first table, it s their right. And they come and go as they please, and that’s their right, too. On a smaller scale, you re something like Her.”
“High compliment!”
“On a ‘smaller scale,’ I said. Mmm, Oscar, part of your trouble is a need to go home. Your birthing land. To regain your perspective and find out who you are. All travelers feel this, I feel it myself from time to time. When the feeling comes, I pamper it.”
“I hadn’t realized I was homesick. Maybe I am.”
“Maybe She realized it. Maybe She nudged you. Myself, I make it a rule to give any wife of mine a vacation from me whenever her face looks too familiar–for mine must be even more so to her, looking as I do. Why not, lad? Going back to Earth isn’t the same as dying. I’m going there soon, that’s why I’m clearing up this paper work. Happens we might be there the same time . . . and get together for a drink or ten and some laughs and stories. And pinch the waitress and see what she says. Why not?”
Chapter 21
Okay, here I am.
I didn’t leave that week but soon. Star and I spent a tearful, glorious night before I left and she cried as she kissed me “Au ‘voir” (not “Good-bye”). But I knew her tears would dry once I was out of sight; she knew that I knew and I knew she preferred it so, and so did I. Even though I cried, too.
Pan American isn’t as slick as the commercial Gates; I was bunged through in three fast changes and o hocus-pocus. A girl said, “Places, please”–then whambo!
I came out on Earth, dressed in a London suit, pass-port and papers in pocket, the Lady Vivamus in a kit that did not look like a sword case, and in other pockets drafts exchangeable for much gold, for I found that I didn’t mind accepting a hero’s fee. I arrived near Zurich, I don’t know the address; the Gate service sees to that. Instead, I had ways to send messages.
Shortly those drafts became, numbered accounts in three Swiss banks, handled by a lawyer I had been told to see. I bought travelers checks several places and some I mailed ahead and some I carried, for I had no intention of paying Uncle Sugar 91 percent.
You lose track of time on a different day and calendar; there was a week or two left on that free ride home my orders called for. It seemed smart to take it–less conspicuous. So I did–an old four-engine transport, Prestwick to Gander to New York.
Streets looked dirtier, buildings not as tall–and headlines worse than ever. I quit reading newspapers, didn’t stay long; California I thought of as “home.” I phoned Mother; she was reproachful about my not having written and I promised to visit Alaska as soon as I could. How were they all? (I had in mind that my half brothers and sisters might need college help someday.)
They weren’t hurting. My stepfather was on flight orders and had made permanent grade. I asked her to forward any mail to my aunt.
California looked better than New York. But it wasn’t Nevia. Not even Center. It was more crowded than I remembered. All you can say for California towns is that they aren’t as bad as other places. I visited my aunt and uncle because they had been good to me and I was thinking of using some of that gold in Switzerland to buy him free from his first wife. But she had died and they were talking about a swimming pool.
So I kept quiet. I had been almost ruined by too much money, it had grown me up a bit. I followed the rule of Their Wisdoms: Leave well enough alone.
The campus felt smaller and the students looked so young. Reciprocal, I guess. I was coming out of the malt shop across from Administration when two Letter sweaters came in, shoving me aside. The second said, “Watch it, Dad!”
I let him live.
Football had been re-emphasized, new coach, new dressing rooms, stands painted, talk about a stadium. The coach knew who I was; he knew the records and was out to make a name. “You’re coming back, aren’t you?” I told him I didn’t think so.
“Nonsense!” he said. “Gotta get that old sheepskin! Silliest thing on earth to let your hitch in the Army stop you. Now look–” His voice dropped.
No nonsense about “sweeping the gym,” stuff the Conference didn’t like. But a boy could live with a family–and one could be found. If he paid his fees in cash, who cared? Quiet as an undertaker–“That leaves your GI benefits for pocket money.”
“I don’t have any.”
“Man, don’t you read the papers?” He had it on file: While I was gone, that unWar had been made eligible for GI benefits.
I promised to think it over.
But I had no such intention. I had indeed decided to finish my engineering degree, I like to finish things. But not there.
That evening I heard from Joan, the girl who had given me such a fine sendoff, then “Dear-Johnned” me. I intended to look her up, call on her and her husband; I just hadn’t found out her married name yet. But she ran across my aunt, shopping, and phoned me. “Easy!” she said and sounded delighted.
“Who–Wait a minute, Joan!”
I must come to dinner that very night. I told her “Fine,” and that I was looking forward to meeting the lucky galoot she had married.
Joan looked sweet as ever and gave me a hearty arms-around-my-neck smack, a welcome-home kiss, sisterly but good. Then I met the kids, one crib size and the other toddling.
Her husband was in L.A.
Her sister and brother-in-law stayed for one drink; Joan and her sister put the kids to bed while the brother-in-law sat with me and asked how things were in Europe he understood I was just back and then he told me how things were in Europe and what should be done about them. “You know, Mr. Jordan,” he told me, tapping my knee, “a man in the real estate business like I am gets to be a pretty shrewd judge of human nature has to be and while I haven’t actually been in Europe the way you have haven’t had time somebody has to stay home and pay taxes and keep an eye on things while you lucky young fellows are seeing the world but human nature is the same anywhere and if we dropped just one little bomb on Minsk or Pinsk or one of those places they would see the light right quick and we could stop all this diddling around that’s making it tough on the businessman. Don’t you agree?”
I said he had a point. They left and he said that he would ring me tomorrow and show me some choice lots that could be handled on almost nothing down and were certain to go way up what with a new missile plant coming in here soon. “Nice listening to your experiences, Mr. Jordan, real pleasant. Sometime I must tell you about something that happened to me in Tijuana but not with the wife around ha ha!”
Joan said to me, “I can’t see why she married him. Pour me another drink, hon, a double, I need it. I’m going to turn the oven down, dinner will keep.”
We both had a double and then another, and had dinner about eleven. Joan got tearful when I insisted on going home around three. She told me I was chicken and I agreed; she told me things could have been so different if I hadn’t insisted on going into the Army and I agreed again; she told me to go out the back way and not turn on any lights and she never wanted to see me again and Jim was going to Sausalito the seventeenth.
I caught a plane for Los Angeles next day.
Now look–I am not blaming Joan. I like Joan. I respect her and will always be grateful to her. She is a fine person. With superior early advantages–say in Nevia–she’d be a wow! She’s quite a gal, even so. Her house was clean, her babies were clean and healthy and well cared for. She’s generous and thoughtful and good-tempered.
Nor do I feel guilty. If a man has any regard for a girl’s feelings, there is one thing he cannot refuse: a return bout if she wants one. Nor will I pretend that I didn’t want it, too.
But I felt upset all the way to Los Angeles. Not over her husband, he wasn’t hurt. Not over Joanie, she was neither swept off her feet nor likely to suffer remorse. Joanie is a good kid and had made a good adjustment between her nature and an impossible society.
Still, I was upset.
A man must not criticize a woman’s most womanly quality. I must make it clear that little Joanie was just as sweet and just as generous as the younger Joanie who had sent me off to the Army feeling grand. The fault lay with me; I had changed.
My complaints are against the whole culture with no individual sharing more than a speck of blame. Let me quote that widely traveled culturologist and rake, Dr. Rufo:
“Oscar, when you get home, don’t expect too much of your feminine compatriots. You’re sure to be disappointed and the poor dears aren’t to blame. American women, having been conditioned out of their sex instincts, compensate by compulsive interest in rituals over the dead husk of sex . . . and each one is sure she knows ‘intuitively’ the right ritual for conjuring the corpse. She knows and nobody can tell her any different . . . especially a man unlucky enough to be in bed with her. So don’t try. You will either make her furious or crush her spirit. You’ll be attacking that most Sacred of Cows: the myth that women know all about sex, just from being women.”
Rufo had frowned. “The typical American female is sure that she has genius as a couturiere as an interior decorator, as a gourmet cook, and, always, as a courtesan. Usually she is wrong on four counts. But don’t try to tell her so.”
He had added, “Unless you can catch one not over twelve and segregate her, especially from her mother–and even that may be too late. But don’t misunderstand me; it evens out. The American male is convinced that he is a great warrior, a great statesman, and a great lover. Spot checks prove that he is as deluded as she is. Or worse. Historo-culturally speaking, there is strong evidence that the American male, rattier than the female, murdered sex in your country.”
“What can I do about it?”
“Slip over to France now and then. French women are almost as ignorant but not nearly as conceited and often are teachable.”
When my plane landed, I put the subject out of mind as I planned to be an anchorite a while. I learned in the Army that no sex is easier than a starvation allowance–and I had serious plans.
I had decided to be the square I naturally am, with hard work and a purpose in life. I could have used those Swiss bank accounts to be a playboy. But I had been a playboy, it wasn’t my style.
I had been on the biggest binge in history–one I wouldn’t believe if I didn’t have so much loot. Now was time to settle down and join Heroes Anonymous. Being a hero is okay. But a retired hero–first he’s a bore, then he’s a bum.
My first stop was Caltech. I could now afford the best and Caltech’s only rival is where they tried to outlaw sex entirely. I had seen enough of the dreary graveyard in 1942-45.
The Dean of Admissions was not encouraging. “Mr. Gordon, you know that we turn down more than we accept? Nor could we give you full credit on this transcript. No slur on your former school–and we do like to give ex-servicemen a break–but this school has higher standards. Another thing, you won’t find Pasadena a cheap place to live.”
I said I would be happy to take whatever standing I merited, and showed him my bank balance (one of them) and offered a check for a years fees. He wouldn’t take it but loosened up. I left with the impression that a place might be found for E. C. “Oscar” Gordon.
I went downtown and started the process to make me legally “Oscar” instead of “Evelyn Cyril.” Then I started job hunting.
I found one out in the Valley, as a junior draftsman in a division of a subsidiary of a corporation that made tires, food machinery, and other things–missiles in this case. This was part of the Gordon Rehabilitation Plan. A few months over the drafting board would get me into the swing again and I planned to study evenings and behave myself. I found a furnished apartment in Sawtelle and bought a used Ford for commuting.
I felt relaxed then; “Milord Hero” was buried. All that was left was the Lady Vivamus, hanging over the television. But I balanced her in hand first and got a thrill out of it. I decided to find a salle d’armes and join its club. I had seen an archery range in the Valley, too, and there ought to be someplace where American Rifle Association members fired on Sundays. No need to get flabby-
Meanwhile I would forget the loot in Switzerland. It was payable in gold, not funny money, and if I let it sit. It might be worth more–maybe much more–from inflation than from investing it. Someday it would be capital, when I opened my own firm.
That’s what I had my sights on: Boss. A wage slave, even in brackets where Uncle Sugar takes more than half, is still a slave. But I had learned from Her Wisdom that a boss must train; I could not buy “Boss” with gold.
So I settled down. My name change came through; Caltech conceded that I could look forward to moving to Pasadena–and mail caught up with me.
Mother sent it to my aunt, she forwarded it to the hotel address I had first given, eventually it reached my flat. Some were letters mailed in the States over a year ago, sent on to Southeast Asia, then Germany, then Alaska, then more changes before I read them in Sawtelle.
One offered that bargain on investment service again; this time I could Knock off 10 percent more. Another was from the coach at college–on plain stationery and signed in a scrawl. He said certain parties were determined to see the season start off with a bang. Would $250 per month change my mind? Phone his home number, collect. I tore it up.
The next was from the Veterans Administration, dated just after my discharge, telling me that as a result of Barton vs. United States, et al., it had been found that I was legally a “war orphan” and entitled to $110/month for schooling until age twenty-three.
I laughed so hard I hurt.
After some junk was one from a Congressman. He had the honor to inform me that, in cooperation with the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he had submitted a group of special bills to correct injustices resulting from failure to classic correctly persons who were “war orphans,” that the bills had passed under consent, and that he was happy to say that one affecting me allowed me to my twenty-seventh birthday to complete my education inasmuch as my twenty-third birthday had passed before the error was rectified. I am, sir, sincerely, etc.
I couldn’t laugh. I thought how much dirt I would have eaten, or–you name it–the summer I was conscripted if I had been sure of $110 a month. I wrote that Congressman a thank-you letter, the best I knew how.
The next item looked like junk. It was from Hospitals’ Trust, Ltd., therefore a pitch for a donation or a hospital insurance ad–but I couldn’t see why anyone in Dublin would have me on their list.
Hospitals’ Trust asked if I had Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstakes ticket number such-and-such, and its official receipt? This ticket had been sold to J. L. Weatherby, Esq. Its number had been drawn in the second unit drawing, and had been a ticket of the winning horse. J. L. Weatherby had been informed and had notified Hospitals’ Trust, Ltd., that he had disposed of ticket to E. C. Gordon, and, on receiving receipt, had mailed it to such party.
Was I the “E. C. Gordon,” did I have the ticket, did I have the receipt? H. T. Ltd. would appreciate an early reply.
The last item in the stack had an A.P.O. return address. In it was an Irish Sweepstakes receipt–and a note; ‘This should teach me not to play poker. Hope it wins you something–J. L. WEATHERBY.’ The cancellation was over a year old.
I stared at it, then got the papers I had carried through the Universes. I found the matching ticket. It was bloodstained but the number was clear.
I looked at the letter. Second unit drawing-
I started examining tickets under bright light. The others were counterfeit. But the engraving of this ticket and this receipt was sharp as paper money. I don’t know where Weatherby bought that ticket, but he did not buy it from the thief who sold me mine.
Second drawing–I hadn’t known there was more than one. But drawings depend on the number of tickets sold, in units of ￡120,000. I had seen the results of only the first.
Weatherby had mailed the receipt care of Mother, to Wiesbaden, and it must have been in Elmendorf when I was in Nice–then had gone to Nice, and back to Elmendorf because Rufo had left a forwarding address with American Express; Rufo had known all about me of course and had taken steps to cover my disappearance.
On that morning over a year earlier while I sat in a cafe in Nice, I held a winning ticket with the receipt in the mail. If I had looked farther in that Herald-Tribune than the “Personal” ads I would have found the results of the Second Unit drawing and never answered that ad.
I would have collected $140,000, never have seen Star a second time-
Or would Her Wisdom have been balked?
Would I have refused to follow my “Helen of Troy” simply because my pockets were lined with money?
I gave myself the benefit of doubt. I would have walked the Glory Road anyhow!
At least, I hoped so.
Next morning I phoned the plant, then went to a bank and through a routine I had gone through twice
in Nice.
Yes, it was a good ticket. Could the bank be of service in collecting it? I thanked them and left.
A little man from Internal Revenue was on my doorstep-
Almost–He buzzed from below while I was writing to Hospitals’ Trust, Ltd.
Presently I was telling him that I was damned if I would! I’d leave the money in Europe and they could whistle! He said mildly not to take that attitude, as I was just blowing off steam because the IRS didn’t like paying informers’ fees but would if my actions showed that I was trying to evade the tax.
They had me boxed. I collected $140,000 and paid $103,000 to Uncle Sugar. The mild little man pointed out that it was better that way; so often people put off paying and got into trouble.
Had I been in Europe, it would have been $140,000 in gold–but now it was $37,000 in paper–because free and sovereign Americans can’t have gold. They might start a war, or turn Communist, or something. No, I couldn’t leave the $37,000 in Europe as gold; that was illegal, too. They were very polite.
I mailed 10 percent, $3,700, to Sgt. Weatherby and told him the story. I took $33,000 and set up a college trust for my siblings, handled so that my folks wouldn’t know until it was needed. I crossed my fingers and hoped that news about this ticket would not reach Alaska. The L.A. papers never had it, but word got around somehow; I found myself on endless sucker lists, got letters offering golden opportunities begging loans, or demanding gifts.
It was a month before I realized I had forgotten the California State Income Tax. I never did sort out the red ink.
Chapter 22
I got back to the old drawing board, slugged away at books in the evening, watched a little television, weekends some fencing.
But I kept having this dream-
I had it first right after I took that job and now I was having it every night-
I’m heading along this long, long road and I round a curve and there’s a castle up ahead. It’s beautiful, pennants flying from turrets and a winding climb to its drawbridge. But I know, I just know, that there is a princess captive in its dungeon.
That part is always the same. Details vary. Lately the mild little man from Internal Revenue steps into the road and tells me that toll is paid here–10 percent more than whatever I’ve got.
Other times it’s a cop and he leans against my horse (sometimes it has four legs, sometimes eight) and writes a ticket for obstructing traffic, riding with out-of-date license, failing to observe stop sign, and gross insubordination. He wants to know if I have a permit to carry that lance? –and tells me that game laws require me to tag any dragons killed.
Other times I round that turn and a solid wave of freeway traffic, five lanes wide, is coming at me. That one is worst.
I started writing this after the dreams started. I couldn’t see going to a headshrinker and saying, “Look, Doc, I’m a hero by trade and my wife is Empress in another universe–” I had even less desire to lie on his couch and tell how my parents mistreated me as a child (they didn’t) and how I found out about little girls (that s my business).
I decided to talk it out to a typewriter.
It made me feel better but didn’t stop the dreams. But I learned a new word: “acculturated.” It’s what happens when a member of one culture shifts to another, with a sad period when he doesn’t fit. Those Indians you see in Arizona towns, not doing anything, looking in shop windows or just standing. Acculturation. They don’t fit.
I was taking a bus down to see my ear, nose, and throat doctor–Star promised me that her therapy plus that at Center would free me of the common cold–and it has; I don’t catch anything. But even therapists that administer Long-Life can’t protect human tissues against poison gas; L.A. smog was getting me. Eyes burning, nose stopped up–twice a week I went down to get horrid things done to my nose. I used to park my car and go down Wilshire by bus, as parking was impossible close in.
In the bus I overheard two ladies: “–much as I despise them, you can’t give a cocktail party without inviting the Sylvesters.”
It sounded like a foreign language. Then I played it back and understood the words.
But why did she have to invite the Sylvesters?
If she despised them, why didn’t she either ignore them, or drop a rock on their heads?
In God’s name, why give a “cocktail party”? People who don’t like each other particularly, standing around (never enough chairs), talking about things they aren’t interested in, drinking drinks they don’t want (why set a time to take a drink?) and getting high so that they won’t notice they aren’t having fun. Why?
I realized that acculturation had set in. I didn’t fit.
I avoided buses thereafter and picked up five traffic tickets and a smashed fender. I quit studying, too. Books didn’t seem to make sense. It warn’t the way I lamed it back in dear old Center.
But I stuck to my job as a draftsman. I always have been able to draw and soon I was promoted to major work.
One day the Chief Draftsman called me over. “Here, Gordon, this assembly you did–”
I was proud of that job. I had remembered something I had seen on Center and had designed it in, reducing moving parts and improving a clumsy design into one that made me feel good. It was tricky and I had added an extra view. “Well?”
He handed it back. “Do it over. Do it right.”
I explained the improvement and that I had done the drawing a better way to-
He cut me off. “We don’t want it done a better way, we want it done our way.”
“Your privilege,” I agreed and resigned by walking out.
My flat seemed strange at that time on a working day. I started to study ‘Strength of Materials’–and chucked the book aside. Then I stood and looked at the Lady Vivamus.
“Dum Vivimus, Vivamus!” Whistling, I buckled her on, drew blade, felt that thrill run up my arm.
I returned sword, got a few things, traveler’s checks and cash mostly, walked out. I wasn’t going anywhere, just tataway!
I had been striding along maybe twenty minutes when a prowl car pulled up and took me to the station.
Why was I wearing that thing? I explained that gentlemen wore swords.
If I would tell them what movie company I was with, a phone call could clear it up. Or was it television? The Department cooperated but liked to be notified.
Did I have a license for concealed weapons? I said it wasn’t concealed. They told me it was–by that scabbard. I mentioned the Constitution; I was told that the Constitution sure as hell didn’t mean walking around city streets with a toad sticker like that. A cop whispered to the sergeant, “Here’s what we got him on, Sarge. The blade is longer than–” I think it was three inches. There was trouble when they tried to take the Lady Vivamus away from me. Finally I was locked up, sword and all.
Two hours later my lawyer got it changed to “disorderly conduct” and I was released, with talk of a sanity hearing.
I paid him and thanked him and took a cab to the airport and a plane to San Francisco. At the port I bought a large bag, one that would take the Lady Vivamus cater-cornered.
Charlie said he agreed perfectly and his friends would like to hear it. So we went and I paid the driver to wait but took my suitcase inside.
Charlie’s friends didn’t want to hear my theories but the wine was welcome and I sat on the floor and listened to folk singing. The men wore beards and didn’t comb their hair. The beards helped, it made it easy to tell which were girls. One beard stood up and recited a poem. Old Jocko could do better blind drunk but I didn’t say so.
It wasn’t like a party in Nevia and certainly not in Center, except this: I got propositioned. I might have considered it if this girl hadn’t been wearing sandals. Her toes were dirty. I thought of Zhai-ee-van and her dainty, clean fur, and told her thanks, I was under a vow.
The beard who had recited the poem came over and stood in front of me. “Man, like what rumble you picked up that scar?” I said it had been in Southeast Asia. He looked at me scornfully. “Mercenary!”
“Well, not always,” I told him. “Sometimes I fight for free. Like right now.”
I tossed him against a wall and took my suitcase outside and went to the airport–and then Seattle and Anchorage, Alaska, and wound up at Elmendorf AFB, clean, sober, and with the Lady Vivamus disguised as fishing tackle.
Mother was glad to see me and the kids seemed pleased–I had bought presents between planes in Seattle–and my stepdaddy and I swapped yarns.
I did one important thing in Alaska; I flew to Point Barrow. There I found part of what I was looking for: no pressure, no sweat, not many people. You look out across the ice and know that only the North Pole is over that way, and a few Eskimos and fewer white people here. Eskimos are every bit as nice as they have been pictured. Their babies never cry, the adults never seem cross–only the dogs staked-out between the huts are bad-tempered.
But Eskimos are “civilized” now; the old ways are going. You can buy a choc malt at Barrow and airplanes fly daily in a sky that may hold missiles tomorrow.
But they still seal amongst the ice floes, the village is rich when they take a whale, half starved if they don’t. They don’t count time and they don’t seem to worry about anything–ask a man how old he is, he answers: “Oh, I’m quite of an age.” That’s how old Rufo is. Instead of good-bye, they say, “Sometime again!” No particular time and again well see you.
They let me dance with them. You must wear gloves (in their way they are as formal as the Doral) and you stomp and sing with the drums–and I found myself weeping. I don’t know why. It was a dance about a little old man who doesn’t have a wife and now he sees a seal-
I said, “Sometime again!”–went back to Anchorage and to Copenhagen. From 30,000 feet the North
Pole looks like prairie covered with snow, except black lines that are water. I never expected to see the North Pole.
From Copenhagen I went to Stockholm. Majatta was not with her parents but was only a square away. She cooked me that Swedish dinner, and her husband is a good Joe. From Stockholm I phoned a “Personal” ad to the Paris edition of the Herald-Tribune, then went to Paris.
I kept the ad in daily and sat across from the Two Maggots and stacked saucers and tried not to fret. I watched the ma’m’selles and thought about what I might do.
If a man wanted to settle down for forty years or so, wouldn’t Nevia be a nice place? Okay, It has dragons. It doesn’t have flies, nor mosquitoes, nor smog. Nor parking problems, nor freeway complexes that look like diagrams for abdominal surgery. Not a traffic light anywhere.
Muri would be glad to see me. I might marry her. And maybe little whatever-her-name was, her kid sister, too. Why not? Marriage customs aren’t everywhere those they use in Paducah. Star would be pleased; she would like being related to Jocko by marriage.
But I would go see Star first, or soon anyhow, and kick that pile of strange shoes aside. But I wouldn’t stay; it would be “sometime again” which would suit Star. It is a phrase, one of the few, that translates exactly into Centrist jargon–and means exactly the same.
“Sometime again,” because there are other maidens, or pleasing facsimiles, elsewhere, in need of rescuing. Somewhere. And a man must work at his trade, which wise wives know.
“I cannot rest from travel; I will drink life to the lees.” A long road, a trail, a “Tramp Royal,” with no certainty of what you’ll eat or where or if, nor where you’ll sleep, nor with whom. But somewhere is Helen of Troy and all her many sisters and there is still noble work to be done.
A man can stack a lot of saucers in a month and I began to fume instead of dream. Why the hell didn’t Rufo show up? I brought this account up to date from sheer nerves. Has Rufo gone back? Or is he dead?
Or was he “never born”? Am I a psycho discharge and what is in this case I carry with me wherever I go? A sword? I’m afraid to look, so I do–and now I’m afraid to ask. I met an old sergeant once, a thirty-year man, who was convinced that he owned all the diamond mines in Africa; he spent his evenings keeping books on them. Am I just as happily deluded? Are these francs what is left of my monthly disability check?
Does anyone ever get two chances? Is the Door in the Wall always gone when next you look? Where do you catch the boat for Brigadoon? Brother, it’s like the post office in Brooklyn: You can’t get there from here!
I’m going to give Rufo two more weeks-
I’ve heard from Rufo! A clipping of my ad was for warded to him but he had a little trouble. He wouldn’t say much by phone but I gather he was mixed up with a carnivorous Fraulein and got over the border almost sans calottes. But he’ll be here tonight. He is quite agreeable to a change in planets and universes and says he has something interesting in mind. A little risky perhaps, but not dull. I’m sure he’s right both ways. Rufo might steal your cigarettes and certainly your wench but things aren’t dull around him–and he would die defending your rear.
So tomorrow we are heading up that Glory Road, rocks and all!
Got any dragons you need killed?
End
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
Posts about the Changes in America
America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
Articles & Links
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
This is the full text of the Robert Heinlein novel titled “Time for the Stars”. It is a very difficult novel to come across and I feel truly fortunate that I was able to rediscover it.
Executive Summary
The story is classic Science Fiction fare. We are told of Tom and his brother Pat, identical twins, who are asked by the Long Range Foundation (a non-profit making organisation that funds projects for the long-term benefit of mankind) to attend some preliminary tests. The Foundation discovers that, much to the twin’s surprise, they engage in a form of telepathy between themselves.
The usefulness of the twins’ skill becomes apparent when we are told that twelve spaceships are to leave Earth in the hope of discovering new worlds to colonise and so reduce the strain on resources on Earth. Time and distance do not seem to affect telepathic links, which means that messages between twins can be sent instantaneously to each other and faster than a radio message on a spaceship travelling at light-speed.
Consequently Tom and Pat are chosen to act as one telepathic pair, with the eldest, Pat, travelling on the spaceship whilst our narrator, Tom, is to remain on Earth to receive the transmitted messages.
Tom is
consumed by jealousy when the twins are accepted to act as long distance
communicators across space. However, a skiing accident in training
means that, in a bizarre twist of fate, Pat is paralysed and has to stay
on Earth while Tom travels on the Lewis & Clark torchship.
Through
space, as Tom travels towards Tau Ceti and closer to the speed of
light, the time dilation effects become greater and Pat ages much faster
than Tom. The latter part of the book is about how the two of them deal
with some of the dangerous challenges that Tom faces on the frontier of
space.
Time for the Stars book cover artwork by Robert Heinlein.
Time for the Stars
I THE LONG RANGE FOUNDATION
According to their biographies, Destiny’s favored children usually had their lives planned out from scratch. Napoleon was figuring on how to rule France when he was a barefoot boy in Corsica, Alexander the Great much the same, and Einstein was muttering equations in his cradle.
Maybe so. Me, I just muddled along.
In an old book that belonged to my great grandfather Lucas I once saw a cartoon of a man in evening
clothes, going over a ski jump. With an expression of shocked unbelief he is saying: “How did I get up here?”
I know how he felt. How did I get way up here?
I was not even planned on. The untaxed quota for our family was three children, then my brother Pat and I came along in one giant economy package. We were a surprise to everyone, especially to my
parents, my three sisters, and the tax adjusters. I don’t recall being surprised myself but my earliest recollection is a vague feeling of not being quite welcome, even though
Dad and Mum, and Faith, Hope, and Charity treated us okay.
Maybe Dad did not handle the emergency right. Many families get an extra child quota on an exchange basis with another family, or something, especially when the tax-free limit has already been filled with all boys or all girls. But Dad was stubborn, maintaining that the law was unconstitutional, unjust, discriminatory, against public morals, and contrary to the will of God. He could reel off a list of important people who were youngest children of large families, from Benjamin Franklin to the first governor Of Pluto, then he would demand to know where the human race would have been without them?-after which Mother would speak soothingly.
Dad was probably accurate as he was a student of almost everything, even his trade, which was
micromechanics-but especially of history. He wanted to name us for his two heroes in American history, whereas Mother wanted to name us for her favorite artists: This is how I ended up as Thomas Paine Leonardo da Vinci Bartlett and my twin became Patrick Henry Michelangelo Bartlett. Dad called
us Tom and Pat and Mother called us Leo and Michel and our sisters called us Useless and Double- Useless. Dad won by being stubborn.
Dad was stubborn.
He could have paid the annual head tax on us supernumeraries, applied for a seven- person flat, and relaxed to the inevitable. Then he could have asked for reclassification. Instead be claimed exemption for us twins each year, always ended by paying our head tax with his check stamped “Paid under Protest!” and we seven lived in a five-person flat. When Pat and I were little we slept in homemade cribs in the bathroom which could not have been convenient for anybody, then when we were bigger we slept on the living-room couch, which was inconvenient for everybody,
especially our sisters, who found
it cramping to their social life.
Dad could have solved all this by putting in for family emigration to Mars or Venus, or the Jovian
moons, and he used to bring up the subject. But this was the one thing that would make Mum more stubborn
than he was. I don’t know which part of making the High Jump scared her, because she would just settle her mouth and not answer. Dad would point out that big families got preferred treatment for emigration and that the head tax was earmarked to subsidize colonies off Earth and why shouldn’t we benefit by the money we were being robbed of? To say nothing of letting our children grow up with freedom and elbow room, out where there wasn’t a bureaucrat standing behind every productive worker dreaming up more rules and restrictions? Answer me that?
Mother never answered and we never emigrated,
We were always short of money. Two extra mouths, extra taxes, and no family assistance for the two
extras make the stabilized family income law as poor a fit as the clothes Mum cut down for us from Dad’s old ones. It was darn’ seldom that we could afford to dial for dinner like other people and Dad
even used to bring home any of his lunch that he didn’t eat. Mum went back to work as soon as we twins were in kindergarten, but the only household robot we had was an obsolete model “Morris
Garage” Mother’s Helper which was always burning out valves and took almost as long to program as the job would have taken. Pat and I got acquainted with dish water and detergents-at least I did; Pat usually insisted on doing the sterilizing or had a sore thumb or something.
Dad used to talk about the intangible benefits of being poor-learning to stand on your own feet,
building character, and all that. By the time I was old enough to understand I was old enough to wish
they weren’t so intangible, but, thinking back, maybe he had a point. We did have fun. Pat and I raised hamsters in the service unit and Mum never objected. When we turned the bath into a chem lab the girls did make unfriendly comments but when Dad put his foot down, they sweet-talked him into picking it up again and after that they hung their laundry somewhere else, and later Mum stood between us and the house manager
when we poured acid down the drain and did the plumbing no good.
The only time I can remember when Mum put her foot down was when her brother, Uncle Steve, came back from Mars and gave us some canal worms which we planned to raise and sell at a profit. But when Dad stepped on one in the shower (we had not discussed our plans with him) she made us give them to the zoo, except the one Dad had stepped on, which was useless. Shortly after that we ran away from home to join the High Marines-Uncle Steve was a ballistics sergeant-and when lying about our age did not work and they fetched us back, Mum not only did not scold us but had fed our snakes and our
silkworms while we were gone.
Oh, I guess we were happy. It is hard to tell at the time. Pat and I were very close and did everything
together but I want to get one thing straight: being a twin is not the Damon-and-Pythias dream that throb writers would have you think. It makes you close to another
person to be born with him, share a room with him, eat with him, play with him, work with him, and hardly ever do anything without him as far back as you can remember, and farther according to witnesses. It makes you close; it makes you almost indispensable to each other-but it does not necessarily make you love him.
I want to get this straight because there has been a lot of nonsense talked about it since twins got to be suddenly important. I’m me; I’m not my brother Pat. I could always tell us apart, even if other people couldn’t. He is the right-handed one; I’m the left-handed one. And from my point of view I’m the one who almost always got the small piece of cake.
I can remember times when he got both pieces through a fast shuffle. I’m not speaking in general; I’m thinking of a certain white cake with chocolate icing and how he confused things so that he got my piece, too, Mum and Dad thinking he was both of us, despite my protests. Dessert can be the high point of the day when you are eight, which was what we were then.
I am not complaining about these things … even though
I feel a dull lump of anger even now, after all the years and miles, at the recollection of being punished because Dad and Mum thought I was the one who was trying to wangle two desserts. But I’m just trying to tell the truth. Doctor Devereaux said to write it all down and where I have to start is how it feels to be a twin. You aren’t a twin, are you? Maybe you are but the chances are forty-four to one that you aren’t-not even a fraternal, whereas Pat and I are identicals which is four times as unlikely.
They say that one twin is always retarded-I don’t think so. Pat and I were always as near alike as two
shoes of a pair. The few times we showed any difference I was a quarter inch taller or a pound heavier,
then we would even out. We got equally good marks in school; we cut our teeth together. What he did
have was more grab than I had, something the psychologists call “pecking order.” But it was so subtle you could not define it and other people could not see it. So far as I know, it started from nothing and
grew into .a pattern that neither of us could break even if we wanted to.
Maybe if the nurse had picked me up first when we were born I would have been the one who got the bigger piece of cake. Or maybe she did-I don’t know how it started.
But don’t think that being a twin is all bad even if
you are on the short
end; it is mostly good. You go
into a crowd of strangers and you are scared and shy-and there is your twin a couple of feet away and
you
aren’t alone any more. Or somebody punches you in the mouth and while you are groggy your
twin has punched him and the fight goes your way. You flunk a quiz and your twin has flunked just as badly and you aren’t alone.
But do not think that being twins is like having a very close and loyal friend. It isn’t like that at all and it is a great deal closer.
Pat and I had our first contact with the Long Range Foundation when this
Mr.
Geeking showed up at our home. I did not warm to him. Dad didn’t like him either
and
wanted to hustle him out, but he was
already seated with coffee at his elbow for Mother’s notions of hospitality were firm.
So this Geeking item was allowed to state his business. He was, he said, a field representative of
“Genetics Investigations.”
“What’s that?” Dad said sharply.
‘Genetics Investigations’
is a scientific agency, Mr. Bartlett. This present project is one of gathering data concerning twins. It is in the public interest and we hope that you will cooperate.”
Dad took a deep breath and hauled out the imaginary soapbox he always had ready. “More government meddling! I’m a decent citizen; I pay my bills and support
my family. My boys are just like other boys and I’m sick and tired of the government’s attitude about them. I’m not going to have them poked and prodded and investigated to satisfy some bureaucrat. All we ask is to be left alone-and
that the government admit the obvious fact that my boys have as much right to breathe air and occupy space as anyone else!”
Dad wasn’t stupid; it was just that he had a reaction pattern where Pat and I were concerned as
automatic as the snarl of a dog who has been kicked too often. Mr. Geeking tried to soothe him but Dad
can’t be interrupted when he has started that tape. “You tell the Department of Population Control that I’m not having their ‘genetics investigations.’ What do they want to find out? How to keep people from having twins, probably. What’s wrong with twins? Where would Rome have been without
Romulus
and Remus?-answer me that! Mister, do you know how many-”
“Please, Mr. Bartlett, I’m not from the government.” “Eh? Well, why didn’t you say so? Who are you from?”
“Genetics Investigations is an agency of the Long Range Foundation.”
I felt Pat’s sudden interest.
Everybody has heard of the Long Range Foundation, but it happened that Pat and I had just done a term paper on non-profit corporations and had used the Long Range Foundation as a type example.
We got interested in the purposes of the Long Range Foundation. Its coat of arms reads: “Bread Cast Upon the Waters,”
and its charter is headed: “Dedicated to the Welfare of Our Descendants.” The charter goes on with a lot of lawyers’ fog but the way the directors have interpreted it has been to spend money only on things that no government and no other corporation would touch. It wasn’t enough for a proposed project to be interesting to science or socially desirable; it also had to be so horribly
expensive that no one else would touch it and the prospective results had to lie so far in the future that it could not be justified to taxpayers or shareholders. To make the LRF directors light up with enthusiasm you had to suggest something that cost a billion or more and probably wouldn’t show results for ten generations, if ever … something like how to control the weather (they’re working on
that) or where does your lap go when you stand up.
The funny thing is that bread cast upon waters does come back seven hundred fold; the most preposterous projects made the LRF embarrassing amounts of money-”embarrassing” to a non-profit corporation that is. Take space travel: it seemed tailor-made, back a couple of hundred years ago, for
LRF, since it was fantastically expensive and offered no probable results comparable with the investment: There was a time when governments did some work on it for military reasons,
but the Concord of Bayreuth in 1980 put a stop even to that.
So the Long Range Foundation stepped in and happily began wasting money. It came at a time when
the
corporation unfortunately had made a few billions on the Thompson mass-converter when they had
expected to spend at least a century on pure research; since they could not declare
a dividend (no stockholders), they had to get rid of the money somehow and space travel looked like a rat hole to pour it down.
Even the kids know what happened to that: Ortega’s torch made space travel inside the solar system cheap, fast, and easy, and the one-way energy screen made colonization practical and profitable; the LRF could not unload fast enough to keep from making lots more money.
I did not think all this that evening; LRF was just something that Pat and I happened to know more about than most high school seniors … more than Dad knew, apparently, for he snorted and answered, “The Long Range Foundation,
eh? I’d almost rather you were from the government. If boondoggles
like that were properly taxed, the government wouldn’t be squeezing head taxes out of its citizens.”
This was not a fair statement, not a “flat-curve relationship,” as they call it in Beginning Mathematical Empiricism. Mr. McKeefe had told us to estimate the influence, if any, of LRF on the technology “yeast-form” growth curve; either I should have flunked the course
or LRF had kept the curve from leveling off early in the 21st century-I mean to say, the “cultural inheritance,” the accumulation of
knowledge and wealth that keeps us from being savages, had increased greatly as a result of the tax- free status of such non-profit research corporations.
I didn’t dream up that opinion; there are figures to
prove it. What would have happened if the tribal elders had forced Ugh to hunt with the rest of the tribe instead of staying home and whittling out the first wheel while the idea was bright in his mind?
Mr. Geeking answered, “I can’t debate the merits of such matters, Mr. Bartlett. I’m merely an employee.
“And I’m paying your salary, indirectly and unwillingly, but paying it nevertheless.”
I wanted to get into the argument but I could feel Pat holding back. It did not matter; Mr. Geeking
shrugged and said, “If so, I thank you. But all I came here for was to ask your
twin boys to take a few tests and answer some questions. The tests are harmless and the results will be kept confidential.”
“What are you trying to find out?”
I think Mr. Geeking was telling the truth when he answered, “I don’t know. I’m merely a field agent; I’m not in charge of the project.”
Pat cut in. “I don’t see why not, Dad. Do you have the tests in your briefcase, Mr. Geeking?” “Now, Patrick-”
“It’s all right, Dad. Let’s see the tests, Mr. Geeking.”
“Uh, that’s not what we had in mind. The Project has set up local offices in the TransLunar Building.
The
tests take about half a day.”
“All the way downtown, huh, and a half day’s ‘time … what do you pay?” “Eh? The subjects are asked to contribute their time in the interests of science.”
Pat shook his head. “Sorry, Mr. Geeking. This is exam week … and my brother
and
I have part-time school jobs, too.”
I kept quiet. Our exams were over, except Analysis of History, which is a snap course involving no
math but statistics and pseudospatial calculus, and the school chem lab we worked in was closed for
examinations.
I was sure Dad did not know these things, or he would have butted in; Dad can shift from prejudice to being a Roman judge at the drop of a hint.
Pat stood up, so I stood up. Mr. Geeking sat tight. “Arrangements can be made,” he said evenly.
Pat stuck him as much as we made for a month of washing bottles in the lab, just for one afternoon’s
work-then upped the ante when it was made clear that we would be obliged to take the tests together
(as
if we would have done it any other way!). Mr. Geeking paid without a quiver, in cash,
in advance.
II
THE NATURAL LOGARITHM OF TWO
I never in my life saw so many twins as were waiting on the fortieth floor of the TransLunar Building
the
following Wednesday afternoon. I don’t like to be around
twins, they make me think I’m seeing double. Don’t tell me I’m inconsistent; I never saw the twins I am part of-I just saw Pat.
Pat felt the same way; we had never been chummy with other twins. He looked around and whistled.
“Tom, did you over see such a mess of spare parts?”
“Never.”
“If I were in charge, I’d shoot half of them.” He hadn’t spoken loud enough to offend anyone; Pat and
I used a prison-yard whisper that no one else could hear although we never had trouble understanding it. “Depressing, isn’t it?”
Then he whistled softly and I looked where he was looking. Twins of course, but this was a case of when once is good,
twice is better. They were red-headed sisters, younger than we were but not too young-sixteen, maybe-and cute as Persian kittens.
Those sisters had the effect on us that a light has on a moth. Pat whispered, “Tom, we owe it to them to
grant them a little of our time,” and headed toward them, with me in step. They were dressed in fake Scottish outfits, green plaid which made their hair flame like bonfires and to us they looked as pretty as a new fall of snow.
And just as chilly. Pat got halfway through
his opening speech when he trailed off and shut up; they were staring through him. I was blushing and the only thing that kept it from being a major
embarrassing incident was a loudspeaker that commenced to bray:
“Attention, please! You are requested to report to the door marked with your surname initial.” So we went to door A- to-D and the red-headed sisters headed toward the other end of the alphabet without ever having seen us at all. As we queued up Pat muttered, “Is there egg on my chin? Or have they taken
a vow to be old maids?”
“Probably both,” I answered. “Anyhow, I prefer blondes.” This was true, since Maudie was a blonde.
Pat
and I had been dating Maudie Kauric for about a year-going steady you could call it, though in my
case it usually meant that I was stuck with Maudie’s chum Hedda Staley, whose notion of dazzling conversation was to ask me if I didn’t think Maudie was the cutest thing ever? Since this was true and
unanswerable, our talk did not sparkle.
“Well, so do I,” Pat agreed, without saying which blonde-Maudie was the only subject on which we were reticent with each other. “But I have never had a closed mind.”
He shrugged and added cheerfully,
“Anyhow, there are other possibilities.”
There certainly were, for of the hundreds of twins present maybe a third were near enough our age not to be out of the question and half of them, as near as I could tell without counting, were of the sex that turns a mere crowd into a social event. However, none came up to the high standards of the redheads, so
I began looking over the crowd as a whole.
The oldest pair I saw, two grown men, seemed to be not older than the early thirties and I saw one set of little girls about twelve-they had their mother in tow. But most of them were within a loud shout of
twenty. I had concluded that “Genetics Investigations” was picking its samples by age groups when I found
that we were at the head of the line and a clerk was saying, “Names, please?”
For the next two hours we were passed from one data collector to another, being fingerprinted, giving
blood samples, checking “yes” or “no” to hundreds of silly questions that can’t be answered “yes” or “no.” The physical examination was thorough and involved the usual carefully planned nonsense of keeping a person standing in bare feet on a cold floor in a room five degrees too chilly for naked human
skin while prodding the victim and asking him rude personal questions.
I was thoroughly bored and was not even amused when Pat whispered that we should strip the clothes off the doctor now and prod him in the belly and get the nurse
to record how he liked it? My only
pleasant thought was that Pat had stuck them plenty for their fun. Then they let us get dressed and
ushered us into a room where a rather pretty woman sat behind a desk. She had a transparency viewer
on her desk and was looking at two personality profiles superimposed on it. They almost matched and I tried to sneak a look to see where they did not. But I could not tell Pat’s from my own and anyhow
I’m not a mathematical psychologist.
She smiled and said, “Sit down, boys. I’m Doctor Arnault.” She held up the profiles and a bunch of punched cards and added, “Perfect mirror twins, even to dextrocardia. This should be interesting.”
Pat tried to look at the papers.
“What’s our I.Q. this time, Doctor?”
“Never mind.” She put the papers down and covered them, then picked up a deck of cards. “Have you
ever used these?”
Of course we had, for they were the
classic Rhine test cards, wiggles and stars and so forth. Every high school psychology class has a set and a high score almost always means that some bright boy has figure out a way to cold-deck the teacher. In fact Pat had worked out a simple way to cheat when our teacher,
with a tired lack of anger, split us up and made us run tests only with other people-whereupon our scores dropped to the limits of standard error. So I was already certain that Pat and I weren’t ESP freaks
and
the Rhine cards were just another boring test.
But I could feel Pat become attentive. “Keep your ears open, kid,” I heard him whisper, “and we’ll make this interesting.” Dr. Arnault did not hear him, of course.
I wasn’t sure we ought to but I knew if he could manage to signal to me I would not be able to refrain
from
fudging the results. But I need not have worried; Dr. Arnault took Pat out and returned without him. She was hooked by microphone
to the other test room but there was no chance to whisper through
it; it was hot only when she switched it on.
She started right in. “First test run in twenty seconds, Mabel,” she said into the mike and switched it off, then turned to me. “Look at the cards as I turn them,” she said.
“Don’t try, don’t strain. Just look at them.”
So I looked at the cards. This went on with variations for maybe an hour. Sometimes
I was supposed to
be receiving, sometimes sending. As far as I was concerned nothing happened, for they never told us our
scores.
Finally Dr. Arnault looked at a score sheet and said, “Tom, I want to give you a mild injection. It won’t hurt you and it’ll wear off before you go home. Okay?”
“What sort?” I said suspiciously.
“Don’t fret; it is harmless. I don’t want to tell you or you might unconsciously show the reaction you expected.”
“Uh, what does my brother say? Does he get one, too?” “Never mind, please. I’m asking you.”
I still hesitated. Dad did not favor injections and such unless necessary; he had made a fuss over our
taking part in the encephalitis program. “Are you an M.D.?” I asked. “No, my degree is in science. Why?”
“Then how do you know it’s harmless?”
She bit her lip, then answered, “I’11 send for a doctor of medicine, if you prefer.”
“Uh, no, I guess that won’t be necessary.” I was remembering something that Dad had said about the sleeping sickness shots and I added, “Does the Long Range Foundation carry liability insurance for
this?”
“What? Why, I think so. Yes, I’m sure they do.” She looked at me and added, “Tom, how does a boy your age get to be so suspicions?”
“Huh? Why ask me? You’re the psychologist, ma’am. Anyhow,” I added, “if you had sat on as many tacks as I have, you’d be suspicions too.”
“Mmm … never mind. I’ve been studying for years and I still don’t know what the younger generation is coming to. Well, are you going to take the injection?”
“Uh, I’ll take it-since the LRF carries insurance. Just write out what it is you are giving me and sign it.”
She got two bright pink spots in her cheeks. But she took out stationery, wrote on it, folded it into an envelope and sealed it. “Put it in your pocket,” she said briskly. “Don’t look at it until the experiments are over. Now bare your left forearm.”
As she gave me the shot she said sweetly, “This is going to sting a little…I hope.” It did.
She turned out all the lights except the light in the transparency viewer. “Are you comfortable?” “Sure.”
“I’m sorry if I seemed vexed. I want you to relax and be comfortable.” She came over and did
something to the chair I was in; it opened out gently until I was practically lying in a hammock. “Relax and don’t fight it. If you find yourself getting sleepy, that is to be expected.” She sat down and all I
could see was her face, illuminated by the viewer. She was awfully pretty, I decided, even though she was too old for it to matter … at least thirty, maybe older. And she was nice, too. She spoke
for a few minutes in her gentle voice but I don’t remember exactly what she said.
I must have gone to sleep, for next it was pitch dark and Pat was right there by me, although I hadn’t noticed the light go out nor the door being opened. I started to speak when I heard him whisper:
“Tom, did you ever see such nonsensical rigamarole?”
I whispered back, “Reminds me of the time we were initiated into the Congo Cannibals.” “Keep your voice down; they’ll catch on.”
“You’re the one who is talking too loud: Anyhow, who cares? Let’s give ‘em the Cannibal war whoop and scare ‘em out of their shoes.”
“Later, later. Right now my girl friend Mabel wants me to give you a string of numbers. So we’ll let them have their fun first. After all, they’re paying for it.”
“Okay.”
“Point six nine three one.”
“That’s the natural logarithm of two.”
“What did you think it was? Mabel’s telephone number? Shut up and listen. Just repeat the numbers back. Three point one four one five nine…”
It went on quite a while. Some were familiar numbers like the first two; the rest may have been random or even Mabel’s phone number, for all of me. I got bored and was beginning to think about sticking in a war whoop on my own when Dr. Arnault said
quietly, “End of test run. Both of you please keep quiet and relax for a few minutes. Mabel, I’ll meet you in the data comparison room.” I heard her go out, so I dropped the war whoop notion and relaxed. Repeating all those numbers in the dark had
made me dopey anyhow-and as Uncle Steve says, when you get a chance to rest, do so; you may not get another chance soon.
Presently I heard the door open again, then I was blinking at bright lights. Dr. Arnault said, “That’s all today, Tom … and thank you very much. We want to see you and your brother at the same time tomorrow.”
I blinked again and looked around.
“Where’s Pat? What does he say?”
“You’ll find him in the outer lobby. He told me that you could come tomorrow. You can, can’t you?” “Uh, I suppose
so, if it’s
all
right with him.” I was feeling sheepish about the trick we had pulled, so I
added, “Dr. Arnault? I’m sorry I annoyed you.”
She patted my hand and smiled. “That’s all right, You were right to be cautious and you were a good subject. You should see the wild ones we sometimes draw. See you tomorrow.”
Pat was waiting in the big room where we had seen the redheads. He fell into step and we headed for the drop.
“I raised the fee for tomorrow,” he whispered smugly.
“You did? Pat, do you think we should do this? I mean, fun is fun, but if
they ever twig that we are faking, they’ll be sore. They might even make us pay back what they’ve already paid us.”
“How can they? We’ve been paid to show up and take tests. We’ve done that. It’s up to them to rig tests that can’t be beaten. I could, if I were doing it.”
“Pat, you’re dishonest and crooked, both.” I thought
about Dr. Arnault… she was a nice lady. “I think I’ll stay home tomorrow.”
I said this just as Pat stepped off the drop. He was ten feet below me all the way down and had forty stories in which to consider his answer. As I landed beside him he answered by changing the subject. “They gave you a hypodermic?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think to make them sign an admission of liability, or did you goof?”
“Well, sort of.” I felt in my pocket for the envelope; I’d forgotten about it. “I made Dr. Arnault write down what she was giving us.”
Pat reached for the envelope. “My apologies, maestro. With my brains and your luck we’ve got them where we want them.” He started to open the envelope. “I bet it was neopentothal-or one of the barbiturates.”
I snatched it back. “That’s mine.”
“Well, open it,” he answered, “and don’t obstruct traffic. I want to see what dream drug they gave us.” We had come out into the pedestrian level and his advice did have merit. Before opening it I led us
across the change strips onto the fast-west strip and stepped behind a windbreak. As I unfolded the paper Pat read over my shoulder:
“‘Long Range Fumbling, and so forth-injections given to subjects 7L435 & -6 T. P. Bartlett & P. H.
Bartlett (iden-twins)-each one-tenth c.c. distilled water raised to normal salinity,’ signed ‘Doris Arnault, Sc.D., for the Foundation.’ Tom, we’ve been hoaxed!”
I stared at it, trying to fit what I had experienced with what the paper said. Pat added hopefully, “Or is this the hoax? Were we injected with something else and they didn’t want to admit it?”
“No,” I said slowly. I was sure Dr. Arnault wouldn’t write down “water” and actually give us one of
the
sleeping drugs-she wasn’t that sort of person.
“Pat, we weren’t drugged…we were hypnotized.”
He shook his head. “Impossible. Granting that I could be hypnotized, you couldn’t be. Nothing there to hypnotize. And I wasn’t hypnotized, comrade. No spinning lights, no passes with the hands-why, my
girl Mabel didn’t even stare in my eyes. She just gave me the shot and told me to take it easy and let it take effect.”
“Don’t be juvenile, Pat. Spinning lights and such is for suckers. I don’t care whether you call it hypnotism or salesmanship. They gave us hypos and suggested that we would be sleepy-so we fell asleep.”
“So I was sleepy! Anyhow that wasn’t quite what Mabel did. She told me not to
go to sleep, or if I did,
to
wake up when she called me. Then when they brought
you in, she-”
“Wait a minute. You mean when they moved you back into the room I was in-”
“No, I don’t mean anything of the sort. After they brought
you in, Mabel gave me this list of numbers
and
I read them to you and-”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Pat, you’re mixed up. How could you read them in pitch darkness? She must have read them to you. I mean-” I stopped, for I was getting mixed up myself. Well, she could have read to him from another room. “Were you wearing headphones?”
“What’s that got to do with it? Anyhow, it wasn’t pitch dark, not after
they brought
you in. She held up
the
numbers on a board that was rigged with a light of its own, enough to let me see the numbers and
her
hands.”
“Pat, I wish you wouldn’t keep repeating nonsense. Hypnotized or not, I was never so dopey that I
couldn’t notice anything that happened. I was never moved anywhere; they probably wheeled you in without disturbing you. And the room we were in was pitch dark, not a glimmer.”
Pat did not answer right away, which wasn’t like him. At last he said, “Tom, are you sure?” “Sure I’m sure!”
He sighed. “I hate to say this, because
I know what you will say. But
what are you supposed to do
when none of your theories fits?”
“Huh? Is this a quiz? You throw ‘em away and try a new one. Basic methodology, freshman year.” “Okay, just slip this on for size, don’t mind the pattern: Tom, my boy, brace yourself-we’re mind
readers.”
I tried it and did not like
it. “Pat, just because you can’t explain everything is no reason to talk like the fat old women who go to fortune tellers. We’re muddled, I admit, whether it was drugs or hypnosis. But we couldn’t have been reading each other’s minds or we would have been doing it years ago. We would
have noticed.”
“Not necessarily. There’s never anything much going on in your mind, so why should I notice?” “But it stands to reason-”
“What’s the natural log of two?”
“‘Point six nine three one’ is what you said, though I’ve got very little use for four-place tables. What’s that got to do with it?”
“I used four-place because she gave it to me that way. Do you remember what she said just before I gave you that number?”
“Huh? Who?”
“Mabel. Dr. Mabel Lichtenstein. What did she say?” “Nobody said anything.”
“Tom, my senile symbiote, she told me what to do, to wit, read the numbers
to
you. She told me this in
a clear, penetrating soprano. You didn’t hear her?”
“No.”
“Then you weren’t in the same room. You weren’t within earshot, even though I was prepared to swear
that they had shoved you in right by me. I knew you were there. But you weren’t. So it was telepathy.”
I was confused. I didn’t feel telepathic; I merely felt hungry.
“Me, too, on both counts,” Pat agreed. “So let’s stop at Berkeley Station end get a sandwich.”
I followed him off the strips, feeling not quite as hungry and even more confused. Pat had answered a remark I had not made.
II
PROJECT LEBENSRAUM
Even though I was told to take my time and tell everything, it can’t be done. I haven’t had time to add
to
this for days, but even if I didn’t have to work I still could not “tell all,” because it takes more than a day to write down what happens
in
one day. The harder you try the farther behind you get. So I’m going to quit trying and just hit the high spots.
Anyhow everybody knows the general outline of Project Lebensraum.
We did not say anything to Mum and Dad about that first day. You can’t expose parents to that sort of thing; they get jittery and start issuing edicts. We just told them the tests would run a second day and
that nobody had told us what the results were.
Dr. Arnault seemed unsurprised when we told her we knew the score, even when I blurted out that we thought we had been faking but apparently weren’t. She just nodded and said that it had been necessary to encourage us to think that everything was commonplace, even if there had to be a little fibbing on
both sides. “I had the advantage of having your personality analyses to guide me,” she added.
“Sometimes in psychology you have to go roundabout to arrive at the truth.
“We’ll try a more direct way today,” she went on. “We’ll put you two back to back but close enough together that you unquestionably can hear
each other. But I am going to use a sound screen to cut you
off
partly or completely from time to time without your knowing it.”
It was a lot harder the second time. Naturally we tried and naturally we flubbed. But Dr. Arnault was patient and so was Dr. Lichtenstein-Pat’s “Dr. Mabel.” She preferred to be called Dr. Mabel; she was
short and pudgy and younger than Dr. Arnault and about as cute as a female can be and still look like a sofa pillow. It wasn’t until later that we found out she was boss of the research team and world famous. “Giggly little fat girl” was an act she used to put ordinary people, meaning Pat and myself, at their ease.
I guess this proves you should ignore
the package and read the fine print.
So she giggled and Dr. Arnault looked serious and we could not tell whether we were reading minds or
not. I could hear Tom’s whispers-they told us to go ahead and whisper-and he could hear mine and sometimes they would fade. I was sure we weren’t getting anything, not telepathy I mean, for it was just the way Pat and I used to whisper answers back and forth in school without getting caught.
Finally Dr. Mabel giggled sheepishly and said, “I guess that’s
enough for today. Don’t you think so, Doctor?”
Dr. Arnault agreed and Pat and I sat up and faced each other. I said, “I suppose
yesterday was a fluke. I guess we disappointed you.”
Dr. Mabel looked like a startled kitten. Dr. Arnault answered soberly, “I don’t know what you
expected, Tom, but for the past hour you and your brother have been cut off from hearing each other during every test run.”
“But I did hear him.”
“You certainly did. But not with your ears. We’ve been recording each side of the sound barrier. Perhaps we should play back part of it.”
Dr. Mabel giggled. “That’s a good idea.” So they did. It started out with all four voices while they told us what they wanted, then there were just my whispers and Pat’s, reading lines back and forth from The Comedy of Errors. They must have had parabolic mikes focused on us for our whispers sounded like a windstorm.
Pat’s whispers gradually faded out. But mine kept right on going…answering a dead silence.
We signed a research contract with the Foundation and Dad countersigned it, after an argument. He thought mind-reading was folderol and we did not dispute him, since the clincher was that money was
scarce as always and it was a better-paying job than any summer
job
we could get, fat enough to insure that we could start college even if our scholarships didn’t come through.
But before the summer was over they let us in on the connection between “Genetics Investigations” and “Project Lebensraum.” That was a horse of another color-a very dark black, from our parents’
standpoint.
Long before that time Pat and I could telepath as easily as we could talk and just as accurately, without special nursing and at any distance. We must have been doing it for years without
knowing it-in fact Dr. Arnault made a surprise recording of our prison-yard whispering (when we weren’t trying to telepath,
just our ordinary private conversation) and proved that neither one of us could understand our recorded
whispers when we were keeping it down low to keep other people from hearing.
She told us that it was theoretically possible that everyone was potentially telepathic, but that it had
proved difficult to demonstrate it except with identical twins-and then only with about ten per cent.
“We don’t know why, but think of an analogy with tuned radio circuits.”
“Brain waves?” I asked.
“Don’t push the analogy too far. It can’t be the brain waves we detect with an encephalograph equipment or we would have been selling commercial telepathic equipment long since. And the human brain is not a radio. But whatever it is, two persons from the same egg stand an enormously better
chance of being ‘tuned in’ than two non-twins do. I can’t read your mind and you can’t read mine and
perhaps we never will. There have been only a few cases in all the history of psychology of people who appeared to be able to ‘tune in’ on just anyone, and most of those aren’t well documented.”
Pat grinned and winked at Dr. Mabel. “So we are a couple of freaks.”
She looked wide-eyed and started to answer but Dr. Arnault beat her to it. “Not at all, Pat. In you it is normal. But we do have teams in the project who are not identical twins. Some husbands and wives, a few fraternal siblings, even some pairs who were brought
together by the research itself. They are the ‘freaks.’ If we could find out how they do it, we. might be able to set up conditions to let anyone do it.”
Dr. Mabel shivered. “What a terrible thought! There is too little privacy now.”
I repeated this to Maudie (with Pat’s interruptions and corrections)
because the news services had found
out what was going on in “Genetics Investigations” and naturally we “mind readers” came in for
a lot of silly publicity and just as naturally, under Hedda Staley’s mush-headed prodding, Maudie began to wonder if a girl had any privacy? She had, of course; I could not have read her mind with a search warrant, nor could Pat. She would have believed our simple statement if Hedda had not harped
on it. She nearly managed to bust us up with Maudie, but we jettisoned her instead and we had
threesome dates with Maudie until Pat was sent away.
But that wasn’t until nearly the end of the summer after they explained Project Lebensraum.
About a week before our contract was to run out they gathered us twins together to talk to us. There
had been hundreds that first day, dozens the second day, but just enough to crowd a big conference room by the end of summer. The redheads were among the survivors but Pat and I did not sit by them even though there was room; they still maintained their icicle attitude and were self-centered as oysters. The rest of us were all old friends by now.
A Mr. Howard was introduced as representing the Foundation. He ladled out the usual guff about being
happy to meet us and appreciating the honor
and so forth. Pat said to me. “Hang onto your wallet,
Tom. This bloke is selling something.” Now that we knew what we were doing Pat and I talked in the presence of other people even more than we used to. We no longer bothered to whisper since we had
had
proved to us that we weren’t hearing the whispers. But we did subvocalize the words silently, as it helped in being understood. Early in the summer we had tried to do without
words and read minds directly but it did not work. Oh, I could latch on to Pat, but the silly, incoherent rumbling that went on his mind in place of thought was confusing and annoying, as senseless as finding yourself inside another person’s dream. So I learned not to listen unless he “spoke” to me and he did the same. When we did, we used words and sentences like anybody else. There was none of this fantastic, impossible popular nonsense about instantly grasping the contents of another person’s mind; we simply “talked.”
One thing that had bothered me was why Pat’s telepathic “voice” sounded like his real one. It had not worried me when I did not know what we were doing, but once I realized that these “sounds”
weren’t sounds, it bothered me. I began to wonder if I was all there and for a week I could not “hear” him- psychosomatic telepathic-deafness Dr. Arnault called it.
She got me straightened out by explaining what hearing is. You don’t hear with your ears, you hear
with your brain; you don’t see with your eyes, you see with your
brain. When you touch something, the sensation is not in your finger, it is inside your head. The ears and eyes and fingers are just data collectors; it is the brain that abstracts order out of a chaos of data and gives it meaning. “A new baby
does not really see,” she said. “Watch the eyes of one and you can see that it doesn’t. Its eyes
work
but its brain has not yet learned to see. But once the brain has acquired the habits of abstracting as ‘seeing’
and
‘hearing,’ the habit persists. How would you expect to ‘hear’ what your twin says
to
you telepathically? As little tinkling bells or dancing lights? Not at all. You expect words, your brain ‘hears’ words; it is a process it is used to and knows how to handle.”
I no longer worried about it, I could hear Pat’s voice clearer than I could hear the voice of the speaker
addressing us. No doubt there were fifty other conversations around
us, but I heard no one but Pat and
it
was obvious that the speaker could not hear anybody (and that he did not know
much about telepathy) for he went on:
“Possibly a lot of you wonderful people-” (This with a sickening smile) “-are reading my mind right now. I hope not, or if you are I hope you will bear
with me until I have said my say.”
“What did I tell you?” Pat put in. “Don’t sign anything until l check it.”
(“Shut up,”). I told him. (“I want to listen.”) His voice used to sound like a whisper; now it tended to
drown out real sounds. “
Mr. Howard went on, “Perhaps you have wondered why the Long Range Foundation has sponsored this research. The Foundation is always interested in anything which will add to human knowledge. But there is a much more important reason,
a supremely important reason … and a grand purpose
to which you yourselves can be supremely important.”
“See? Be sure to count your change.” (“Quiet, Pat.”)
“Let me quote,” Mr. Howard continued, “from the charter of the Long Range Foundation: ‘Dedicated
to
the welfare of our descendants.’ “ He paused dramatically-I think that was what he intended; “Ladies and gentlemen, what one thing above all is necessary for our descendants?”
“Ancestors!” Pat answered promptly. For a second I thought that he had used his vocal cords, But nobody else noticed.
“There can be only one answer-living room! Room to grow, room to raise families, broad acres of fertile grain, room for parks and schools and homes. We have over five billion human souls on this planet; it was crowded to the point of marginal starvation more than a century ago with only half that number. Yet this afternoon there are a quarter of a million more of us than there were at this same hour yesterday – ninety million more people each year. Only by monumental efforts of reclamation and
conservation, plus population control measures that grow daily more difficult, have we been able to stave off starvation. We have placed a sea in the Sahara, we have melted the Greenland ice cap, we have watered the windy steppes, yet each year there is more and more pressure
for more and more room for endlessly more people.”
I don’t care for orations and this was all old stuff. Shucks, Pat and I knew it if anyone did; we were the kittens that should have been drowned; our old man paid a yearly fine for our very existence.
“It has been a century since the inception of interplanetary travel; man has spread through
the Solar System. One would think that nine planets would be ample for a race too fertile for one. Yet you all know that such has not been the case. Of the daughters of Father
Sol only fair Terra is truly suited to Man.”
“I’ll bet he writes advertising slogans.” (“Poor ones,”) I agreed.
“Colonize the others we have done, but only at a great cost. The sturdy Dutch in pushing back the sea have not faced such grim and nearly hopeless tasks as the colonists of Mars and Venus and Ganymede. What the human race needs and must have are not these frozen or burning or airless discards of
creation.
We need more planets like this gentle one we are standing on. And there are more, many more!” He waved his hands at the ceiling and looked up.
“There are dozens, hundreds, thousands, countless hordes of them … out there. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the stars!”
“Here comes the pitch,” Pat said quietly. “A fast curve, breaking inside.” (“Pat, what the deuce is he driving at?”)
“He’s a real estate agent.”
Pat was not far off: but I am not going to quote the rest of Mr. Howard’s speech. He was a good sort when we got to know him but he was dazzled by the sound of his own voice, so I’ll summarize. He reminded us that the Torchship Avant-Garde had headed out to Proxima Centauri six years back. Pat and I knew about it not only from the news but because mother’s brother, Uncle Steve, had put in for it-
he was turned down, but for a while we enjoyed prestige just from being related to somebody on the list-I guess we gave the impression around school that Uncle Steve was certain to be chosen.
Nobody had heard from the Avant-Garde and maybe she would be back in fifteen or twenty years and
maybe not. The reason we hadn’t heard from her, as Mr. Howard pointed out and everybody knows,
is that you don’t send radio messages back from a ship light-years away and traveling just under the speed of light. Even if you assumed that a ship could carry a power plant big enough to punch radio
messages across light-years (which may not be impossible in some cosmic sense but surely is
impossible in terms of modem engineering)-even so, what use are messages which travel just barely
faster than the ship that sends them? The Avant-Garde would be home almost as quickly as any report she could send, even by radio.
Some fuzzbrain asked about messenger rockets. Mr. Howard looked pained and tried to answer and I
didn’t listen. If radio isn’t fast enough,
how can a messenger
rocket be faster? I’ll bet Dr. Einstein spun
in his grave.
Mr. Howard hurried on before there were any more silly interruptions. The Long Range Foundation
proposed to send out a dozen more starships in all directions to explore Sol-type solar systems for
Earth-type planets, planets for coloniza tion. The ships might be gone a long time, for each one would
explore more than one solar system.
“And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where you are indispensable to this great project for living room-
for you will be the means whereby the captains of those ships report back what they have found!”
Even Pat kept quiet.
Presently a man stood up in the back of the room. He was one of the oldest twins among us; he and his brother were about thirty-five. “Excuse me, Mr. Howard, but may I ask a question?”
. “Surely.”
“I am Gregory Graham; this is my brother Grant Graham. We’re physicists. Now we don’t claim to be expert in cosmic phenomena but we do know something about communication theory. Granting for the sake of argument that telepathy would work over interstellar distances-I don’t think so but I’ve no
proof that it wouldn’t-even granting that, I can’t see where it helps. Telepathy, light, radio waves, even
gravity, are all limited to the speed of light. That is in the very nature of the physical universe, an
ultimate limit for all communication. Any other view falls into the ancient philosophical contradiction of action-at-a-distance. It is just possible that you might use telepathy to report findings and let the ship go on to new explorations-but the message would still take light-years to come back. Communication
back and forth between a starship and Earth, even by telepathy, is utterly impossible, contrary to the known laws of physics.” He looked apologetic and sat down.
I thought Graham had him on the hip. Pat and I got good marks in physics and what Graham had said was the straight word, right out of the book. But Howard did not seem bothered. “I’ll let an expert answer. Dr. Lichtenstein? If you please-”
Dr. Mabel stood up and blushed and giggled and looked flustered and said, “I’m terribly sorry, Mr.
Graham, I really am, but telepathy isn’t like that at all.” She giggled again and said, “I shouldn’t be saying this, since you are telepathic and I’m not, but telepathy doesn’t pay the least bit of attention to the speed of light.”
“But it has to. The laws of physics-”
“Oh, dear! Have we given you the impression that telepathy is physical?” She twisted her hands. “It probably isn’t.”
“Everything is physical. I include ‘physiological,’ of course.”
“It is? You do? Oh, I wish I could be sure … but physics has always
been much too deep for me. But I don’t know how you can be sure that telepathy is physical; we haven’t been able to make it register on any instrument. Dear me, we don’t even know how consciousness hooks
into matter. Is consciousness physical? I’m sure I don’t know. But we do know that telepathy is faster than light because we measured it.”
Pat sat up with a jerk, “Stick around,
kid. I think we’ll stay for the second show.” Graham looked stunned. Dr. Mabel said hastily, “I didn’t do it; it was Dr; Abernathy.” “Horatio Abernathy?” demanded Graham.
“Yes, that’s his first name, though I never dared call him by it. He’s rather important.”
“Just the Nobel prize,” Graham said grimly, “in field theory. Go on. What did he find?”
“Well, we sent this one twin out to Ganymede-such an awfully long way. Then we used simultaneous radio-telephony and telepathy messages, with the twin on Ganymede talking by radio while he was talking directly-telepathically, I mean-to his twin back in Buenos Aires. The telepathic message always beat the radio message by about forty minutes. That would be right, wouldn’t it? You can see the exact figures in my office.”
Graham managed to close his month. “When did this happen? Why hasn’t it been published? Who has
been keeping it secret? It’s the most important thing since the Michelson-Morley experiment-it’s terrible!”
Dr. Mabel looked upset and Mr. Howard butted in soothingly. “Nobody has been suppressing
knowledge, Mr. Graham, and Dr. Abernathy is preparing an article for publication in the Physical Review. However I admit that the Foundation did ask him not to give out an advance release in order
to
give us time to go ahead with another project-the one you know as ‘Genetics Investigations’-on a crash- priority basis. We felt we were entitled to search out and attempt to sign up potential telepathic teams before every psychological laboratory and, for that matter, every ambitious showman, tried to
beat us to it. Dr. Abernathy was willing-he
doesn’t like premature publication.”
“If it will make you feel better, Mr. Graham,” Dr. Mabel said diffidently, “telepathy doesn’t pay
attention to the inverse-square law either. The signal strength was as strong at half a billion miles as
when the paired telepaths were in adjoining rooms.”
Graham sat down heavily. “I don’t know whether it does or it doesn’t. I’m busy rearranging everything
I have ever believed.”
The interruption by the Graham brothers had explained some things but had pulled us away from the purpose of the meeting, which was for Mr. Howard to sell us on signing up as spacemen. He did not have to sell me. I guess every boy wants to go out into space; Pat and I had run away from home once to enlist in the High Marines-and this was much more than just getting on the Earth-Mars-Venus run; this meant exploring the stars.
The Stars!
“We’ve told you about this before your research contracts run out,” Mr. Howard explained, “so that you will have time to consider it, time for us to explain the conditions and advantages.”
I did not care what the advantages
were. If they had invited me to hook a sled on behind, I would have said yes, not worrying about torch blast or space suits or anything.
“Both members of each telepathic team will be equally well taken care of,” he assured us. “The starside member will have good pay and good working conditions
in the finest of modern torchships in the company of crews selected for psychological compatibility as well as for special training; the earthside member will have his financial future assured, as well as his physical welfare.” He smiled.
“Most assuredly his physical welfare, for it is necessary that he be kept alive and well as long as
science can keep him so. It is not too much to say that signing this contract will add thirty years to your
lives.”
It burst on me why the twins they had tested had been young people. The twin who went out to the stars would not age very much, not at the speed of light. Even if he stayed away a century it would not seem that long to him-but his twin who stayed behind would grow older. They would have to pamper
him
like royalty, keep him alive-or their “radio” would break down.
Pat said, “Milky Way, here I come!”
But Mr. Howard was still talking. “We want you to think this over carefully; it is the most important decision you will ever make. On the shoulders of you few and others like you in other cities around the globe, all told just a tiny fraction of one per cent of the human race, on you precious
few rest the hopes of all humanity. So think carefully and give us a chance to explain anything which may trouble you.
Don’t act hastily.”
The red-headed twins got up and walked out, noses in the air. They did not have to speak to make it clear that they would have nothing to do with anything so unladylike, so rude and crude, as exploring
space. In the silence in which they paraded out Pat said to me, “There go the Pioneer Mothers. That’s the spirit that discovered America.” As they passed us he cut loose with a loud razzberry-and I suddenly realized that he was not telepathing when the redheads stiffened and hurried faster. There was an embarrassed laugh and Mr. Howard quickly picked up the business at hand as if nothing had happened
while I bawled Pat out.
Mr. Howard asked us to come back at the usual time tomorrow, when Foundation representatives would explain details. He invited us to bring our lawyers, or (those of us who were under age, which was more than half) our parents and their lawyers.
Pat was bubbling over as we left, but I had lost my enthusiasm. In the middle of Mr. Howard’s speech I had had a great light dawn: one of us was going to have to stay behind and I knew as certainly as bread falls butter side down which one it would be. A possible thirty more years
on my life was no inducement to me. What use is thirty extra years wrapped in cottonwool? There would be no spacing
for the twin left behind, not even inside the Solar System … and I had never even been to the Moon.
I tried to butt in on Pat’s enthusiasm and put it to him fair
and
square, for I was darned if I was going to take the small piece of cake this time without argument.
“Look, Pat, I’ll draw straws with you for it. Or match coins.” “Huh? What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about!”
He just brushed it aside and grinned. “You worry too much, Tom. They’ll pick the teams the way they
want to. It won’t be up to us.”
I know he was determined to go and I knew I would lose.
IV HALF A LOAF
Our parents made the predictable uproar. A conference in the Bartlett family always sounded like a zoo
at
feeding time but this one set a new high. In addition
to Pat and myself, Faith, Hope, and Charity, and
our parents, there was Faith’s fairly new husband, Frank Dubois, and Hope’s brand- new fiancé, Lothar
Sembrich. The last two did not count and both of them seemed to me to be examples of what lengths a girl will go to in order to get married, but they used up space and occasionally contributed remarks to confuse the issue. But Mother’s brother, Uncle Steve, was there, too, having popped up on Earthside furlough.
It was Uncle Steve’s presence that decided Pat to bring it out in the open instead of waiting to tackle Dad and Mum one at a time. Both of them considered Uncle Steve a disturbing influence but they were proud of him; one of his rare visits was always a holiday.
Mr. Howard had given us a sample contract to take home and look over. After dinner Pat said, “By the way, Dad, the Foundation offered us a new contract today, a long-term one.” He took it out of his
pocket but did not offer it to Dad.
“I trust you told them that you were about to start school again?”
“Sure, we told them that, but they insisted that we take the contract home to show our parents. Okay, we knew what your answer would be.” Pat started to put the contract into his pocket.
I said to Pat privately, (“What’s the silly idea? You’ve made him say ‘no’ and now he can’t back down.”)
“Not yet he hasn’t,” Pat answered on our private circuit. “Don’t joggle my elbow.”
Dad was already reaching out a hand. “Let me see it, You should never make up your mind without knowing the facts.”
Pat was not quick about passing it over. “Well, there is a scholarship clause,” he admitted, “but Tom and I wouldn’t be able to go to school together the way we always have.”
“That’s not necessarily bad. You two are too dependent on each other. Some day you will have to face the cold, cruel world alone … and going to different schools might be a good place to start.”
Pat stuck out the contract, folded to the second page, “It’s paragraph ten.”
Dad read paragraph ten first, just as Pat meant him to do, and his eyebrows went up. Paragraph ten agreed that the party of the first part, the LRF, would keep the party of the second part in any school of
his
choice, all expenses, for the duration of the contract, or a shorter time at his option, and agreed to
do the same for the party of the third part after the completion of the active period of the contract, plus tutoring during the active period-all of which was a long-winded way of saying that the Foundation would put the one who stayed home through school now and the one who went starside through
school when he got back… all this in addition to our salaries; see paragraph seven.
So Dad turned to paragraph seven and his eyebrows went higher and his pipe went out. He looked at Pat. “Do I understand that they intend to appoint you two ‘communications technicians tenth grade’ with no experience?”
Uncle Steve sat up and almost knocked his chair over.
“Bruce, did you say ‘tenth grade’?”
“So it says.”
“Regular LRF pay scales?”
“Yes. I don’t know how much that is, but I believe they ordinarily hire skilled ratings beginning at third grade.”
Uncle Steve whistled. “I’d hate to tell you how much money it is, Bruce-but the chief electron pusher
on Pluto is tenth pay grade … and it took him twenty years and a doctor’s degree to get there.” Uncle Steve looked at us.
“Give out, shipmates. Where did they bury the body? Is it a bribe?” Pat did not answer. Uncle Steve turned to Dad and said, “Never mind the fine print, Bruce; just have the kids sign it. Each one of them will make more than you and me together. Never argue with Santa Claus.”
But Dad was already reading the fine print, from sub-paragraph one-A to the penalty clauses. It was
written in lawyer language but what it did was to sign us up as crew members for one voyage of an LRF ship, except that one of us was required to perform his duties Earthside. There was lots more to
nail it down so that the one who stayed Earth-side could not wiggle out, but that was all it amounted to.
The contact did not say where the ship would go or how long the voyage would last.
Dad finally put the contract down and Charity grabbed it. Dad took it from her and passed it over to Mother. Then he said, “Boys, this contract looks so favorable that I suspect there must be a catch. Tomorrow morning I’m going to get hold of Judge Holland and ask him to go over
it
with me. But if I
read it correctly, you are being offered all these benefits-and an extravagant salary-provided one of you
makes one voyage in the Lewis and Clark.”
Uncle Steve said suddenly, “The Lewis and Clark, Bruce?”
“The Lewis and Clark, or such sister ship as may be designated. Why? You know the ship, Steve?” Uncle Steve got poker-faced and answered, “I’ve never been in her. New ship, I understand. Well
equipped.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Dad looked at Mum. “Well, Molly?”
Mother did not answer. She was reading the contract and steadily getting whiter. Uncle Steve caught my eye and shook his head very slightly. I said to Pat, (“Uncle Steve has spotted the catch in it.”)
“He won’t hinder. “
Mother looked up at last and spoke to Dad in a high voice. “I suppose
you are going to consent?” She sounded sick. She put down the contract and Charity grabbed it again just as Hope grabbed it from the other side. It ended with our brother-in-law Frank Dubois holding it while everybody else read over his
shoulders.
“Now, my dear,” Dad said mildly, “remember that boys do grow up. I would like to keep the family
together forever-but it can’t be that way and you know it.”
“Bruce, you promised that they would not go out into space.”
Her brother shot her a glance-his chest was covered with ribbons he had won in space. But Dad went on just as mildly. “Not quite, dear. I promised you that I would not consent to minority enlistment in the peace forces; I want them to finish school and I did not want you upset. But this is another matter … and, if we refuse, it won’t be long before they can enlist whether we like it or not.”
Mother turned to Uncle Steve and said bitterly, “Stephen, you put this idea in their heads.” He looked annoyed then answered as gently as Dad.
“Take it easy, Sis. I’ve been away; you can’t pin this on me. Anyhow, you don’t put ideas in boys’
heads; they grow them naturally.”
Frank Dubois cleared his throat and said loudly, “Since this seems to be a family conference, no doubt you would like my opinion.”
I said, to Pat only, (‘Nobody asked your opinion, you lard head!”) Pat answered, “Let him talk. He’s our secret weapon, maybe.”
“If you want the considered judgment of an experienced businessman, this so-called contract is either a practical joke or a proposition so preposterous as to be treated with contempt. I understand that the twins are supposed to have some freak talent-although I’ve seen no evidence of it-but the idea of
paying them more than a man receives in his mature years, well, it’s just not the right way to raise boys. If they were sons of mine, I would forbid it. Of course, they’re not-”
“No, they’re not,” Dad agreed.
Frank looked sharply at him. “Was that sarcasm, Father Bartlett? I’m merely trying to help. But as I
told you the other day, if the twins will go to some good business school and work hard, I’d find a place for them in the bakery. If they make good, there is no reason why they should not do as well as I have done.” Frank was his father’s junior partner in an automated bakery; he always managed to let people know how much money he made. “But as for this notion of going out into space, I’ve always said that if a man expects to make anything of himself, he should stay home and work. Excuse me, Steve.”
Uncle Steve said woodenly, “I’d be glad to excuse you.” “Eh?”
“Forget it, forget it. You stay out of space and I’ll promise not to bake any bread. By the way, there’s flour on your lapel.”
Frank glanced down hastily. Faith brushed at his jacket and said, “Why, that’s just powder.”
“Of course it is,” Frank agreed, brushing at it himself. “I’ll have you know, Steve, that I’m usually
much too busy to go down on the processing floor. I’m hardly ever out of the office.”
“So I suspected.”
Frank decided that he and Faith were late for another appointment and got up to go, when Dad stopped them.
“Frank? What was that about my boys being freaks?” “What? I never said anything of the sort.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
They left in a sticky silence, except that Pat was humming silently and loudly the March of the Gladiators. “We’ve got it won, kid!”
It seemed so to me, too-but
Pat had to press our luck. He picked up the contract. “Then it’s okay,
Dad?”
“Mmm … I want to consult Judge Holland-and I’m not speaking for your mother.” That did not worry us; Mum wouldn’t hold out if Dad agreed, especially not with Uncle Steve around.
“But you could say that the matter has not been disapproved.” He frowned. “By the way, there is no time limit mentioned
in
there.”
Uncle Steve fielded that one for us; “That’s customary on a commercial ship, Bruce … which is what
this is, legally. You sign on for the voyage, home planet to home planet.” “Uh, no doubt. But didn’t they give you some idea, boys?”
I
heard Pat moan, “There goes the ball game. What’ll we tell him, Tom” Dad waited and Uncle Steve eyed us.
Finally Uncle Steve said, “Better speak up, boys. Perhaps I should have mentioned that I’m trying to get a billet on one of those ships myself-special discharge and such. So I know.”
Pat muttered something. Dad said sharply, “Speak up, son.” “They told us the voyage would probably last … about a century.”
Mum fainted and Uncle Steve caught her and everybody rushed around
with cold compresses getting in each other’s way and we were all upset. Once she pulled out of it Uncle Steve said to Dad, “Bruce? I’m going to take the boys out and buy them a tall, strong sarsaparilla and get them out from under foot.
You
won’t want to talk tonight anyhow.”
Dad agreed absently that it was a good. idea. I guess Dad loved all of us; nevertheless,
when the chips were down,
nobody counted but Mother.
Uncle Steve took us to a place where be could get something more to his taste than sarsaparilla, then vetoed it when Pat tried to order
beer. “Don’t try to show off, youngster. You are not going to put me in the position of serving liquor to my sister’s kids.”
“Beer can’t hurt you.”
“So? I’m still looking for the bloke who told me it was a soft drink. I’m going to beat him to a pulp with a stein. Pipe down.” So we picked soft drinks and he drank some horrible mixture he called a Martian shandy and we talked about Project Lebensraum. He knew more about it than we did even though no press release had been made until that day-I suppose the fact that he had been assigned to the Chief of Staff’s office had something to do with it, but he did not say.
Presently Pat looked worried and said, “See here, Uncle Steve, is there any chance that they will let us? Or should Tom and I just forget it?”
“Eh? Of course they are going to let you do it.”
“Huh? It didn’t look like
it tonight. If I know Dad, he would skin us for rugs rather than make Mum unhappy.”
“No doubt. And a good idea. But believe me, boys, this is in the bag … provided you use the right arguments.”
“Which is?”
“Mmm … boys, being a staff rating, I’ve served with a lot of high brass. When you are right and a general is wrong, there is only one way to get him to change his mind. You shut up and don’t argue.
You
let the facts speak for themselves and give him time to figure out a logical reason for reversing
himself.”
Pat looked unconvinced; Uncle Steve went on, “Believe me. Your pop is a reasonable man and, while your mother is not, she would rather be hurt herself than make anybody she loves unhappy. That contract is all in your favor and they can’t refuse-provided you give them time to adjust to the idea. But if you tease and bulldoze and argue the way you usually do, you’ll get them united against you.”
“Huh? But I never tease, I merely use logical-”
“Stow it, you make me tired. Pat, you were one of the most unlovable brats that ever squawled to get his own way … and, Tom, you weren’t any better. You haven’t mellowed with age; you’ve simply sharpened your techniques. Now you are being offered something free that I would give my right arm to have. I ought to stand aside and let you flub it. But I won’t. Keep your flapping mouths shut, play this easy, and it’s yours. Try your usual loathsome tactics and you lose.”
We would not take that sort of talk from most people. Anybody else and Pat would have given me the signal and he’d ‘ve hit him high while I hit him low. But you don’t argue that way with a man who wears the Ceres ribbon; you listen. Pat didn’t even mutter to me about it.
So we talked about Project Lebensraum itself. Twelve ships were to go out, radiating from Sol approximately in axes of a dodecahedron-but only approximately, as each ship’s mission would be, not to search a volume of space, but to visit as many Sol-type stars as possible in the shortest time. Uncle Steve explained how they worked out a “mini-max” search curve for each ship but I did not understand
it; it involved a type of calculus we had not studied.. Not that it mattered; each ship was to spend as much time exploring and as little time making the jumps as possible.
But Pat could not keep from coming back to the idea of how to sell the deal to our parents. “Uncle Steve? Granting that you are right about playing it easy, here’s an argument that maybe they should hear? Maybe you could use it on them?”
“Um?”
“Well, if half a loaf is better than none, maybe they haven’t realized that this way one of us stays
home.” I caught
a phrase of what Pat had started to say, which was not “one of us stays home,” but “Tom stays
home.” I started to object, then let it ride. He hadn’t said it. Pat went on, “They know we want to space. If they don’t let us do this, we’ll do it any way we can. If we joined your corps,
we
might come home on leave-but not often. If we emigrate, we might as well be dead; very few emigrants
make enough to afford a trip back to Earth, not while their parents are still alive, at least. So if they keep us home now, as soon as we are of age they probably will never see us again. But if they agree,
not only does one stay home, but they are always in touch with the other one-that’s the whole purpose in using us telepath pairs.” Pat looked anxiously at Uncle Steve.
“Shouldn’t we point that out? Or will you slip them the idea?”
Uncle Steve did not answer right away, although
I could not see anything wrong with the logic. Two from two leaves zero, but one from two still leaves one.
Finally he answered slowly, “Pat, can’t you get it through your thick head to leave well enough
alone?”
“I don’t see what’s wrong with my logic.”
“Since when was an emotional argument won by logic? You should read about the time King Solomon
proposed to divvy up the baby.” He took a pull at his glass and wiped his mouth. “What I am about to
tell you is strictly confidential. Did you know that the Planetary League considered commissioning these ships as warships?”
“Huh? Why?
Mr.
Howard didn’t say-”
“Keep your voice down. Project Lebensraum is of supreme interest to the Department of Peace. When
it
comes down to it, the root cause of war is always population pressure no matter what other factors enter in.”
“But we’ve abolished war.”
“So we have. So chaps like me get paid to stomp out brush fires before they burn the whole forest.
Boys, if I tell you the rest of this, you’ve got to keep it to yourselves now and forever.” I
don’t like secrets. I’d rather owe money. You can’t pay back a secret. But we promised.
“Okay. I saw the estimates the Department of Peace made on this project at the request of LRF. When
the
Avant-Garde was sent out, they gave her one chance in nine of returning. We’ve got better equipment now; they figure one chance in six for each planetary system visited. Each ship visits an
average of six stars on the schedule laid out-so each ship has one chance in thirty-six of coming back. For
twelve ships that means one chance in three of maybe one ship coming back. That’s where you freaks come in.”
“Don’t call us ‘freaks’!”
We answered together.
“ ‘Freaks,’ “ he repeated. “And everybody is mighty glad you freaks are around,
because without you the thing is impossible. Ships and crews are expendable-ships are just money and they can always find
people like me with more curiosity than sense to man the ships. But while the ships are expendable, the knowledge they will gather is not expendable. Nobody at the top expects these ships to come back-but we’ve got to locate those earth-type planets; the human race needs them. That is what you boys are for: to report back. Then it won’t matter that the ships won’t come back.”
“I’m not scared,” I said firmly.
Pat glanced at me and looked away. I hadn’t telepathed but I had told him plainly that the matter was
not settled as to which one of us would go. Uncle Steve looked at me soberly and said, “I didn’t expect you to be, at your age. Nor am I; I’ve been living on borrowed time since I was nineteen. By now I’m so convinced of my own luck that if one ship comes back, I’m sure it will be mine. But do you see why
it
would be silly to argue with your mother that half a set of twins is better than none? Emotionally your argument is all wrong. Go read the Parable of the Lost Sheep. You point out to your mother that one of you will be safe at home and it will simply fix her
mind on the fact that the other
one isn’t safe and isn’t home. If your Pop tries to reassure her, he is likely to stumble onto these facts-for they aren’t secret, not the facts on which the statisticians based their predictions;
it is just that the publicity about this project will emphasize the positive and play down the negative.”
“Uncle Steve,” objected Pat, “I don’t see how they can be sure that most of the ships will be lost.” “They can’t be sure. But these are actually optimistic assumptions based on what experience the race
has had with investigating strange places. It’s like this, Pat: you can be right over and over again, but when it comes to exploring strange places, the first time you guess wrong is the last guess you make. You’re dead. Ever looked at the figures about it in just this one tiny solar system? Exploration is like Russian roulette; you can win and win, but if you keep on, it will kill you, certain.
So
don’t get your parents stirred up on this phase of the matter. I don’t mind-a man is entitled to die the way he wants to; that’s one thing they haven’t taxed. But there is no use in drawing attention to the fact that one of you two isn’t coming back.”
V THE PARTY OF THE SECOND PART
Uncle Steve was right about the folks giving in; Pat left for the training course three weeks later.
I still don’t know just how it was that Pat got to be the one. We never matched for it, we never had a knock-down argument, and I never agreed. But Pat went.
I tried to settle it with him several times but he always put me off, telling me not to worry and to wait and see how things worked out. Presently I found it taken for granted that Pat was going and I was
staying. Maybe I should have made a stand the day we signed the contract, when Pat hung back and let me sign first, thereby getting me down on paper as the party of the second part who stayed home,
instead of party of the third part who went. But it had not seemed worth making a row about, as the two were interchangeable by agreement among the three parties to the contact. Pat pointed this out to me just before we signed; the important thing was to get the contract signed while our parents were holding
still-get their signatures.
Was Pat trying to put one over on me right then? If so, I didn’t catch him wording his thoughts. Contrariwise, would I have tried the same thing on him if I had thought
of it? I don’t know, I just don’t know. In any case, I gradually became aware that the matter was settled; the family took it for granted and so did the LRF people. So I told Pat it was not settled. He just shrugged and reminded me that it had not been his doing. Maybe I could get them to change their minds… if I didn’t care whether or not I
upset the applecart.
I didn’t want to do that. We did not know that the LRF would have got down on its knees and wept rather than let any young and healthy telepath pair get away from them; we thought
they had plenty to
choose from. I thought that if
I made a fuss they might tear up the contract, which they could do up till D-Day by paying a small penalty.
Instead I got Dad alone and talked to him. This shows how desperate I was; neither Pat nor I ever went alone to our parents about the other one. I didn’t feel easy about it, but stammered and stuttered and had trouble making Dad understand why I felt swindled.
Dad looked troubled and said, “Tom, I thought
you and your brother had settled this between you?” “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! We didn’t.”
“What do you expect me to do?”
“Why, I want you to make him be fair
about it. We ought to match for it, or something. Or you could do it for us and keep it fair and square. Would you?”
Dad gave
attention to his pipe the way he does when he is stalling. At last he said, “Tom, I don’t see how you can back out now, after everything is settled. Unless you want me to break the contract? It wouldn’t be easy but I can.”
“But I don’t have to break the contract. I just want an even chance. If I lose, I’ll shut up. If I win, it won’t change anything-except that I would go and Pat would stay.”
“Mmm …” Dad puffed on his pipe and looked thoughtful. “Tom, have you looked at your mother
lately?”
I had, but I hadn’t talked with her much. She was moving around
like a zombie, looking grief-stricken
and
hurt. “Why?”
“I can’t do this
to
her. She’s
already going through
the agony of losing your brother; I can’t put her
through
it on your account, too. She couldn’t stand
it.”
I knew she was feeling bad, but I could not see what difference it would make if we swapped. “You’re not suggesting that Mum wants it this way? That she would rather have Pat go than me?”
“I am not. Your mother loves you both, equally,” “Then it would be just the same to her.”
“It would not. She’s undergoing the grief of losing one of her sons. If you swapped now, she would
have to go through
it afresh for her other son. That wouldn’t be fair.” He knocked his pipe against an ash tray, which was the same as gaveling that the meeting was adjourned. “No, son, I’m afraid that you
will just have to stand by your agreement.”
It was hopeless so I shut up. With Dad, bringing Mum’s
welfare into it was the same as trumping an ace.
Pat left for the training center four days later. I didn’t see much of him except the hours we spent down
at
the TransLunar Building for he was dating Maudie every night and I was not included. He pointed
out that this was the last he would see of her whereas I would have plenty of time-so get lost, please. I
did
not argue; it was not only fair, taken by itself, but I did not want to go along on their dates under the circumstances. Pat and I were farther apart those last few days than we had ever been.
It did not affect our telepathic ability, however, whatever this “tuning” was that some minds could do went right on and we could do it as easily as we could talk … and turn it off as easily, too. We didn’t have to “concentrate” or “clear our minds” or any of that Eastern mysticism nonsense. When we wanted to “talk,”
we talked.
When Pat left I felt lost. Sure, I was in touch with him four hours a day and any other time I cared to call him, but you can’t live your whole life doing things by two’s without getting out of joint when you
have to do things by one’s. I didn’t have new habits yet. I’d get ready to go someplace, then I would stop at the door and wonder
what I had forgotten. Just Pat. It is mighty lonesome to start off somewhere by yourself when you’ve always done it with someone.
Besides that, Mum was being brightly cheerful and tender and downright unbearable, and my sleep
was
all broken up. The training center worked on Switzerland’s time zone which meant that I, and all other twins who were staying behind no matter where on. Earth they were, worked our practice messages on Swiss time, too. Pat would whistle in my ears and wake me at two in the morning each night and then I would work until dawn and try to catch up on sleep in the daytime.
It was inconvenient but necessary and I was well paid. For the first time in my life I had plenty of
money. So did all of our family, for I started paying a fat board bill despite Dad’s objections. I even bought
myself a watch (Pat had taken ours with him) without
worrying about the price, and we were talking about moving into a bigger place.
But the LRF was crowding more and more into my life and I began to realize that the contract covered more than just recording messages from my twin. The geriatrics program started at once. “Geriatrics” is a funny term to use about a person not old enough to vote but it had the special meaning here of
making me live as long as possible by starting on me at once. What I ate was no longer my business; I had to follow the diet they ordered, no more sandwiches picked up casually. There was a long list of
“special hazard”
things I must not do. They gave me shots for everything from housemaid’s knee to
parrot fever and I had a physical examination so thorough
as to make every other one seem like a mere laying on of hands.
The only consolation was that Pat told me they were doing. the same to him. We might be common as
mud most ways but we were irreplaceable communication equipment to LRF, so we got the treatment a prize race horse or a prime minister gets and which common people hardly ever get. It was a nuisance.
I did not call Maudie the first week or ten days after Pat left; I didn’t feel easy about her. Finally she called me and asked if I were angry with her or was she in quarantine? So we made a date for that night. It was not festive. She called me “Pat” a couple of times, which she used to do every now and then and it had never
mattered, since Pat and I were used to people mixing up our names. But now it was awkward, because
Pat’s ghost was a skeleton at the feast.
The second time she did it I said angrily, “If you want to talk to Pat, I can get in touch with him in half a second!”
“What? Why, Tom!”
“Oh, I know you would rather
I was Pat! If you think I enjoy being second choice, think again.”
She got tears in her eyes and I got ashamed and more difficult. So we had a bitter argument and then I was telling her how I had been swindled.
Her reaction wasn’t what I expected. Instead of sympathy she said, “Oh, Tom, Tom! Can’t you see that Pat didn’t do this to you? You did it to yourself.”
“Huh?”
“It’s not his fault;
it’s your own. I used to get so tired of the way you let him push you
around. You liked having him push you around. You’ve got a ‘will to fail.’“
I was so angry I had trouble answering. “What are you talking about? That sounds like a lot of cheap,
chimney-corner psychiatry to me. Next thing you know you’ll be telling me I have a ‘death wish.’“
She blinked back tears.
“No. Maybe Pat has that. He was always kidding about it but, just the same, I know
how dangerous it is. I know we won’t see him again.”
I chewed that over. “Are you trying to say,” I said slowly, “that I let Pat do me out of it because I was afraid to go?”
“What? Why, Tom dear, I never said anything of the sort.”
“It sounded like it.” Then I knew why it sounded like it. Maybe I was afraid. Maybe I had struggled
just hard enough to let Pat win… because
I knew what was going to happen to the one who went.
Maybe I was a coward.
We made it up and the date seemed about to end satisfactorily. When I took her home I was thinking of trying to kiss her good
night-I never had, what with the way Pat and I were
always in each other’s hair. I think she expected me to, too.., when Pat suddenly whistled at me.
“Hey! You awake, mate?”
(“Certainly,”) I answered shortly. (“But I’m busy.”)
“How busy? Are you out with my girl?”
(“What makes you think that?”)
“You are, aren’t you? I figured you were. How are you making out?” (“Mind your own business!”)
“Sure, sure! Just say hello to her for me. Hi, Maudie!” Maudie said, “Tom, what are you so preoccupied about?”
I answered, “Oh, it’s just Pat. He says to say hello to you.” “Oh… well, hello to him from me.”
So I did. Pat chuckled. “Kiss her good
night for me.” So I didn’t,
not for either of us.
But I called her again the next day and we went out together regularly after that. Things began to be awfully pleasant where Maudie was concerned … so pleasant that I even thought about the fact that college students sometimes got married and now I would be able to afford it, if it happened to work out that way. Oh, I wasn’t dead sure I wanted to tie myself down so young, but it is mighty lonely to be alone when you’ve always
had
somebody with you.
Then they brought Pat home on a shutter.
It was actually an ambulance craft, specially chartered. The idiot had sneaked off and tried skiing, which he knew as much about as I know about pearl diving. He did not have much of a tumble; he practically fell over his own feet. But there he was, being carried into our flat on a stretcher, numb from the waist down and his legs useless. He should have been taken to a hospital, but he wanted to come home and Mum wanted him to come home, so Dad insisted on it. He wound up in the room Faith had vacated and I went back to sleeping on the couch.
The household was all upset, worse than it had been when Pat went away. Dad almost threw Frank
Dubois out of the house
when Frank said that now that this space travel nonsense was disposed of, he was still prepared to give Pat a job if he would study bookkeeping, since a bookkeeper could work
from
a wheelchair. I don’t know; maybe Frank had good intentions, but I sometimes think “good intentions”
should be declared a capital crime.
But the thing that made me downright queasy was the way Mother took it. She was full of tears and
sympathy and she could not do enough for Pat-she spent hours rubbing his legs, until she was ready to collapse. But I could see, even if Dad couldn’t, that she was indecently happy-she had her “baby” back. Oh,
the tears weren’t fake … but females seem able to cry and be happy at the same time.
We all knew that the “space travel nonsense” was washed up, but we did not discuss it, not even Pat and I; while he was flat on his back and helpless and no doubt feeling even worse than I did was no time to blame him for hogging things and then wasting our chance. Maybe I was bitter but it was no
time to let him know. I was uneasily aware that the fat LRF cheeks would stop soon and the family
would be short of money again when we needed it most and I regretted that expensive watch and the money I had blown in taking Maudie to places we had never been able to afford, but I avoided thinking
about even that; it was spilt milk. But I did wonder what kind of a job I could get instead of starting college.
I was taken off guard when Mr. Howard showed up-I had halfway expected that LRF would carry us on the payroll until after Pat was operated on, even though the accident was not their fault and was the result of Pat’s not obeying their regulations. But with the heaps of money they had I thought
they might be generous.
But Mr. Howard did not even raise the question of the Foundation paying for, or not paying for, Pat’s disability; he simply wanted to know how soon I would be ready to report to the training center?
I was confused and Mother was hysterical and Dad was angry and Mr. Howard was bland. To listen to
him
you would have thought that nothing had happened, certainly nothing which involved the slightest idea of letting us out of our contract. The parties of the second part and of the third part were
interchangeable; since Pat could not go, naturally I would. Nothing had happened which interfered with our
efficiency as a communication team. To be sure, they had let us have a few days to quiet down in view of the sad accident-but could I report at once? Time was short.
Dad got purple and almost incoherent. Hadn’t they done enough
to his family? Didn’t they have any decency? Any consideration?
In the middle of it, while I was trying to adjust to the new situation and wandering what I should say,
Pat
called me silently. “Tom! Come here!”
I excused myself and hurried to him. Pat and I had hardly telepathed at all since he had been hurt. A
few
times he had called me in the night to fetch him a drink of water or something like that, but we had
never really talked, either out loud or in our minds. There was just this black, moody silence that shut me out. I didn’t know how to cope with it; it was the first time either
of us had ever been ill without the other one.
But when he called I hurried in. “Shut the door.”
I did so. He looked at me grimly. “I caught you before you promised anything, didn’t I?” “Yeah.”
“Go out there and tell Dad I want to see him right away. Tell Mum I asked her to please quit crying, because she is getting me upset.” He smiled sardonically. “Tell Mr. Howard to let me speak to my
parents alone. Then you beat it.”
“Huh?”
“Get out, don’t stop to say good-by and don’t say where you are going. When I want you, I’ll tell you.
If you hang around,
Mother will work on you and get you to promise things.”
He looked at me bleakly.
“You never did have any will power.”
I let the dig slide off; he was ill. “Look,
Pat, you’re up against a combination this time. Mother is
going to get her own way no matter
what and Dad is so stirred up that I’m surprised he hasn’t taken a poke at Mr. Howard.”
“I’ll handle Mother, and Dad, too. Howard should have stayed away. Get going. Split ‘em up, then get lost.”
“All right,” I said uneasily. “Uh… look, Pat, I appreciate He looked at me and his lip curled. “Think I’m doing this for you?”
“Why, I thought-”
“You never think … and I’ve been doing nothing else for days. If I’m going to be a cripple, do you fancy I’m going to spend my life in a public ward? Or here, with Mother drooling over me and Dad pinching pennies and the girls getting sick of the sight of me? Not Patrick! If I have to be like this, I’m going to have the best of everything … nurses to jump when I lift a finger and dancing girls to entertain
me-and you are going to see that the LRF pays
for it. We can keep our contract and we’re going to. Oh,
I know you don’t want to
go, but now you’ve got to.”
“Me? You’re all mixed up. You crowded me out. You-”
“Okay, forget it. You’re rarin’ to go.” He reached, up and punched me in the ribs, then grinned. “So
we’ll both go-for
you’ll take me along every step of the way. Now get out there and break that up.”
I left two days later. When Pat handed Mum his reverse-twist whammie, she did not even fight. If
getting the money to let her sick baby have proper care and everything else he wanted meant that I had to space, well, it was too bad but that was how it was. She told me how much it hurt to have me go but I knew she was not too upset. But I was, rather … I wondered what the score would have been if it had been I who was in Pat’s fix? Would she have let Pat go just as easily simply to get me anything I
wanted? But I decided to stop thinking about it; parents probably don’t know that they are playing
favorites even when they are doing it.
Dad got me alone for a man-to-man talk just before I left. He hemmed and hawed and stuck in
apologies about how he should have talked things over with me before this and seemed even more embarrassed than I was, which was plenty. When he was floundering I let him know that one of our
high school courses had covered most of what he was trying to say. (I didn’t let him know that the course had been an anti-climax.) He brightened up and said, “Well, son, your mother and I have tried to teach you right from wrong. Just remember that you are a Bartlett and you won’t make too many
mistakes. On that other matter, well, if you will always ask yourself whether a girl is the sort you would
be proud to bring home to meet your mother, I’ll be satisfied.”
I promised-it occurred to me that I wasn’t going to have much chance to fall into bad company, not with psychologists practically dissecting everybody in Project Lebensraum. The bad apples were never going into the barrel
When I see how naive parents are I wonder how the human race keeps on being born. Just the same it was touching and I appreciate the ordeal he put himself through to get me squared away-Dad was always a decent guy and meant well.
I had a last date with Maudie but it wasn’t much; we spent it sitting around
Pat’s bed, She did kiss me good-by-Pat told her
to.
Oh, well!
VI TORCHSHIP “LEWIS AND CLARK”
I was in Switzerland only two days. I got a quick look at the lake at Zurich and that was all; the time was jammed with trying to hurry me through
all the things Pat had been studying for weeks. It couldn’t be done, so they gave me spools of minitape which I was to study after the trip started.
I had one advantage: Planetary League Auxiliary Speech was a required freshman course
at our high school-P-L lingo was the working language of Project Lebensraum. I can’t say I could speak it when I got there, but it isn’t hard. Oh, it seems a little silly to say “goed” when you’ve always said “gone” but you get used to it, and of course all technical words are Geneva-International and always have been.
Actually, as subproject officer Professor Brunn pointed out, there was not a lot that a telepathic communicator had to know before going aboard ship; the principal purpose
of the training center had
been to get the crews together, let them eat and live together, so that the psychologists could spot personality frictions which had not been detected through tests.
“There isn’t any doubt about you, son. We have your brother’s record and we know how close your tests come to matching his. You telepaths have to deviate widely from accepted standards before we would disqualify one of you.”
“Sir?’
“Don’t you see? We can turn down a ship’s captain just for low blood sugar before breakfast and a latent tendency to be short
tempered therefrom until he has had his morning porridge. We can fill most billets twenty times over and juggle them until they are matched like a team of acrobats. But not you people. You are so scarce that we must allow you any eccentricity which won’t endanger the ship: I wouldn’t mind if you believed in astrology-you don’t, do you?”
“Goodness, no!” I answered, shocked.
“You see? You’re a normal, intelligent boy; you’ll do. Why, we would take your twin, on a stretcher, if
we had to.”
Only telepaths were left when I got to Zurich. The captains and the astrogation and torch crews had joined the ships first, and then the specialists and staff people. All the “idlers” were aboard but us. And
I hardly had time to get acquainted even with my fellow mind readers.
They were an odd bunch and I began to see what Professor Brunn meant by saying that we freaks had
to
be allowed a little leeway. There were a dozen of us-just for the Lewis and Clark, I mean; there were a hundred and fifty for the twelve ships of the fleet, which was every telepathic pair that LRF had been
able to sign up. I asked one of them, Bernhard van Houten, why each ship was going to carry so many telepaths?
He looked at me pityingly. “Use your head, Tom. If a radio burns out a valve, what do you do?” “Why, you replace it.”
“There’s your answer. We’re spare parts. If either end of a telepair dies or anything, that ‘radio’ is
burned out, permanently. So they plug in another one of us. They want to be sure they have at least one telepair still working right up to the end of the trip…they hope.”
I hardly had time to learn their names before we were whisked away. There was myself and Bernhard van Houten, a Chinese-Peruvian girl named Mei-Ling Jones (only she pronounced it “Hone-Ace”),
Rupert Hauptman, Anna Horoshen, Gloria Maria Antonita Docampo, Sam Rojas, and Prudence Mathews. These were more or less my age. Then there was Dusty Rhodes who looked twelve and
claimed to be fourteen. I wondered how LRF had persuaded his parents to permit such a child to go.
Maybe they hated him; it would have been easy to do.
Then there were three who were older than the rest of us: Miss Gamma Furtney, Cas Warner, and
Alfred McNeil. Miss Gamma was a weirdie, the sort of old maid who never admits to more than thirty; she was our triplet. LRF had scraped up four sets of triplets who were m-r’s and could be persuaded to
go; they were going to be used to tie the twelve ships together into four groups
of three, then the groups
could be hooked with four sets of twins.
Since triplets are eighty-six times as scarce as twins it was surprising that they could find enough who were telepathic and would go, without
worrying about whether or not they were weirdies. I suspect that the Misses Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Furtney were attracted by the Einstein time effect; they could get even with all the men who had not married them by not getting older
while those men died of old age.
We were a “corner” ship and Cas Warner
was
our sidewise twin, who would hook us through his twin to the Vasco da Gama, thus linking two groups of three. Other sidewise twins tied the other comers.
The
ones who worked ship-to-ship did not have to be young, since their twins (or triplets) were not left back on Earth, to grow older while their brothers or sisters stayed young through relativity. Cas Warner
was
forty-five, a nice quiet chap who seemed to enjoy eating with us kids.
The twelfth was Mr. (“Call me ‘Uncle Alfred’ “) McNeil, and he was an old darling. He was a Negro, his age was anything from sixty-five on up (I couldn’t guess), and he had the saintliness that old people get when they don’t turn sour and self-centered instead…to look at him you would bet heavy odds that he was a deacon in his church.
I got acquainted with him because I was terribly homesick the first night I was in Zurich and he noticed it and invited me to his room after supper and sort of soothed me. I thought he was one of the Foundation psychologists, like Professor Brunn-but
no, he was half of a telepair himself…and not even a sidewise twin; his partner was staying on Earth.
I couldn’t believe it until be showed me a picture
of his pair partner-a little girl with merry eyes and pigtails-and I finally got it through my thick head that here was that rarity, a telepathic pair who were not twins. She was Celestine Regina Johnson, his great-niece-only be called her “Sugar Pie” after he introduced me to the photograph and had told her who I was.
I had to pause and tell Pat about it, not remembering that he had already met them.
Uncle Alfred was retired and had been playmate-in-chief to his baby great-niece, for he had lived with his niece and her husband. He had taught the baby to talk. When her parents were both killed
in an accident he had gone back to work rather than let the child be adopted. “I found
out that I could keep
tabs on Sugar Pie even when I couldn’t see her. She was always a good baby and it meant I could watch out
for her even when I had to be away. I knew it was a gift; I figured that the Lord in His infinite mercy had granted what I needed to let me take care of my little one.”
The only thing that had worried him was that he might not live long enough; or, worse still, not be able to work long enough, to permit him to bring up Sugar Pie and get her started right. Then Project Lebensraum had solved everything. No, he didn’t mind being away from her because be was not away from her; he was with her every minute.
I gathered an impression that he could actually see her but I didn’t want to ask. In any case, with him stone walls did not a prison make nor light-years a separation. He knew that the Infinite Mercy that had
kept them together this long would keep them together long enough
for him to finish his appointed
task. What happened after that was up to the Lord.
I had never met anybody who was so quietly, serenely happy. I didn’t feel homesick again until I left
him and went to bed. So I called Pat and told him about getting acquainted with Uncle Alfred. He said
sure, Uncle All was a sweet old codger…
and
now I should shut
up and go to sleep, as I had a hard day
ahead of me tomorrow.
Then they zoomed us out to the South Pacific and we spent one night on Canton Atoll before we went aboard They wouldn’t let us swim in the lagoon
even though Sam had arranged a picnic party of me and himself and Mei-Ling and Gloria; swimming was one of the unnecessary hazards. Instead we went to bed early and were awakened two hours before dawn-a ghastly time of day, particularly when your
time sense has been badgered by crossing too many time zones too fast. I began to wonder what I was
doing there and why?
The Lewis and Clark was a few hundred miles east of there in an unused part of the ocean. I had not realized how much water
there was until I took a look at it from the air-and at that you see just the top.
If they could figure some way to use all those wet acres as thoroughly as they use the Mississippi Valley they wouldn’t need other planets.
From the air the Lewis and Clark looked like a basketball floating in water; you could not see that it was really shaped like a turnip. It floated with the torch down; the hemispherical upper part was all that showed. I got one look at her, with submersible freighters around
her looking tiny in comparison,
then our bus was hovering over her and we were being told to mind our step on the ladder and not leave anything behind in the bus. It occurred to me that it wouldn’t do any good to write to Lost-and-Found if
we did. It was a chilly thought
… I guess I was still homesick, but mostly I was excited.
I got lost a couple of times and finally found my stateroom just as the speaker system was booming: “All hands, prepare for acceleration. Idlers strap down. Boost stations report in order. Minus fourteen
minutes.” The man talking was so matter of fact that he might as well have been saying, “Local passengers change at Birmingham.”
The stateroom was big enough, with a double wardrobe
and a desk with a built-in viewer-recorder and
a little wash-stand and two pull-down beds. They were down, which limited the floor space. Nobody else was around so I picked one, lay down and fastened the three safety belts. I had just done so when
that little runt Dusty Rhodes stuck his head in. “Hey! You got my bed!”
I started to tell him off, then decided that just before boost was no time for an argument. “Suit yourself,” I answered, unstrapped, and moved into the other one, strapped down again.
Dusty looked annoyed; I think he wanted an argument. Instead of climbing into the one I had vacated, he stuck his head out the door and looked around. I said, “Better strap down. They already passed the word.”
“Tripe,” he answered without turning. “There’s plenty of time. I’ll take a quick look in the control room.”
I was going to suggest that he go outside while he was about it when a ship’s officer came through, checking the rooms. “In you get, son,” he said briskly, using the no-nonsense tone in which you tell a dog to heel. Dusty opened his mouth, closed it, and climbed in. Then the officer “baby-strapped” him,
pulling the buckles around so that they could not be reached by the person in the bunk. He even put the chest strap around Dusty’s arms.
He then checked my belts. I had my arms outside the straps but all he said was, “Keep your arms on the mattress during boost,” and left.
A female voice said, “All special communicators link with your telepartners.”
I had been checking with Pat ever since I woke up and had described the Lewis and Clark to him when
we first sighted her and then inside as well. Nevertheless I said, (“Are you there, Pat?”)
“Naturally. I’m not going anyplace. What’s the word?”
(“Boost in about ten minutes. They just told us to link with our partners during boost.”)
“You had better stay linked, or I’ll beat your ears off! I don’t want to miss anything. (“Okay, okay, don’t race your engine. Pat? This isn’t quite the way I thought it would be.”) “Huh? How?”
(“I don’t know. I guess I expected brass bands and speeches and such. After all, this is a big day. But aside from pictures they took of us last night at Canton Atoll, there was more fuss made when we started for Scout camp.”)
Pat chuckled. “Brass bands would get wet where you are-not to mention soaked with neutrons.” (“Sure, sure.”) I didn’t have to be told that a torchship needs elbow room for a boost. Even when they
perfected a way to let them make direct boost from Earth-zero instead of from a space station,
they still needed a few thousand square miles of ocean-and at that you heard ignorant prattle about how the back
wash was changing the climate and the government ought
to do something.
“Anyhow, there are plenty of brass bands and speeches. We are watching one by the Honorable J. Dillberry Egghead… shall I read it back?”
(“Uh, don’t bother. Who’s ‘we’?”)
“All of us. Faith and Frank just came in.”
I was about to ask about Maudie when a new voice came over the system: “Welcome aboard, friends. This is the Captain. We will break loose at an easy three gravities; nevertheless, I want to warn you to
relax and keep your arms inside your couches. The triple boost will last only six minutes, then you will be allowed to get up. We take off in number two position, just after the Henry Hudson.”
I repeated to Pat what the Captain was saying practically as fast as he said it; this was one of the things
we had practiced while he was at the training center: letting your directed thoughts echo what somebody else was saying so that a telepair acted almost like a microphone and a speaker. I suppose he was doing the same at the other end, echoing the Captain’s words to the family a split second behind me-it’s not hard with practice.
The Captain said, “The Henry is on her final run-down
… ten seconds…
five seconds… now!”
I saw something like heat lightning even though
I was in a closed room. For a few seconds there was a sound over the speaker like sleet on a window, soft and sibilant and far away. Pat said, “Boy!”
(“What is it, Pat?”)
“She got up out of there as if she had sat on a bee. Just a hole in the water and a flash of light. Wait a sec-they’re shifting the view pick-up from the space station
to Luna.”
(“You’ve got a lot better view than I have. All I can see is the ceiling of this room.”)
The female voice said, “Mr. Warner! Miss Furtney! Tween-ships telepairs start recording.”
The Captain said, “All hands, ready for boost. Stand by for count down,”
and another voice started in, “Sixty seconds … fifty-five … fifty … forty-five … holding on-forty-five … holding forty-five… holding…
holding…”
-until I was ready to scream.
“Tom, what’s wrong?” (“How should I know?”)
“Forty… thirty-five … thirty…”
“Tom, Mum wants me to tell you to be very careful.”
(“What does she think I can do? I’m just lying here, strapped down.”)
“I know.” Pat chuckled. “Hang on tight to the brush, you lucky stiff; they are about to take away the ladder.”
“… four!… Three!… Two!… ONE!”
I didn’t see a flash, I didn’t hear anything. I simply got very heavy-like being on the bottom of a football pile-up.
“There’s nothing but steam where you were.” I didn’t answer, I was having trouble breathing.
“They’ve shifted the pick-up.
They’re following you with a telephoto now. Tom, you ought to see this … you look just like a sun. It burns the rest of the picture
right out of the tank.”
(“How can I see it?”)
I said crossly. (“I’m in it.’) “You sound choked up. Are you all right?”
(“You’d sound choked, too, if you had sand bags piled across your chest.”) “Is it bad?”
(“It’s not good. But it’s all right, I guess.”)
Pat let up on me and did a right good job of describing what he was seeing by television. The Richard
E. Byrd took off just after we did, before we had finished the high boost to get escape velocity from Earth; he told me all about it. I didn’t have anything to say anyhow; I couldn’t see anything and I didn’t feel like chattering. I just wanted to hold still and feel miserable.
I suppose it was only six minutes but it felt more like
an hour. After a long, long time, when I had decided the controls were jammed and we were going to keep on at high boost until we passed the speed of light, the pressure suddenly relaxed and I felt light as a snowflake … if it hadn’t been for the straps I would have floated up to the ceiling.
“We have reduced to one hundred and ten per cent of one gravity,” the Captain said cheerfully. “Our cruising boost will be higher, but we will give the newcomers among us a while to get used to it.” His
tone changed and he said briskly, “All stations, secure from blast-off and set space watches, third section.”
I loosened my straps and sat up and then stood up. Maybe we were ten per cent heavy, but it did not feel like it; I felt fine. I started for the door, intending to look around more than I had been able to when
I came aboard.
Dusty Rhodes yelled at me. “Hey! Come back here and unstrap me! That moron fastened the buckles
out of my reach.”
I turned and looked at him. “Say ‘please.’“
What Dusty answered was not “please.” Nevertheless I let him loose. I should have made him say it; it might have saved trouble later.
VII 19,900 WAYS
The first thing that happened in the L.C. made me think I was dreaming-I
ran into Uncle Steve.
I was walking along the circular passageway that joined the staterooms on my deck and looking for the passage inboard, toward the axis of the ship. As I turned the comer I bumped into someone. I said,
“Excuse me,” and started to go past when the other person grabbed my arm and clapped me on the shoulder. I looked up and it was Uncle Steve, grinning and shouting at me. “Hi, shipmate! Welcome aboard!”
“Uncle Steve! What are you doing here?”
“Special assignment from the General Staff … to keep you out of trouble.” “Huh?”
There was no mystery when he explained. Uncle Steve had known
for a month that his application for special discharge to take service with the LRF for Project Lebensraum had been approved; he had not told the family but had spent the time working a swap to permit him to be in the same ship as Pat-or, as
it
turned out, the one I was in.
“I thought
your mother might take it easier if she knew I was keeping an eye on her boy. You can tell her about it the next time you are hooked in with your twin.”
“I’ll tell her
now,” I answered and gave a yell in my mind for Pat. He did not seem terribly interested; I guess a reaction was setting in and he was sore at me for being where he had expected to be. But Mother was there and he said he would tell her. “Okay, she knows.”
Uncle Steve looked at me oddly. “Is it as easy as that?”
I explained that it was just like talking … a little faster, maybe, since you can think words faster than
you
can talk, once you are used to it. But he stopped me. “Never mind. You’re trying to explain color to a blind man. I just wanted Sis to know.”
“Well, okay.” Then I noticed that his uniform was different. The ribbons were the same and it was an
LRF
company uniform, like my own, which did not surprise me-but his chevrons
were gone: “Uncle Steve … you’re wearing major’s leaves!”
He nodded. “Home town boy makes good. Hard work, clean living, and so on.” “Gee, that’s swell!”
“They transferred me at my reserve rank, son, plus one bump for exceptionally neat test papers. Fact is, if I had stayed with the Corps, I would have retired as a ship’s sergeant at best-there’s no promotion in peacetime. But the Project was looking for certain men, not certain ranks, and I happened to have the right number of hands and feet for the job.”
“Just what is your job, Uncle?” “Commander of the ship’s guard.” “Huh? What have you got to guard?”
“That’s a good question. Ask me in a year
or two and I can give you a better
answer. Actually,
‘Commander Landing Force’ would be a better title. When we locate a likely looking planet-’when and if,’ I mean-I’m the laddie who gets
to
go out and check the lay of the land and whether the natives are friendly while you valuable types stay safe and snug in the ship.” He glanced at his wrist. “Let’s go to
chow.”
I wasn’t hungry and wanted to look around,
but Uncle Steve took me firmly by the arm and headed for
the
mess room. “When you have soldiered as long as I have, lad, you will learn that you sleep when you get a chance and that you are never late for chow line.”
It actually was a chow line, cafeteria style. The L.C. did not run to table waiters nor to personal service of any sort, except for the Captain and people on watch. We went through
the line and I found that I
was hungry after all. That meal only, Uncle Steve took me ever to the heads-of-departments table. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is my nephew with two heads, Tom Bartlett. He left his other head dirtside-
he’s a telepair twin. If he does anything he shouldn’t, don’t tell me, just clobber him.” He glanced at me; I was turning red. “Say ‘howdy,’ son … or just nod if you
can’t talk.”
I nodded and sat down. A sweet old girl with the sort of lap babies like to sit on was next to me. She smiled and said, “Glad to have you with us, Tom.” I learned that she was the Chief Ecologist. Her name was Dr. O’Toole, only nobody called her that, and she was married to one of the relativists.
Uncle Steve went around the table, pointing out who was who and what they did: the Chief Engineer.
the
Relativist (Uncle Steve called him the “Astrogator” as the job would be called in an ordinary ship),
Chief Planetologist Harry Gates and the Staff Xenologist, and so forth-I couldn’t remember the names at the time-and Reserve Captain Urqhardt. I didn’t catch the word “reserve” and was surprised at how young he was. But Uncle Steve corrected me: “No, no! He’s not the Captain. He’s the man who will be captain if it turns out we need a spare. Across from you is the Surgeon-don’t let that fool you, either; he never does surgery himself. Dr. Devereaux is the boss head-shrinker.”
I looked puzzled and Uncle Steve went on, “You don’t savvy? Psychiatrist. Doc Dev is watching every
move we make, trying to decide how quick he will have to be with the straitjacket and the needle. Correct, Doc?”
Dr. Devereaux buttered a roll. “Essentially, Major. But finish your meal; we’re not coming for you until later in the day.” He was a fat little toad, ugly as could be, and with a placid, unbreakable calm. He
went on, “I just had an
up setting thought, Major.”
“I thought
that thoughts never upset you?”
“Consider. Here I am charged with keeping quaint characters like you sane … but they forgot to assign anybody to keep me sane. What should I do?”
“Mmm…” Uncle Steve seemed to study it. “I didn’t know that head-shrinkers were supposed to be sane, themselves.”
Dr. Devereaux nodded. “You’ve put your finger on it. As in your profession, Major, being crazy is an asset. Pass the salt, please.”
Uncle Steve shut up and pretended to wipe off blood.
A man came in and sat down; Uncle Steve introduced me and said, “Staff Commander Frick, the Communications Officer. Your boss, Tom.”
Commander Frick nodded and said, “Aren’t you third section, young man?” “Uh, I don’t know, sir.”
“I do … and you should have known. Report to the communications office.” “Uh, you mean now, sir?”
“Right away. You are a half hour late.”
I
said, “Excuse me,” and got up in a hurry, feeling silly. I glanced at Uncle Steve but he wasn’t looking
my
way; he seemed not to have heard it.
The communications office was two decks up, right under the control room; I had trouble finding it. Van Houten was there and Mei-Ling and a man whose name was Travers, who was communicator-of-
the-watch. Mei-Ling was reading a sheaf of papers and did not look up; I knew that she was
telepathing. Van said, “Where the deuce have you been? I’m hungry.”
“I didn’t know,” I protested.
“You’re supposed to know.”
He left and I turned to Mr. Travers. “What do you want me to do?”
He was threading a roll of tape into an autotransmitter; he finished before he answered me. “Take that stack of traffic as she finishes it, and do whatever it is you do with it. Not that it matters.”
“You mean read it to my twin?” “That’s what I said.”
“Do you want him to record?”
“Traffic is always recorded. Didn’t they teach you anything?”
I thought about explaining that they really hadn’t because
there had not been time, when I thought, oh
what’s the use? He probably thought I was Pat and assumed that I had had the full course. I picked up papers Mei-Ling was through
with and sat down.
But Travers went on talking. “I don’t know what you freaks are up here for now anyhow. You’re not needed; we’re still in radio range.”
I put the papers down and stood up: “Don’t call us ‘freaks.’
“
He glanced at me and said, “my, how tall you’ve grown. Sit down and get to work.”
We were about the same height but he was ten years older and maybe thirty pounds
heavier. I might have passed it by if we had been alone, but not with Mei-Ling present.
“I said not to call us ‘freaks.’ It’s not polite.”
He looked tired and not amused but he didn’t stand up. I decided he didn’t want a fight and felt relieved. “All right, all right,” he answered. “Don’t be so touchy. Get busy on that traffic.”
I sat down and looked over the stuff I had to send, then called Pat and told him to start his recorder; this was not a practice message.
He answered, “Call back in half an hour. I’m eating dinner.”
(“I was eating lunch but I didn’t get to finish. Quit stalling, Pat. Take a look at that contract you were so anxious to sign.”)
“You were just as anxious. What’s the matter, kid? Cold feet already?”
(“Maybe, maybe not. I’ve got a hunch that this isn’t going to be one long happy picnic. But I’ve learned one thing already; when the Captain sends for a bucket of paint, he wants a full bucket and no excuses. So switch on that recorder and stand by to take down figures.”)
Pat muttered and gave in, then announced that he was ready after a delay that was almost certainly caused by Mother insisting that he finish dinner. “Ready.”
The traffic was almost entirely figures (concerning the take-off, I suppose) and code. Being such, I had
to have Pat repeat back everything. It was not hard, but it was tedious. The only message in clear was one
from the Captain, ordering roses sent to a Mrs. Detweiler in Brisbane and charged to his LRF
account, with a message: “Thanks for a wonderful farewell dinner.”
Nobody else sent personal messages; I guess they had left no loose ends back on Earth.
I thought about sending some roses to Maudie, but I didn’t want to do it through
Pat. It occurred to me that I could do it through Mei-Ling, then I remembered that, while I had money in the bank, I had appointed Pat my attorney; if I ordered them, he would have to okay the bill I decided not to cross any
bridges I had burned behind me.
Life aboard the L.C., or the Elsie as we called her, settled into a routine. The boost built up another
fifteen per cent which made me weigh a hundred and fifty-eight pounds; my legs ached until I got used to it-but I soon did; there are advantages in being kind of skinny. We freaks stood a watch in five, two
at
a time-Miss Gamma and Cas Warner were not on our list because
they hooked sidewise with other
ships. At first we had a lot of spare time, but the Captain put a stop to that.
Knowing that the LRF did not really expect us to return, I had not thought much about that clause in the contract which provided for tutoring during the trip but I found out that the Captain did not intend
to
forget it. There was school for everybody, not just for us telepaths
who
were still of school
age. He appointed Dr. Devereaux, Mrs. O’Toole, and Mr. Krishnamurti a school board and courses were offered in practically everything, from life drawing to ancient history. The Captain himself taught
that last one; it turned out he knew Sargon the Second and Socrates like brothers.
Uncle Alfred tried to sign up for everything, which was impossible, even if he didn’t eat, sleep, nor
stand watch. He had never, he told me, had time for all the schooling he wanted and now at last he was going to get it. Even my real uncle, Steve, signed up for a couple of courses. I guess I showed surprise at this, for he said, “Look,
Tom, I found out my first cruise that the only way to make space bearable is
to
have something to learn and learn it. I used to take correspondence courses. But this bucket has the finest assemblage of really bright minds you are ever likely to see. If you don’t take advantage of it, you are an idiot. Mama O’Toole’s cooking course, for example: where else can you find a Cordon
Bleu graduate willing to teach you her high art free? I ask you!”
I objected
that I would never need to know how to cook high cuisine.
“What’s that got to do with it? Learning isn’t a means to an end; it is an end in itself. Look at Uncle Alf. He’s as happy as a boy with a new slingshot. Anyhow, if you
don’t sign up for a stiff course, old
Doc Devereaux will find some way to keep you busy, even if it is counting rivets. Why do you think the Captain made him chairman of the board of education?”
“I hadn’t thought about it. “
“Well, think about it. The greatest menace in space is going coffin crazy. You are shut up for a long
time in a small space and these is nothing outside but some mighty thin vacuum … no street lights, no bowling alleys. Inside are the same old faces and you start hating them. So a smart captain makes sure you have something to keep you interested and tired-and ours is the smartest you’ll find or he wouldn’t be on this trip.”
I began to realize that a lot of arrangements in the Elsie were simply to see that we stayed healthy and
reasonably happy. Not just school, but other things. Take the number we bad aboard, for example- almost two hundred. Uncle Steve told me that the Elsie could function as a ship with about ten: a captain, three control officers, three engineer officers, one communicator, one farmer, and a cook.
Shucks, you could cut that to five: two control officers (one in command), two torch watchstanders, and a farmer-cook.
Then why two hundred?
In the first place there was room enough.
The Elsie and the other ships had been rebuilt from the enormous freighters the LRF use to haul supplies out to Pluto and core material back to Earth. In the second place they needed a big scientific staff to investigate the planets we hoped to find. In the third place some were spare parts, like Reserve Captain Urqhardt and, well, me myself. Some of us would die or get killed; the ship had to go on.
But the real point, as I found out, is that no small, isolated social group can be stable. They even have a mathematics for it, with empirical formulas and symbols for “lateral pressures” and “exchange valences” and “exogamic relief.” (That last simply means that the young men of a small village should
find wives outside the village.)
Or look at it this way. Suppose you had a one-man space ship which could cruise alone for several years. Only a man who was already nutty a certain way could run it-otherwise he would soon go
squirrelly some other way and start tearing the controls off the panels. Make it a two-man ship: even if
you
used a couple as fond of each other
as
Romeo and Juliet, by the end of the trip even Juliet would
start showing black-widow blood.
Three is as bad or worse, particularly if they gang up two against one. Big numbers are much safer. Even with only two hundred people there are exactly nineteen thousand nine hundred ways to pair them off, either as friends or enemies, so you see that the social possibilities shoot up rapidly when you increase the numbers. A bigger group means more chances to find friends and more ways to avoid people you don’t like. This is terribly important aboard ship.
Besides elective courses we had required ones called “ship’s training”-by which the Captain meant that every body had to learn at least
one job he had
not signed up for. I stood two watches down in the damping room, whereupon Chief Engineer Roch stated in writing that he did not think that I would
ever make a torcher as I seemed to have an innate lack of talent for nuclear physics. As a matter of fact it made me nervous
to be that close to an atomic power plant and to realize the unleashed hell that was going on a few feet away from me.
I did not make out much better as a farmer, either. I spent two weeks in the air-conditioning plant and
the
only thing I did right was to feed the chickens. When they caught me cross-pollinating the wrong way some squash plants which were special pets of Mrs. O’Toole, she let me go, more in sorrow
than in anger. “Tom,” she said, “what do you do well?”
I thought about it. “Uh, I can wash bottles… and I used to raise hamsters.”
So she sent me over to the research department and I washed beakers in the chem lab and fed the experimental animals. The beakers were unbreakable. They wouldn’t let me touch the electron microscope. It wasn’t bad-I could have been assigned to the laundry.
Out of the 19,900 combinations possible in the Elsie, Dusty Rhodes and I were one of the wrong ones.
I hadn’t signed up for the life sketching class because he was teaching it; the little wart really was a fine draftsman. I know, I’m pretty good at it myself and I would have liked to have been in that class. What was worse, he had an offensively high I.Q., genius plus, much higher than mine, and he could argue rings around me. Along with that he had the manners of a pig and the social graces of a skunk-a bad go, any way you looked at
it.
“Please” and “Thank you” weren’t in his vocabulary. He never made his bed unless someone in
authority stood over him, and I was likely as not to come in and find him lying on mine, wrinkling it and getting the cover
dirty. He never hung up his clothes, he always left our wash basin filthy, and his best mood was complete silence.
Besides that, he didn’t bathe often enough.
Aboard ship that is a crime.
First I was nice to him, then I bawled him out, then I threatened him. Finally I told him that the next thing of his I found on my bed was going straight into the mass converter. He just sneered and the next day I found his camera on my bed and his dirty socks on my pillow.
I tossed the socks into the wash basin, which he had left filled with dirty water, and locked his camera in my wardrobe, intending to let him stew before I gave it back.
He didn’t squawk. Presently I found his camera gone from my wardrobe, in spite of the fact that it was locked with a combination which Messrs. Yale &
Towne had light-heartedly described as
“Invulnerable.” My clean shirts were gone, too … that is, they weren’t clean;
somebody had carefully dirtied every one of them.
I had not complained about him. It had become a point of pride to work it out myself; the idea that I
could not cope with somebody half my size and years my junior did not appeal to me.
But I looked at the mess he had made of my clothes and I said to myself, “Thomas Paine, you had
better admit that you are licked and holler for help-else your only chance will be to plead justifiable homicide.”
But I did not have to complain. The Captain sent for me; Dusty had complained about me instead. “Bartlett, young Rhodes tells me you are picking on him. What’s the situation from your point of
view?”
I started to swell up and explode. Then I let out my breath and tried to calm down; the Captain really
wanted to know.
“I don’t think so, sir, though it is true that we have not been getting along.” “Have you laid hands on him?”
“Uh … I haven’t smacked him, sir. I’ve jerked him off my bed more than once-and I wasn’t gentle about it.”
He sighed. “Maybe you should have smacked him. Out of my sight, of course. Well, tell me about it. Try to tell it straight-and complete.”
So I told him. It sounded trivial and I began to be ashamed of myself …
the Captain had more important things to worry about than whether
or not I had to scrub out a hand basin before I could wash
my
face. But he listened.
Instead of commenting,
maybe telling me that I should be able to handle a younger kid better, the Captain changed the subject.
“Bartlett, you saw that illustration Dusty had in the ship’s paper this morning?”
“Yes, sir. A real beauty,” I admitted. It was a picture of the big earthquake in Santiago,
which had happened after we left Earth.
“Mmm… we have to allow you special-talent people a little leeway. Young Dusty is along because he was the only m-r available who could receive and transmit pictures.”
“Uh, is that important, sir?”
“It could be. We won’t know until we need it. But it could be crucially important. Otherwise I would
never have permitted a spoiled brat to come aboard this ship.” He frowned. “However, Dr. Devereaux
is
of the opinion that Dusty is not a pathological ease.”
“Uh, I never
said he was, sir.”
“Listen, please. He says that the boy has an unbalanced personality-a brain that would do credit to a grown man but with greatly retarded social development. His attitudes and evaluations would suit a boy of five, combined with this clever brain. Furthermore Dr. Devereaux says that he will force the childish
part of Dusty’s personality to grow up, or he’ll turn in his sheepskin.”
“So? I mean, “Yes, sir?’ “
“So you should have smacked him. The only thing wrong with that boy is that his parents should have walloped him, instead of telling him how bright he was.” He sighed again.
“Now I’ve got to do it. Dr. Devereaux tells me I’m the appropriate father image.” “Yes, sir.”
“
‘Yes, sir,’ my aching head. This isn’t a ship; it’s a confounded nursery. Are you having any other
troubles?”
“No, sir.”
“I wondered. Dusty also complained that the regular communicators call you people ‘freaks.’ “ He eyed me.
I didn’t answer. I felt sheepish about it.
“In any case, they won’t again. I once saw a crewman try to knife another one, just because the other persisted in calling him ‘skin head.’ My people are going to behave like ladies and gentlemen or I’ll bang some heads together.” He frowned. “I’m moving Dusty into the room across
from my cabin. If Dusty will leave you alone, you let him alone. If he won’t … well, use your judgment, bearing in mind
that you are responsible for your actions-but
remember that I don’t expect any man to be a doormat. That’s all. Good-by.”
VIII RELATIVITY
I had been in the Elsie a week when it was decided to operate on Pat. Pat told me they were going to do it, but he did not talk about it much. His attitude was the old iron-man, as if he meant to eat peanuts and read comics while they were chopping on him. I think he was scared stiff … I would have been.
Not that I would have understood if I had known the details; I’m no neural surgeon, nor any sort; removing a splinter is about my speed.
But it meant we would be off the watch list for a while, so I told Commander Frick. He already knew
from
messages passed between the ship and LRF; he told me to drop off the watch list the day before my brother was operated and to consider myself available for extra duty during his convalescence. It did not make any difference to him; not only were there other
telepairs but we were still radio-linked to
Earth.
Two weeks after we started spacing
and the day before Pat was to be cut on I was sitting
in my room, wondering whether to go to the communications office and offer my valuable services in cleaning
waste baskets and microfilming files or just sit tight until somebody sent for me.
I had decided on the latter, remembering Uncle Steve’s advice never to volunteer, and was letting down
my bunk, when the squawker boomed: “T. P. Bartlett, special communicator, report to the Relativist!”
I hooked my bunk up while wandering if there was an Eye-Spy concealed in my room-taking down my
bunk during working hours seemed always to result in my being paged. Dr. Babcock was not in the control room and they chased me out, but not before I took a quick look around-the control room was off limits to anyone who did not work there. I found him down in the computation room across from the communications office, where I would have looked in the first place if I hadn’t wanted to see the control room.
I said, “T. P. Bartlett, communicator tenth grade, reporting to the Relativist as ordered.”
Dr. Babcock swung around in his chair
and
looked at me. He was a big raw-boned man,
all hands and feet, and looked more like a lumberjack than a mathematical physicist. I think he played it up-you know, elbows on the table and bad grammar on purpose. Uncle Steve said Babcock had more honorary degrees than most people had socks.
He stared at me and laughed. “Where did you get that fake military manner, son? Siddown. You’re Bartlett?”
I sat. “Yes, sir.”
“What’s this about you and your twin going off the duty list?”
“Well, my brother is in a hospital, sir. They’re going to do something to his spine tomorrow.” “Why didn’t you tell me?” I didn’t answer because it was so unreasonable; I wasn’t even in his
department. “Frick never tells me anything, the Captain never tells me anything, now you never tell me anything. I have to bang around the galley and pick up gossip to find out
what’s going on. I was
planning on working you over tomorrow. You know that don’t you?”
“Uh, no, sir.”
“Of course you don’t, became I never tell anybody anything either. What a way to run a ship! I should have stayed in Vienna. There’s a nice town. Ever have coffee and pastries in the Ring?” He didn’t wait
for an answer. “Nevertheless I was going to work you and your twin over tomorrow-so now we’ll have to do it today. Tell him to stand by.”
“Uh; what do you want him to do, Doctor? He’s already been moved to a hospital.”
“Just tell him to stand by. I’m going, to calibrate you two, that’s what. Figure out your index error.” “Sir?”
“Just tell him-”
So I called Pat. I hadn’t spoken to him since breakfast; I wondered how he was going to take it But he already knew. “Yes, yes,” he said in a tired voice.
“They’re setting up apparatus in my hospital room right now.
Mother made such a fuss I had to send her
out.”
(“Look, Pat, if you don’t want to do this, whatever it is, I’ll tell
them nothing doing. It’s an
imposition.”)
“What difference does it make?” he said irritably. “I’ve got to sweat out the next sixteen hours
somehow. Anyhow, this
may be the last time we work together.”
It was the first time he had shown that it was affecting his nerve. I said hastily, (“Don’t talk that way, Pat. You’re going to get well. You’re going to walk again. Shucks, you’ll even be able to ski if you want to.”)
“Don’t give me that Cheerful Charlie stuff. I’m getting more of it from the folks than I can use. It makes me want to throw up.”
(“Now see here, Pat-”)
“Stow it, stow it! Let’s get on with what they want us to do.” (“Well, all right.”) I spoke aloud: “He’s ready, Doctor.”
“Half a minute. Start your camera, O’Toole.” Dr. Babcock touched something on his desk.
“Commander Frick?”
“Yes, Doctor,” Frick’s voice answered.
“We’re ready. You coming in?”
“All set here,” I heard my boss answer. “We’ll come in.”
A moment later he entered, with Anna Horoshen. In the meantime I took a look around.
One whole wall of the computation room was a computer, smaller than the one at Los Alamos but not much. The blinking lights must have meant something to somebody. Sitting at right angles to it at a console was
Mr.
O’Toole and above the console was a big display scope; at about one-second intervals a flash of
light would peak in the center
of it.
Anna nodded without
speaking; I knew she must be linked. Pat said, “Tom, you’ve got a girl named
Anna Horoshen aboard: Is she around?”
(“Yes. Why?”)
“Say hello to her for me-1 knew her in Zurich. Her sister Becky is here.” He chuckled and I felt better. “Good looking babes, aren’t they? Maudie is jealous.”
Babcock said to Frick, “Tell them to stand by. First synchronizing run, starting from their end.”
“Tell them, Anna,”
She nodded. I wondered why they bothered with a second telepair when they could talk through myself and Pat. I soon found out: Pat and I were too busy.
Pat was sounding out ticks like a clock; I was told to repeat them… and every time I did another peak
of light flashed on the display scope. Babcock watched it, then turned me around so that I couldn’t see and taped a microphone to my voice box. “Again.”
Pat said, “Stand by-” and started ticking again. I did my best to tick right with him but it was the silliest performance possible. I heard Babcock say quietly, “That cut out the feedback and the speed-of- sound lag. I wish there were some way to measure the synaptic rate arose closely.”
Frick said, “Have you talked to Dev about it?” I went on ticking.
“A reverse run now, young lady,” Babcock said, and slipped headphones on me. I immediately heard a ticking like the ticks Pat had been sending. “That’s a spectral metronome you’re listening to, young fellow, timed by monochrome light. It was synchronized with the one your brother is using before we left Earth. Now start ticking at him,”
So I did. It had a hypnotic quality; it was easier
to
get into step and tick with it than it was to get out of step. It was impossible to ignore it. I began to get sleepy but I kept on ticking; I couldn’t stop.
“End of run,” Babcock announced. The ticking stopped and I rubbed my ears.
“Dr. Babcock?”
“ “Huh?”
“How can you tell one tick from another?”
“Eh? You can’t. But O’Toole can, he’s got it all down on film. Same at the other end. Don’t worry
about it; just try to stay in time.”
This silliness continued for more than an hour, sometimes with Pat sending, sometimes myself. At last O’Toole looked up and said, “Fatigue factor is cooking our goose, Doc. The second differences are running all over the lot.”
“Okay, that’s all,” Babcock announced. He turned to me. “You can thank your brother
for me and sign off.”
Commander Frick and Anna left. I hung around.
Presently Dr. Babcock looked up from his desk and said, “You can go, bub. Thanks.”
“Uh, Dr. Babcock?” “Huh? Speak up.”
“Would you mind telling me what this is all about?”
He looked surprised, then said, “Sorry. I’m not used to using people instead of instruments; I forget.
Okay, sit down. This is why you m-r people were brought along: for research into the nature of time.”
I stared. “Sir? I thought we were along to report back on the planets we expect to find.”
“Oh, that- Well, I suppose so, but this is much more important. There are too many people as it is; why
encourage new colonies? A mathematician could solve the population problem in jig time-just shoot every other one.”
Mr. O’Toole said, without looking up, “The thing I like about you, Chief, is your big warm heart.” “Quiet in the gallery, please. Now today, son, we have been trying to find out what time it is.”
I
must have looked as puzzled as I felt for he went on, “Oh, we know what time it is … but too many
different ways. See that?” He pointed at the display scope, still tirelessly making a peak every second. “That’s the Greenwich time tick, pulled in by radio and corrected for relative speed and change of
speed. Then there is the time you were hearing over the earphones; that is the time the ship runs by. Then there is the time you were getting from your brother and passing to us. We’re trying to compare them all, but the trouble is that we have to have people in the circuit and, while a tenth of a second is a short time for the human nervous system, a microsecond is a measurably long time in physics. Any radar system splits up a
microsecond as easily as you slice a pound of butter. So we use a lot of runs to
try to even out our ignorance.”
“Yes, but what do you expect to find out?”
“If I ‘expected,’ I wouldn’t be doing it. But you might say that we are trying to find out what the word “simultaneous” means.”
Mr. O’Toole looked up from the console. “If it means anything,” he amended.
Dr. Babcock glanced at him. “You still here? ‘If it means anything.’ Son, ever since the great Doctor Einstein, ‘simultaneous’ and ‘simultaneity’ have been dirty words to physicists. We chucked the very
concept, denied that it had meaning, and built up a glorious structure of theoretical physics without it.
Then you mind readers came along and kicked it over. Oh, don’t look guilty; every house
needs a housecleaning now and then. If you folks had done your
carnival stunt at just the speed of light, we would have assigned you a place in the files and forgotten you. But you rudely insisted on doing it at something enormously greater than the speed of light, which made you as welcome as a pig at a wedding. You’ve
split us physicists into two schools, those who want to class you as a purely psychological phenomenon and no business of physics-these are the ‘close your eyes and it will go away’ boys-and a second school which realizes that since measurements can be made of whatever this is you do, it is therefore the business of physics to measure and include
it … since physics is, above all,
the
trade of measuring things and assigning definite numerical values to them.”
O’Toole said, “Don’t wax philosophical, Chief.”
“You get back to your numbers, O’Toole; you have no soul These laddies want to measure how fast you do it. They don’t care how fast-they’ve already recovered from the blow that you do it faster than light-but they want to know exactly how fast. They can’t accept the idea that you do it ‘instantaneously,’ for that would require them to go to a different church entirely. They want to assign a definite speed of propagation, such-and-such number of times faster than the speed of light. Then they
can
modify their old equations and go right on happily doing business at the old stand.”
“They will,” agreed O’Toole.
“Then there is a third school of thought, the right one…my own.” O’Toole, without looking up, made a rude noise.
“Is that your asthma coming back?” Babcock said anxiously. “By the way, you got any results?”
“They’re still doing it in nothing flat. Measured time negative as often as positive and never greater
than inherent observational error.”
“You see, son? That’s the correct school. Measure what happens and let the chips fly where they may.” “Hear hear!”
“Quiet, you renegade Irishman. Besides that, you m-r’s give us our first real chance to check another
matter. Are you familiar with the relativity transformations?”
“You mean the Einstein equations? “Surely. You know the one for time?”
I
thought hard Pat and I had taken first-year physics our freshman year; it had been quite a while. I
picked up a piece of paper and wrote down what I thought it was:
“That’s it,” agreed Dr. Babcock. “At a relative velocity of ‘v’ time interval at first frame of reference equals time interval at second frame of reference multiplied by the square root of one minus the square of the relative velocity divided by the square of the speed of light. That’s just the special case, of
course, for constant speeds; it is more complicated for acceleration. But there has been much
disagreement as to what the time equations meant, or if they meant anything.”
I blurted out, “Huh? But I thought
the Einstein theory had been proved?” It suddenly occurred to me that, if the relativity equations were wrong, we were going to be away a mighty long time-Tau Ceti, our first stop, was eleven light-years from the Sun… and that was just our first one; the others were a lot farther.
But everybody said that once we got up near the speed of light the months would breeze past like days.
The
equations said so.
“Attend me. How do you prove that there are eggs in a bird’s nest? Don’t strain your gray matter: go climb the tree and find out. There is no other way. Now we are climbing the tree.”
“Fine!” said O’Toole. “Go climb a tree.”
“Noisy in here. One school of thought
maintained that the equations simply meant that a clock would
read differently if you could read it from a passing star … which you can’t… but that there was no real stretching or shrinking of time-whatever ‘real’ means. Another school pointed to the companion equations for length and mass, maintaining that the famous Michelson-Morley experiment showed that the length transformation was ‘real’ and pointing out that the increase of mass was regularly computed and used for particle-accelerator ballistics and elsewhere in nuclear physics-for
example, in the torch
that pushes this ship. So, they reasoned, the change in time rates must be real, because
the corollary
equations worked in practice. But nobody knew. You have to climb the tree and look.”
“When will we know?” I was still worrying. Staying several years, Einstein time, in the ship I had
counted on. Getting killed in the course of it, the way Uncle Steve said we probably would, I refused to worry about. But dying of old age in the Elsie was not what I had counted on. It was a grim thought, a life sentence shut up inside these steel walls.
“When? Why, we know right now.” “You do? What’s the answer?”
“Don’t hurry me, son. We’ve been gone a couple of weeks, at a boost
of 124% of one gee; we’re up to
about 9,000 miles per second now. We still haven’t come far-call it seven and a half light-hours or
about 5,450,000,000 miles. It will be the better part of a year before we are crowding the speed of light. Nevertheless we have reached a sizable percentage of that speed, about five per cent; that’s enough to show. Easy to measure, with the aid of you mind readers.”
“Well, sir? Is it a real time difference? Or is it just relative?”
“You’re using the wrong words. But it’s ‘real,’ so far as the word means
anything. The ratio right now is about 99.9%.”
“To put it exactly,” added Mr. O’Toole, “Bartlett’s slippage-that’s a technical term I just invented-his
‘slippage’ in time rate from that of his twin has now reached twelve parts in ten thousand.”
“So you would make me a liar for one fiftieth of one per cent?” Babcock complained. “O’Toole, why did I let you come along?”
“So you would have some one to work your arithmetic,” his assistant answered smugly.
Pat told me he did not want me around when they operated, but I came anyway. I locked myself in my room so nobody could disturb me and stuck with him. He didn’t really object; whenever I spoke he answered and the it got to the deadline the more he talked… a cheerful babble about nothing and
everything. It did not fool me.
When they wheeled him into surgery, he said, “Tom, you should see my anesthetist. Pretty as a sunny
day
and just lap size.”
(“Isn’t her face covered with a mask?”)
“Well, not completely. I can see her pretty blue eyes. 1 think I’ll ask her what she’s doing tonight.” (“Maudie won’t like that.”)
“You keep Maudie out of this; a sick man is entitled to privileges. Wait a sec, I’ll ask her.” (“What did she say?”)
“She said, ‘Nothing much,’ and that I would be doing the same for a few days. But I’ll get her phone number.”
(“Two gets you five she won’t give it to you.”)
“Well, I can try… uh uh! Too late, they’re starting in … Tom, you wouldn’t believe this needle; it’s the size of an air
hose. She says she wants me to count. Okay, anything for a laugh… one … two… three…”
Pat got up to seven and I counted with him. All the way through
I kept winding up tighter and tighter to unbearable tension and fear. I knew now what he apparently had been sure of all along,
that he was
not coming out of it. At the count of seven he lost track but his mind did not go silent. Maybe those around
the operating table thought they had him unconscious but I knew better; he was trapped inside and screaming to get out.
I called to him and he called back but we couldn’t find each other. Then I was as trapped and lost and
confused as he was and we groped around in the dark and the cold and the aloneness of the place where you die.
Then I felt the knife whittling at my back and I screamed.
The next thing I remember is a couple of faces floating over me. Somebody said, “I think he’s coming around, Doctor.” The voice did not belong
to anyone; it was a long way off.
Then there was just one face and it said, “Feeling better?” “I guess so. What happened?”
“Drink this. Here, I’ll hold up your head.”
When I woke up again I felt fairly wide awake and could see that I was in the ship’s infirmary. Dr.
Devereaux was there, looking at me. “You decided to come out of it, young fellow?”
“Out of what, Doctor? What happened?”
“I don’t know precisely, but you gave a perfect clinical picture of a patient terminating in surgical shock. By the time we broke
the lock on your door, you were far gone-you gave us a bad time. Can you tell me about it?”
I tried to think, then I remembered. Pat!
I called him in my mind. (“Pat! Where are you, boy?”)
He didn’t answer. I tried again and he still didn’t answer, so I knew. I sat up and managed to choke out,
“My brother … he died!”
Dr. Devereaux said, “Wups! Take it easy. Lie down. He’s not dead … unless he died in the last ten
minutes, which I doubt.”
“But I can’t reach him!
How
do you know? I can’t reach him, I tell you!”
“Come down off the ceiling. Because I’ve been checking on him all morning via the m-r’s on watch.
He’s resting
easily under an eighth grain of hypnal, which is why you can’t raise him. I may be stupid,
son-I was stupid, not to warn you to stay out of it-but I’ve been tinkering with the human mind long enough to figure out approximately what happened to you, given the circumstances. My only excuse is
that I have never encountered such circumstances before.”
I quieted a little. It made sense that I couldn’t wake Pat if they had him under drugs.
Under Dr. Devereaux’s questions I managed to tell him more or less what had happened-not perfectly, because you can’t really tell someone else what goes on inside your head. “Uh, was the operation successful,
Doctor?”
“The patient came through in good shape. We’ll talk about it later. Now turn over.” “Huh?”
“Turn over. I want to take a look at your back.”
He looked at it, then called two of his staff to see it. Presently he touched me. “Does that hurt?” “Ouch! Uh, yes, it’s pretty tender. What’s wrong with my back, Doctor?”
“Nothing, really. But you’ve got two perfect stigmata, just matching the incisions for Macdougal’s operation … which is the technique they used on your brother.”
“Uh, what does that mean?”
“It means that the human mind is complicated and we don’t know much about it. Now roll over and go to sleep. I’m going to keep you in bed a couple of days.”
I didn’t intend to go to sleep but I did. I was awakened by Pat calling me. “Hey, Tom! Where are you? Snap out of it.”
(“I’m right here. What’s the matter?”) “Tom… I’ve got my legs back!”
I answered, (“Yeah, I know,”) and went back to sleep.
IX RELATIVES
Once Pat was over his paralysis I should have had the world by the tail, for I had everything I wanted. Somehow it did not work that way. Before he was hurt, I had known why I was down in the dumps: it was because
he was going and I wasn’t. After he was hurt, I felt guilty because I was getting
what I wanted through
his misfortune. It didn’t seem right to be happy when he was crippled-especially when his crippled condition had got me what I wanted.
So I should have been happy once he was well again.
Were you ever at a party where you were supposed to be having fun and suddenly you realized that you
weren’t? No reason, just no fun and the whole world gray and tasteless?
Some of the things that were putting me off my feed I could see. First there had been Dusty, but that had been cleared up. Then there had been the matter of other people, especially the electron pushers we stood watch with, calling us freaks and other names and acting as if we were. But the Captain had
tromped on that, too, and when we got better acquainted people forgot about such things. One of the relativists, Janet Meers, was a lightning calculator, which made her a freak, too, but everybody took it for granted in her and after a while they took what we did for granted.
After we got out of radio range of Earth the Captain took us out from under Commander Frick and set us up as a department of our own, with “Uncle” Alfred McNeil as head of department and Rupert Hauptman as his assistant-which meant that Rupe kept the watch list while Uncle Alf was in charge of our
mess table and sort of kept us in line. We liked old Unc too well to give him much trouble and if
somebody did get out of line Unc would look sad and the rest of us would slap the culprit down. It worked.
I think Dr. Devereaux recommended it to the Captain. The fact was that Commander Frick resented us.
He was an electrical engineer and had spent his whole life on better and better communication
equipment … then we came along and did it better and faster with no equipment at all. I don’t blame him; I would have been sore, too. But we got along better with Uncle Alf.
I suppose that the Vasco da Gama was part of my trouble. The worst thing about space travel is that absolutely nothing happens. Consequently the biggest event in our day was the morning paper. All day
long each mind reader on watch (when not busy with traffic, which wasn’t much) would copy news. We got the news services free and all the features and Dusty would dress it up by copying pictures sent by his twin Rusty. The communicator on the midwatch would edit it and the m-r and the communicator on
the early morning watch would print it and have it in the mess room by breakfast.
There was no limit to the amount of copy we could have; it was just a question of how much so few people could prepare. Besides Solar System news we carried ships’ news, not only of the Elsie but of
the
eleven others. Everybody (except myself) knew people in the other ships. Either they had met them at Zurich, or the old spacehands, like the Captain and a lot of others, had friends
and acquaintances
reaching back for years.
It was mostly social news, but we enjoyed it more than news from Earth and the System, because we felt closer to the ships in the fleet, even though they were billions of miles away and getting farther by
the
second. When Ray Gilberti and Sumire Watanabe got married in the Leif Ericsson, every ship in the fleet held a celebration. When a baby was born in the Pinta and our Captain was named godfather, it made us all proud.
We were hooked to the Vasco da Gama through Cas Warner, and Miss Gamma Furtney linked us with the Marco Polo and the Santa Maria through
her triplets Miss Alpha and Miss Beta, but we got news
from all the ships by pass-down-the-line. Fleet news was never cut, even if dirtside news had to be. As it was, Mama O’Toole complained that if the editions got any larger, she would either have to issue clean sheets and pillow cases only once a week or engineering would have to build her another laundry
just to wash newspapers. Nevertheless, the ecology department always had clean paper ready, freshly
pressed, for each edition.
We even put out an occasional extra, like the time Lucille LaVonne won “Miss Solar System” and Dusty did a pic of her so perfect you would have sworn it was a photograph. We lost some paper from that as quite a number of people kept their copies for pin-ups
instead of turning them back for reclamation-I did myself. I even got Dusty to autograph it. It startled him but pleased him even though
he was rude about
it-an artist is entitled to credit for his work, I say, even if
he is a poisonous
little squirt.
What I am trying in say is that the Elsie Times was the high point of each day and fleet news was the most important part of it.
I had not been on watch the night before; nevertheless, I was late for breakfast. When I hurried in,
everybody was busy with his copy of the Times
as
usual-but nobody was eating.
I sat down between Van and Prudence and said, “What’s the matter? What’s aching everybody?”
Pru silently handed me a copy of the Times.
The first page was bordered in black. There were oversize headlines: VASCO DA GAMA LOST I couldn’t believe it. The Vasco was headed out for Alpha Centauri but she wouldn’t get there for
another four years, Earth time; she wasn’t even close to the speed of light. There was nothing to have may trouble with, out where she was. It must be a mistake.
I turned to see-story-on-page-two. There was a boxed dispatch from the Commodore in the Santa Maria: “(Official) At 0334 today Greenwich time TS Vasco da Gama (LRF 172) fell out of contact.
Two
special circuits were operating at the time, one Earthside and one to the Magellan. In both cases
transmission ceased without
warning in midst of message and at the same apparent instant by adjusted
times. The ship contained eleven special communicators; it has not proved possible to raise any of them. It must therefore be assumed that the ship is lost, with no survivors.”
The LRF dispatch merely admitted that the ship was out of contact. There was a statement by our
Captain and a longer news story which included comments from other ships; I read them but the whole story was in the headlines … the Vasco was gone wherever it is that ships go when they don’t come back.
I suddenly realized something and looked up. Cas Warner’s chair was empty. Uncle All caught my eye and said quietly, “He knows, Tom. The Captain woke him and told him soon after it happened. The only good thing about it is that he wasn’t linked with his brother when it happened.”
I wasn’t sure that Uncle Alf had the right slant. If Pat got it, I’d want to be with him when it happened,
wouldn’t I? Well, I thought I would. In any case I was sure that Unc would want to be holding Sugar
Pie’s hand if something happened and she had to make the big jump before he did. And Cas and his brother Caleb were close; I knew that.
Later that day the Captain held memorial services and Uncle Alfred preached a short sermon and we all sang the “Prayer for Travelers.” After that we pretended that there never had been a ship named the Vasco da Gama, but it was all pretense.
Cas moved from our table and Mama O’Toole put him to work as an assistant to her. Cas and his brother had been hotel men before LRF tapped them and Cas could be a lot of help to her; keeping a
ship with two hundred people in it in ecological balance is no small job. Goodness, just raising food for
two
hundred people would be a big job even if it did not have to be managed so as to maintain
atmospheric balance; just managing the yeast cultures and the hydroponics took all the time of nine people.
After a few weeks Cas was supervising entering and housekeeping and Mama O’Toole could give all of her time to the scientific and technical end-except that she continued to keep an eye on the cooking.
But the Vasco da Gama should not have made me brood;
I didn’t know anybody in that ship. If Cas
could pull out of it and lead a normal, useful life, I certainly should not have had the mulligrubs.
No, I think it was my birthday as much as anything.
The mess room had two big electric clocks in it, controlled from the relativists’ computation room, and two bank-style calendars over them. When we started out they were all right together, showing
Greenwich time and date. Then, as we continued to accelerate and our speed got closer to that of light,
the
“slippage” between Elsie and the Earth began to show and they got farther and farther out of phase.
At first we talked about it, but presently we didn’t notice the Greenwich set… for what good does it do
you
to know that it is now three in the morning next Wednesday at Greenwich when it is lunch time in
the
ship? It was like time zones and the date line back on Earth: not ordinarily important. I didn’t even notice when Pat groused about the odd times
of day he had to be on duty because I stood watches any time of day myself.
Consequently I was caught flat-footed when Pat woke me with a whistle in the middle of the night and shouted, “Happy birthday!”
(“Huh? Whose?”)
“Yours, dopey. Ours. What’s the matter with you? Can’t you count?” (“But-”)
“Hold it. They are just bringing the cake in and they are going to sing “Happy Birthday.” I’ll echo it for you.”
While they were doing so I got up and slipped on a pair of pants and went down to the mess room. It was the middle of “night” for us and there was just a standing light here. But I could see the clocks and calendars-sure
enough, the Greenwich date was our birthday and figuring back zone time from Greenwich to home made it about dinner time at home.
But it wasn’t my birthday. I was on the other schedule and it didn’t seem right.
“Blew ‘em all out, kid,” Pat announced happily, “That ought to hold us for another year. Mum wants to
know if they baked a cake for you there?”
(“Tell her ‘yes.’ “) They hadn’t, of course. But I didn’t feel like explaining. Mother got jittery easily
enough without trying to explain Einstein time to her. As for Pat, he ought
to know better.
The folks had given Pat a new watch and he told me that there was a box of chocolates addressed to me-should he open it and pass it around? I told him to go ahead, not knowing whether to be grateful that I was remembered or to be annoyed at a “present” I couldn’t possibly see or touch. After
a while I told Pat that I had to get my sleep and please say good night and thank you to everybody for me. But I
didn’t get to sleep; I lay awake until the passageway lights came on,
The following week they did have a birthday cake for me at our table and everybody sang to me and I got a lot of pleasantly intended but useless presents-you can’t give a person
much aboard ship when
you
are eating at the same mess and drawing from the same storerooms. I stood up and thanked them when somebody hollered “Speech!” and I stayed and danced with the girls afterwards. Nevertheless it
still did not seem like my birthday because it had already been my birthday, days earlier.
It was maybe the next day that my Uncle Steve came around and dug me out of my room. “Where you been keeping yourself, youngster?”
“Huh? Nowhere.”
“That’s what I thought.” He settled in my chair and I lay back down on my bunk. “Every time I look
for you, you aren’t in sight. You aren’t on watch or working all the time. Where are you?”
I didn’t say anything. I had been right where I was a lot of the time, just staring at the ceiling. Uncle Steve went on, “When a man takes to crouching in a corner aboard ship, it is usually best, I’ve found, to let him be. Either he will pull out of it by himself, or he’ll go out the airlock one day without bothering with a pressure suit. Either way, he doesn’t want to be monkeyed with. But you’re my sister’s
boy
and I’ve got a responsibility toward you. What’s
wrong? You never show up for fun and games in the evenings and you go around with a long face; what’s eating you?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me!” I said angrily.
Uncle Steve disposed of that with a monosyllable. “Open up, kid. You haven’t been right since the Vasco was lost. Is that the trouble? Is your nerve slipping? If it is, Doc Devereaux has synthetic courage in pills. Nobody need know you take ‘em and no need to be ashamed-everybody finds a crack in his nerve now and again. I’d hate to tell you what a repulsive form it took the first time I went into
action.”
“No, I don’t think that is it.” I thought about it-maybe it was it. “Uncle Steve, what happened to the Vasco?”
He shrugged. “Either her torch cut loose, or they bumped into something.”
“But a torch can’t cut loose… can it? And there is nothing to bump into out here.”
“Correct on both counts. But suppose the torch did blow? The ship would be a pocket-sized nova in
an
umpteenth second. But I can’t think of an easier
way
to go. And the other way would be about as
fast, near enough you would never notice. Did you ever think how much kinetic energy we have wrapped up in this bucket at this speed? Doc Babcock says that as we reach the speed of light we’ll be just a flat wave front, even though
we go happily along eating mashed potatoes and gravy and never
knowing the difference.”
“But we never quite reach the speed of light.”
“Doc pointed that out, too. I should have said ‘if.’ Is that what is bothering you, kid? Fretting that we might go boom! like the Vasco? If so, let me point out that almost all the ways of dying in bed are worse … particularly if you are silly enough to die of old age-a fate I hope to avoid.”
We talked a while longer but did not get anywhere. Then be left, after threatening to dig me out if I
spent more than normal sack time in my room. I suppose Uncle Steve reported me to Dr. Devereaux, although both of them claimed not.
Anyhow, Dr. Devereaux
tackled me the next day, took me around
to his room and sat me down and talked to me. He bad a big sloppy-comfortable stateroom; he never saw anybody in surgery.
I immediately wanted to know why he wanted to talk to me.
He opened his frog eyes wide and looked innocent. “Just happened to get around
to you, Tom.” He picked up a pile of punched cards. “See these? That’s how many people I’ve had a chat with this week. I’ve
got to pretend to earn my pay.”
“Well, you don’t have to waste time on me. I’m doing all right.”
“But I like to waste time, Tom. Psychology is a wonderful racket. You don’t scrub for surgery, you don’t have to stare down people’s dirty throats, you just sit and pretend to listen while somebody
explains that when he was a little boy he didn’t like to play with the other little boys. Now you talk for a
while. Tell me
anything you want to, while I take a nap. If you talk long enough,
I can get rested up
from
the poker party I sat in on last night and still chalk up a day’s work.”
I tried to talk and say nothing. While I was doing so, Pat called me. I told him to call hack; I was busy. Dr. Devereaux was watching my face and said suddenly, “What was on your mind then?”
I explained that it could wait; my twin wanted to talk to me.
“Hmm… Tom, tell me about your twin. I didn’t have time to get well acquainted with him in Zurich.” Before I knew it I had told him a lot about both of us. He was remarkably easy to talk to. Twice I
thought
he had gone to sleep but each time I stopped, he roused himself and asked another question that got me started all over again.
Finally he said, “You know, Tom, identical twins are exceptionally interesting to psychologists-not to mention geneticists, sociologists, and biochemists. You start out from the same egg, as near alike as two organic complexes can be. Then you become two different people. Are the differences environmental? Or is there something else at work?”
I thought about this. “You mean the soul, Doctor?”
“Mmm … ask me next Wednesday. One sometimes holds personal and private views somewhat different from one’s public and scientific opinions. Never mind. The point is that you m-r twins are interesting. I fancy that the serendipitous results of Project Lebensraum will, as usual, be far greater than the intended results.”
“The “Sarah” what, Doctor?”
“Eh? ‘Serendipitous.’
The Adjective for ‘Serendipity.’ Serendipity means that you dig for worms and strike gold. Happens all the time in science. It is the reason why ‘useless’ pure research is always so
much more practical than ‘practical’ work.
But let’s talk about you. I can’t help you with your problems-you have to do that yourself. But let’s kick it around and pretend
that I can, so as to justify my being on the payroll. Now two things stick out like a sore thumb: the first is that you don’t like your brother.”
I started to protest but he brushed it aside. “Let me talk. Why are you sure that I am wrong? Answer: because you have been told from birth that you love him. Siblings always `love’ each other; that is a foundation of our civilization like Mom’s apple pie. People usually believe anything that they are told early and often. Probably a good thing they believe this one, because brothers and sisters often have more opportunity and more reason to hate each other than anyone else.”
“But I like Pat. It’s just-”
“ ‘It’s just’ what?” he insisted gently when I did not finish.
I did not answer and he went on, “It is just that you have every reason to dislike him. He has bossed you and bullied you and grabbed what he wanted. When he could not get it by a straight fight, he used your mother to work on your father to make it come his way. He even got the girl you wanted. Why
should you like him? If a man were no relation-instead of being your twin brother-would you like him for doing those things to you? Or would you hate him?”
I didn’t relish the taste of it. “I wasn’t being fair
to
him, Doctor. I don’t think Pat knew he was hogging
things … and I’m sure our parents never meant to play favorites. Maybe I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”
“Maybe you are. Maybe there isn’t a word of truth in it and you are constitutionally unable to see what’s fair when you yourself are involved. But the point is that this is the way you do feel about it … and you certainly would not like such a person-except that he is your twin brother, so of course
you must ‘love’ him. The two ideas fight each other. So you will continue to be stirred up inside until you
figure out which one is false and get rid of it. That’s up to you.”
“But… doggone
it, Doctor, I do like Pat!”
“Do you? Then you had better dig out of your mind the notion that he has been handing you the dirty
end
of the stick
all these years. But I doubt if you do. You’re fond of him-we’re
all fond of things we are used to, old shoes, old pipes, even the devil we know is better than a strange devil. You’re loyal to him. He’s necessary to you and you are necessary to him. But ‘like’ him? It seems most improbable. On
the
other hand, if you could get it through your head that there is no longer any need to ‘love’ him, nor
even to like him, then you might possibly get to like him a little for what he is. You’ll certainly grow
more tolerant of him, though
I doubt if you will ever like him much. He’s a rather unlikeable cuss.”
“That’s not true! Pat’s always been very popular.”
“Not with me. Mmm … Tom, I cheated. I know your brother better than I let on. Neither one of you is
very likeable, matter of fact, and you are very much alike. Don’t take offense. I can’t abide ‘nice’ people; ‘sweetness and light’ turns my stomach. I like ornery people with a good, hard core of self-
interest-a lucky thing, in view of my profession. You and your brother are about equally selfish, only he is more successful at it. By the way, he likes you.”
“Huh?”
“Yes. The way he would a dog that always came when called. He feels protective toward you, when it doesn’t conflict with his own interests. But he’s rather contemptuous of you; he considers you a weakling-and, in his book, the meek are not entitled to inherit the earth; that’s for chaps like himself.”
I chewed that over and began to get angry. I did not doubt that Pat felt that way about me-patronizing
and
willing to see to it that I got a piece of cake … provided that he got a bigger one.
“The other thing that stands out,” Dr. Devereaux went on, “is that neither you nor your brother wanted
to
go on this trip.”
This was so manifestly untrue and unfair that I opened my mouth and left it open. Dr. Devereaux looked at me. “Yes? You were about to say?”
“Why, that’s the silliest
thing I ever heard, Doctor! The only real trouble Pat and I ever had was because both of us wanted to go and only one of us could.”
He shook his head. “You’ve got it backwards. Both of you wanted to stay behind and only one of you could. Your brother won, as usual.”
“No, he didn’t… well, yes, he did, but the chance to go; not the other way around. And he would have,
too, if it hadn’t been for that accident.”
“ ‘That accident.’ Mmm … yes.” Dr. Devereaux held still, with his head dropped forward and his hands folded across
his belly, for so long that I thought
again that he was asleep. “Tom, I’m going to tell you something that is none of your business, because I think you need to know. I suggest that you never
discuss it with your twin … and if
you do, I’ll make you out a liar, net. Because
it would be bad for him. Understand me?”
“Then don’t tell me,” I said surlily.
“Shut up and listen.” He picked up a file folder. “Here is a report on your brother’s operation, written
in the talk we doctors use to confuse patients. You wouldn’t understand it and, anyhow, it was sent sidewise, through the Santa Maria and in code. You want to know what they found when they opened
your brother up?”
“Uh, not especially.”
“There was no damage to his spinal cord of any sort.”
“Huh? Are you trying to tell me that he was faking his legs being paralyzed? I don’t believe it!” “Easy, now. He wasn’t faking. His legs were paralyzed. He could not possibly fake paralysis so well
that a neurologist could not detect it. I examined him myself; your brother was paralyzed. But not from damage to his spinal cord-which I knew and the surgeons who operated on him knew.”
“But-” I shook my head. “I guess I’m stupid.”
“Aren’t we all? Tom, the human mind is not simple; it is very complex. Up at the top, the conscious
mind has its own ideas and desires, some of them real, some of them impressed on it by propaganda and training and the necessity for putting up a good front and cutting a fine figure to other people.
Down below is the unconscious mind, blind and deaf and stupid and sly, and with-usually-a different set of desires and very different motivations. It wants its own way … and when it doesn’t get it, it raises
a stink until it is satisfied. The trick in easy living is to find out what your unconscious mind really
wants and give it to it on the cheapest terms possible, before it sends you through
emotional bankruptcy
to
get its own way. You know what a psychotic is, Tom?”
“Uh… a crazy person.”
“Crazy’ is a word we’re trying to get rid of, A psychotic is a poor wretch who has had to sell out the shop and go naked to the world to satisfy the demands of his unconscious mind. He’s made a settlement, but it has ruined him. My job is to help people make settlements that won’t ruin them-like a good lawyer, We never try to get them to evade the settlement, just arrange it on the best terms.
“What I’m getting
at is this: your brother managed to make a settlement with his unconscious on fairly
good terms, very good terms considering that he did it without professional help. His conscious mind signed a contract and his unconscious said flatly that he must not carry it out. The conflict was so deep that it would have destroyed some people. But not your brother. His unconscious mind elected to have an accident instead, one that could cause paralysis and sure enough it did-real paralysis, mind you; no fakery. So your brother was honorably excused from an obligation he could not carry out. Then, when it was no longer possible to go on this trip; be was operated on. The surgery merely corrected minor
damage to the bones. But he was encouraged to think that his paralysis would go away-and so it did.” Devereaux shrugged.
I thought about it until I was confused. This conscious and unconscious stuff-I’d studied it and passed quizzes in it … but I didn’t take any stock in it. Doc Devereaux could talk figures
of speech until he was
blue in the face but it didn’t get around
the fact that both Pat and I had wanted to go and the only reason Pat had to stay behind was because be had hurt himself in that accident. Maybe the paralysis was hysterical, maybe be had scared himself into thinking he was hurt worse than he was. But that didn’t make any difference.
But Doc Devereaux talked as if the accident wasn’t an accident. Well, what of it? Maybe Pat was
scared green and had been too proud to show it-I still didn’t think he had taken a tumble on a mountainside on purpose.
In any case, Doc was dead wrong on one thing: I had wanted to go. Oh, maybe I had been a little scared and I knew I had been homesick at first-but that was only natural.
(“Then why are you so down in dumps, stupid?”)
That wasn’t Pat talking; that was me, talking to myself. Shucks, maybe it was my unconscious mind,
talking out loud for once, “Doc?”
“Yes, Tom.”
“You say I didn’t really want to come along?” “It looks that way.”
“But you said the unconscious mind always wins. You can’t have it both ways.”
He sighed. “That isn’t quite what I said. You were hurried into this. The unconscious is stupid and
often slow; yours did not have time to work up anything as easy as a skiing accident. But it is stubborn. It’s demanding that you go home … which you can’t. But it won’t listen to reason. It just keeps on
nagging you to give it the impossible, like a baby crying for the moon.”
I shrugged. “To hear you tell it, I’m in an impossible moss.”
“Don’t look so danged sourpuss! Mental hygiene is a process of correcting the correctable and adjusting to the inevitable. You’ve
got three choices.”
“I didn’t know I had any.”
“Three. You can keep on going into a spin until your mind builds up a fantasy acceptable to your unconscious…a
psychotic adjustment, what you would call ‘crazy.’ Or you can muddle along as you
are, unhappy and not much use to yourself or your shipmates…
and always with the possibility of
skidding over the line. Or you can dig into your own mind, get acquainted with it, find out what it really wants, show it what it can’t have and why, and strike a healthy bargain with it on the basis of what is possible. If you’ve got guts and gumption, you’ll try the last one. It won’t be easy.” He waited,
looking at me.
“Uh, I guess I’d better try. But how do I do it?”
“Not by moping in your room about might-have-beens, that’s sure.”
“My Uncle Steve-Major Lucas, I mean”-I said slowly, “told me I shouldn’t do that. He wants me to stir around and associate with other people. I guess I should.”
“Surely, surely. But that’s not enough. You can’t chin yourself out of the hole you are in just by
pretending to be the life of the party. You have to get acquainted with yourself.”
“Yes, sir. But how?”
“Well, we can’t do it by having you talk
about yourself every afternoon while I hold your hand. Mmm … I suggest that you try writing down who you are and where you’ve been and how you
got from there to here. You make it thorough enough and maybe you will begin to see ‘why’ as well as ‘how.’ Keep digging and you may find out who you are and what you want and
how
much of it you
can get.”
I must have looked baffled for he said, “Do you keep a diary?” “Sometimes. I’ve got one along.”
“Use it as an outline. ‘The Life and Times of T. P. Bartlett, Gent.’ Make it complete and try to tell the truth-all the truth.”
I thought that over. Some things you don’t want to tell anybody. “Uh, I suppose you’ll want to read it, Doctor?”
“Me? Heaven forbid! I get too little rest without
misguided people. This is for you, son; you’ll be writing
to yourself … only write it as if you didn’t know anything about yourself and had to explain everything. Write it as if you expected to lose your memory and wanted to be sure you could pick up the strings again. Put it all down.”
He frowned and added grudgingly, “If you feel that you have found
out something important and want a second opinion, I suppose I could squeeze in time to read part of it, at least. But I won’t promise. Just write it to yourself-to the one with amnesia.”
So I told him I would try… and I have. I can’t see that it has done any special good (I pulled out of the slump anyhow) and there just isn’t time to do the kind of job he told me
to
do. I’ve had to hurry over
the
last part of this because this is the first free evening I’ve had in a month.
But it’s amazing how much you can remember when you really try.
X RELATIONS
There have been a lot of changes around the Elsie. For one thing we are over the hump now and
backing down the other side, decelerating as fast as we boosted; we’ll be at Tau Ceti in about six
months, ship’s time.
But I am getting ahead of myself. It has been about a year, S-time, since I started this, and about twelve years, Earth time, since we left Earth. But forget E-time; it doesn’t mean anything. We’ve been thirteen months in the ship by S-time and a lot has happened. Pat getting married-no, that didn’t happen
in
the ship and it’s the wrong place to start.
Maybe the place to start is with another marriage, when Chet Travers married Mei-Ling Jones. It met with wide approval, except on the part of one of the engineers who was sweet on her himself. It caused
us freaks and the electron pushers to bury the hatchet to have one of us marry one of them, especially
when Commander Frick came down the aisle in the mess room with the bride on his arm, looking as proud
and solemn as if she had been his daughter. They were a good match; Chet was not yet thirty and
I figure that Mei-Ling is at least twenty-two.
But it resulted in a change in the watch list and Rupe put me on with Prudence Mathews.
I had always liked Pru without paying much attention to her. You had to look twice to know that she was pretty. But she had a way of looking up at you that made you feel important. Up to the time I
started standing watches with her I had more or less left the girls alone; I guess I was “being true to Maudie.” But by then I was writing this confession story for Doe Devereaux; somehow writing things
down gives them finality. I said to myself, “Why not? Tom, old boy, Maudie is as definitely out of your
life as if one of you were dead. But life goes on, right here in this bucket of wind.”
I didn’t do anything drastic; I just enjoyed Pru’s company as much as possible… which turned out to be a lot.
I’ve heard that when the animals
came aboard the Ark two by two, Noah separated them port and starboard. The Elsie isn’t run that way. Chet and Mei-Ling had found
it possible to get well enough
acquainted to want to make it permanent. A little less than half of the crew had come aboard as married
couples; the rest of us didn’t have any obstacles put in our way if we had such things on our minds.
But somehow without
its ever showing we were better chaperoned than is usual back dirtside. It didn’t seem organized … and yet it must have been. If somebody was saying good night a little too long in a passageway after the lights were dimmed, it would just happen that Uncle Alfred had to get up about then and shuffle down the passageway. Or maybe it would be Mama O’Toole, going to make herself a cup of chocolate “to help her get to sleep.”
Or it might be the Captain. I think he had eyes in the hack of his head for everything that went on in the ship. I’m convinced that Mama O’Toole had. Or maybe Unc was actually one of those hypothetical wide-range telepaths but was too polite and too shrewd to let anybody know it.
Or maybe Doe Devereaux had us all so well analyzed those punched cards of his that he always knew
which way the rabbit would jump and could send his dogs to head him off. I wouldn’t put it past him.
But it was always just enough
and not too much. Nobody objected to a kiss or two if somebody wanted to check on the taste; on the other hand we never
had
any of the scandals that pop up every now and then in almost any community. I’m sure we didn’t; you can’t keep such things quiet in a ship. But nobody seemed to see a little low-pressure lalligagging.
Certainly Pru and I never did anything that would arouse criticism.
Nevertheless we were taking up more and more of each other’s time, both on and off watch. I wasn’t serious, not in the sense of thinking about getting married; but I was serious in that it was becoming
important. She began to look at me privately and a bit possessively, or maybe our hands would touch in
passing over a stack of traffic and we could feel the sparks jump.
I felt fine and alive and I didn’t have time to write in these memoirs. I gained four pounds and I certainly wasn’t homesick.
Pru and I got in the habit of stopping off and raiding the pantry whenever we came off a night watch together. Mama O’Toole didn’t mind; she left it unlocked so that anyone who wanted a snack could find one-she said this was our home, not a jail. Pru and I would make a sandwich, or concoct a creative mess, and eat and talk before we turned in. It didn’t matter what we talked about; what mattered was the warm glow we shared.
We came off watch at midnight one night and the mess room was deserted; the poker players had
broken up early and there wasn’t even a late chess game. Pru and I went into the pantry and were just getting set to grill a yeast-cheese sandwich. The pantry is rather cramped; when Pru turned to switch on
the
small grill, she brushed against me:
I got a whiff of her nice, clean hair and something like fresh clover or violets. Then I put my arms
around her.
She didn’t make any fuss. She stopped dead for an instant, then she relaxed.
Girls are nice. They don’t have any bones and I think they must be about five degrees warmer than we are, even if fever thermometers don’t show it. I put my face down and she put her face up and closed her eyes and everything was wonderful
For maybe half a second she kissed me and I knew she was as much in
favor of it as I was, which is as
emphatic as I can put
it.
Then she had broken out of my arms like a wrestler and was standing pressed against the counter across from me and looking terribly upset. Well, so was I. She wasn’t looking at me; she was staring at nothing and seemed to be listening … so I knew; it was the expression she wore when she was linked- only she looked terribly unhappy too.
I said, “Pru! What’s the matter?”
She did not answer; she simply started to leave. She had taken a couple of steps toward the door when I reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Hey, are you mad at me?”
She twisted away, then seemed to realize that I was still there. “I’m sorry, Tom,” she said huskily. “My
sister is angry.”
I had never met Patience Mathews-and now I hardly wanted to. “Huh? Well, of all the silly ways to behave I-”
“My sister doesn’t like you, Tom,” she answered firmly, as if that explained everything. “Good night.” “But-”
“Good night, Tom.”
Pru was as nice as ever at breakfast but when she passed me the rolls the sparks didn’t jump, I wasn’t surprised when Rupe reshuffled the watch list that day but I did not ask why. Pru didn’t avoid me and she
would even dance with me when there was dancing, but the fire was out and neither of us tried to light it again.
A long time later I told Van about it. I got no sympathy.
“Think you’re the first one to get your finger mashed in the door? Pru is a sweet little trick, take it from Grandfather van Houten. But when Sir Galahad himself comes riding up on a white charger, he’s going to have to check with Patience before he can speak to Pru… and I’ll bet you the answer is ‘No!’
Pru is willing, in her sweet little half-witted way, but Patience won’t okay anything more cozy than
‘Pease Porridge Hot.’“
“I think it’s a shame. Mind you, it doesn’t matter to me now. But her sister is going to ruin her life.” “It’s her business. Myself, I reached a compromise with my twin years ago-we beat each other’s teeth
in and after
that we cooperated on a businesslike basis. Anyhow, how do you know that Pru isn’t doing
the
same to Patience? Maybe Pru started it.”
It didn’t sour me on girls, not even on girls who had twin sisters who were mind readers, but after that I enjoyed the company of all of them. But for a while I saw more of Unc. He liked to play dominoes, then when we had finished all even up for the evening he liked to talk about Sugar Pie-and to her, of course. He would look at his big photograph of her and so would I and the three of us would talk,
with Unc echoing for both of us. She really was a nice
little girl and it was a lot of fun to get to know a little six-year-old girl-it’s very quaint what they think about.
One night I was talking with them and looking at her picture, as always, when it occurred to me that time had passed and that Sugar Pie must have changed-they grow up fast at that age. I got a brilliant idea. “Unc, why don’t you have Sugar Pie mail a new photograph to Rusty Rhodes? Then he could
transmit it to Dusty and Dusty could draw you one as perfect as that one, only it would be up to date,
show you what she looks like now, huh? How about it, Sugar Pie? Isn’t that a good idea?”
“It isn’t necessary.”
I was looking at the picture and I nearly popped my fuses. For a moment it wasn’t the same picture. Oh,
it was the same merry little girl, but she was a little older, she was shy a front tooth, and her hair was different.
And she was alive. Not just a trukolor stereo, but alive. There’s a difference.
But when I blinked it was the same old picture.
I said hoarsely, “Unc, who said, ‘It isn’t necessary?’ You? Or Sugar Pie?” “Why, Sugar Pie did. I echoed,”
“Yes, Unc … but I didn’t hear you; I heard her.” Then I told him about the photograph.
He nodded. “Yes, that’s the way she looks.
She says to tell you that her tooth is coming in, however.” “Unc… there’s no way to get around it. For a moment I crowded in on your
private wave length.” I was
feeling shaky.
“I knew. So did Sugar
Pie. But you didn’t crowd in, son; a friend is always welcome.”
I was still trying to soak it in. The implications
were more mind-stretching, even, than when Pat and I
found out we could do it. But I didn’t know what they were yet. “Uh, Uric, do you suppose we could
do it again? Sugar Pie?”
“We can try.”
But it didn’t work…
unless I heard her voice as well as Unc’s when she said, “Good night, Tommie.” I
wasn’t sure.
After I got to bed I told Pat about it. He was interested after I convinced him that it really had
happened. “This is worth digging into, old son. I’d better record it. Doc Mabel will want to kick it around.”
(“Uh, wait until I check with Uncle Alf.”)
“Well, all right. I guess it is his baby … in more ways than one. Speaking of his baby, maybe I should go see her? With two of us at each end it might be easier to make it click again. Where does his niece live?”
(“Uh, Johannesburg.”)
“Mmm … that’s a far stretch down the road, but I’m sure the LRF would send me there if Doc Mabel got interested.”
(“Probably. But let me talk to Unc.”)
But Unc
talked to Dr. Devereaux first. They called me in and Doc wanted to try it again at once. He was as near excited as I ever saw him get. I said, “I’m willing, but I doubt
if we’ll got anywhere; we didn’t last night. I think that once was just a fluke.”
“Fluke, spook. If it can be done once, it can be done again, We’ve got to be clever enough to set up the proper conditions.”
He looked at me. “Any objection to a light dose of hypnosis?”
“Me? Why, no, sir. But I don’t hypnotize easily.”
“So? According to your record, Dr. Arnault found it not impossible. Just pretend I’m she.”
I almost laughed in his face. I look more like Cleopatra than he looks like pretty Dr. Arnault. But I agreed to go along with the gag.
“All either of you will need is a light trance to brush
distractions aside and make you receptive.”
I don’t know what a “light
trance” is supposed to feel like. I didn’t feel anything and I wasn’t asleep.
But I started hearing Sugar Pie again.
I
think Dr. Devereaux’s interest was purely scientific; any new fact about what makes people tick
could rouse him out of his chronic torpor. Uncle Alf suggested that Doc was anxious also to set up a new telepathic circuit, just in case. There was a hint in what Unc said that he realized that he himself would not last forever.
But there was a hint of more than that. Uncle Alf let me know very delicately that, if it should come to it, it was good to know that somebody he trusted would be keeping an eye on his baby. He didn’t quite say it, not that baldly, so I didn’t have to answer, or I would have choked up. It was just understood-and
it
was the finest compliment I ever received. I wasn’t sure I deserved it so I decided I would just have to manage to deserve it if I ever had to pay off.
I could “talk” to Uncle Alf now, of course, as well as to Sugar Pie. But I didn’t, except when all three of us were talking together; telepathy is an imposition when it isn’t necessary. I never called Sugar Pie by myself, either, save for a couple of test runs for Doc Devereaux’s benefit to establish that I could
reach her without Unc’s help. That took drugs; Unc would wake up from an ordinary sleep if anyone shouted on that “wave length.” But otherwise I left: her alone; I had no business crowding into a little girl’s mind unless she was ready and expecting company.
It was shortly after that that Pat got married.
XI SLIPPAGE
My relations with Pat got steadily better all during that first boost, after Dr. Devereaux took me in
hand. I found out, after I admitted that I despised and resented Pat, that I no longer did either
one. I cured him of bothering me unnecessarily by bothering him unnecessarily-he could shut off an alarm clock but he couldn’t shut off me. Then we worked out a live-and-let-live formula and got along better.
Presently I found myself looking forward to whatever time we had set for checking with each other and
I realized I liked him, not “again” but “at last,” for I had never felt that warm toward him before.
But even while we were getting closer we were falling apart; “slippage” was catching up with us. As
anyone can see from the relativity formulas, the relationship is not a straight-line one; it isn’t even noticeable at the beginning but it builds up like the dickens at the other end of the scale.
At three-quarters the speed of light he complained that I was drawling, while it seemed to me that he was starting to jabber. At nine-tenths of the speed of light it was close to two for one, but we knew what was wrong now and I talked fast and he talked slow.
At 99% of c, it was seven to one and all we could do to make ourselves understood. Later that day we fell out of touch entirely.
Everybody else was having the same trouble. Sure, telepathy is instantaneous, at least the trillions of
miles between us didn’t cause any lag, not even like the hesitation you get in telephoning from Earth to
Luna nor did the signal strength drop off. But brains are flesh and blood, and thinking takes time… and
our time rates were out of gear. I was thinking so slowly (from Pat’s viewpoint) that he could not slow
down and stay with me; as for him, I knew from time to time that he was trying to reach me but it was
just a squeal in the earphones so far as making sense was concerned.
Even Dusty Rhodes couldn’t make it. His twin couldn’t concentrate on a picture for the long hours
necessary to let Dusty “see” it.
It was upsetting, to say the least, to all of us. Hearing voices is all right, but not when you can’t tell what they are saying and can’t shut them off. Maybe some of the odd cases in psychiatry weren’t crazy at all; maybe the poor wretches were tuned in on a bad wave length.
Unc took it the worst at first and I sat with him all one evening while we both tried together. Then he suddenly regained his serenity; Sugar Pie was thinking about him; that he knew; so being, words weren’t really necessary.
Pru was the only one who flourished; she was out from under the thumb of her sister. She got really
kissed, probably for the first time in her life. No, not by me; I just happened to be wandering down for a drink at the scuttlebutt, then I backed away quietly and let the drink wait. No point in saying who it was, as it didn’t mean anything-I think Pru would have kissed the Captain at that point if he had held
still. Poor little Pru!
We resigned ourselves to having to wait until we slid back down closer into phase. We were still hooked ship-to-ship because the ships were accelerating to the same schedule, and there was much debate back and forth about the dilemma, one which apparently nobody had anticipated. In one way it was not important, since we would not have anything to report until we slowed down and started
checking the stars we were headed for, but in another way it was: the time the Elsie spent at the speed of
light (minus a gnat’s
whisker) was going to seem very short
to us-but it was going to be ten solid
years and a bit over to those back Earth side. As we learned later, Dr. Devereaux and his opposite numbers in the other ships and back in LRF were wondering bow many telepathic pairs they would
have still functioning (if any) after a lapse of years. They had reason to worry. It had already been
established that identical twins
were hardly ever telepairs if they had lived apart for years-that was the other reason why most of those picked were young; most twins are separated by adult life.
But up to then, we hadn’t been “separated” in Project Lebensraum. Sure, we were an unthinkable distance apart but each pair had been in daily linkage and in constant practice by being required to stand regular watches, even if there was nothing to send but the news.
But what would a few years of being out of touch do to rapport between telepartners?
This didn’t bother
me; I didn’t know about it. I got a sort of an answer
out of Mr. O’Toole which caused me to think that a couple of weeks of ship’s time would put us back close
enough in phase to make ourselves understood. In the meantime, no watches to stand so it wasn’t all bad. I went to bed and
tried to ignore
the squeals inside my head.
I was awakened by Pat.
“Tom … answer me, Tom. Can you hear me, Tom? An- (“Hey, Pat, I’m here!”) I was wide awake, out of bed and standing on the floor plates, so excited I could hardly talk.
“Tom!
Oh,
Tom! It’s good to hear you, boy-it’s
been two years since I was last able to raise you.” (“But-”) I started to argue, then shut up. It had been less than a week to me. But I would have to look
at the Greenwich calendar and a check with the computation office before I could even guess how long it had been for Pat.
“Let me talk,
Tom, 1 can’t keep this
up long. They’ve had me under deep hypnosis and drugs for the past six weeks and it has taken me this long to get in touch with you. They don’t dare keep me under much longer.”
(“You mean they’ve got you hypped right now?”)
“Of course, or I couldn’t talk to you at
all. Now-” His voice faded out for a second “Sorry. They had to stop to give me another shot and an intravenous feeding. Now listen and record this schedule: Van
Houten-” He reeled off precise Greenwich times and dates, to the second, for each of us, and faded out while I was reading them back. I caught a “So long” that went up in pitch, then there was silence.
I pulled on pants before I went to wake the Captain but I did not stop for shoes. Then everybody was up and all the daytime lights were turned on even though it was officially night and Mama O’Toole was making coffee and everybody was talking. The relativists were elbowing each other in the computation room and Janet Meers was working out ship’s time for Bernie van Houten’s appointment with his twin without bothering to put it through
the computer because he was first on the list.
Van failed to link with his brother and everybody got jittery and Janet Meers was in tears because somebody suggested that she had made a mistake in the relative times, working it in her head; But Dr. Babcock himself pushed her solution through the computer and checked her to nine decimals.
Then he announced in a chilly tone that he would thank everyone not to criticize his staff thereafter; that was his
privilege.
Gloria linked with her sister right after that and everybody felt better. The Captain sent a dispatch to
the
flagship through
Miss Gamma and got an answer back that two other
ships were back in contact, the Nautilus and the Cristoforo Colombo.
There was no more straggling up to relieve the watch and stopping to grab a bite as we passed the pantry. If the recomputed time said your opposite number would be ready to transmit at 3:17:06 and a short tick, ship’s time, you were waiting for him from three o’clock on and no nonsense, with the recorder rolling and the mike
in front of your lips. It was easy for us in the ship, but
each one of us
knew that his telepair
was
having to undergo both hypnosis and drastic drugging to stay with us at all-
Dr. Devereaux did not seem happy about it.
Nor was there any time for idle chit-chat, not with your twin having to chop maybe an hour out of his life for each word. You recorded what he sent, right the first time and no fumbles; then you transmitted
what the Captain had initialed. If that left a few moments to talk, all right. Usually it did not … which
was
how I got mixed up about Pat’s marriage.
You see, the two weeks bracketing our change-over from boost to deceleration, during which time we reached our peak speed, amounted to about ten years Earthside. That’s 250 to 1 on the average. But it wasn’t all average; at the middle of that period the slippage was much greater, I asked Mr. O’Toole what the maximum was and he just shook his head. There was no way to measure
it, he told me, and the probable errors were larger than the infinitesimal values he was working with.
“Let’s put it this way,” he finished. “I’m glad there is no hay fever in this ship, because one hard sneeze would push us over the edge.”
He was joking, for, as Janet Meers pointed out, as our speed approached the speed of light, our mass approached infinity.
But we fell out of phase again for a whole day.
At the end of one of those peak “watches” (they were never more than a couple of minutes long, S-
time) Pat told me that he and Maudie were going to get married. Then he was gone before I could congratulate him. I started to tell him that I thought Maudie was a little young and wasn’t he rushing things and missed my chance. He was off our band.
I was not exactly jealous.
I examined myself and decided that I was not when I found
out that I could
not remember what Maudie looked like. Oh, I knew what she looked like-blonde, and a little snub nose with a tendency to get freckles across it in the summertime. But I couldn’t call up her face the way I could Pru’s face, or Janet’s. All I felt was a little left out of things.
I did remember to check on the Greenwich, getting Janet to relate it back to the exact time of my last watch. Then I saw that I bad been foolish to criticize. Pat was twenty-three and Maudie was twenty- one, almost twenty-two.
I did manage to say, “Congratulations,” on my next linkage but Pat did not have a chance to answer.
Instead he answered on the next. “Thanks for the congratulations. We’ve named her after Mother but I
think she is going to look like Maudie.”
This flabbergasted me. I had to ask for Janet’s help again and found that everything was all right-I mean, when a couple has been married two years a baby girl is hardly a surprise, is it? Except to me.
All in all, I had to make quite a few readjustments those two weeks. At the beginning Pat and I were the same age, except for an inconsequential slippage. At the end of that period (I figure the end as being
the
time when it was no longer necessary to use extreme measures to let us telepairs
talk) my twin was
more than eleven years older than I was and had a daughter seven years old.
I stopped thinking about Maudie as a girl, certainly not as one I had been sweet on. I decided that she was probably getting fat and sloppy and very, very domestic-she never could resist that second
chocolate éclair. As a matter of fact; Pat and I had grown very far apart, for we had little in common
now.
The minor gossip of the ship, so important to me, bored him; on the other hand, I couldn’t get excited about his flexible construction units and penalty dates. We still telecommunicated satisfactorily
but it was like two strangers using a telephone. I was sorry, for I had grown to like him before he slipped away from me.
But I did want to see my niece. Knowing Sugar Pie had taught me that baby girls are more fun than
puppies and even cuter than kittens.
I remembered the idea I had had about Sugar Pie and braced Dusty on the subject.
He agreed to do it; Dusty can’t turn down a chance to show how well he can draw. Besides, he had mellowed, for him; he no longer snarled when you tried to pet him even though it might be years before he would learn to sit up and beg.
Dusty turned out a beautiful picture. All Baby Molly lacked was little wings to make her a cherub. I
could see a resemblance to myself-to her father, that is. “Dusty, this is a beautiful picture. Is it a good likeness?”
He bristled. “How should I know? But if there is a micron’s s difference, or a shade or tone off that you could pick up with a spectrophotometer, from the pic your brother mailed to my brother, I’ll eat it! But how do I know how the proud parents had the thing prettied up?”
“Sorry, sorry! It’s a swell picture. I wish there were some way I could pay you.” “Don’t stay awake nights; I’ll think of something. My services come high.”
I
took down my pic of Lucille LaVonne and put Molly in her
place. I didn’t throw away the one of Lucille, though.
It was a couple of months
later that I found
out that Dr. Devereaux had seen entirely different possibilities in my being able to use the “wave length” of Uncle Alf and Sugar Pie from the obvious ones I had seen. I had continued to talk with both of them, though not as often as I had at first. Sugar
Pie
was a young lady now, almost eighteen, in normal school at Witwatersrand and already started
practice teaching. Nobody but Unc and I called her “Sugar Pie” and the idea that I might someday substitute for Unc was forgotten-at the rate we were shifting around pretty soon she could bring me up.
But Doe Devereaux had not forgotten the matter. However the negotiations had been conducted by him with LRF without consulting me. Apparently Pat had been told to keep it to himself until they were ready to try it, for the first I knew of it was when I told him to stand by to record some routine traffic (we were back on regular watches by then). “Skip it, old son,” he said. “Pass the traffic to the next victim. You and I are going to try something fresh.”
(“What?”)
“LRF orders, all the way down from the top. Molly has an interim research contract all of her own, just like you and I had.”
(“Huh? She’s not a twin.”)
“Let me count her. No, there’s just one of her-though
she sometimes seems like an entire herd of wild
elephants. But she’s here, and she wants to say hello to Uncle Tom.”
(“Oh, fine. Hello, Molly.”) “Hello, Uncle Tom.”
I
almost jumped out of my skin. I had caught it right off, with no fumbling. (“Hey, who was that? Say
that again!”)
“Hello, Uncle Tom.” She giggled. “I’ve got a new hair bow.”
I gulped. (“I’ll bet you look mighty cute in it, honey. I wish I could see you. Pat! When did this happen?”)
“On and off, for the past ten weeks. It took some tough sessions with Dr. Mabel to make it
click. By the way, it took some tougher sessions with, uh, the former Miss Kouric before she would agree to let
us try it.”
“He means Mommy,” Molly told me in a conspirator’s whisper. “She didn’t like it. But I do, Uncle Tom. I think it’s nice.”
“I’ve got no privacy from either one of them,” Pat complained. “Look, Tom, this is just a test run and
I’m
signing off. I’ve got to get the terror back to her
mother.”
“She’s going to make me take a nap,” Molly agreed in a resigned voice, “and I’m too old for naps. Good-by, Uncle Tom. I love you.”
(“I love you, Molly.”)
I turned around
and Dr. Devereaux and the Captain were standing behind me, ears flapping. “How did
it
go?” Dr. Devereaux demanded, eagerly-for him.
I tried to keep my face straight. “Satisfactorily. Perfect reception.” …. “The kid, too?”
“Why, yes, sir. Did you expect something else?”
He let out a long breath. “Son, if you weren’t needed, I’d beat your brains out with an old phone list.” I think Baby Molly and I were the first secondary communication team in the fleet. We were not the
last. The LRF, proceeding on a hypothesis suggested by the case of Uncle Alfred and Sugar Pie,
assumed that it was possible to form a new team where the potential new member was very young and intimately associated with an adult member of an old team. It worked in some eases. In other cases it could not even be tried because
no child was available.
Pat and Maude had a second baby girl just before we reached the Tau Ceti system. Maudie put her foot down with respect to Lynette; she said two freaks in her
family were enough.
XII TAU CETI
By the time we were a few light-hours
from Tan Ceil we knew that we had not drawn a blank; by stereo and doppler-stereo Harry Gates had photographed half a dozen planets. Harry was not only
senior planetologist; he was boss of the research department. I suppose he had enough degrees to string like beads, but I called him “Harry” because everybody did. He was not the sort you call “Doctor”; he was eager and seemed younger than he was.
To Harry the universe was a complicated toy somebody had given him; he wanted to take it apart and see what made it go. He was delighted with it and willing to discuss it with anybody at any time. I got acquainted with him in the bottle-washing business because Harry didn’t treat lab assistants like robots; he treated them like people and did not mind that he knew so much more than they did-he even seemed
to
think that he could learn something from them.
How he found time to marry Barbara Kuiper I don’t know, but Barbara was a torch watchstander, so it probably started as a discussion of physics and drifted over into biology and sociology;
Harry was interested in everything. But he didn’t find time to he around the night their first baby was born, as that was the night he photographed the planet he named Constance, after the baby. There was objection to
this, because everybody wanted to name it, but the Captain decided that the ancient rule applied: finders of astronomical objects were entitled to name them.
Finding Constance was not an accident. (I mean the planet, not the baby; the baby wasn’t lost.) Harry wanted a planet about fifty to fifty-one million miles from Tau, or perhaps I should say that the LRF wanted one of that distance. You see, while Tau Ceti is a close relative of the Sun, by spectral types,
Tau is smaller and gives off only about three-tenths as much sunshine-so, by the same old tired inverse square law you use to plan the lights for a living room or to arrange a photoflash picture, a planet fifty
million miles from Tau would catch the same amount of sunlight as a planet ninety-three million miles
from
Sol, which is where Earth sits. We weren’t looking for just any planet, or we would have stayed
home in the Solar System; we wanted a reasonable facsimile of Earth or it would not he worth
colonizing.
If you go up on your roof on a dear night, the stars look so plentiful you would think that planets very much like Earth must he as common as eggs in a hen yard. Well, they are: Harry estimates that there arc between a hundred thousand and a hundred million of them in our own Milky Way-and you can multiply that figure by anything you like for the whole universe.
The hitch is that they aren’t conveniently at hand. Tau Ceti was only eleven light-years from Earth; most stars in our own Galaxy average more like fifty thousand light-years from Earth. Even the Long
Range Foundation did not think in those terms; unless a star was within a hundred light-years or so it was silly to think of colonizing it even with torchships. Sure, a torchship can go as far as necessary,
even across the Galaxy-but who is going to he interested in receiving its real estate reports after a couple of ice ages have come and gone? The population problem would he solved one way or another
long before then … maybe the way the Kilkenny cats solved theirs.
But there are only fifteen-hundred-odd stars within a hundred light-years of Earth and only about a hundred and sixty of these are of the same general spectral type as the Sun. Project Lebensraum hoped to check not more than half of these, say seventy-five at the outside-less since we had lost the Vasco da Gama.
If even one real Earth-type planet was turned up in the search, the project would pay off. But there was no certainty that it would. A Sol-type star might not have an Earth-type planet; a planet might be too
close to the fire, or too far, or too small to hold an atmosphere, or too heavy for humanity’s fallen arches, or just too short
on the H20 that figures into everything we do.
Or it might be populated by some rough characters with notions about finders-keepers.
The Vasco da Gama had had the best chance to find the first Earth-type planet as the star she had been
beading for, Alpha Centauri Able, is the only star in this part of the world which really is a twin of the Sun. (Able’s companion, Alpha Centauri Baker, is a different sort, spectral type K.) We had the next best chance, even though Tau Ceti is less like the Sun than is Alpha Centauri-B, for the next closest G- type is about thirteen light years from Earth … which gave us a two-year edge over the Magellan and nearly four over the Nautilus.
Provided we found anything, that is. You can imagine how jubilant we were when Tau Ceti turned out to have pay dirt.
Harry was jubilant, too, but fur the wrong reasons. I had wandered into the observatory, hoping to get a sight of the sky-one of the Elsie’s shortcomings was that it was almost impossible to see out-when he grabbed me and said, “Look at this, pal!”
I looked at it. It was a sheet of paper with figures on it; it could have been Mama O’Toole’s crop- rotation schedule.
“What is it?”
“Can’t you read? It’s Bodes Law, that’s what it is!”
I thought back. Let me see…no, that was Ohm’s Law-then I remembered; Bode’s Law was a simple geometrical progression that described the distances of the Solar planets from the Sun. Nobody had ever been able to find a reason for it and it didn’t work well in some cases, though
I seemed to remember that Neptune, or maybe Pluto, had been discovered by calculations that made use of it. It looked like an accidental relationship.
“What of it?” I asked.
“‘What of it?’ the man says! Good grief! This is the most important thing since Newton got conked with the apple.”
“Maybe so, Harry, but I m a little slow today. I thought Bode’s Law was just an accident. Why couldn’t it be an accident here, too?”
“Accident! Look, Tom, if you roll a seven once, that’s an accident. When you roll a seven eight hundred times in a row, somebody has loaded the dice.”
“But this is only twice.”
“It’s not the same thing. Get me a big enough
sheet of paper
and
I’ll write down the number of zeros it takes to describe how unlikely this ‘accident’ is.” He looked thoughtful. “Tommie, old friend, this is
going to be the key that unlocks how planets are made. They’ll bury us right alongside Galileo for this.
Mmm … Tom, we can’t afford to spend much time in this neighborhood; we’ve got to get out and take a look at the Beta Hydri system and make sure it checks the same way-just to convince the mossbacks
back Earthside, for it will, it will! I gotta go tell the Captain we’ll have to change the schedule.” He stuffed the paper in a pocket and hurried away. I looked around
but the anti-radiation shutters were over the observatory ports; I didn’t get to see out.
Naturally the Captain did not change the schedule; we were out there looking for farm land, not trying to unscrew the inscrutable. A few weeks later we were in orbit around
Constance. It put us into free-fall for the first time during the trip, for we had not even been so during acceleration-deceleration change-
over but had done it in a skew path instead; chief engineers don’t like to shut a torch down unless there is time for an overhaul before starting up again-there was the case of the Peter the Great who shut hers
off,
couldn’t light up again, and fell into the Sun.
I didn’t like free-fall. But it’s all right if you don’t overload your stomach.
Harry did not seem disappointed. He had a whole new planet to play with, so he tabled Bode’s Law
and
got busy. We stayed in orbit, a thousand miles up, while research found out everything possible about Connie without actually touching it: direct visual search, radiation survey, absorption-spectra of her atmosphere. She had two moons, one a nice size, though smaller than Luna, so they were able to measure her surface gravity exactly.
She certainly looked like a home away from home. Commander Frick had his boys and girls set up a relay tank in the mess room, with color and exaggerated stereo, so that we all could see. Connie looked like the pictures they show of Earth from space stations, green and blue and brown and half covered with clouds and wearing polar ice like skullcaps. Her air pressure was lower than ours but her oxygen
ratio was higher; we could breathe it. Absorption spectra showed higher carbon
dioxide but not as high as Earth had during the Coal Age.
She was smaller but had a little more land area than Earth; her oceans were smaller. Every dispatch
back to Earth carried good news and I even managed to get Pat’s mind off his profit-and-loss for a while … he had incorporated us as “Bartlett Brothers, Inc.” and seemed to expect me to be interested in the bookkeeping simply because my accumulated LRF salary had gone into the capitalization. Shucks,
I hadn’t touched money for so long I had forgotten anybody used the stuff.
Naturally our first effort was to find out if anybody was already in occupation … intelligent animal life I mean, capable of using tools, building things, and organizing. If there was, we were under orders to
scoot out of there without
landing, find fuel somewhere else in that system, and let a later party attempt to set up friendly relations; the LRF did not want to repeat the horrible mistake that had been made with Mars.
But the electro-magnetic spectrum showed nothing at all, from gamma radiation
right up to the longest radio wavelengths. If there were people down there, they didn’t use radio and they didn’t show city
lights and they didn’t have atomic power. Nor did they have aircraft, nor roads, nor traffic on the surface of their oceans, nor anything that looked like cities. So we moved down just outside the atmosphere in an “orange slice” pole-to-pole orbit that let us patrol the whole surface, a new sector
each half turn.
Then we searched visually, by photography, and by radar. We didn’t miss anything more conspicuous than a beaver dam, I’m sure. No cities, no houses, no roads, no bridges, no ships, nobody home; Oh,
animals, surely-we could see herds gazing on the plains and we got lesser glimpses of other things. But it looked like a squatter’s paradise.
The Captain sent a dispatch: “I am preparing to land.”
I promptly volunteered for the reconnaissance party. First I braced my uncle Major Lucas to let me join his guard. He told me to go roll my hoop. “If you think I have any use for an untrained recruit,
you’re crazier
than you apparently think I am. If you wanted to soldier, you should have thought of it as soon
as we torched off.”
“But you’ve got men from all the departments in your guard.”
“Every one of ‘em trained soldiers. Seriously, Tom, I can’t afford it. I need men who will protect me; not somebody so green I’ll have to protect him. Sorry.”
So I tackled Harry Gates
to
let me join the scientific party the ship’s
guard would protect. He said, “Certainly, why not? Plenty of dirty work that my gang of prima donnas won’t want to do. You can
start by checking this inventory.”
So I checked while he counted. Presently he said, “How does it feel to be a little green man in a flying saucer?”
“What?”
“An oofoe. We’re an oofoe, do you realize that?”
I finally understood him-an U.F.O., an “unidentified flying object.” There were accounts of the U.F.O.
hysteria in all the histories of space flight. “I suppose
we are an U.F.O., sort of.”
“It’s exactly what we are. The U.F.O.’s were survey ships, just as we are. They looked us over, didn’t like what they saw, and went away. If they hadn’t found Earth crawling with hostile natives, they would have landed and set up housekeeping, just as we are going to do.”
“Harry, do you really believe the U.F.O.’s were anything but imagination or mistakes in reporting? I
thought that theory was exploded long ago.”
“Take another look at the evidence, Tom. There was something going on up in our sky shortly before we took up space jumping ourselves. Sure, most of the reports were phonies. But some weren’t. You
have to believe evidence when you have it in front of you, or else the universe is just too fantastic. Surely you don’t think that human beings are the only ones who ever built star ships?”
“Well … maybe not. But if somebody else has, why haven’t they visited us long ago?”
“Simple arithmetic, pal; it’s a big universe and we’re just one small corner of it. Or maybe they did. That’s my own notion; they surveyed us and Earth wasn’t what they wanted-maybe us, maybe the climate. So the U.F.O.’s went away.” He considered it. “Maybe they landed just long enough to fuel.”
That was all I got out of my tenure as a member of the scientific party; when Harry submitted my name an his list, the Captain drew a line through
it. “No special communicators will leave the ship.”
That settled it; the Captain had a will of iron. Van got to go, as his brother had been killed in an accident while we were at peak-so I called Pat and told him about Van and suggested that Pat drop dead. He didn’t see anything funny in it.
The Elsie landed in ocean comfortably deep, then they used the auxiliaries to bring her close to the shore. She floated high out of the water, as two-thirds of her tanks were empty, burned up, the water
completely disintegrated in boosting us first up to the speed of light, then backing us down again. The engineers were already overhauling her torch before we reached final anchorage. So far as I know, none of them volunteered for the landing party; I think that to most of the engineers the stop on Constance was just a chance to pick up more boost mass and take care of repairs and overhauls they had been
unable to do while underway. They didn’t care where they were or where they were going so long as the torch worked and all the machinery ticked. Dr. Devereaux told me that the Staff Metallurgist had
been out to Pluto six times and had never set foot on any planet but Earth.
“Is that normal?” I asked, thinking how fussy Doc had been about everybody else, including me.
“For his breed of cat,
it’s robust mental health. Any other breed I would lock up and feed through the
keyhole.”
Sam Rojas was as annoyed as I was at the discrimination against us telepaths; he had counted on
planting his feet on strange soil, like Balboa and Columbus and Lundy. He came around to see me about it. “Tom, are you going to stand for it?”
“Well, I don’t want to-but what can we do?
“I’ve been talking to some of the others. It’s simple. We don’t.” “We don’t what?”
“Mmm … we just don’t. Tom, ever since we slowed down, I’ve detected a falling off in my telepathic ability. It seems to be affecting all of us-those I’ve talked to. How about yourself?”
“Why, I haven’t-”
“Think hard,” he interrupted. “Surely you’ve noticed it. Why, I doubt if I could raise my twin right now. It must have something to do with where we are … maybe there is something odd about the radiation of Tau Ceti, or something. Or maybe it comes from Connie. Who knows? And, for that matter,
who can check on us?”
I began to get the pattern. I didn’t answer, because it was a tempting idea.
“If we can’t communicate,” he went on, “we ought to be useful for something else … like the landing
party, for instance. Once we are out of range of this mysterious influence probably we would be able to
make our reports back to Earth all right. Or maybe it would turn out that some of the girls
who
didn’t want to go with the landing party could manage to get in touch with Earth and carry the reports …
provided us freaks weren’t discriminated against.”
“It’s an idea,” I admitted.
“Think about it. You’ll find your special talent getting weaker and weaker. Me, I’m stone deaf already.” He went away.
I toyed with the idea. I knew the Captain would recognize a strike when he saw one … but what could he do? Call us all liars and hang us by our thumbs until we gave in? How could he be certain that we hadn’t all gone sour as m-r’s? The answer was that he could not be certain; nobody but a mind reader
knows what it feels like, nobody but the mind reader himself can tell that he is doing it. When we slipped out of contact at peak he hadn’t doubted us, he had just accepted it. He would have to accept it now, no matter what he thought.
For he had to have us; we were indispensable.
Dad used to he arbitration representative in his guild local; I remembered his saying once that the only
strike worth calling was one in which the workers were so badly needed that the strike would be won before a walkout. That was the pinch we had the Captain in; he had to have us. No strikebreakers closer than eleven light-years. He wouldn’t dare get rough with us.
Except that any one of us could break the strike. Let’s see-Van was out of it and so was Cas Warner; they were no longer telepaired, their twins were dead. Pru’s sister Patience was still alive, but that telepair had never been mended after peak-her sister had refused the risky drugs and hypnosis routine and they never got back into rapport. Miss Gamma did not count, because the ships her two sisters were in were still peaking, so we were cut off from sidewise relay back to Earth until one of them decelerated. Not counting Sam and myself, whom did that leave? And could they be counted on? There was Rupe, Gloria, Anna, and Dusty … and Unc of course. And Mei-Ling.
Yes, they were solid. Making us feel that we were freaks when we first came aboard had consolidated us,
Even if one or two didn’t feel right about it, nobody would let the others down. Not even Mei-Ling
who was married to an outsider. It would work. If Sam could line them up.
I wanted to go dirtside the worst way…and maybe this was the worst way, but I still wanted to.
Just the same, there was something sneaky about it, like a kid spending his Sunday School collection
money.
Sam had until noon the next day to get it lined up, because we were down to one watch a day. A continuous communication watch was not necessary and them was more ship’s work to do now that we were getting ready to explore. I tabled the matter and went down to tag the rats that would he used by the scientific survey.
But I did not have to wait until the following day;
Unc
called us together that evening and we crowded
into his room-all but Miss Gamma and Van and Pru and Cas. Unc looked around, looking horse-faced
and
sad, and said he was sorry we couldn’t all sit down but he wouldn’t keep us long. Then he started a meandering speech about how he thought
of us all as his children and he had grown to love us and we would always be his children, no matter what. Then he started talking about the dignity of being a human being.
“A man pays his bills, keeps himself
clean, respects other people, and keeps his word.
He gets no credit for this; he has to do this much just to stay even with himself. A ticket to heaven comes higher.”
He paused and added, “Especially he keeps his promises.” He looked around
and added, “That’s all I had to say. Oh, I might as well make one announcement while we are here. Rupe has had to shift the watch list around
a little bit.” He picked out Sam Rojas with his eyes. “Sam, I want you to take next watch, tomorrow noon. Will you do it?”
There wasn’t a sound for about three heart heats. Then Sam said slowly, “Why, I guess so, Unc, if you want me to.”
“I’d he much obliged, Sam. One way and another, I don’t want to put anybody else on that watch…and I wouldn’t feel like standing it myself if you couldn’t do it. I guess I would just have to tell the Captain
there wasn’t anybody available. So I’m pleased that you’ll do it.”
“Uh, why, sure, Unc. Don’t worry about it,” And that was the end of the strike.
Unc didn’t let us go quite yet. “I thought
I’d tell you about the change in the watch list while I had you
here and save Rupe from having to take it around to have you initial it. But I called you together
to
ask you about something else. The landing party will be leaving the ship before long. Nice as Constance looks,
I understand that it will he risky … diseases that we don’t know about; animals that might turn
out to he deadly in ways we didn’t expect, almost anything. It occurred to me that we might be able to
help. We could send one of us with the landing party and keep one of us on watch in the ship-and we could arrange for their telepairs to relay by telephone. That way we’d always be in touch with the landing party, even if
radios broke down or no matter what. It would be a lot of extra work and no glory…but it would be worth it if it saved the life of one shipmate.”
Sam said suddenly, “Who are you figuring on to go with the landing party, Unc?”
“Why, I don’t know. It isn’t expected of us and we don’t rate special-hazard pay, so I wouldn’t feel like ordering anybody-I doubt if the Captain would back me up. But I was hoping for enough
volunteers so that we could rotate the dirtside watch.” He blinked and looked unsure of himself. “But nobody is
expected to volunteer. I guess you had better let me know privately. “
He didn’t have to wait; we all volunteered. Even Mei-Ling did and then got mad and cried when Unc pointed out gently that she had better have her husband’s consent-which she wasn’t going to get; the Travers family was expecting a third.
Unc tackled the Captain the next morning. I wanted to hang around and hear the outcome but there was too much work to do. I was surprised, a half hour later, to be paged by speaker down
in the lab; I
washed my hands and hurried up to the Old Man’s cabin.
Unc was there, looking glum, and the Captain was looking stern. I tried to call Unc on the Sugar-Pie band, to find out where things stood, but for once he ignored me. The Captain looked at me coldly and said, “Bartlett, Mr. McNeil has proposed a plan whereby the people in your department want to help out
in the dirtside survey. I’ll tell you right off that I have turned it down. The offer is appreciated-but I have no more intention of risking people in your special category in such duty than I would approve of modifying the ship’s torch to sterilize the dinner dishes. First things first!”
He drummed on his desk. “Nevertheless,
the suggestion has merit. I won’t risk your whole department …but
I might risk one special communicator to increase the safeguards for the landing party. Now it occurred in me that we have one sidewise pair right in this ship, without having to relay through Earth. You and Mr. McNeil. Well? What have you to say?”
I started to say, “Sure!”-then thought
frantically. If I got to go after all that had happened, Sam was going to take a very dark view of it…and so was everybody. They might think I had framed it.
“Well? Speak up!”
Doggone, no matter what they thought, it wasn’t a thing you could refuse. “Captain, you know
perfectly well I volunteered for the landing party several days ago.”
“So you did. All right, I’ll take your
consent for granted. But you misunderstood me. You aren’t going; that will he Mr. McNeil’s job. You’ll stay here and keep in touch with him.”
I was so surprised that I almost missed the next thing the Captain said. I shot a remark to Unc privately: (“What’s this, Unc? Don’t you know that all of them will think you swindled them?”)
This time he answered me, distress in his voice: “I know it, son. He took me by surprise.” (“Well, what are you going to do?”)
“I don’t know. I’m wrong both ways.”
Sugar Pie suddenly cut in with, “Hey! What are you two fussing about?” Unc said gently:
“Go
away, honey. This is man talk.”
“Well!” But she didn’t interrupt again. Perhaps she listened.
The Captain was saying: “-in any doubly-manned position, we will never risk the younger when the older can serve.
That is standard and applies as much to Captain Urqhardt and myself as it does to any other two. The mission comes first. Bartlett, your expected usefulness is at least forty years longer than that of Mr.
McNeil. Therefore he must be preferred for a risk task. Very well, gentlemen. You’ll receive instructions later.”
(“Unc-what are you going to tell Sam? Maybe you agree-I don’t!”) “Don’t joggle my elbow, son.” He went on aloud: “No, Captain.”
The Captain stared. “Why, you old scoundrel! Are you that fond of your skin?”
Unc faced him right back. “It’s the only one I have, Captain. But that doesn’t have anything to do with
the
case. And maybe you were a little hasty in calling me names.”
“Eh?” The Captain turned red. “I’m sorry, McNeil. I take that back. But I think you owe me an explanation for your attitude.”
“I’m going to give it, sir. We’re old men, both of us. I can get along without setting foot on this planet
and so can you. But it looks different to young people. You know perfectly well that my people volunteered for the landing party not because they are angels, not scientists, not philanthropists…but because they are aching to go ashore. You know that; you told me as much, not ten minutes ago. If you
are
honest with yourself, you know that most of these children would never have signed up for this trip if they had suspected that they were to be locked up, never permitted to have what they call an
“adventure.’ They didn’t sign up for money; they signed up for the far horizons. Now you rob them of their reasonable expectations.”
The Captain looked grim. He clenched end unclenched a fist, then said, “There may be something in what you say. But I must make the decisions; I can’t delegate that. My decision stands. You go and Bartlett stays.”
I
said: (“Tell him he won’t get a darn’ message through!”)
Unc didn’t answer me. “I’m afraid not, Captain. This is a volunteer job…and I’m not volunteering.” The Captain said slowly, “I’m not sure that volunteering is necessary. My authority to define a man’s
duty is broad. I rather think you are refusing duty.”
“Not so; Captain. I didn’t say I wouldn’t take your orders; I just said I was not volunteering. But I’d
ask
for written orders, I think, and I would endorse
them: ‘Accepted under protest,’ and ask to have a copy transmitted to the Foundation.
I don’t volunteer.”
“But-confound
it, man! You volunteered with the rest. That’s what you came in here for. And I picked you.”
Unc shook his head. “Not quite, Captain. We volunteered as a group.
You turned us down as a group.
If I gave you the impression that I was volunteering, any other way, I am sorry … but that’s how it is. Now
if you will excuse me, sir, I’ll go back and tell my people you won’t have us.”
The Captain turned pink again. Then he suddenly started to roar with laughter. He jumped up and put his arm around
Unc’s narrow shoulders. “You old scoundrel! You are an old scoundrel, a mutinous
black-hearted scoundrel. You make me long for the days of bread-and-water and the rope’s end. Now sit back down and we’ll work this out. Bartlett, you can go,”
I left, reluctantly, and then stayed away from the other freaks because I didn’t want to answer
questions. But Unc was thoughtful; he called me, mind to mind, as soon as he was out of the Captain’s
cabin and told me the upshot. It was a compromise. He and I and Rupe and Sam would rotate, with the first trick (considered to be the most dangerous) to be his. The girls would take the shipside watch, with
Dusty classed with them because of age. But a bone was thrown
to them: once medicine and research
classed the planet as safe, they would be allowed sightseeing, one at a time. “I had to twist his arm on
that part,” Unc admitted, “but he agreed.”
Then it turned out to be an anticlimax; Connie was about as dangerous as Kansas. Before any human went outside the ship other than encased in a quarantine suit we exposed rats and canaries and hamsters
to
natural atmosphere; they loved it. When the first party went ashore, still in quarantine suits but breathing Connie’s air after it had passed through
electrostatic precipitators, two more experimental animals went with them-Bernhard van Houten and Percival the Pig.
Van had been down in the dumps ever
since his twin was killed; he volunteered and I think Dr.
Devereaux urged the Captain to let him. Somebody had to do it; you can make all the microscopic and
chemical tests you like-the day comes when a living man has to expose his. skin to a planet to find out if it is friendly. As Dr. Babcock says, eventually you must climb the tree. So Van went ashore without a quarantine suit, wearing shorts and shirt and shoes and looking like a scoutmaster.
Percival the Pig did not volunteer, but he thought it was a picnic. He was penned in natural bush and allowed to forage, eating anything from Connie’s soil that he thought
was fit to eat. A pig has advantages as an experimental animal; he eats anything, just as rats and men do, and I understand that his metabolism is much like ours-pigs even catch
many of the same diseases. If Percival prospered, it was almost certain that we would, particularly as Percy had not been given the inoculations that we had, not even the wide-spectrum G.A.R. serum which is supposed to give some protection even against diseases mankind has never encountered before.
Percy got fat, eating anything and drinking brook water, Van got a sunburn and then tanned. Both were healthy and the pioneer party took off their quarantine suits. Then almost everybody (even Percy) came down with a three-day fever and a touch of diarrhea, but everybody recovered and nobody caught it twice.
They rotated after that and all but Uncle Steve and Harry and certain ones whom they picked swapped with someone in the ship. Half of the second party were inoculated with serum made from the blood of
those who bad recovered from three-day fever; most of these did not catch it. But the ones who
returned were not allowed back in the ship at once; they were quarantined on a temporary deck rigged above the top bulge of the Elsie.
I don’t mean to say that the planet was just like a city park-you can get killed,
even in Kansas. There was a big, lizardlike carnivore who was no bargain. One of those got Lefty Gomez the first time our people ran into one and the beast would have killed at least two more if Lefty had been the kind of man who
insists on living forever. I would never have figured Lefty as a hero-he was assistant pastry cook
and
dry-stores keeper back in the ship-but Uncle Steve says that ultimate courage is the commonest human virtue and that seven out of ten are Medal of Honor men, given the circumstances.
Maybe so. I must be one of the other three. I don’t think I would have stood my ground and kept poking away at the thing’s eyes, armed only with a campfire spit.
But tyrannosaurus ceti was not dangerous enough
to give the planet a down check, once we knew he was there and what he was. Any big cat would have been much more dangerous, because cats are smart and he was stupid. You had to shoot first, but an explosive bullet made him lie down and be a rug. He had no real defense against men and someday men would exterminate him.
The shore party camped within sight of the ship on the edge of beautiful Babcock Bay, where we were anchored. The two helicopters patrolled each day, always together so that one could rescue the men in
the
other if it went down, and never more than a few hundred miles from base. Patrols on foot never
went more than ten miles from base; we weren’t trying to conquer the country, but simply trying to find out
if men could conquer and hold it. They could…at least around Babcock Bay…and where men can get a toe hold they usually hang on.
My turn did not come until the fourth rotation and by then they were even letting women go ashore; the worry part was over.
The oddest thing about being outdoors was the sensation of weather; I had been in air-conditioning for
two
years and I had forgotten rain and wind and sunshine in your face. Aboard the Elsie the engineer on watch used to cycle the temperature and humidity and ozone content on a random schedule, which
was
supposed to be good for our metabolisms. But it wasn’t weather; it was more like kissing your sister.
The first drop of rain I felt startled me; I didn’t know what it was. Then I was running up and down
and
dancing like a kid and trying to catch it in my mouth. It was rain, real rain and it was wonderful!
I couldn’t sleep that night. A breeze on my face and the sounds of others sleeping around me and the
distant noises of live things outside our snooper fences and the lack of perfect darkness all kept me awake. A ship is alive, too, and has its noises, but they are different from those outdoors; a planet is
alive in another way.
I got up quietly and tip-toed outside. In front of the men’s quarters about fifty feet away I could see the guardsman on watch. He did not notice me, as he had his head bent over dials and displays from the inner and outer fences and from the screen over us. I did not want to talk, so I went around behind the hut, out of sight of even the dim light from his instruments. Then I stopped and looked up.
It was the first good view of the sky I had had since we had left
Earth and the night was clear. I stood
there, dazzled and a little drunk from it.
Then I started trying to pick out constellations.
It was not hard; eleven light-years is just down the street for most stars. The Dipper was overhead,
looking a little more battered than it does from Earth but perfectly recognizable. Orion blazed near the horizon ahead of me but Procyon had moved over a long way and Sirius was not even in sight-skidded below the skyline, probably, for Sirius is even closer to the Earth than is Tau Ceti and our position
would shift him right across the sky. I tried to do a spherical triangle backwards in my head to figure where to look for Sirius and got dizzy and gave up.
Then I tried to find Sol. I knew where he would be, in Boötes, between Arcturus
and
Virgo-but I had to find Boötes, before I could look for Father Sol.
Boötes was behind me, as close to the skyline as Orion was on the other side. Arcturus had shifted a little and spoiled the club shape of Bootes but there was no doubt in my mind.
There it was! A yellow-white star, the color of Capella, but dimmer, about second magnitude, which was right, both position and magnitude. Besides, it had to be the Sun, because there hadn’t been any star that bright in that location when Pat and I were studying for our astrogation merit badge. It was the Sun.
I stared at it, in a thoughtful melancholy, warm rather than sad. I wondered what Pat was doing? Walking the baby, maybe. Or maybe not; I couldn’t remember what the Greenwich ought to be. There he was, thirty years old and a couple of kids, the best part of his life behind him… and here I was, just old enough
to be finishing my sophomore year in college if I were home.
No, I wouldn’t be; I’d be Pat’s age.
But I wasn’t thirty.
I
cheered up and decided that I had the best break after all, even if it had seemed not so good at first. I
sighed and walled
around a bit, not worrying, for not even one of those lizard brutes could get close to our
night defenses without bringing thunder and lightning down around his ears. If he had ears. Percy’s pen was not far in that rear direction; he heard me and came to his fence, so I walked up and scratched his snout. “Nice place, eh, boy?” I was thinking that when the Elsie did get home-and I no longer
believed Uncle Steve’s dire predictions-when I did get back, I would still be in my early twenties, just a good age to emigrate. And Connie looked like a fine place to come back to.
Percy answered with a snuffling grunt which I interpreted to mean: “You didn’t bring me anything to
eat? A fine way to treat a pal!” Percy and I were old friends; aboard ship I fed him, along with his
brothers and the hamsters and the rats.
“Percy, you’re a pig.”
He did not argue but continued to snuffle into my empty hand. I was thinking that eleven light-years
wasn’t far; it was about right. The stars were still familiar.
Presently Percy got tired of it and so did I, so I wiped my hand on my pants and went back to bed.
XIII IRRELEVANT RELATIONS
Beyond Beta Hydri: I ought to bring this up to date, or else throw it away. I hardly ever have time to
write now, since we are so short handed. Whatever it was we picked up on Constance-or, possibly,
caught from improperly fumigated stores-has left us with more than enough
to do, especially in my department. There are only six left now to handle all the traffic, Unc, myself, Mei-Ling, Anna, Gloria, and Sam. Dusty lived through
it but he is out of touch, apparently permanently. His brother had no kids
for a secondary team and they just slipped apart on the last peak and never matched in again.
I am dependent on my great-niece Kathleen and on Molly, her mother. Pat and I can still talk, but only with their help; if
we try it alone, it’s like trying to make yourself understood in a machine shop. You
know the other fellow is saying something but the more you strain the less you hear. Pat is fifty-four,
now that we have peaked on this leg; we just don’t have anything in common. Since Maude’s death he isn’t interested in anything but business-and I am not interested in that.
Unc is the only one who doesn’t feel his original telepartner slipping away. Celestine is forty-two now; they are coming together instead of separating. I still call her “Sugar Pie,” just to hear her chuckle. It is
hard to realize that she is twice my age; she ought to have braids and a missing front tooth.
All in all, we lost thirty-two people in the Plague. I had it and got well. Doe Devereaux didn’t get well and neither did Prudence nor Rupe. We have to fill in and act as if the others had never been with us. Mei-Ling’s baby died and for a while we thought we were going to lose Mei-Ling, but now she takes
her
watch and does her work and even laughs.
I guess the one we all miss the most is Mama O’Toole.
What else of importance has happened? Well, what can happen in a ship? Nothing. Beta Hydri was a washout. Not only nothing resembling an Earth-type planet, but no oceans-no water oceans, I mean; it was a choice for fuel between ammonia and methane, and the Chief Engineer and the Captain had long worried conferences before they settled for ammonia. Theoretically the Elsie will burn anything; give her mass-converter something to chew on and the old “e equals mc2” gets to work; the torch spits the mass out as radiation
at the speed of light and neutrons at almost the speed of light. But while the converter does not care, all of the torch’s auxiliary equipment is built to handle fluid, preferably water.
We had a choice between ammonia, already liquid, and an outer planet that was mostly ice, but ice not much warmer than absolute zero. So they crossed their fingers, put her down in an ocean of ammonia,
and
filled up the old girl’s tanks. The planet we named Inferno and then called it nastier names. We had
to
sit there four days at two gravities and it was cold, even with the ship’s air
heaters going full blast.
The Beta Hydri system is one I am not going back to; creatures with other metabolisms can have it and welcome. The only one who was pleased was Harry Gates, because the planetary arrangements
followed Bode’s Law. I wouldn’t care if they had been in Vee formation.
The only other thing that sticks in my mind was (of all things!)
political trouble. Our last peak started
just as that war broke out between the Afro-European Federation and Estados Unidos de Sud. It shouldn’t have
meant anything to us-it did not, to most of us, or at least we kept our sympathies to
ourselves. But Mr. Roch, our Chief Engineer, is from the Federation and his first assistant was born in Buenos Aires. When Buenos Aires got it, probably including some of Mr. Regato’s relatives, he blamed his boss personally. Silly, but what can you expect?
After that, the Captain gave orders that he would check Earthside news before it was printed and he reminded us of the special restrictions on communicators in re security of communications.
I think I would have been bright enough to submit that dispatch to the Captain before printing it, but I can’t be
sure. We’d had always had free press in the Elsie.
The only thing that got us out of that mess was that we peaked right after. When we came out of peak,
fourteen years had passed and the latest political line-up had Argentina friends with her former enemies and on the outs with the rest of South America. After a while Mr. Roch and Mr. Regato were back
playing chess together, just as if the Captain had never had to restrict them to keep them from each other’s throats.
Everything that happens back on Earth is a little unreal to me, even though we continue to get the news
when we are not at peak. You get your mind adjusted to a new situation; the Elsie goes through
a
peak … years have passed and everything has changed. They are calling the Planetary League
the “United System” now and they say that the new constitution makes war impossible.
It’s still the Planetary League to me-and it was supposed to make war impossible, too. I wonder what they changed besides the names?
Half of the news I don’t understand. Kathleen tells me that her class has pooled their eveners to buy a Fardie for their school as a graduation present and that they are going to outswing it for the first time at the commencement exercises-then she had to hurry away because she had been co-opted in charge. That was just last watch. Now what is a “Fardie” and what was wrong with it where it was?
The technical news that reaches us I don’t understand, either, but at least I know why and usually
somebody aboard does understand it. The relativists are excited about stuff coming in which is so
technical that it has to be retransmitted and confirmed before it is released-this with Janet Meers
standing behind you and trying to snatch spools out of the recorder. Mr. O’Toole gets excited too, only
the
way he shows it is for the end of his nose to get pink. Dr. Babcock never shows excitement, but he missed coming in for meals two days running after I copied a monograph called “Sumner on Certain
Aspects of Irrelevance.” At the end of that time I sent one back to LRF which Dr. Babcock had written. It was just as crammed with indigestible mathematics, but I gathered that Dr. Babcock was politely calling Professor Sumner a fool.
Janet Meers tried to explain it to me, but all that I got out of it was that the concept of simultaneity was forcing a complete new look at physics.
“Up to now,” she told me, “we’ve concentrated on the relative aspects of the space-time continuum. But
what you m-r people do is irrelevant to space-time. Without time there is no space; without
space there can be no time. Without space-time there can be no conservation of energy-mass. Heavens, there’s nothing. It has driven some of the old-timers out of their minds.
But now we are beginning to
see
how you people may possibly fit into physics-the new physics, I mean; it’s all changed.”
I had had enough trouble with the old-style physics; having to learn a new one made my head ache just to think about it. “What use is it?” I asked.
She looked shocked. “Physics doesn’t have to have any use. It just is.”
“Well, I don’t know. The old physics was useful. Take the torch that drives us, for example-” “Oh, that! That’s not physics, that’s just engineering”-as if I had mentioned something faintly
scandalous.
I will never understand Janet and perhaps it is just as well that she promised to “be a sister to me.” She said that she did not mind my being younger than she was, but that she did not think she could look up to a man who could not solve a fourth-degree function in his head. “… and a wife should always look
up to her husband, don’t you think?”
We were making the boosts at 1.5 gravity now. What with slippage, it cuts each up-boost and each
down-boost to about four months, S-time, even though the jumps are longer, During boost I weigh 220
pounds and I’ve started wearing arch supports, but 50% extra weight is all right and is probably good
for us, since it is too easy not to get enough exercise aboard ship.
The LRF has stopped using the drug stuff to help communications at peak, which would have pleased Dr. Devereaux since he disapproved of it so. Now your telepartner patches in with the help of hypnosis
and
suggestion alone, or you don’t patch. Kathleen managed to cross the last peak with me that way,
but I can see that we are going to lose communication teams all through the fleet, especially those who
have not managed to set up tertiary telepartners. I don’t knew where my own team would be without Kathleen. In the soup, I guess. As it is, the Niña and the Henry Hudson
are each down to two teams and
the
other four ships still in contact with Earth are not much better off. We are probably in the best shape, although we don’t get much fleet news since Miss Gamma fell out of step with her sisters-or lost them, as the case may be; the Santa Maria is listed as “missing” but the Marco Polo is simply carried as
“out
of contact” as she was approaching peak when last heard from and won’t be out of it for several Greenwich years.
We are headed now for a little G-type star
so
dim from Earth that it doesn’t rate a name, nor even a Greek-letter constellation designation, but just a catalog number. From Earth it lies in Phoenix, between
Hydrus the Sea Serpent and Cetus the Whale. (“Hydrus,”
not “Hydra”-Hydra is six R.A. hours over and farther north.) Unc called it a “Whistle Stop” so that is what we dubbed it, because you can’t reel off a Palomar Catalog number each time you speak of where you are going. No doubt it will get an impressive name if it turns out to have a planet half as good as Connie. Incidentally, Connie will he colonized in spite of the epidemic we may have picked up there; the first shiploads are on their way. Whatever the bug was that bit us (and it very possibly may have come from Earth), it is no worse than half a dozen other diseases men have had and have fought back at and licked. At least, that is the official view and the pioneer ships are going on the assumption that they will probably catch it and have to conquer it.
Personally, I figure that one way of dying is as dangerous as another; when you’re dead, you’re dead- even if you die from “nothing serious.” And the Plague, bad as it was, didn’t kill me.
“Whistle Stop” wasn’t worth a stop. We’re on our way to Beta Ceti, sixty-three light-years from Earth. I wish Dusty were still hooked up to transmit pictures; I would like one of my great-grandniece Vicky.
I know what she looks like-carroty red hair, freckles
across her nose, green eyes, a big mouth and braces on her teeth. At present she is sporting a black eye as well, picked up at school when somebody called her a freak and she resented it-I would love to have seen that fight! Oh, I know what she looks like but I’d like a picture anyhow.
It is funny how our family has run to girls. No, when I add it up, counting
all
descendants of my sisters
as
well as my brother, it comes out about
even. But Maude and Pat had two girls and no boys, and I went away and did not get married, so the Bartlett name has died out,
I certainly would like to have a picture of Vicky. I know she is homely, but I’ll bet she is cute, too-the kind of tomboy who always has scabs on her knees because she won’t play the ladylike games. She generally hangs around for a while after we are through transmitting and we talk. Probably she is just being polite, for she obviously thinks of me as being as old as her great-grandfather Bartlett even though her mother has told her that I am not. I suppose it depends on where you sit. I ought to be in my
last year in college now, but she knows that I am Pat’s twin.
If she wants to put a long white beard on me, that is all right with me, for the sake of her company. She was in a hurry this morning but nice about it. “Will you excuse me, please, Uncle Tom? I’ve got to go study for a quiz in algebra.”
(“Realio trulio?”) I said.
“Realio trulio, cross my heart. I’d like to stay.” (“Run along,
Freckle Face. Say hello to the folks.”) “ Bye! I’ll call you a little early tomorrow.”
She really is a nice child.
XIV
ELYSIA
Beta Ceti is a big star in the main spectral sequence, almost big enough to be classed as a giant-a small giant, thirty-seven times as bright as the Sun. It looks so bright from Earth that it has a name of its own, Deneb Kaitos, but we never call it that because “Deneb” brings to mind the other Deneb, Alpha Cygni, which is a real giant in a different part of the sky almost sixteen hundred light-years away.
Since Beta Ceti is so much brighter than the Sun, the planet we had been looking for, if it existed at all, had to be nearly six hundred million miles out, farther than Jupiter is from Sol.
We’ve found one, at five hundred and eighty million miles, which is close enough. Better yet, it is the smallest planet in a system that seems to run to outsizes; the one in the next track beyond is bigger than
Jupiter.
I scheduled most of the routine skyside survey of Elysia, under Harry Gates’
absentminded supervision. Harry is as eager as a fox terrier to finish his magnum opus before he has to knock off and take charge of the ground
survey. He wants to transmit it back Earthside and preserve his name in science’s hall of fame-not that he puts it that way, for Harry isn’t stuck up; nevertheless,
he thinks he has worked out a cosmogony for solar systems which includes Bode’s Law. He says that if he is right, any star in the main spectral sequence will have planets.
Maybe … I would not know. But I can’t see what use a star is without planets and I don’t believe all this complicated universe got here by accident. Planets are meant to be used.
Acting as Harry’s Man Friday has not been difficult. All I had to do was to dig the records of the preliminary survey of Connie out of the microfilms and write up similar schedules for Elysia, modified to allow for our loss of personnel. Everybody was eager to help, because
(so far as we know) we are the only ship to draw a lucky number twice and only one of four to hit even once. But we are down now, water-borne, and waiting for medicine to okay Elysia for ground survey; I’m not quite so rushed. I tried to get in touch with Vicky and just chat this evening. But it happens to be evening back home, too, and Vicky is out on a date and politely put me off.
Vicky grew up some when we peaked this last jump; she now takes notice of boys and does not have as much time for her ancient uncle. (“Is it George?”) I asked when she wanted to know if my call was
important.
“Well, if you must know, it is George!” she blurted out.
(“Don’t get excited, Freckle Face,”) I answered. (“I just asked.”)
“Well, I told you.”
(“Sure, sure. Have a good time, hon, and don’t stay out too late.”)
“You sound just like Daddy.”
I
suppose I did. The fact is I don’t have much use for George, although
I have never
seen him, never will, and don’t know much about him, except that Vicky says that be is “the tenth power” and “first with the worst” in spite of being “ruffily around the round”
if I knew what she meant, but she would
equalize that.
I didn’t know what she meant, but I interpreted it to mean approval slightly qualified and that she expected him to be perfect, or “ricketty all through” when she got through making him over. I suspect him of being the kind of pimply-faced, ignorant young bore that I used to be myself and have always
disliked-something about like Dusty Rhodes at the present without Dusty’s amazing mind.
This sounds
as if I were jealous of a boy I’ll never see over a girl I have never
seen, but that is
ridiculous. My interest is fatherly, or big-brotherly, even though I am effectively no relation to her; i.e., my parents were two of her sixteen great-great-grandparents-a relationship so distant that most people aren’t even aware of relatives of that remote degree.
Or maybe Van’s wild theory has something to it and we are all getting to be cranky old men-just our bodies are staying young. But that is silly. Even though seventy-odd Greenwich years have passed, it has been less than four for me since we left Earth. My true time is hunger and sleep; I’ve slept about fourteen hundred times in the Elsie and eaten three meals and a snack or two for each sleep. That is
four years, not seventy.
No, I’m just disappointed that on my first free evening in a couple of weeks I have nothing better to do
than write in my diary. But, speaking of sleep, I had better get some; the first party will go ashore tomorrow, if medicine
approves, and I will be busy. I won’t be on it but there is plenty to do to get them off.
We are a sorry mess. I don’t know what we can
do now.
I had better begin at the beginning. Elysia checked out in all ways on preliminary survey-breathable atmosphere, climate within Earth limits and apparently less extreme; a water, oxygen and carbon dioxide life cycle; no unusual hazards.
No signs of intelligent life, of course, or we would have skipped it. It is a watery world even more than Terra is, with over 90% oceans and there was talk of naming it “Aquaria” instead of Elysia, but somebody pointed out that there was no sense in picking a name which might make it unattractive to colonists when there seemed to be nearly as much usable land as Earth had.
So we cuddled up to an island as big as Madagascar-almost a continent for Elysia-with the idea that we could cover the whole island in the detailed survey and be able to report that a colony could settle there as fast as LRF could send a ship-we knew that Connie was already settled and we wanted to get this one
settled and make it a clean sweep for the Elsie.
I gave Percy a pat and told him to size up the lay of the land and to let me know if
he found any lady
pigs. Uncle Lucas took the guard ashore and the science party followed the same day. It was clear that Elysia was going to be no more of a problem than Connie had been and almost as big a prize-except for
the
remote possibility of exotic infection we could not handle.
That was two weeks ago.
It started out routine as breakfast. Percy and the other experimental animals flourished on an Elysian
diet; Van failed to catch anything worse than an itch and presently he was trying Elysian food himself-
there were awkward looking four-winged birds which broiled nicely; Van said they reminded him of roast turkey with an overtone of cantaloupe. But Percy the Pig would not touch some fish that were caught and the rats that did eat them died, so sea food was put off until further investigation could be made. The fish did not look like ours; they were flat the wrong way, like a flounder, and they had tendrils something like a catfish which raveled on the ends instead of being spiny. Harry Gates was of the opinion that they were feeling organs and possibly manipulative as well.
The island had nothing like the big-mouthed carnivorous lizards
that got Lefty Gomez. However, there was no telling what might be on other islands, since the land masses were so detached that totally different lines of evolution might have been followed in each island group. Our report was going to recommend that Devereaux Island be settled first, then investigate the others cautiously.
I
was due to go ashore on third rotation, Unc having taken the first week, then a week of rest, and now would take shipside watch while I linked with him from ashore. But at the last minute I agreed to
swap, as Anna was anxious to go.
I did not want to swap, but I had been running the department’s watch list since Rupe’s death and it would have been awkward to refuse. Gloria was going, too, since her husband was on that rotation, but Gloria did not count as her telepartner was on vacation back Earthside.
When they left, I was on top of the Elsie glumly watching them get into the boats. There was a “monkey island” deck temporarily rigged up there, outside the airlock; it was a good place to watch the boats being loaded at the cargo ports lower down. Engineering had completed inspection and overhaul and had about finished filling the boost-mass tanks; the Elsie was low in the water and the cargo ports
were not more than ten feet above waterline. It made loading convenient; at the time we put the first party ashore the tanks were empty and the boats had to be lowered nearly a hundred feet and
passengers had to go down rope ladders-not
easy for people afraid of heights, as so many are. But it was a cinch that day.
The airlock was only large enough for people; anything bigger had to go through the cargo ports. It was possible to rig the cargo ports as airlocks and we had done so on Inferno around Beta Hydri, but when the air was okay we just used them as doors. They were at the cargo deck, underneath the mess
deck and over the auxiliary machinery spaces; our three boats and the two helicopters were carried just inside on that deck. The boats could be swung out on gooseneck davits from where they nested but the helicopters had to be hooked onto boat falls, swung
out, then a second set of falls hooked to them from the monkey island above, by which a helicopter could be scooted up the Elsie’s curved side and onto the temporary top deck, where her jet rotors would be attached.
Mr. Regato cursed the arrangement every time we used it, “Mechanical buffoonery!” was his name for
it.
“I’ve never seen a ship’s architect who wasn’t happy as soon as he had a pretty picture. He never
stops to think that some poor fool is going to have to use his pretty picture.”
As may be, the arrangement did let the helis be unloaded with a minimum of special machinery to get out of order-which, I understand, was a prime purpose
in refitting the ships for the Project. But that day
the
helicopters were outside and ready, one of them at camp and the other tied down near me on the monkey island. All we had to do was to load the boats.
The boats were whale boats molded of glass and teflon and made nonsinkable by plastic foam in all dead spaces. They were so tough that, while you might be able to bash one in, you could not puncture
it with anything short of a drill or a torch, yet they were so light
that four men could lift one that was
empty. It did them no harm to drive them up onto a rocky beach, then they could be unloaded and
easily dragged higher. They were driven by alcohol jets, just as the helis were, but they had oars and
sails as well. We never used the oars although
all the men had gone through a dry drill under my Uncle Steve’s watchful
eye.
The boats had come in the night before loaded with specimens for the research department; now they were going back with people who would replace those ashore. From the monkey island I could see, half a mile away, the people who were coming back, waiting on the beach for the boats. Two of the boats
were lying off, waiting for the third; each had about eighteen people in it and a few bundles of things
requisitioned by Harry Gates for his scientific uses ashore, as well as a week’s supplies for the whole party.
I noticed a movement behind me, turned, and saw that it was the Old Man coming up the airlock hatch. “Good morning, Captain.”
“Morning, Bartlett.” He looked around. “Nice day.”
“Yes, sir…and a nice place.”
“It is indeed.” He looked toward the shore. “I’m going to find some excuse to hit dirt before we leave here. I’ve been on steel too long.”
“I don’t see why not, sir. This place is friendly as a puppy. Not like Inferno.”
“Not a bit.” He turned away, so I did too; you don’t press conversation on the Captain unless he wants
it.
The third boat was loaded now and cast loose; all three were about fifty yards away and were forming a column to go in together. I waved to Gloria and Anna.
At each boat, a long, wet rope as thick as my waist came up out of the water, passed across it amidships and back into the water on the other side. I yelled, “Hey, Captain! Look!”
He turned. The boats rolled sideways and sank-they were pulled under. I heard somebody scream and
the
water was crowded with struggling bodies.
The Captain leaned past me at the raft and looked at the disaster. He said in an ordinary tone, “Can you
start that chopper?”
“Uh, I think so, Captain.” I was not a helicopter pilot but I knew how it worked.
“Then do it.” He leaned far over and yelled, “Get that cargo door closed!” He turned and dived down
the
hatch. I caught a glimpse of what had made him yell as I turned to climb into the helicopter. It was
another of those wet ropes slithering up the Elsie’s side toward the cargo port.
Starting the helicopter was more complicated than I had realized, but there was a check-off list printed on
the instrument panel. I had fumbled my way down to “step four: start impeller” when I was pushed
aside by Ace Wenzel the torchman who was the regular pilot. Ace did something with both hands, the blades started to revolve, making shadows across our faces, and he yelled, “Cast her loose!”
I was shoved out the door as the Surgeon was climbing in; I fell four feet to the deck as the down blast hit me. I picked myself up and looked around.
There was nothing in the water, nothing. Not a body, not a person struggling to keep afloat, no sign of the boats. There was not even floating cargo although some of the packages would float. I knew; I had
packed some of them.
Janet was standing next to me, shaking with dry sobs. I said stupidly, “What happened?”
She tried to control herself and said shakily, “I don’t know. I saw one of them get Otto. It just…it just-” She started to bawl again and turned away.
There wasn’t anything on the water, but now I saw that there was something in the water, under it. From high up you can see down into water if
it
is fairly smooth; arranged around the ship in orderly
ranks were things of some sort. They looked like whales-or
what I think a whale would look like in water; I’ve never seen a whale;
I was just getting it through my confused head that I was looking at the creatures who had destroyed
the
boats when somebody yelled and pointed. On shore the people who were to return were still on the beach, but they were no longer alone-they were surrounded. The things had come ashore, on each side of them and had flanked them. I could not see well at that distance but I could see the sea creatures because they were so much bigger than we were. They didn’t have legs, so far as I could tell, but it did not
slow them down-they were fast.
And our people were being herded into the water.
There was nothing we could do about it, not anything. Under us we had a ship that was the end product
of centuries of technical progress; its torch could destroy a city in the blink of an eye. Ashore the guard had weapons by which one man was equal to an army of older times and there were more such weapons somewhere in the ship. But at the time I did not even know where the armory was, except that it was somewhere in the auxiliary deck-you can live a long time in a ship and never visit all her compartments.
I suppose I should have been down in the auxiliary deck, searching for weapons. But what I did was
stand there, frozen, with a dozen others, and watch it happen.
But somebody had been more alert than I had been. Two men came bursting up through
the hatch; they threw down two ranger guns and started frantically to plug them in and break open packages of ammunition. They could have saved the effort; by the time they were ready to sight in on the enemy, the beach was as empty as the surface of the water. Our shipmates had been pushed and dragged under. The helicopter was hovering over the spot; its rescue ladder was down but there was no one on it.
The helicopter swung around over the island and across
our camp site, then returned to the ship.
While it was moving in to touch down, Chet Travers hurried up the ladder. He looked around,
saw me
and said, “Tom, where’s the Captain?” “In the chopper.”
“Oh.” He frowned. “Well, give him this. Urgent. I’ve got to get back down.” He shoved a paper at me and disappeared. I glanced at it, saw that it was a message form, saw who it was from, and grabbed the Captain’s arm as he stepped out of the heli.
He shrugged me off. “Out of my way!”
“Captain, you’ve got to-it’s a message from the island-from Major Lucas.”
He stopped then and took it from me, then fumbled for his reading glasses, which I could see sticking
out of a pocket. He shoved the dispatch form back at me before I could help him and said, “Read it to
me,
boy.”
So I did. “ ‘From: Commander Ship’s Guard-To: Commanding Officer Lewis and Clark-Oh nine three one-at oh nine oh five survey camp was attacked by hostile natives, believed to be amphibious. After suffering initial heavy losses the attack was beaten off and I have withdrawn with seven survivors to the hilltop north of the camp. We were forced to abandon survey craft number two. At time of attack, exchange party was waiting on beach; we are cut off from them and their situation is not known but must be presumed to be desperate.
“ ‘Discussion: The attack was intelligently organized and was armed. Their principal weapon appears to be a jet of sea water
at
very high pressure but they use also a personal weapon for stabbing and
cutting. It must be assumed that they have other weapons. It must be conditionally assumed that they
are
as intelligent as we are, as well disciplined, and possibly as well armed for the conditions
Their superior numbers give them a present advantage even if they had no better weapons.
“ ‘Recommendations:
My surviving command can hold out where it is against weapons thus far
encountered. It is therefore urgently recommended that immediate measures be limited to rescuing beach party. Ship should then be placed in orbit until a plan can be worked out and weapons improvised to relieve my command without hazard to the ship.-S. Lucas, Commandant, oh nine three six.”“
The Captain took the message and turned toward the hatch without
speaking. Nobody said anything
although
there were at least twenty of us crowded up there. I hesitated, then when I saw that others were going down, I pushed in and followed the Captain.
He stopped two decks down and went into the communications office. I didn’t follow him, but he left the door open. Chet Travers was in there, bent over the gear he used to talk with the camp, and
Commander Frick was leaning over him with a worried look on his face: The Captain said, “Get me Major Lucas.”
Commander Frick looked up. “We’re trying to, Captain. Transmission cut off while they were sending
us a
list of casualties.”
The Captain chewed his lip and looked frustrated, then he said “Keep trying,” and turned. He saw me.
“Bartlett!”
“Yes, sir!”
“You have one of your people over there. Raise him.”
I thought rapidly, trying to remember the Greenwich even as I was calling Vicky-if Vicky was home, she
could get through
on the direct line to LRF and they could hook her with Sam Rojas’s telepartner
and
thence to Sam, and the Captain could talk to Uncle Steve on a four-link relay almost as fast as he could by radio. (“Vicky! Come in, Vicky! Urgent!”)
“Yes; Uncle Tom? What is it? I was asleep.”
Commander Frick said, “I don’t think that will work, Captain. Rojas isn’t on the list of survivors. He was scheduled for rotation; he must have been down at the beach.”
Of course, of course! Sam would have been down at the beach-I had stood by and must have watched
him
being herded into the water!
“What is it, Uncle Tom?” (“Just wait, hon. Stay linked.”)
“Then get me somebody else,” the Captain snapped.
“There isn’t anyone else, Captain,” Frick answered. “Here’s the list of survivors.
Rojas was the only fr- the only special communicator we had ashore.”
The Captain glanced at the list, said, “Pass the word for all hands not on watch to assemble in the mess room on the double.” He turned and walked right through
me. I jumped out of the way.
“What’s the matter, Uncle Tom? You sound worried.”
I tried to control my voice. (“It was a mistake, hon. Just forget it and try to get back to sleep. I’m sorry.”)
“All right. But you still sound worried.”
I hurried after the Captain. Commander Frick’s voice was calling out the order over the ship’s system as we hurried down the ladders, yet he was only a moment or two behind me in reaching the mess room. In a matter of seconds
we were all there … just a handful
of those who had left Earth-about forty. The Captain looked around and said to Cas Warner, “Is this all?”
“I think so, Captain, aside from the engineering watch.” “I left Travers on watch,” added Frick.
“Very well” The Captain turned and faced us. “We are about to rescue the survivors ashore. Volunteers step forward.”
We didn’t step, we surged, all together. I would like to say that I was a split second ahead, because of
Uncle Steve, but it wouldn’t be true. Mrs. Gates was carrying young Harry in her arms and she was as fast as I was.
“Thank you,” the Captain said stiffly. “Now will the women please go over there by the pantry so that I can pick the men who will go.”
“Captain?”
“Yes, Captain Urqhardt?” “I will lead the party.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, sir. I will lead: You will now take some women and go down and fetch
what we need.”
Urqhardt barely hesitated, then said, “Aye, aye, sir.”
“That rule-our standing rule for risk-will apply to all of you. In doubly-manned jobs the older man will go. In other jobs, if the job can be dispensed with, the man will go; if it cannot be, the man will stay.” He looked around.
“Dr. Babcock!” “Righto, Skipper!”
Mr. O’Toole said, “Just a moment, Captain. I am a widower and Dr. Babcock is much more-” “Shut up.”
“But-”
“Confound it, sir, must I debate every decision with every one of you? Must I remind you that every
second counts? Get over there with the women.”
Red-faced and angry Mr. O’Toole did as he was told. The Captain went on, “Mr. Warner. Mr. Bach. Dr. Severin-” Quickly he picked those he wanted, then waved the rest of us over toward the pantry.
Uncle Alfred McNeil tried to straighten his stooped shoulders. “Captain, you forgot me. I’m the oldest in my department.”
The Captain’s face softened just a hair. “No, Mr. McNeil, I didn’t forget,” he said quietly, “but the capacity of the chopper is limited-and we have seven to bring back. So I must omit you.”
Unc’s shoulders sagged and I thought
he was going to cry, than he shuffled over away from the selected few. Dusty Rhodes caught my eye and looked smug and proud;
he was one of the chosen. He still did not look more than sixteen and I don’t think he had ever shaved; this was probably the first time in his life that he had ever been treated in all respects as a man.
In spite of the way the others had been shut off short I couldn’t let it stand. I stepped forward again and
touched the Captain’s sleeve. “Captain … you’ve got to let me go! My uncle is over there.”
I thought he was going to explode, but he caught himself.
“I see your point. But you arc a special communicator and we haven’t any spare. I’ll tell Major Lucas that you tried.”
“But-”
“Now shut up and do as you are told-before I kick you half across the compartment.” He turned away as if
I didn’t exist.
Five minutes
later arms had been issued and we were all crowding up the ladders to see them off. Ace
Wenzel started the helicopter at idling speed and jumped out. They filed in, eight of them, with the Captain last. Dusty had a bandolier ever each shoulder and a ranger gun in his hands; he was grinning
excitedly. He threw me a wink and said, “I’ll send you a postcard.”
The Captain paused and said, “Captain Urqhardt.” “Yes, sir.”
The Captain and the reserve captain conferred for a moment; I couldn’t hear them and I don’t think we were meant to hear. Then Captain Urqhardt said loudly, “Aye, aye, sir. It shall be done.”
“Very good, sir.” The Captain stepped in, slammed the door, and took the controls himself. I braced myself against the down blast.
Then we waited.
I alternated between monkey island and the comm office. Chet Travers still could not raise Uncle Steve but he was in touch with the heli. Every time I went top side I looked for the sea things but they seemed to have gone away.
Finally I came down again to the comm room and Chet was looking joyful. “They’ve got ‘em!” he announced.
“They’re off the ground.” I started to ask him about it but he was turning to announce the glad news
over the ship’s system; I ran up to see if I could spot the heli.
I saw it, near the hilltop, about
a mile and a half away. It moved rapidly toward the ship. Soon we could see people inside. As it got closer someone opened a window on the side toward us.
The Captain was not really skilled with a helicopter. He tried to make a landing straight in but his judgment of wind was wrong and be had to swing on past and try again. The maneuver brought
the craft so close to the ship that we could see the passengers plainly. I saw Uncle Steve and he saw me and waved; he did not call out, he just waved. Dusty Rhodes was beside him and saw me, too. He grinned
and
waved and shouted, “Hey, Tom, I rescued your buddy!” He reached back and then Percy’s head
and cloven forehooves showed above the frame, with Dusty holding the pig with one hand and pointing
to
him with the other. They were both grinning.
“Thanks!”
I yelled back. “Hi, Percy!”
The chopper turned a few hundred feet beyond the ship and headed back into the wind.
It was coming straight toward the ship and would have touched down soon when something came out of the water right under it. Some said it was a machine-to me it looked like an enormous elephant’s trunk. A stream of water so solid, hard, and bright that it looked like steel shot out of the end of it; it struck a rotor tip and the heli staggered.
The Captain leaned the craft over and it slipped out of contact. The stream followed it, smashed against the fuselage and again caught a rotor; the heli tilted violently and began to fall.
I’m not much in an emergency; it is hours
later when I figure out what I should have done. This time I acted without thinking. I dived down the ladder without hitting the treads and was on down in the cargo
deck almost at once. The port of that side was closed, as it had been since the Captain ordered it closed earlier; I slapped the switch and it began to grind open. Then I looked around
and saw what I needed: the boat falls, coiled loosely on deck, not yet secured. I grabbed a bitter end and was standing on the port as it was still swinging down to horizontal.
The wrecked helicopter was floating right in front of me and there were people struggling in the water.
“Uncle Steve!” I yelled “Catch!” I threw the line as far as I could.
I had not even seen him as I yelled. It was just the idea that was in the top of my mind. Then I did see him, far beyond where I had been able to throw the line. I heard him call back, “Coming, Tom!” and he started swimming
strongly toward the ship.
I was so much in a daze that I almost pulled the line in to throw it again when I realized that I had
managed to throw far enough for some one. I yelled again. “Harry! Right behind you! Grab on!”
Harry Gates rolled ever in the water, snatched at the line and got it. I started to haul him in.
I almost lost him as I got him to the ship’s skin. One of his arms seemed almost useless and he nearly
lost his grasp. But between us we managed to manhandle him up and into the port; we would not have made it if the Ship had not been so low in the water. He collapsed inside and lay on his face, gasping and sobbing.
I jerked the fall loose from his still clenched hand and turned to throw it to Uncle Steve.
The helicopter was gone, Uncle Steve was gone, again the water was swept clean-except for Percy,
who, with his head high out of water, was swimming with grim determination toward the ship.
I made sure that there were no other people anywhere in the water. Then I tried to think what I could do for Percy.
The poor little porkchop could not grab a line, that was sure. Maybe I could lasso him. I fumbled to get a slip knot in the heavy line. I had just managed it when Percy gave a squeal of terror
and I jerked my
head around just in time to see him pulled under the water.
It wasn’t a mouth that got him. I don’t think it was a mouth.
XV
“CARRY OUT HER MISSION”
I don’t know what I expected after the attack by the behemoths. We just wandered around in a daze. Some of us tried to look out from the monkey island deck until that spouter appeared again and almost knocked one of us off, then Captain Urqhardt ordered all hands to stay inside and the hatch was closed.
I certainly did not expect a message that was brought around after supper (if supper had been served; some made themselves sandwiches) telling me to report at once for heads-of-departments conference.
“That’s you, isn’t it, Tom?” Chet Travers asked me. “They tell me Unc Alfred is on the sick list. His door
is closed.”
“I suppose
it’s me.” Unc had taken it hard and was in bed with a soporific in him, by order of the one remaining medical man, Dr. Pandit.
“Then you had better shag up there.”
First I went to Captain Urqhardt’s room and found it dark, then I got smart and went to the Captain’s cabin. The door was open and some were already around the table with Captain Urqhardt at the head.
“Special communications department, sir,” I announced myself.
“Sit down, Bartlett.”
Harry came in behind me and Urqhardt got up and shut the door and sat down. I looked around,
thinking it was a mighty funny heads-of-departments meeting. Harry Gates was the only boss there who had been such when we left Earth. Mr. Eastman was there instead of Commander Frick. Mama O’Toole was long dead but now Cas was gone too; ecology was represented by Mr. Krishnamurti who
had
merely been in charge of air-conditioning and hydroponics when we had left. Mr. O’Toole was there in place of Dr. Babcock, Mr. Regato instead of Mr. Roch. Sergeant Andreeli, who was also a machinist in engineering, was there in place of Uncle Steve and he was the only member of the ship’s
guard left alive-because he had been sent back to the ship with a broken arm two days earlier. Dr.
Pandit sat where Dr. Devereaux should have been.
And myself
of course but I was just fill-in; Unc was still aboard. Worst of all, there was Captain
Urqhardt sitting where the Captain should have been.
Captain Urqhardt started in. “There is no need to detail our situation; you all know it. We will dispense with the usual departmental reports, too. In my opinion our survey of this planet is as
complete as we can make it with present personnel and equipment… save that an additional report must be made of the hazard encountered today in order that the first colonial party will be prepared to defend
itself. Is there disagreement? Dr. Gates, do you wish to make further investigations here?”
Harry looked surprised and answered, “No, Captain. Not under the circumstances.”
“Comment?” There was none. “Very well,” Urqhardt continued. “I propose
to shape course for Alpha Phoenicis. We will hold memorial services at nine tomorrow morning and boost
at noon. Comment? Mr. O’Toole.”
“Eh? Do you mean can we have the figures ready? I suppose so, if
Janet and I get right on it.” “Do so, as soon as we adjourn. Mr. Regato?”
Regato was looking astounded. “I didn’t expect this, Captain.
“It is short notice, but can your department be ready? I believe you have boost mass aboard.”
“It isn’t that,. Captain. Surely, the torch will be ready. But I thought we would make one long jump for
Earth.”
“What led you to assume that?”
“Why, uh …” The new Chief Engineer stuttered and almost slipped out of P-L lingo into Spanish. “The shape we are in, sir. The engineering department will have to go on watch-and-watch, heel and toe. I
can’t speak for other departments, but they can’t be in much better shape.”
“No, you can’t and I am not asking you to. With respect to your
own
department, is it mechanically ready?”
Regato swallowed. “Yes, sir. But people break down as well as machinery.”
“Wouldn’t you have to stand watch-and-watch to shape course for Sol?” Urqhardt did not wait for the obvious answer, but went on, “I should not have to say this. We are not here for our own convenience; we are here on an assigned mission … as you all know. Earlier today, just before Captain Swanson left, he said to me, “Take charge of my ship, sir. Carry out her mission.” I answered, ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Let me remind you of that mission: we were sent out to conduct the survey we have been making, with orders
to
continue the search as long as we were in communication with Earth-when we fell out of
communication, we were free to return to Earth, if possible. Gentlemen, we are still in touch with
Earth; our next assigned survey point is Alpha Phoenicis. Could anything be clearer?”
My thoughts were boiling up so that I hardly heard him. I was thinking: who does this guy think he is? Columbus? Or the Flying Dutchman? There were only a little over thirty of us left alive-in a ship that had started with two hundred. The boats were gone, the heli’s were-I almost missed his next remark.
“Bartlett?” “Sir?”
“What about your department?”
It dawned on me that we were the key department-us freaks. When we fell out of touch, he had to turn
back. I was tempted to say that we had all gone deaf, but I knew I couldn’t get away with it. So I stalled.
“As you pointed out, sir, we are in touch with Earth.” “Very well.” His eyes turned toward Dr. Pandit.
“Just a moment, Captain,” I insisted. “There’s more to it.” “Eh? State it.”
“Well, this next jump is about thirty years, isn’t it? Greenwich I mean.” “Of that order. Somewhat less.”
“
‘Of that order.’ There are three special communicators left, myself, Unc-I mean Mr. McNeil-and
Mei-Ling Travers. I think you ought to count Unc out.”
“Why?”
“Because he has his original telepartner
and
she is now as old as he is. Do you think Unc will live another thirty years?”
“But it won’t be thirty years for him-oh, sorry! I see your point. She would be well past a hundred if she
lived at all. Possibly senile.”
“Probably, sir. Or more likely dead.”
“Very well, we won t count McNeil. That leaves two of you. Plenty for essential communication.
“I doubt it, sir. Mei-Ling is a poor bet. She has only a secondary linkage and her partner is over thirty, with no children. Based on other telepairs, I would say that it is most unlikely that they will stay in rapport through another peak … not a thirty-year one.”
“That still leaves yourself.”
I thought suddenly that if I had the guts to jump over the side, they could all go home. But it was just a thought; when I die, it won’t be suicide. “My own case isn’t much better, sir. My telepartner is about-” I had to stop and count up, then the answer did not seem right. “-is about nineteen, sir. No kids. No chance of kids before we peak…
and I couldn’t link in with a brand-new baby anyhow. She’ll be fiftyish when we come out. So far as I know, there hasn’t been a case in the whole fleet of bridging that long a period out of rapport.”
He waited several moments before be answered. “Have you any reason to believe that it is
impossible?”
“Well… no, sir. But it is extremely unlikely.”
“Hmm … do you consider yourself an authority in theory of telepathy?” “Huh? No, sir. I am just a telepath, that’s all.”
“I think he is probably right,” put in Dr. Pandit, “are you an authority, Doctor?” “Me, sir? As you know, my specialty is exotic pathology. But-”
“In that case, we will consult authorities Earthside. Perhaps they can suggest some way to improve our chances. Very probably, under the circumstances, the Foundation will again authorize use of drugs to reduce the possibility that our special communicators might fall out of touch during peak. Or
something.”
I thought of telling him that Vicky wasn’t going to risk dangerous habit-forming drugs. Then I thought better of it. Pat had-and Vicky might.
“That is all, gentlemen. We will boost at noon tomorrow. Uh, one more thing … One of you implied that morale is not too high in the ship. That is correct and I am perhaps more aware of it than you are.
But morale will shake down to normal and we will best be able to forget the losses we have suffered if we all get quickly back to work. I want only to add that you all, as senior officers of
this ship, have most to do with morale by setting an example. I am sure that you will.” He stood up.
I don’t know how news travels in a ship but by the time I got down to the mess room everybody knew that we were boosting tomorrow
… and not for home. It was buzz-buzz and yammer all over. I ducked out
because I didn’t want to discuss it; my thoughts were mixed. I thought
the Captain was insisting on
one more jump from which he couldn’t possibly report his results, if any-and with a nice fat chance that none of us would ever get home. On the other hand I admired the firm way he faced us up to our obligations and brushed aside panic. He had guts.
So did the Flying Dutchman have guts-but at last report he was still trying to round the Cape and not succeeding.
The Captain-Captain Swenson, I corrected-would not have been that bullheaded.
Or would he? According to Urqhardt, the last thing the Captain had said had been to remind Urqhardt that it was up to him to carry out the mission. All of us had been very carefully chosen (except us freaks) and probably the skipper and the relief skipper of each ship were picked primarily for bulldog stubbornness, the very quality that had kept Columbus going on and on when he was running out of
water and his crew was muttering mutiny. I remembered Uncle Steve had once suggested as much.
I decided to go talk to Uncle Steve … then I remembered I couldn’t and I really felt bad. When my parents had died, two peaks back, I had felt bad because
I didn’t feel as bad as I knew I should have felt. When it happened-or rather, by the time I knew about it-they were long dead, people I had not seen in a long time and just faces in a photograph. But Uncle Steve I had seen every day-I had seen today.
And I had been in the habit of kicking my troubles around with him whenever they were too much for
me.
I felt his loss then, the delayed shock you get when you are hit hard. The hurt doesn’t come until you
pull yourself together and realize you’re hit.
It was just as well that somebody tapped on my door then, or I would have bawled.
It was Mei-Ling and her
husband, Chet. I invited them in and they sat down on the bed. Chat got to the point.
“Tom, where do you stand on this?” “On what?”
“This silly business of trying to go on with a skeleton crew.”
“It doesn’t matter where I stand,” I said slowly. “I’m not running the ship.” “Ah, but you are!”
“Huh?”
“I don’t mean quite that, but I do mean you can put a stop to the nonsense. Now, look, Tom, everybody
knows what you told the Captain and-”
“Who’s been talking?”
“Huh? Never mind. If it didn’t leak from you, it probably did from everybody else present; it’s common knowledge. What you told him made sense. What it comes down to is that Urqhardt is
depending on you and you alone to keep him in touch with the home office. So you’re the man with the stick. You can stop him.”
“Huh? Now wait. I’m not the only one. Granted that he isn’t counting on Unc-how about Mei-Ling?” Chat shook
his head. “Mei-Ling isn’t going to ‘think-talk’ for him.”
His wife said, “Now, Chet; I haven’t said so.”
He looked at her fondly. “Don’t be super-stupid, my lovely darling. You know that there is no chance at all that you will be any use to him after
peak. If our brave Captain Urqhardt hasn’t got that through his head now, he will … even if I have to explain to him in words of one syllable.”
“But I might stay linked.”
“Oh, no, you won’t … or I’ll
bash your pretty head in. Our kids are going to grow up on Earth.”
She looked soberly at him and patted his hand. The Travers’s were not expecting again, but everybody
knew they were hoping; I began to see why Chet was adamant… and I became quite sure that Mei-Ling
would not link again after peak-not after her husband had argued with her for a while. What Chet wanted was more important to her than what the Captain wanted, or any abstract duty to a Foundation back on Earth.
Chet went on, “Think it over, Tom, and you will see that you can’t let your shipmates
down. To go on
is suicidal and everybody knows it but the Captain. It’s up to you.” “Uh, I’ll think it over.”
“Do that. But don’t take too long.” They left.
I went to bed but didn’t sleep. The deuce of it was that Chet was almost certainly right … including the certainty that Mei-Ling would never patch in with her telepair after another peak, for she was beginning to slip even now. I had been transmitting mathematical or technical matter which would have fallen to her ever since last peak, because her linking was becoming erratic. Chet wouldn’t have to bash
her
admittedly-pretty head in; she was falling out of touch.
On the other hand…
When I had reached “On the other hand” about eighteen times, I got up and dressed and went looking for
Harry Gates;
it occurred to me that since he was a head of department and present at the meeting, it was proper to talk to him about it.
He wasn’t in his room; Barbara suggested that I try the laboratory. He was there, alone, unpacking specimens that had been sent over the day before. He looked up. “Well, Tom, how is it going?”
“Not too good.”
“I know. Say, I haven’t had a proper chance to thank you. Shall I write it out, or will you have it right off my chest?”
“Uh, let’s take it for granted.” I had not understood him at first, for it is the simple truth that I had
forgotten about pulling him out of the water; I hadn’t had time to think about it.
“As you say.
But I won’t forget it. You know that, don’t you?” “Okay. Harry, I need advice.”
“You do? Well, I’ve got it in all sizes. All of it free and all of it worth what it costs, I’m afraid.” “You were at the meeting tonight.”
“So were you.” He looked worried.
“Yes.” I told him all that had been fretting me, then thought about it and told him all that Chet had
said. “What am I to do, Harry? Chet is right; the chance of doing any good on another jump isn’t worth
it.
Even if we find a planet worth reporting-a chance that is never good,
based on what the fleet has done
as a whoIe-even so, we almost certainly won’t be able to report it except by going back, two centuries after we left. It’s ridiculous and, as Chet says, suicidal, with what we’ve got left. On the other hand, the Captain is right; this is what we signed up for. The ship’s sailing orders say for us to go on.”
Harry carefully unpacked a package of specimens before he answered.
“Tommie, you should ask me an easy one. Ask me whether or not to get married and I’ll tell you like a shot. Or anything else. But there is one thing no man can tell another man and that is whore his duty
lies. That you must decide for yourself.”
I thought about it. “Doggone it, Harry, how do you feel about it?”
“Me?” He stopped what he was doing. “Tom, I just don’t know. For myself personally … well, I’ve been happier in this ship than I have ever been before in my life. I’ve got my wife and kids with me and I’m doing just the work I want to do. With others it may be different.”
“How about your kids?”
“Aye, there’s the rub. A family man-” He frowned. “I can’t advise you, Tom. If I even hint that you
should not do what you signed up to do, I’d be inciting to
mutiny … a capital crime,
for both of us. If I tell you that you must do what the Captain wants, I’d be on safe legal grounds-but it might mean the death of you and me and my kids and all the rest of us… because Chet has horse sense on his side even if the law is against him.” He sighed. “Tom, I just missed checking out today-thanks to you-and my
judgment isn’t back in shape. I can’t advise you; I’d be prejudiced.”
I didn’t answer. I was wishing that Uncle Steve had made it; he always
had
an answer for everything.
“All I can do,” Harry went on, “is to make a weaselly suggestion.”
“Huh? What is it?”
“You might go to the Captain privately and tell him just how worried you are. It might affect his
decisions. At least he ought to know.”
I said I would think about it and thanked him and left. I went to bed and eventually got to sleep. I was awakened in the middle of the night by the ship shaking. The ship always swayed a little when
waterborne, but not this way, nor this much; not on Elysia.
It stopped and then it started again…and again it stopped…and started. I was wondering what…when it suddenly quivered in an entirely different way, one that I recognized; it was the way the torch felt when it was just barely critical. The engineers called it “clearing her throat” and was a regular part of
overhaul and inspection. I decided that Mr. Regato must be working late, and I quieted down again. The bumping did not start up again.
At breakfast I found
out what it was: the behemoths had tried something, nobody knew what, against the ship itself…whereupon the Captain had quite logically ordered Mr. Regato to use the torch against them. Now, although we still did not know much about them, we did know one thing: they were not immune to super-heated steam and intense radioactivity.
This brush with the sea devils braced my spine; I decided to see the Captain as Harry had suggested.
He let me in without keeping me waiting more than five minutes. Then he kept quiet and let me talk as
long as I wanted to. I elaborated the whole picture, as I saw it, without attributing anything to Chet or Harry. I couldn’t tell from his face whether I was reaching him or not, so I put it strongly: that Unc and
Mei-Ling were both out of the picture and that the chance that I would be of any use after the next peak
was
so slight that he was risking his. ship and his crew on very long odds.
When I finished I still didn’t know, nor did he make a direct answer. Instead he said, “Bartlett, for
fifty-five minutes yesterday evening you had two other members of the crew in your room with your
door closed.”
“Huh? Yes, sir.”
“Did you speak to them of this?” I wanted to lie. “Uh…yes, sir.”
“After that you looked up another member of the crew and remained with him until quite late…or
quite early, I should say. Did you speak to him on the same subject?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well I am holding you for investigation on two counts: suspicion of inciting to mutiny and suspicion of intent to mutiny. You are under arrest. Go to your room and remain there. No visitors.”
I gulped, Then something Uncle Steve had told me came to my aid-Uncle had been a jawbone
space- lawyer and loved to talk about it. “Aye, aye, sir. But I insist that I be allowed to see counsel of my
choice…and that I be given a public hearing.”
The Captain nodded as if I had told him that it was raining. “Certainly. Your legal rights will be respected. But those matters will have to wait; we are now preparing to get underway. So place yourself
under arrest and get to your quarters.”
He turned away and left me to confine myself. He didn’t even seem angry.
So here I sit, alone in my room. I had to tell Unc he couldn’t come in and, later, Chet. I can’t believe what has happened to me.
XIV
“JUST A MATHEMATICAL ABSTRACTION”
That morning seemed a million years long. Vicky checked with me at the usual time, but I told her that the watch list was being switched around
again and that I would get in touch with her later. “Is
something wrong?” she asked.
“No, hon, we’re just having a little reorganization aboard ship.” “All right. But you sound worried.”
I
not only didn’t tell her that I was in a jam, I didn’t tell her anything about the disaster. Time enough later, after it had aged-unless she found out from official news. Meanwhile there was no reason to get a nice kid upset over something she couldn’t help.
Twenty minutes later Mr. Eastman showed up. I answered the door when he knocked and told him,
“I’m
not to have any visitors.
Sorry.”
He didn’t leave. “I’m not a visitor, Tom; I’m here officially, for the Captain.” “Oh.” I let him in.
He had a tool kit with him. He set it down and said, “The regular and special communication departments have been consolidated, now that we are so shorthanded, so it looks like I’m your boss. It won’t make any difference, I’m sure. But I’m to make a reconnection on your recorder, so that you can record directly into the comm office.”
“Okay. But why?”
He seemed embarrassed, “Well…you were due to go on watch a half
hour ago. We’re going to fix this
so that you can stand your watches conveniently from here. The Captain is annoyed that I didn’t arrange it earlier.” He started unscrewing the access plate to the recorder.
I was speechless. Then I remembered something Uncle Steve had told me. “Hey, wait a minute!” “Eh?”
“Oh, go ahead and rewire it, I don’t care. But I won’t stand any watches.”
He straightened up and looked worried. “Don’t talk like that, Tom, You’re in enough trouble now; don’t make it worse. Let’s pretend you never said it. Okay?”
Mr. Eastman was a decent sort and the only one of the electronics people who had never called us
freaks. I think he was really concerned about me. But I said, “I don’t see how it can be worse. You tell the Captain that I said he could take his watches and-” I stopped. That wasn’t what Uncle Steve would
say. “Sorry. Please tell him this: ‘Communicator Bartlett’s respects to the Captain and he regrets that he cannot perform duty while under arrest’ Got it?”
“Now look here, Tom, that’s not the proper attitude. Surely, there is something in what you say from a standpoint of regulations. But we are shorthanded; everybody has to pitch in and help. You can’t stand
on the letter of the law;
it isn’t fair
to
the rest.”
“Can’t I?” I was breathing hard and exulting in the chance to hit back. “The Captain can’t have his
cake and eat it too. A man under arrest doesn’t perform duty. It’s
always been that way end it always will be. You just tell him what I said.”
He silently finished the reconnection with quick precision.
“You’re sure that’s what you want me to tell him?”
“Quite sure.”
“All right. Hooked the way that thing is now”-he added, pointing a thumb at the recorder-”you can
reach me on if you change your
mind. So long.”
“One more thing-” “Eh?”
“Maybe the Captain hasn’t thought
about it, since his cabin has a bathroom, but I’ve been in here some hours. Who takes me down the passageway and when? Even a prisoner is entitled to regular policing.”
“Oh. I guess I do. Come along.”
That was the high point of the morning. I expected Captain Urqhardt to show up five minutes after Mr. Eastman had left me at my room-breathing fire and spitting cinders. So I rehearsed a couple of
speeches in my head, carefully phrased to keep me inside the law and quite respectful. I knew I had
him.
But nothing happened. The Captain did not show up; nobody showed up. It got to be close to noon. When no word was passed about standing by for boost, I got in my bunk with five minutes to spare and waited.
It was a long five minutes.
About a quarter past twelve I gave up and got up. No lunch either. I heard the gong at twelve-thirty, but still nothing and nobody. I finally decided that I would skip one meal before I complained, because I didn’t want to give him the chance to change the subject by pointing out that I had broken arrest. It occurred to me that I could call Unc and tell him about the failure in the beans department, then I
decided that the longer I waited, the more wrong
the Captain would be.
About an hour after everybody else had finished eating Mr. Krishnamurti showed up with a tray. The fact that he brought it himself instead of sending whoever had pantry duty convinced me that I must be a Very Important Prisoner-particularly as Kris was unanxious to talk to me and even seemed scared of
being near me. He just shoved it in and said, “Put it in the passageway when you are through.”
“Thanks, Kris.”
But buried in the food on the tray was a note: “Bully for you! Don’t weaken and we’ll trim this bird’s
wings. Everybody is pulling for you.” It was unsigned and I did not recognize the handwriting. It wasn’t Krishnamurti’s; I knew his from the time when I was fouling up his farm. Nor was it either of the Travers’s, and certainly not Harry’s.
Finally I decided that I didn’t want to guess whose it was and tore it in pieces and chewed it up, just like the Man in the Iron Mask or the Count of Monte Cristo. I don’t really qualify as a romantic hero,
however, as I didn’t swallow it; I just chewed it up and spat it out. But I made darn sure that note was destroyed, for I not only did not want to
know
who had sent it, I didn’t want anybody ever to know.
Know why? That note didn’t make me feel good; it worried me. Oh, for two minutes it bucked me up; I felt larger than life, the champion of the downtrodden.
Then I realized what the note meant…
Mutiny.
It’s the ugliest word in space. Any other disaster is better.
One of the first things Uncle Steve had told me-told Pat and myself, way back when we were kids-
was: “The Captain is right even when he is wrong.” It was years before I understood it; you have to live
in a ship to know why it is true. And I didn’t understand it in my heart until I read that encouraging
note and realized that somebody was seriously thinking of bucking the Captain’s authority … and that I
was
the symbol of their resistance.
A ship is not just a little world; it is more like a human body. You can’t have democracy in it, not democratic consent at least, no matter how pleasant and democratic the Captain’s manner may be. If you’re in a pinch, you don’t take a vote from your arms and legs and stomach and gizzard and find out what the majority wants. Darn well you don’t! Your brain makes a decision and your
whole being carries it out.
A ship in space is like that all the time and has to be. What Uncle Steve meant was that the Captain had
better be right, you had better pray that he is right even if you disagree with him… because it won’t save the ship to be right yourself
if
he is wrong.
But a ship is not a human body; it is people working together with a degree of selflessness that doesn’t come easy-not to me, at least. The only thing that holds it together is a misty something called its
morale, something you hardly know it has until the ship loses it. I realized then that the Elsie had been losing hers for some time. First Doc Devereaux had died and then Mama O’Toole and both of those were body blows. Now we had lost the Captain and most of the rest… and the Elsie was falling to
pieces.
Maybe the new captain wasn’t too bright, but he was trying to stop it. I began to realize that it wasn’t just machinery breaking down or attacks from hostile natives that lost ships; maybe the worst hazard was some bright young idiot deciding that he was smarter than the Captain and convincing enough
others that he was right. I wondered how many of the eight ships that were out of contact had died proving that their captains were wrong and that somebody like me was right.
It wasn’t nearly enough
to be right.
I got so upset that I thought about going to the Captain and telling him I was wrong and what could I
do to help? Then I realized that I couldn’t do that, either. He had told me to stay in my room-no ‘if’s’ or
‘maybe’s.’ If it was more important to back up the Captain and respect his authority than anything else, then the only thing was to do as I had been ordered and sit tight.
So I did.
Kris brought me dinner, almost on time. Late that evening the speakers blared the usual warning, I lay
down and the, Elsie boosted off Elysia. But we didn’t go on, we dropped into an orbit, for we went into free fall right afterwards. I spent a restless night; I don’t sleep well when I’m weightless.
I was awakened by the ship going into light boost, about a half gravity. Kris brought
me breakfast but I didn’t ask what was going on and he didn’t offer to tell me. About the middle of the morning the ship’s
system called out: “Communicator Bartlett, report to the Captain.” It was repeated before I realized it meant me … then I jumped up, ran my shaver over my face, decided that my uniform would have to do, and hurried up to the cabin.
He looked up when I reported my presence. “Oh, yes. Bartlett, Upon investigation I find that there is
no reason to prefer charges. You are released from arrest and restored to duty. See Mr. Eastman.”
He looked back at his desk and I got sore. I had been seesawing between a feeling of consecrated
loyalty to the ship and to the Captain as the head thereof, and an equally strong desire to kick Urqhardt in the stomach. One kind word from him and I think I would have been his boy, come what may. As it was, I was sore.
“Captain!”
He looked up. “Yes?”
“I think you owe me an apology.”
“You do? I do not think so. I acted in the interest of the whole ship. However, I harbor no ill feelings, if that is of any interest to you.” He looked back at his work, dismissing me … as if
my
hard feelings, if
any, were of no possible importance.
So I got out and reported to Mr. Eastman. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do.
Mei-Ling was in the comm office, sending code groups. She glanced up and I noticed that she looked
tired. Mr. Eastman said, “Hello, Tom. I’m glad you’re here; we need you. Will you raise your telepartner, please?”
One good thing about having a telepath run the special watch list is that other people don’t seem to realize that the other end of each pair-the Earthside partner-is not a disembodied spirit. They eat and sleep and work and raise families, and they can’t be on call whenever somebody decides to send a message. “Is it an emergency?” I asked, glancing at the Greenwich and then at the ship’s clock, Vicky
wouldn’t check with me for another half hour; she might be at home and free, or she might not be.
“Perhaps not ‘emergency’ but ‘urgent’ certainly.”
So I called Vicky and she said she did not mind. (“Code groups, Freckle Face,”) I told her. (“So set your recorder on ‘play back.’ “)
“It’s quivering, Uncle Tom. Agitate at will.”
For three hours we sent code groups,
than which there is nothing more tedious. I assumed that it was
probably Captain Urqhardt’s report of what had happened to us on Elysia, or more likely his second
report after the LRF had jumped him for more details. There was no reason to code it so far as I was
concerned; I had been there-so it must be to keep it from our telepartners until LRF decided to release it. This suited me as I would not have relished passing all that blood and slaughter, in clear
language, to little Vicky.
While we were working the Captain came in and sat down with Mr. Eastman; I could see that they
were cooking up more code groups; the Captain was dictating and Eastman was working the encoding machine. Mei-Ling had long since gone. Finally Vicky said faintly, “Uncle Tom, how urgent are these anagrams? Mother called
me to dinner half an hour ago.
(“Hang on and I’ll find out.”) I turned to the Captain and Mr. Eastman, not sure of which one to ask.
But I caught Eastman’s eye and said, “Mr. Eastman, how rush is this stuff? We want to-”
“Don’t interrupt
us,” the Captain cut in. “Just keep on transmitting. The priority is not your concern.” “Captain, you don’t understand; I’m not speaking for myself. I was about to say-”
“Carry on with your work.”
I said to Vicky, (“Hold on a moment, hon.”) Then I sat back and said, “Aye aye, Captain. I’m perfectly
willing to keep on spelling eye charts all night. But there is nobody at the other end.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it is dinner time and way past for my partner. If you want special duty at the Earthside end, you’d better coordinate with the LRF comm office. Seems to me that somebody has the watch list all mixed up.”
“I see.” As usual he showed no expression. I was beginning to think he was all robot, with wires instead of veins.
“Very well, Mr. Eastman, get Mr. McNeil and have him relieve Mr. Bartlett.” “Yes, Captain.”
“Excuse me, Captain…” “Yes, Bartlett?”
“Possibly you don’t know that Unc’s partner lives in Greenwich zone minus-two. It’s the middle of the night there-and she is an old lady, past seventy-five. I thought
maybe you would want to know.”
“Mmm, is that right, Eastman?” “I believe so, sir.”
“Cancel that last order. Bartlett, is your partner willing to go on again after an hour’s break for chow? Without clearing it with LRF?”
“I’ll see, sir.” I spoke to Vicky; she hesitated. I said, (“What is it, Freckle Face? A date with George? Say the word and I’ll tell Captain Bligh he can’t have you.”)
“Oh, it’s all right. I’ll throw the switch on George. I just wish they would give us something besides alphabet soup. Okay, one hour.”
(“One hour, sugar plum. Run and eat your salad. Mind your waistline.”) “My waistline is just fine, thank you.”
“Okay, Captain.”
“Very well. Please thank him for me.”
He was so indifferent about it that I added a touch of my own. “My partner is a girl, Captain, not a “him.” Her mother has placed a two-hour
curfew on it. Otherwise it must be arranged with LRF.”
“So. Very well.” He turned to Eastman. “Can’t we manage to coordinate these communication watches?”
“I’m trying, Captain. But it is new to me…and we have only three watchstanders left.”
“A watch in three should not be too difficult. Yet there always
seems to be some reason why we can’t transmit. Comment?”
“Well, sir, you saw the difficulty just now. It’s a matter of coordinating with Earth. Uh, I believe the special communicators usually arranged that themselves. Or one of them did.”
“Which one? Mr. McNeil?”
“I believe Bartlett usually handled it, sir.” “So. Bartlett?”
“I did, sir.”
“Very well, you have the job again. Arrange a continuous watch.” He started to get up.
How do you tell the Captain he can’t have his bucket of paint? Aye aye, sir. But just a minute, Captain-”
“Yes?”
“Do I understand you are authorizing me to arrange a continuous
watch with LRF? Signed with your
release number?”
“Naturally.”
“Well, what do I do if
they won’t agree to such long hours for the old lady? Ask for still longer hours
for the other two? In the case of my partner, you’ll run into parent trouble; she’s a young girl.”
“So. I can’t see why the home office hired such people.”
I didn’t say anything. If he didn’t know that you don’t hire
telepaths the way you hire butchers I wasn’t going to explain.
But he persisted. “Comment?”
“I have no comment, sir. You can’t get more than three or four hours a day out of any of them, except in extreme emergency. Is this one? If it is, I can arrange it without bothering the home office.”
He did not answer directly. Instead he said, “Arrange the best watch list you can. Consult with Mr. Eastman.” As he turned to leave I caught a look of unutterable weariness on his face and suddenly felt sorry for him. At least I didn’t want to swap jobs with him.
Vicky took a trick in the middle of the night, over Kathleen’s objections. Kathleen wanted to take it herself, but the truth was that she and I could no longer work easily without
Vicky in the circuit, at least not anything as difficult as code groups.
The Captain did not come in to breakfast and I got there late. I looked around and found a place by
Janet Meers. We no longer sat by departments-just one big horseshoe table, with the rest of the mess room arranged to look like a lounge, so that it would not seem so empty.
I was just digging into scrambled yeast on toast when Mr. Eastman stood up and tapped a glass for attention. He looked as if he had not slept for days. “Quiet, please. I have a message from the Captain.” He pulled out a sheet and started to read:
“ ‘Notice to All Hands: By direction of the Long Range Foundation the mission of this ship has been modified. We will remain in the neighborhood of Beta Ceti pending rendezvous with Foundation Ship
Serendipity. Rendezvous is expected in approximately one month. Immediately thereafter we will shape orbit for Earth.
“ ‘F. X. Urqhardt, commanding Lewis and Clark.’“
My jaw dropped. Why, the silent creeper! All the time I had been lambasting him in my mind he had
been arguing the home office into canceling our orders … no wonder he had used code; you don’t say in clear language that your ship is a mess and your crew has gone to pot. Not if you can help it, you don’t. I didn’t even resent that he had not trusted us freaks to respect the security of communications;
I wouldn’t have trusted myself, under the circumstances.
Janet’s eyes were shining… like a woman in love, or like a relativistic mathematician who has just found a new way to work a transformation. “So they’ve done it!” she said in a hushed voice.
“Done what?” I asked. She was certainly taking it in a big way; I hadn’t realized she was that anxious to get home.
“Tommie, don’t you see? They’ve done it, they’ve done it, they’ve applied irrelevance. Dr. Babcock
was
right.”
“Huh?”
“Why, it’s perfectly plain. What kind of a ship can get here in a month? An irrelevant ship, of course. One that is faster than light.” She frowned. “But I don’t see why it should take even a month. It shouldn’t take any time at all. It wouldn’t use time.”
I
said, “Take it easy, Janet. I’m stupid this morning-I didn’t have much sleep last night. Why do you say that ship…uh, the Serendipity … is faster than light? That’s impossible.”
“Tommie, Tommie … look, dear, if it was an ordinary ship, in order to rendezvous with us here, it would have had to have left Earth over sixty-three years ago.”
“Well, maybe it did.”
“Tommie! It couldn’t possibly-because that long ago nobody knew that we would be here now. How
could they?”
I figured back. Sixty-three Greenwich years ago… mmm, that would have been sometime during our
first peak. Janet seemed to be right; only an incredible optimist or a fortune teller would have sent a ship from Earth at that time to meet us here now. “I don’t understand it.”
“Don’t you see, Tommie? I’ve explained it to you, I know I have. Irrelevance. Why, you telepaths were the reason the investigation started; you proved that “simultaneity’ was an admissible concept … and the inevitable logical consequence was that time and space do not exist.”
I felt my head begin to ache. “They don’t? Then what is that we seem to be having breakfast in?” “Just a mathematical abstraction, dear. Nothing more.” She smiled and looked motherly. “Poor
‘Sentimental Tommie.’ You worry too much.”
I suppose Janet was right, for we made rendezvous with F. S. Serendipity twenty-nine Greenwich days later. We spent the time moseying out at a half gravity to a locus five billion
miles Galactic-north of Beta Ceti, for it appeared that the Sarah did not want to come too close to the big star. Still, at sixty- three light-years, five billion miles is close shooting-a very near miss. We also spent the time working like mischief to arrange and prepare specimens and in collating data. Besides that, Captain Urqhardt suddenly discovered, now that we were expecting visitors, that lots and lots of things had not been
cleaned and polished lately. He even inspected staterooms, which I thought was snoopy.
The Sarah had a mind reader aboard, which helped when it came time to close rendezvous.
She missed us by nearly two light-hours; then their m-r and myself exchanged coordinates (referred to Beta Ceti)
by relay back Earthside and got each other pinpointed in a hurry. By radar and radio alone we could have fiddled around
for a week-if we had ever made contact at all.
But once that was done, the Sarah turned out to be a fast ship, lively enough
to bug your
eyes out. She was in our lap, showing on our short-range radar, as I was reporting the coordinates she had just had to the Captain. An hour later she was made fast and sealed
to our lock. And she was a little ship. The Elsie had seemed huge when I first joined her; then after a while she was just the right size, or a little cramped for some purposes. But the Sarah wouldn’t have made a decent Earth-Moon
shuttle.
Mr. Whipple came aboard first. He was an incredible character to find in space; he even carried a briefcase. But he took charge at once. He had two men with him and they got busy in a small compartment in the cargo deck. They knew just what compartment they wanted; we had to clear
potatoes out of it in a hurry. They worked in there half a day, installing something they called a “null-
field generator,” working in odd clothes made entirely of hair-fine wires, which covered them like mummies. Mr. Whipple stayed in the door, watching while they worked and smoking a cigar-it was the first I had seen in three years and the smell of it made me ill. The relativists stuck close to him, exchanging excited comments, and so did the engineers, except that they looked baffled and slightly
disgusted. I heard Mr. Regato say, “Maybe so. But a torch is reliable. You can depend on a torch.”
Captain Urqhardt watched it all, Old Stone Face in person.
At last Mr. Whipple put out his cigar and said, “Well, that’s that, Captain. Thompson will stay and take
you in and Bjorkenson will go on in the Sarah. I’m afraid you will have to put up with me, too, for I am going back with you.”
Captain Urqhardt’s face was a gray-white. “Do I understand, sir, that you are relieving me of my command?”
“What? Good heavens, Captain, what makes you say that?”
“You seem to have taken charge of my ship…on behalf of the home office. And now you tell me that this man…er, Thompson-will take us in.”
“Gracious, no. I’m sorry. I’m not used to the niceties of field work; I’ve been in the home office too
long. But just think of Thompson as a … mmm, a sailing master for you. That’s it; he’ll be your pilot.
But no one is displacing you; you’ll remain in command until you can return home and turn over your
ship. Then she’ll be scrapped, of course.”
Mr. Regato said in a queer, high voice, “Did you say “scrapped,” Mr. Whipple?” I felt my stomach give a twist. Scrap the Elsie? No!
“Eh? I spoke
hastily. Nothing has been decided Possibly she will be kept as a museum. In fact, that is a good idea.” He took out a notebook and wrote in it. He put it away and said, “And now, Captain,
if you will, I’d like to speak to all your people. There isn’t much time.”
Captain Urqhardt silently led him back to the mess deck.
When we were assembled, Mr. Whipple smiled and said, “I’m not much at speechmaking. I simply want to thank you all, on behalf of the Foundation, and explain what we are doing. I won’t go into
detail, as I am not a scientist; I am an administrator, busy with the liquidation of Project Lebensraum,
of which you are part. Such salvage and rescue operations as this are necessary; nevertheless,
the Foundation is anxious to free the Serendipity, and her sister ships, the Irrelevant, the Infinity, and Zero, for
their proper work,
that is to say, their survey of stars in the surrounding space.”
Somebody gasped. “But that’s what we were doing!”
“Yes, yes, of course. But times change. One of the null-field ships can visit more stars in a year
than a torchship can visit in a century. You’ll be happy to know that the Zero working alone has located seven Earth-type planets this past month.”
It didn’t make me happy.
Uncle Alfred McNeil
leaned forward and said in a soft, tragic voice that spoke for all of us, “Just a moment, sir. Are you telling us that what we did … wasn’t necessary?”
Mr. Whipple looked startled. “No, no, no! I’m terribly sorry if I gave that impression. What you did was utterly necessary, or there would not be any null ships today. Why, that’s like saying that what Columbus did wasn’t necessary, simply because
we jump across oceans as if they were mud puddles nowadays.”
“Thank you, sir, “ Unc said quietly.
“Perhaps no one has told you just how indispensably necessary Project Lebensraum has been. Very
possibly-things have been in a turmoil around the Foundation for some time-I know I’ve had so little sleep myself that I don’t know what I’ve done and left undone. But you realize, don’t you, that without the telepaths among you, all this progress would not have taken place?” Whipple looked around.
“Who are they? I’d
like to shake hands with them. In any case-I’m not a scientist, mind you; I’m a lawyer-in any case, if we had not had it proved beyond doubt that telepathy is truly instantaneous, proof
measured over many light-years, our scientists might still be looking for errors in the sixth decimal
place and maintaining that telepathic signals do not propagate instantaneously but simply at a speed so great that its exact order was concealed by instrumental error. So I understand, so I am told. So you see,
your great work has produced wondrous
results, much greater than expected, even if they are not quite the results you were looking for.”
I was thinking that if they had told us just a few days sooner, Uncle Steve would still be alive. But he never did want to die in bed.
“But the fruition of your efforts,” Whipple went on, “did not show at once. Like so many things in
science, the new idea had to grow for a long time, among specialists … then the stupendous results
burst suddenly on the world. For myself, if anyone had told me six months ago that I would be out here among the stars today, giving a popular
lecture on the new physics, I wouldn’t have believed him. I’m not sure that I believe it now. But here I am. Among other things, I am here to help you get straightened
away when we get back home.” He smiled and bowed.
“Uh, Mr. Whipple,” Chet Travers asked, “just when will we get home?” “Oh, didn’t I tell you? Almost immediately … say soon after lunch.”
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are
some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you
might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up
in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society
within communist China. As there are some really stark differences
between the two.
Posts about the Changes in America
America is
going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it
occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the
period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this
issue.
More Posts about Life
I have
broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones
actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little
different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are
reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly
impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal
library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come
and enjoy a read or two as well.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
This is the short story “Life-Line” by Robert Heinlein. It describes an interesting situation. A Professor Pinero builds a machine that will predict how long a person will live. It does this by sending a signal along the world line of a person and detecting the echo from the far end. Professor Pinero’s invention has a powerful impact on the life insurance industry, as well as on his own life…
FOREWORD
The beginning of 1939 found me flat broke following a disastrous political campaign (I ran a strong second best, but in politics there are no prizes for place or show). I was highly skilled in ordnance, gunnery, and fire control for Naval vessels, a skill for which there was no demand ashore—and I had a piece of paper from the Secretary of the Navy telling me that I was a waste of space—"totally and permanently disabled" was the phraseology. I "owned" a heavily-mortgaged house.
About then Thrilling Wonder Stories ran a house ad reading (more or less):
GIANT PRIZE CONTEST—Amateur Writers!!!!!! First Prize $50 Fifty Dollars $50
In 1939 one could fill three station wagons with fifty dollars worth of groceries. Today I can pick up fifty dollars in groceries unassisted—perhaps I've grown stronger. So I wrote the story "Life-Line." It took me four days—I am a slow typist. But I did not send it to Thrilling Wonder; I sent it to Astounding, figuring they would not be so swamped with amateur short stories.
Astounding bought it . . . for $70, or $20 more than that "Grand Prize"—and there was never a chance that I would ever again look for honest work.
LIFE-LINE
The chairman rapped loudly for order. Gradually the catcalls and boos died away as several self-appointed sergeants-at-arms persuaded a few hot-headed individuals to sit down. The speaker on the rostrum by the chairman seemed unaware of the disturbance. His bland, faintly insolent face was impassive. The chairman turned to the speaker and addressed him in a voice in which anger and annoyance were barely restrained.
“Dr. Pinero”—the “Doctor” was faintly stressed—”I must apologize to you for the unseemly outburst during your remarks. I am surprised that my colleagues should so far forget the dignity proper to men of science as to interrupt a speaker, no matter”—he paused and set his mouth—”no matter how great the provocation.” Pinero smiled in his face, a smile that was in some way an open insult. The chairman visibly controlled his temper and continued: “I am anxious that the program be concluded decently and in order. I want you to finish your remarks. Nevertheless, I must ask you to refrain from affronting our intelligence with ideas that any educated man knows to be fallacious. Please confine yourself to your discovery—if you have made one.”
Pinero spread his fat, white hands, palms down. “How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?”
The audience stirred and muttered. Someone shouted from the rear of the hall: “Throw the charlatan out! We’ve had enough.”
The chairman pounded his gavel.
“Gentlemen! Please!”
Then to Pinero, “Must I remind you that you are not a member of this body, and that we did not invite you?”
Pinero’s eyebrows lifted. “So? I seem to remember an invitation on the letterhead of the Academy.”
The chairman chewed his lower lip before replying. “True, I wrote that invitation myself. But it was at the request of one of the trustees—a fine, public-spirited gentleman, but not a scientist, not a member of the Academy.”
Pinero smiled his irritating smile. “So? I should have guessed. Old Bidwell, not so, of Amalgamated Life Insurance? And he wanted his trained seals to expose me as a fraud, yes? For if I can tell a man the day of his own death, no one will buy his pretty policies. But how can you expose me, if you will not listen to me first? Even supposing you had the wit to understand me? Bah! He has sent jackals to tear down a lion.” He deliberately turned his back on them.
The muttering of the crowd swelled and took on a vicious tone. The chairman cried vainly for order. There arose a figure in the front row.
“Mr. Chairman!”
The chairman grasped the opening and shouted: “Gentlemen! Dr. Van Rhein-Smitt has the floor.” The commotion died away.
The doctor cleared his throat, smoothed the forelock of his beautiful white hair, and thrust one hand into a side pocket of his smartly tailored trousers. He assumed his women’s-club manner.
“Mr. Chairman, fellow members of the Academy of Science, let us have tolerance. Even a murderer has the right to say his say before the State exacts its tribute. Shall we do less? Even though one may be intellectually certain of the verdict? I grant Dr. Pinero every consideration that should be given by this august body to any unaffiliated colleague, even though”—he bowed slightly in Pinero’s direction—”we may not be familiar with the university which bestowed his degree. If what he has to say is false, it cannot harm us. If what he has to say is true, we should know it.” His mellow, cultivated voice rolled on, soothing and calming. “If the eminent doctor’s manner appears a trifle inurbane for our tastes, we must bear in mind that the doctor may be from a place, or a stratum, not so meticulous in these matters. Now our good friend and benefactor has asked us to hear this person and carefully assess the merit of his claims. Let us do so with dignity and decorum.”
He sat down to a rumble of applause, comfortably aware that he had enhanced his reputation as an intellectual leader. Tomorrow the papers would again mention the good sense and persuasive personality of “America’s Handsomest University President.” Who knows; maybe now old Bidwell would come through with that swimming-pool donation.
When the applause had ceased, the chairman turned to where the center of the disturbance sat, hands folded over his little round belly, face serene.
“Will you continue, Dr. Pinero?”
“Why should I?”
The chairman shrugged his shoulders. “You came for that purpose.”
Pinero arose. “So true. So very true. But was I wise to come? Is there anyone here who has an open mind, who can stare a bare fact in the face without blushing? I think not. Even that so-beautiful gentleman who asked you to hear me out has already judged me and condemned me. He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not. Still, if I do not speak, you will win your point by default. The little man in the street will think that you little men have exposed me, Pinero, as a hoaxer, a pretender.
“I will repeat my discovery. In simple language, I have invented a technique to tell how long a man will live. I can give you advance billing of the Angel of Death. I can tell you when the Black Camel will kneel at your door. In five minutes’ time, with my apparatus, I can tell any of you how many grains of sand are still left in your hourglass.” He paused and folded his arms across his chest. For a moment no one spoke. The audience grew restless.
Finally the chairman intervened. “You aren’t finished, Dr. Pinero?”
“What more is there to say?”
“You haven’t told us how your discovery works.”
Pinero’s eyebrows shot up. “You suggest that I should turn over the fruits of my work for children to play with? This is dangerous knowledge, my friend. I keep it for the man who understands it, myself.” He tapped his chest.
“How are we to know that you have anything back of your wild claims?”
“So simple. You send a committee to watch me demonstrate. If it works, fine. You admit it and tell the world so. If it does not work, I am discredited, and will apologize. Even I, Pinero, will apologize.”
A slender, stoop-shouldered man stood up in the back of the hall. The chair recognized him and he spoke.
“Mr. Chairman, how can the eminent doctor seriously propose such a course? Does he expect us to wait around for twenty or thirty years for someone to die and prove his claims?”
Pinero ignored the chair and answered directly.
“Pfui! Such nonsense! Are you so ignorant of statistics that you do not know that in any large group there is at least one who will die in the immediate future? I make you a proposition. Let me test each one of you in this room, and I will name the man who will die within the fortnight, yes, and the day and hour of his death.” He glanced fiercely around the room. “Do you accept?”
Another figure got to his feet, a portly man who spoke in measured syllables. “I, for one, cannot countenance such an experiment. As a medical man, I have noted with sorrow the plain marks of serious heart trouble in many of our older colleagues. If Dr. Pinero knows those symptoms, as he may, and were he to select as his victim one of their number, the man so selected would be likely to die on schedule, whether the distinguished speaker’s mechanical egg timer works or not.”
Another speaker backed him up at once. “Dr. Shepard is right. Why should we waste time on voodoo tricks? It is my belief that this person who calls himself Dr. Pinero wants to use this body to give his statements authority. If we participate in this farce, we play into his hands. I don’t know what his racket is, but you can bet that he has figured out some way to use us for advertising his schemes. I move, Mr. Chairman, that we proceed with our regular business.”
The motion carried by acclamation, but Pinero did not sit down. Amidst cries of “Order! Order!” he shook his untidy head at them, and had his say.
“Barbarians! Imbeciles! Stupid dolts! Your kind have blocked the recognition of every great discovery since time began. Such ignorant canaille are enough to start Galileo spinning in his grave. That fat fool down there twiddling his elk’s tooth calls himself a medical man. Witch doctor would be a better term! That little bald-headed runt over there— You! You style yourself a philosopher, and prate about life and time in your neat categories. What do you know of either one? How can you ever learn when you won’t examine the truth when you have a chance? Bah!” He spat upon the stage. “You call this an Academy of Science. I call it an undertakers’ convention, interested only in embalming the ideas of your red-blooded predecessors.”
He paused for breath and was grasped on each side by two members of the platform committee and rushed out the wings. Several reporters arose hastily from the press table and followed him. The chairman declared the meeting adjourned.* * *
The newspapermen caught up with Pinero as he was going out by the stage door. He walked with a light, springy step, and whistled a little tune. There was no trace of the belligerence he had shown a moment before. They crowded about him. “How about an interview, doc?” “What d’yuh think of modern education?” “You certainly told ’em. What are your views on life after death?” “Take off your hat, doc, and look at the birdie.”
He grinned at them all. “One at a time, boys, and not so fast. I used to be a newspaperman myself. How about coming up to my place?”
A few minutes later they were trying to find places to sit down in Pinero’s messy bed-living room, and lighting his cigars. Pinero looked around and beamed. “What’ll it be, boys? Scotch or Bourbon?” When that was taken care of he got down to business. “Now, boys, what do you want to know?”
“Lay it on the line, doc. Have you got something, or haven’t you?”
“Most assuredly I have something, my young friend.”
“Then tell us how it works. That guff you handed the profs won’t get you anywhere now.”
“Please, my dear fellow. It is my invention. I expect to make money with it. Would you have me give it away to the first person who asks for it?”
“See here, doc, you’ve got to give us something if you expect to get a break in the morning papers. What do you use? A crystal ball?”
“No, not quite. Would you like to see my apparatus?”
“Sure. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
He ushered them into an adjoining room, and waved his hand. “There it is, boys.” The mass of equipment that met their eyes vaguely resembled a medico’s office X-ray gear. Beyond the obvious fact that it used electrical power, and that some of the dials were calibrated in familiar terms, a casual inspection gave no clue to its actual use.
“What’s the principle, doc?”
Pinero pursed his lips and considered. “No doubt you are all familiar with the truism that life is electrical in nature. Well, that truism isn’t worth a damn, but it will help to give you an idea of the principle. You have also been told that time is a fourth dimension. Maybe you believe it, perhaps not. It has been said so many times that it has ceased to have any meaning. It is simply a cliché that windbags use to impress fools. But I want you to try to visualize it now, and try to feel it emotionally.”
He stepped up to one of the reporters. “Suppose we take you as an example. Your name is Rogers, is it not? Very well, Rogers, you are a space-time event having duration four ways. You are not quite six feet tall, you are about twenty inches wide and perhaps ten inches thick. In time, there stretches behind you more of this space-time event, reaching to, perhaps, 1905, of which we see a cross section here at right angles to the time axis, and as thick as the present. At the far end is a baby, smelling of sour milk and drooling its breakfast on its bib. At the other end lies, perhaps, an old man some place in the 1980s. Imagine this space-time event, which we call Rogers, as a long pink worm, continuous through the years. It stretches past us here in 1939, and the cross section we see appears as a single, discrete body. But that is illusion. There is physical continuity to this pink worm, enduring through the years. As a matter of fact, there is physical continuity in this concept to the entire race, for these pink worms branch off from other pink worms. In this fashion the race is like a vine whose branches intertwine and send out shoots. Only by taking a cross section of the vine would we fall into the error of believing that the shootlets were discrete individuals.”
He paused and looked around at their faces. One of them, a dour, hard-bitten chap, put in a word.
“That’s all very pretty, Pinero, if true, but where does that get you?”
Pinero favored him with an unresentful smile. “Patience, my friend. I asked you to think of life as electrical. Now think of our long, pink worm as a conductor of electricity. You have heard, perhaps, of the fact that electrical engineers can, by certain measurements, predict the exact location of a break in a transatlantic cable without ever leaving the shore. I do the same with our pink worms. By applying my instruments to the cross section here in this room I can tell where the break occurs; that is to say, where death takes place. Or, if you like, I can reverse the connections and tell you the date of your birth. But that is uninteresting; you already know it.”
The dour individual sneered. “I’ve caught you, doc. If what you say about the race being like a vine of pink worms is true, you can’t tell birthdays, because the connection with the race is continuous at birth. Your electrical conductor reaches on back through the mother into a man’s remotest ancestors.”
Pinero beamed. “True, and clever, my friend. But you have pushed the analogy too far. It is not done in the precise manner in which one measures the length of an electrical conductor. In some ways it is more like measuring the length of a long corridor by bouncing an echo off the far end. At birth there is a sort of twist in the corridor, and, by proper calibration, I can detect the echo from that twist.”
“Let’s see you prove it!”
“Certainly, my dear friend. Will you be a subject?”
One of the others spoke up. “He’s called your bluff, Luke. Put up or shut up.”
“I’m game. What do I do?”
“First write the date of your birth on a sheet of paper, and hand it to one of your colleagues.”
Luke complied. “Now what?”
“Remove your outer clothing and step upon these scales. Now tell me, were you ever very much thinner, or very much fatter, than you are now? No? What did you weigh at birth? Ten pounds? A fine bouncing baby boy. They don’t come so big anymore.”
“What is all this flubdubbery?”
“I am trying to approximate the average cross section of our long pink conductor, my dear Luke. Now will you seat yourself here? Then place this electrode in your mouth. No, it will not hurt you; the voltage is quite low, less than one microvolt, but I must have a good connection.” The doctor left him and went behind his apparatus, where he lowered a hood over his head before touching his controls. Some of the exposed dials came to life and a low humming came from the machine. It stopped and the doctor popped out of his little hideaway.
“I get sometime in February, 1902. Who has the piece of paper with the date?”
It was produced and unfolded. The custodian read, “February 22, 1902.”
The stillness that followed was broken by a voice from the edge of the little group. “Doc, can I have another drink?”
The tension relaxed, and several spoke at once: “Try it on me, doc.” “Me first, doc; I’m an orphan and really want to know.” “How about it, doc? Give us all a little loose play.”
He smilingly complied, ducking in and out of the hood like a gopher from its hole. When they all had twin slips of paper to prove the doctor’s skill, Luke broke a long silence.
“How about showing how you predict death, Pinero?”
No one answered. Several of them nudged Luke forward. “Go ahead, smart guy. You asked for it.” He allowed himself to be seated in the chair. Pinero changed some of the switches, then entered the hood. When the humming ceased he came out, rubbing his hands briskly together.
“Well, that’s all there is to see, boys. Got enough for a story?”
“Hey, what about the prediction? When does Luke get his ‘thirty?”
Luke faced him. “Yes, how about it?”
Pinero looked pained. “Gentlemen, I am surprised at you. I give that information for a fee. Besides, it is a professional confidence. I never tell anyone but the client who consults me.”
“I don’t mind. Go ahead and tell them.”
“I am very sorry. I really must refuse. I only agreed to show you how; not to give the results.”
Luke ground the butt of his cigarette into the floor. “It’s a hoax, boys. He probably looked up the age of every reporter in town just to be ready to pull this. It won’t wash, Pinero.”
Pinero gazed at him sadly. “Are you married, my friend?”
“No.”
“Do you have anyone dependent on you? Any close relatives?”
“No. Why? Do you want to adopt me?”
Pinero shook his head. “I am very sorry for you, my dear Luke. You will die before tomorrow.”
DEATH PUNCHES TIME CLOCK
. . . within twenty minutes of Pinero’s strange prediction, Timons was struck by a falling sign while walking down Broadway toward the offices of the Daily Herald where he was employed.
Dr. Pinero declined to comment but confirmed the story that he had predicted Timons’ death by means of his so-called chronovitameter. Chief of Police Roy . . .
Legal Notice
To whom it may concern, greetings; I, John Cabot Winthrop III, of the firm of Winthrop, Winthrop, Ditmars and Winthrop, Attorneys-at-law, do affirm that Hugo Pinero of this city did hand to me ten thousand dollars in lawful money of the United States, and did instruct me to place it in escrow with a chartered bank of my selection with escrow instructions as follows:
The entire bond shall be forfeit, and shall forthwith be paid to the first client of Hugo Pinero and/or Sands of Time, Inc., who shall exceed his life tenure as predicted by Hugo Pinero by one per centum, or the estate of the first client who shall fail of such predicted tenure in a like amount, whichever occurs first in point of time.
Subscribed and sworn, John Cabot Winthrop III.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 2nd day of April, 1939. Albert M. Swanson Notary Public in and for this county and State. My commission expires June 17, 1939.
* * *
“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Radio Audience, let’s go to press! Flash! Hugo Pinero, the Miracle Man from Nowhere, has made his thousandth death prediction without anyone claiming the reward he offered to the first person who catches him failing to call the turn. With thirteen of his clients already dead, it is mathematically certain that he has a private line to the main office of the Old Man with the Scythe. That is one piece of news I don’t want to know about before it happens. Your coast-to-coast correspondent will not be a client of Prophet Pinero—”* * *
The judge’s watery baritone cut through the stale air of the courtroom. “Please, Mr. Weems, let us return to our subject. This court granted your prayer for a temporary restraining order, and now you ask that it be made permanent. In rebuttal, Dr. Pinero claims that you have presented no cause and asks that the injunction be lifted, and that I order your client to cease from attempts to interfere with what Pinero describes as a simple, lawful business. As you are not addressing a jury, please omit the rhetoric and tell me in plain language why I should not grant his prayer.”
Mr. Weems jerked his chin nervously, making his flabby gray dewlap drag across his high stiff collar, and resumed:
“May it please the honorable court, I represent the public—”
“Just a moment. I thought you were appearing for Amalgamated Life Insurance.”
“I am, your honor, in a formal sense. In a wider sense I represent several other of the major assurance, fiduciary and financial institutions, their stockholders and policy holders, who constitute a majority of the citizenry. In addition we feel that we protect the interests of the entire population, unorganized, inarticulate and otherwise unprotected.”
“I thought that I represented the public,” observed the judge dryly. “I am afraid I must regard you as appearing for your client of record. But continue. What is your thesis?”
The elderly barrister attempted to swallow his Adam’s apple, then began again: “Your honor, we contend that there are two separate reasons why this injunction should be made permanent, and, further, that each reason is sufficient alone.
“In the first place, this person is engaged in the practice of soothsaying, an occupation proscribed both in common law and in statute. He is a common fortuneteller, a vagabond charlatan who preys on the gullibility of the public. He is cleverer than the ordinary gypsy palm reader, astrologer, or table tipper, and to the same extent more dangerous. He makes false claims of modern scientific methods to give a spurious dignity to the thaumaturgy. We have here in court leading representatives of the Academy of Science to give expert witness as to the absurdity of his claims.
“In the second place, even if this person’s claims were true—granting for the sake of argument such an absurdity—” Mr. Weems permitted himself a thin-lipped smile—”we contend that his activities are contrary to the public interest in general, and unlawfully injurious to the interests of my client in particular. We are prepared to produce numerous exhibits with the legal custodians to prove that this person did publish, or cause to have published, utterances urging the public to dispense with the priceless boon of life insurance to the great detriment of their welfare and to the financial damage of my client.”
Pinero arose in his place. “Your honor, may I say a few words?”
“What is it?”
“I believe I can simplify the situation if permitted to make a brief analysis.”
“Your honor,” put in Weems, “this is most irregular.”
“Patience, Mr. Weems. Your interests will be protected. It seems to me that we need more light and less noise in this matter. If Dr. Pinero can shorten the proceedings by speaking at this time, I am inclined to let him. Proceed, Dr. Pinero.”
“Thank you, your honor. Taking the last of Mr. Weems’ points first. I am prepared to stipulate that I published the utterances he speaks of—”
“One moment, doctor. You have chosen to act as your own attorney. Are you sure you are competent to protect your own interests?”
“I am prepared to chance it, your honor. Our friends here can easily prove what I stipulate.”
“Very well. You may proceed.”
“I will stipulate that many persons have canceled life-insurance policies as a result thereof, but I challenge them to show that anyone so doing has suffered any loss or damage therefrom. It is true that the Amalgamated has lost business through my activities, but that is the natural result of my discovery, which has made their policies as obsolete as the bow and arrow. If an injunction is granted on that ground, I shall set up a coal-oil-lamp factory, and then ask for an injunction against the Edison and General Electric companies to forbid them to manufacture incandescent bulbs.
“I will stipulate that I am engaged in the business of making predictions of death, but I deny that I am practicing magic, black, white or rainbow-colored. If to make predictions by methods of scientific accuracy is illegal, then the actuaries of the Amalgamated have been guilty for years, in that they predict the exact percentage that will die each year in any given large group. I predict death retail; the Amalgamated predicts it wholesale. If their actions are legal, how can mine be illegal?
“I admit that it makes a difference whether I can do what I claim, or not; and I will stipulate that the so-called expert witnesses from the Academy of Science will testify that I cannot. But they know nothing of my method and cannot give truly expert testimony on it—”
“Just a moment, doctor. Mr. Weems, is it true that your expert witnesses are not conversant with Dr. Pinero’s theory and methods?”
Mr. Weems looked worried. He drummed on the table top, then answered. “Will the court grant me a few moments’ indulgence?”
“Certainly.”
Mr. Weems held a hurried whispered consultation with his cohorts, then faced the bench. “We have a procedure to suggest, your honor. If Dr. Pinero will take the stand and explain the theory and practice of his alleged method, then these distinguished scientists will be able to advise the court as to the validity of his claims.”
The judge looked inquiringly at Pinero, who responded: “I will not willingly agree to that. Whether my process is true or false, it would be dangerous to let it fall into the hands of fools and quacks”—he waved his hand at the group of professors seated in the front row, paused and smiled maliciously—”as these gentlemen know quite well. Furthermore, it is not necessary to know the process in order to prove that it will work. Is it necessary to understand the complex miracle of biological reproduction in order to observe that a hen lays eggs? Is it necessary for me to re-educate this entire body of self-appointed custodians of wisdom—cure them of their ingrown superstitions—in order to prove that my predictions are correct?
“There are but two ways of forming an opinion in science. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all-important, and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything, and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority.
“It is this point of view—academic minds clinging like oysters to disproved theories—that has blocked every advance of knowledge in history. I am prepared to prove my method by experiment, and, like Galileo in another court, I insist, ‘It still moves!’
“Once before I offered such proof to this same body of self-styled experts, and they rejected it. I renew my offer; let me measure the life length of the members of the Academy of Science. Let them appoint a committee to judge the results. I will seal my findings in two sets of envelopes; on the outside of each envelope in one set will appear the name of a member; on the inside, the date of his death. In the other envelopes I will place names; on the outside I will place dates. Let the committee place the envelopes in a vault, then meet from time to time to open the appropriate envelopes. In such a large body of men some deaths may be expected, if Amalgamated actuaries can be trusted, every week or two. In such a fashion they will accumulate data very rapidly to prove that Pinero is a liar, or no.”
He stopped, and thrust out his chest until it almost caught up with his little round belly. He glared at the sweating savants. “Well?”
The judge raised his eyebrows, and caught Mr. Weems’ eye. “Do you accept?”
“Your honor, I think the proposal highly improper—”
The judge cut him short. “I warn you that I shall rule against you if you do not accept, or propose an equally reasonable method of arriving at the truth.”
Weems opened his mouth, changed his mind, looked up and down the faces of the learned witnesses, and faced the bench. “We accept, your honor.”
“Very well. Arrange the details between you. The temporary injunction is lifted, and Dr. Pinero must not be molested in the pursuit of his business. Decision on the petition for permanent injunction is reserved without prejudice pending the accumulation of evidence. Before we leave this matter I wish to comment on the theory implied by you, Mr. Weems, when you claimed damage to your client. There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.”* * *
Bidwell grunted in annoyance. “Weems, if you can’t think up anything better than that, Amalgamated is going to need a new chief attorney. It’s been ten weeks since you lost the injunction, and that little wart is coining money hand over fist. Meantime, every insurance firm in the country’s going broke. Hoskins, what’s our loss ratio?”
“It’s hard to say, Mr. Bidwell. It gets worse every day. We’ve paid off thirteen big policies this week; all of them taken out since Pinero started operations.”
A spare little man spoke up. “I say, Bidwell, we aren’t accepting any new applicants for United, until we have time to check and be sure that they have not consulted Pinero. Can’t we afford to wait until the scientists show him up?”
Bidwell snorted. “You blasted optimist! They won’t show him up. Aldrich, can’t you face a fact? The fat little pest has something; how, I don’t know. This is a fight to the finish. If we wait, we’re licked.” He threw his cigar into a cuspidor, and bit savagely into a fresh one. “Clear out of here, all of you! I’ll handle this my way. You, too, Aldrich. United may wait, but Amalgamated won’t.”
Weems cleared his throat apprehensively. “Mr. Bidwell, I trust you will consult me before embarking on any major change in policy?”
Bidwell grunted. They filed out. When they were all gone and the door closed, Bidwell snapped the switch of the interoffice announcer. “O.K.; send him in.”
The outer door opened. A slight, dapper figure stood for a moment at the threshold. His small, dark eyes glanced quickly about the room before he entered, then he moved up to Bidwell with a quick, soft tread. He spoke to Bidwell in a flat, emotionless voice. His face remained impassive except for the live, animal eyes. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the proposition?”
“Sit down, and we’ll talk.”* * *
Pinero met the young couple at the door of his inner office.
“Come in, my dears, come in. Sit down. Make yourselves at home. Now tell me, what do you want of Pinero? Surely such young people are not anxious about the final roll call?”
The boy’s pleasant young face showed slight confusion. “Well, you see, Dr. Pinero, I’m Ed Hartley and this is my wife, Betty. We’re going to have . . . that is, Betty is expecting a baby and, well—”
Pinero smiled benignly. “I understand. You want to know how long you will live in order to make the best possible provision for the youngster. Quite wise. Do you both want readings, or just yourself?”
The girl answered, “Both of us, we think.”
Pinero beamed at her. “Quite so. I agree. Your reading presents certain technical difficulties at this time, but I can give you some information now. Now come into my laboratory, my dears, and we’ll commence.”
He rang for their case histories, then showed them into his workshop. “Mrs. Hartley first, please. If you will go behind that screen and remove your shoes and your outer clothing, please.”
He turned away and made some minor adjustments of his apparatus. Ed nodded to his wife, who slipped behind the screen and reappeared almost at once, dressed in a slip. Pinero glanced up.
“This way, my dear. First we must weigh you. There. Now take your place on the stand. This electrode in your mouth. No, Ed, you mustn’t touch her while she is in the circuit. It won’t take a minute. Remain quiet.”
He dove under the machine’s hood and the dials sprang into life. Very shortly he came out, with a perturbed look on his face. “Ed, did you touch her?”
“No, doctor.” Pinero ducked back again and remained a little longer. When he came out this time, he told the girl to get down and dress. He turned to her husband.
“Ed, make yourself ready.”
“What’s Betty’s reading, doctor?”
“There is a little difficulty. I want to test you first.”
When he came out from taking the youth’s reading, his face was more troubled than ever. Ed inquired as to his trouble. Pinero shrugged his shoulders and brought a smile to his lips.
“Nothing to concern you, my boy. A little mechanical misadjustment, I think. But I shan’t be able to give you two your readings today. I shall need to overhaul my machine. Can you come back tomorrow?”
“Why, I think so. Say, I’m sorry about your machine. I hope it isn’t serious.”
“It isn’t, I’m sure. Will you come back into my office and visit for a bit?”
“Thank you, doctor. You are very kind.”
“But, Ed, I’ve got to meet Ellen.”
Pinero turned the full force of his personality on her. “Won’t you grant me a few moments, my dear young lady? I am old, and like the sparkle of young folks’ company. I get very little of it. Please.” He nudged them gently into his office and seated them. Then he ordered lemonade and cookies sent in, offered them cigarettes and lit a cigar.
Forty minutes later Ed listened entranced, while Betty was quite evidently acutely nervous and anxious to leave, as the doctor spun out a story concerning his adventures as a young man in Tierra del Fuego. When the doctor stopped to relight his cigar, she stood up.
“Doctor, we really must leave. Couldn’t we hear the rest tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? There will not be time tomorrow.”
“But you haven’t time today, either. Your secretary has rung five times.”
“Couldn’t you spare me just a few more minutes?”
“I really can’t today, doctor. I have an appointment. There is someone waiting for me.”
“There is no way to induce you?”
“I’m afraid not. Come, Ed.”
After they had gone, the doctor stepped to the window and stared out over the city. Presently he picked out two tiny figures as they left the office building. He watched them hurry to the corner, wait for the lights to change, then start across the street. When they were part way across, there came the scream of a siren. The two little figures hesitated, started back, stopped and turned. Then a car was upon them. As the car slammed to a stop, they showed up from beneath it, no longer two figures, but simply a limp, unorganized heap of clothing.
Presently the doctor turned away from the window. Then he picked up his phone and spoke to his secretary.
“Cancel my appointments for the rest of the day. . . . No. . . . No one. . . . I don’t care; cancel them.”
Then he sat down in his chair. His cigar went out. Long after dark he held it, still unlighted.* * *
Pinero sat down at his dining table and contemplated the gourmet’s luncheon spread before him. He had ordered this meal with particular care, and had come home a little early in order to enjoy it fully.
Somewhat later he let a few drops of Fiori D’Alpini roll down his throat. The heavy, fragrant syrup warmed his mouth and reminded him of the little mountain flowers for which it was named. He sighed. It had been a good meal, an exquisite meal, and had justified the exotic liqueur.
His musing was interrupted by a disturbance at the front door. The voice of his elderly maidservant was raised in remonstrance. A heavy male voice interrupted her. The commotion moved down the hall and the dining-room door was pushed open.
“Madonna mia! Non si puo’ entrare! The master is eating!”
“Never mind, Angela. I have time to see these gentlemen. You may go.”
Pinero faced the surly-faced spokesman of the intruders. “You have business with me; yes?”
“You bet we have. Decent people have had enough of your damned nonsense.”
“And so?”
The caller did not answer at once. A smaller, dapper individual moved out from behind him and faced Pinero.* * *
“We might as well begin.” The chairman of the committee placed a key in the lock box and opened it. “Wenzell, will you help me pick out today’s envelopes?” He was interrupted by a touch on his arm.
“Dr. Baird, you are wanted on the telephone.”
“Very well. Bring the instrument here.”
When it was fetched he placed the receiver to his ear. “Hello. . . . Yes; speaking. . . . What? . . . No, we have heard nothing. . . . Destroyed the machine, you say. . . . Dead! How? . . . No! No statement. None at all. . . . Call me later.”
He slammed the instrument down and pushed it from him.
“What’s up?”
“Who’s dead now?”
Baird held up one hand. “Quiet, gentlemen, please! Pinero was murdered a few moments ago at his home.”
“Murdered!”
“That isn’t all. About the same time vandals broke into his office and smashed his apparatus.”
No one spoke at first. The committee members glanced around at each other. No one seemed anxious to be the first to comment.
Finally one spoke up. “Get it out.”
“Get what out?”
“Pinero’s envelope. It’s in there, too. I’ve seen it.”
Baird located it, and slowly tore it open. He unfolded the single sheet of paper and scanned it.
“Well? Out with it!”
“One thirteen P.M. . . . today.”
They took this in silence.
Their dynamic calm was broken by a member across the table from Baird reaching for the lock box. Baird interposed a hand.
“What do you want?”
“My prediction. It’s in there—we’re all in there.”
“Yes, yes.”
“We’re all in there.”
“Let’s have them.”
Baird placed both hands over the box. He held the eye of the man opposite him, but did not speak. He licked his lips. The corner of his mouth twitched. His hands shook. Still he did not speak. The man opposite relaxed back into his chair.
“You’re right, of course,” he said.
“Bring me that wastebasket.” Baird’s voice was low and strained, but steady.
He accepted it and dumped the litter on the rug. He placed the tin basket on the table before him. He tore half a dozen envelopes across, set a match to them, and dropped them in the basket. Then he started tearing a double handful at a time, and fed the fire steadily. The smoke made him cough, and tears ran out of his smarting eyes. Someone got up and opened a window. When Baird was through, he pushed the basket away from him, looked down and spoke.
“I’m afraid I’ve ruined this table top.”
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
Posts about the Changes in America
America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
Articles & Links
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
DelilahandtheSpaceRigger " is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. OneofhisFutureHistorystories, itoriginallyappearedinBlueBookinDecember 1949 andwasreprintedinhiscollection, TheGreenHillsofEarth (andsubsequentlyThePastThrough Tomorrow). - Wikipedia
Brief Concordance
Fair Employment Commission [mentioned in passing] Bureaucracy that protected workers against discrimination. It prohibited job applications that listed the sex of the applicant.
G. E. Kwiklok Airlock just large enough for a space-suited individual, designed to save time and air.
Delos D. Harriman Business tycoon who inspired and largely funded many space-related endeavors, including the first trip to the moon. Harriman is mentioned indirectly in most of the Future History stories, mostly in businesses and institutions bearing his name. Harriman Enterprises was the contractor that financed Space Station Oneand employed many of the workers on it.
Gloria Brooks McNye, a Communications Engineer, wangles a job as a radio technician and joins the all‐male crew of construction workers building a space station. On her arrival she immediately has a confrontation with the hard‐boiled construction superintendent, who hadn’t realized she was female. He doesn’t want any women “sniffing around my boys” and orders her returned on the next shuttle…
Delilah and the Space-Rigger
SURE, we had trouble building Space Station One—but the trouble was people.
Not that building a station twenty-two thousand three hundred miles out in space is a breeze. It was an engineering feat bigger than the Panama Canal or the Pyramids—or even the Susquehanna Power Pile. But ”Tiny” Larsen built her—and a job Tiny tackles gets built.
I first saw Tiny playing guard on a semi-pro team, working his way through Oppenheimer Tech. He worked summers for me thereafter till he graduated. He stayed in construction and eventually I went to work for him.
Tiny wouldn’t touch a job unless he was satisfied with the engineering. The Station had jobs designed into it that called for six-armed monkeys instead of grown men in space suits. Tiny spotted such boners; not a ton of material went into the sky until the specs and drawings suited him.
But it was people that gave us the headaches. We had a sprinkling of married men, but the rest were wild kids, attracted by high pay and adventure. Some were busted spacemen. Some were specialists, like electricians and instrument men. About half were deep-sea divers, used to working in pressure suits. There were sandhogs and riggers and welders and shipfitters and two circus acrobats.
We fired four of them for being drunk on the job; Tiny had to break one stiff’s arm before he would stay fired. What worried us was where did they get it? Turned out a shipfitter had rigged a heatless still, using the vacuum around us. He was making vodka from potatoes swiped from the commissary. I hated to let him go, but he was too smart.
Since we were falling free in a 24-hour circular orbit, with everything weightless and floating, you’d think that shooting craps was impossible. But a radioman named Peters figured a dodge to substitute steel dice and a magnetic field. He also eliminated the element of chance, so we fired him.
We planned to ship him back in the next supply ship, the R. S. Half Moon. I was in Tiny’s office when she blasted to match our orbit. Tiny swam to the view port. “Send for Peters, Dad,” he said, “and give him the old heave ho, Who’s his relief?”
“Party named G. Brooks McNye,” I told him.
A line came snaking over from the ship. Tiny said, “I don’t believe she’s matched.” He buzzed the radio shack for theship’s motion relative to the Station. The answer didn’t please him and he told them to call the Half Moon.
Tiny waited until the TV screen showed the rocket ship’s C.O. “Good morning, Captain. Why have you placed a line on us?”
“For cargo, naturally. Get your hopheads over here. I want to blast off before we enter the shadow.” The Station spent about an hour and a quarter each day passing through Earth’s shadow; we worked two eleven-hour shifts and skipped the dark period, to avoid rigging lights and heating suits.
Tiny shook his head. “Not until you’ve matched course and
speed with us.”
“I am matched!”
Not to specification, by my instruments.”
“Have a heart, Tiny! I’m short on maneuvering fuel. If I juggle this entire ship to make a minor correction on a few lousy tons of cargo, I’ll be so late I’ll have to put down on a secondary field. I may even have to make a dead-stick landing.” In those days all ships had landing wings.
“Look, Captain,” Tiny said sharply, “the only purpose of your lift was to match orbits for those same few lousy tons. I don’t care if you land in Little America on a pogo stick. The first load here was placed with loving care in the proper orbit and I’m making every other load match. Get that covered wagon into the groove.”
“Very well, Superintendent!” Captain Shields said stiffly.
“Don’t be sore, Don,” Tiny said softly. “By the way, you’ve got a passenger for me?”
“Oh, yes, so I have!” Shields’ face broke out in a grin. “Well, keep him aboard until we unload. Maybe we can beat the shadow yet.”
“Fine, fine! After all, why should I add to your troubles?”
The skipper switched off, leaving my boss looking puzzled.
We didn’t have time to wonder at his words. Shields whipped his ship around on gyros, blasted a second or two, and put her dead in space with us pronto—and used very little fuel, despite his bellyaching. I grabbed every mail we could spare and managed to get the cargo clear before we swung into Earth’s shadow. Weightlessness is an unbelievable advantage in handling freight; we gutted the Half Moon—by hand, mind you—in fifty-four minutes.
The stuff was oxygen tanks, loaded, and aluminum mirrors to shield them, panels of outer skin—sandwich stuff of titanium alloy sheet with foamed glass filling—and cases of jato units to spin the living quarters. Once it was all out and snapped to our cargo line I sent the men back by the same line—I won’t let a man work outside without a line no matter how space happy he figures he is. Then I told Shields to send over the passenger and cast off.
This little guy came out the ship’s air lock, and hooked on to the ship’s line. Handling himself like he was used to space, he set his feet and dived, straight along the stretched line, his snap hook running free. I hurried back and motioned him to follow me. Tiny, the new man, and I reached the air locks together.
Besides the usual cargo lock we had three G. E. Kwikloks.
A Kwiklok is an Iron Maiden without spikes; it fits a man in a suit, leaving just a few pints of air to scavenge, and cycles automatically. A big time saver in changing shifts. I passed through the middlesized one; Tiny, of course, used the big one. Without hesitation the new man pulled himself into the small one.
We went into Tiny’s office. Tiny strapped down, and pushed his helmet back. “Well, McNye,” he said. “Glad to have you with us.”
The new radio tech opened his helmet. I heard a low, pleasant voice answer, “Thank you.”
I stared and didn’t say anything. From where I was I could see that the radio tech was wearing a hair ribbon.
I thought Tiny would explode. He didn’t need to see the hair ribbon; with the helmet up it was clear that the new “man” was as female as Venus de Milo. Tiny sputtered, then he was unstrapped and diving for the view port. “Dad!” he yelled. “Get the radio shack. Stop that ship!”
But the Half Moon was already a ball of fire in the distance, Tiny looked dazed. “Dad,” he said, “who else knows about this?”
“Nobody, so far as I know.”
He thought a bit. “We’ve got to keep her out of sight. That’s it—we keep her locked up and out of sight until the next ship matches in.” He didn’t look at her.
“What in the world are you talking about?” McNye’s voice was higher and no longer pleasant.
Tiny glared. “You, that’s what. What are you—a stowaway?’ “Don’t be silly! I’m G. B. McNye, electronics engineer.
Don’t you have my papers?”
Tiny turned to me. “Dad, this is your fault. How in Chr—pardon me, Miss. How did you let them send you a woman? Didn’t you even read the advance report on her?”
“Me?” I said. “Now see here, you big squarehead! Those forms don’t show sex; the Fair Employment Commission won’t allow it except where it’s pertinent to the job.”
“You’re telling me it’s not pertinent to the job here?”
Not by job classification it ain’t. There’s lots of female radio and radar men, back Earthside.”
“This isn’t Earthside.” He had something. He was thinking of those two-legged wolves swarming over the job outside. And G. B. McNye was pretty. Maybe eight months of no women at all affected my judgment, but she would pass.
“I’ve even heard of female rocket pilots,” I added, for spite. “I don’t care if you’ve heard of female archangels; I’ll have no women here!”
“Just a minute!” If I was riled, she was plain sore. “You’re the construction superintendent, are you not?”
“Yes,” Tiny admitted.
”Very well, then, how do you know what sex I am?”
“Are you trying to deny that you are a woman?”
“Hardly! I’m proud of it. But officially you don’t know what sex G. Brooks McNye is. That’s why I use ‘G’ instead of Gloria. I don’t ask favors.”
Tiny grunted. “You won’t get any. I don’t know how you sneaked in, but get this, McNye, or Gloria, or whatever—you’re fired. You go back on the next ship. Meanwhile we’ll try to keep the men from knowing we’ve got a woman aboard.”
I could see her count ten. “May I speak,” she said finally, “or does your Captain Bligh act extend to that, too?”
“Say your say.”
“I didn’t sneak in. I am on the permanent staff of the Station, Chief Communications Engineer. I took this vacancy myself to get to know the equipment while it was being installed. I’ll live here eventually; I see no reason not to start now.”
Tiny waved it away. “There’ll be men and women both here—some day. Even kids. Right now it’s stag and it’ll stay that way.”
“We’ll see. Anyhow, you can’t fire me; radio personnel don’t work for you.” She had a point; communicators and some other specialists were lent to the contractors, Five Companies, Incorporated, by Harriman Enterprises.
Tiny snorted. “Maybe I can’t fire you; I can send you home. ‘Requisitioned personnel must be satisfactory to the contractor.’—meaning me. Paragraph Seven, clause M; I wrote that clause myself.”
“Then you know that if requisitioned personnel are refused without cause the contractor bears the replacement cost.”
“I’ll risk paying your fare home, but I won’t have you here.”
“You are most unreasonable!”
“Perhaps, but I’ll decide what’s good for the job. I’d rather have a dope peddler than have a woman sniffing around my boys!”
She gasped. Tiny knew he had said too much; he added, “Sorry, Miss. But that’s it. You’ll stay under cover until I can get rid of you.”
Before she could speak I cut in. “Tiny—look behind you!”
Staring in the port was one of the riggers, his eyes bugged out. Three or four more floated up and joined him.
Then Tiny zoomed up to the port and they scattered like minnows. He scared them almost out of their suits; I thought he was going to shove his fists through the quartz.
He came back looking whipped. “Miss,” he said, pointing, “wait in my room.” When she was gone he added, “Dad, what’ll we do?”
I said, “I thought you had made up your mind, Tiny.”
“I have,” he answered peevishly. “Ask the Chief Inspector to come in, will you?”
That showed how far gone he was. The inspection gang belonged to Harriman Enterprises, not to us, and Tiny rated them mere nuisances. Besides, Tiny was an Oppenheimer graduate; Dalrymple was from M.LT.
He came in, brash and cheerful. “Good morning, Superintendent. Morning, Mr. Witherspoon. What can I do for you?”
Glumly, Tiny told the story. Dalrymple looked smug. “She’s right, old man. You can send her back and even specify a male relief. But I can hardly endorse ‘for proper cause’ now, can I?”
“Damnation. Dalrymple, we can’t have a woman around here!”
“A moot point. Not covered by contract, y’know.”
“If your office hadn’t sent us a crooked gambler as her predecessor I wouldn’t be in this jam!”
“There, there! Remember the old blood pressure. Suppose we leave the endorsement open and arbitrate the cost. That’s fair, eh?”
“I suppose so. Thanks.”
“Not at all. But consider this: when you rushed Peters off before interviewing the newcomer, you cut yourself down to one operator. Hammond can’t stand watch twenty-four hours a day.”
“He can sleep in the shack. The alarm will wake him.”
“I can’t accept that. The home office and ships’ frequencies must be guarded at all times. Harriman Enterprises has supplied a qualified operator; I am afraid you must use her for the time being.”
Tiny will always cooperate with the inevitable; he said quietly, “Dad, she’ll take first shift. Better put the married men on that shift.”
Then he called her in. “Go to the radio shack and start makee-learnee, so that Hammond can go off watch soon. Mind what he tells you. He’s a good man.”
“I know,” she said briskly. “I trained him.”
Tiny bit his lip. The C.I. said, ”The Superintendent doesn’t bother with trivia—I’m Robert Dalrymple, Chief Inspector. He probably didn’t introduce his assistant either—Mr. Witherspoon.”
“Call me Dad,” I said.
She smiled and said, “Howdy, Dad.” I felt warm clear through. She went on to Dalrymple, “Odd that we haven’t met before.”
Tiny butted in. “McNye, you’ll sleep in my room—”
She raised her eyebrows; he went on angrily, “Oh, I’ll get my stuff out—at once. And get this: keep the door locked, off shift.”
“You’re darn tootin’ I will!” Tiny blushed.
I was too busy to see much of Miss Gloria. There was cargo to stow, the new tanks to install and shield. That left the most worrisome task of all: putting spin on the living quarters. Even the optimists didn’t expect much interplanetary traffic for some years; nevertheless Harriman Enterprises wanted to get some activities moved in and paying rent against their enormous investment.
I.T.&T. had leased space for a microwave relay station several million a year from television alone. The Weather Bureau was itching to set up its hemispheric integrating station; Palomar Observatory had a concession (Harriman Enterprises donated that space); the Security Council had some hush-hush project; Fermi Physical Labs and Kettering Institute each had space-a dozen tenants wanted to move in now, or sooner, even if we never completed accommodations for tourists and travelers.
There were time bonuses in it for Five Companies, Incorporated—and their help. So we were in a hurry to get spin on the quarters.
People who have never been out have trouble getting through their heads—at least I had—that there is no feeling of weight, no up and down, in a free orbit in space. There’s Earth, round and beautiful, only twenty-odd thousand miles away, close enough to brush your sleeve. You know it’s pulling you towards it. Yet you feel no weight, absolutely none. You float.
Floating is fine for some types of work, but when it’s time to eat, or play cards, or bathe, it’s good to feel weight on your feet. Your dinner stays quiet and you feel more natural.
You’ve seen pictures of the Station—a huge cylinder, like a bass drum, with ships’ nose pockets dimpling its sides. Imagine a snare drum, spinning around inside the bass drum; that’s the living quarters, with centrifugal force pinch-hitting for gravity. We could have spun the whole Station but you can’t berth a ship against a whirling dervish.
So we built a spinning part for creature comfort and an outer, stationary part for docking, tanks, storerooms, and the like. You pass from one to the other at the hub. When Miss Gloria joined us the inner part was closed in and pressurized, but the rest was a skeleton of girders.
Mighty pretty though, a great network of shiny struts and ties against black sky and stars-titanium alloy 1403, light, strong, and non-corrodable. The Station is flimsy compared with a ship, since it doesn’t have to take blastoff stresses. That meant we didn’t dare put on spin by violent means-which is where jato units come in.
“Jato”—Jet Assisted Take-Off—rocket units invented to give airplanes a boost. Now we use them wherever a controlled push is needed, say to get a truck out of the mud on a dam job. We mounted four thousand of them around the frame of the living quarters, each one placed just so. They were wired up and ready to fire when Tiny came to me looking worried. “Dad,” he said, “Let’s drop everything and finish compartment D-113.”
“Okay,” I said. D-113 was in the non-spin part.
“Rig an air lock and stock it with two weeks supplies.”
“That’ll change your mass distribution for spin,” I suggested.
“I’ll refigure it next dark period. Then we’ll shift jatos.”
When Dalrymple heard about it he came charging around. It meant a delay in making rental space available. “What’s the idea?”
Tiny stared at him. They had been cooler than ordinary lately; Dalrymple had been finding excuses to seek out Miss Gloria. He had to pass through Tiny’s office to reach her temporary room, and Tiny had finally told him to get out and stay out. “The idea,” Tiny said slowly, “is to have a pup tent in case the house burns.”
“What do you mean?”
“Suppose we fire up the jatos and the structure cracks? Want to hang around in a space suit until a ship happens by?”
“That’s silly. The stresses have been calculated.”
“That’s what the man said when the bridge fell. We’ll do it my way.”
Dalrymple stormed off.
Tiny’s efforts to keep Gloria fenced up were sort of pitiful. In. the first place, the radio tech’s biggest job was repairing suit
walkie-talkies, done on watch. A rash of such troubles broke out—on her shift. I made some shift transfers and docked a few for costs, too; it’s not proper maintenance when a man deliberately busts his aerial.
There were other symptoms. It became stylish to shave. Men started wearing shirts around quarters and bathing increased to where I thought I would have to rig another water still.
Came the shift when D-113 was ready and the jatos readjusted. I don’t mind saying I was nervous. All hands were ordered out of the quarters and into suits. They perched around the girders and waited.
Men in space suits all look alike; we used numbers and colored armbands. Supervisors had two antennas, one for a gang frequency, one for the supervisors’ circuit. With Tiny and me the second antenna hooked back through the radio shack and to all the gang frequencies-a broadcast.
The supervisors had reported their men clear of the fireworks and 1 was about to give Tiny the word, when this figure came climbing through the girders, inside the danger zone. No safety line. No armband. One antenna.
Miss Gloria, of course. Tiny hauled her out of the blast zone, and anchored her with his own safety line. I heard his voice, harsh in my helmet: “Who do you think you are? A sidewalk superintendent?”
And her voice: “What do you expect me to do? Go park on a star?”
“I told you to stay away from the job. If you can’t obey orders, I’ll lock you up.”
I reached him, switched off my radio and touched helmets. “Boss! Boss!” I said. “You’re broadcasting!”
“Oh—” he says, switches off, and touches helmets with her. We could still hear her; she didn’t switch off. “Why, you big baboon, I came outside because you sent a search party to clear everybody out,” and, “How would I know about a safety line rule? You’ve kept me penned up.” And finally. “We’ll see!”
I dragged him away and he told the boss electrician to go ahead. Then we forgot the row for we were looking at the prettiest fireworks ever seen, a giant St. Catherine’s wheel, rockets blasting all over it. Utterly soundless, out there in space—but beautiful beyond compare.
The blasts died away and there was the living quarters, spinning true as a flywheel—Tiny and I both let out sighs of relief. We all went back inside then to see what weight tasted like.
It tasted funny. I went through the shaft and started down the ladders, feeling myself gain weight as I neared the rim. I felt seasick, like the first time I experienced no weight. I could hardly walk and my calves cramped.
We inspected throughout, then went to the office and sat down. It felt good, just right for comfort, one-third gravity at the rim. Tiny rubbed his chair arms and grinned, “Beats being penned up in D-l13.”
“Speaking of being penned up,” Miss Gloria said, walking
in, “may I have a word with you, Mr. Larsen?”
“Uh? Why, certainly. Matter of fact, I wanted to see you. I owe you an apology, Miss McNye. I was—”
“Forget it,” she cut in. “You were on edge. But I want to know this: how long are you going to keep up this nonsense of trying to chaperone me?”
He studied her. “Not long. Just till your relief arrives.” “So? Who is the shop steward around here?”
“A shipfitter named McAndrews. But you can’t use him. You’re a staff member.”
“Not in the job I’m filling. I am going to talk to him. You’re discriminating against me, and in my off time at that.”
“Perhaps, but you will find I have the authority. Legally I’m a ship’s captain, while on this job. A captain in space has wide discriminatory powers.”
“Then you should use them with discrimination!”
He grinned. “Isn’t that what you just said I was doing?”
We didn’t hear from the shop steward, but Miss Gloria started doing as she pleased. She showed up at the movies, next off shift, with Dalrymple. Tiny left in the middle-good show, too; Lysistrata Goes to Town, relayed up from New York.
As she was coming back alone he stopped her, having seen to it that I was present. “Umm-Miss McNye . . .”
“Yes?”
“I think you should know, uh, well . . . Chief Inspector
Dalrymple is a married man.”
“Are you suggesting that my conduct has been improper?”
“No but—”
“Then mind your own business!” Before he could answer she added, “It might interest you that he told me about your four children.”
Tiny sputtered. “Why . . . why, I’m not even married!”
“So? That makes it worse, doesn’t it?” She swept out.
Tiny quit trying to keep her in her room, but told her to notify him whenever she left it. It kept him busy riding herd on her. I refrained from suggesting that he get Dalrymple to spell him.
But I was surprised when he told me to put through the order
dismissing her. I had been pretty sure he was going to drop it.
“What’s the charge?” I asked. “Insubordination!”
I kept mum. He said, “Well, she won’t take orders.”
“She does her work okay. You give her orders you wouldn’t give to one of the men—and that a man wouldn’t take.”
”You disagree with my orders?”
“That’s not the point. You can’t prove the charge, Tiny.”
“Well, charge her with being female! I can prove that.”
I didn’t say anything. “Dad,” he added wheedlingly, “you know how to write it. ‘No personal animus against Miss McNye, but it is felt that as a matter of policy, and so forth and so on.'”
I wrote it and gave it to Hammond privately. Radio techs are sworn to secrecy but it didn’t surprise me when I was stopped by O’Connor, one of our best metalsmiths. “Look, Dad, is it true that the Old Manis getting rid of Brooksie?”
“Brooksie?”
“Brooksie McNye—says to call her Brooks. Is it true?”
I admitted it, then went on, wondering if I should have lied.
It takes four hours, about, for a ship to lift from Earth. The shift before the Pole Star was due, with Miss Gloria’s relief, thee timekeeper brought me two separation slips. Two men were nothing; we averaged more each ship. An hour later he reached me by supervisors’ circuit, and asked me to come to the time office. I was out on the rim, inspecting a weld job; I said no. “Please, Mr. Witherspoon,” he begged, “you’ve got to.” When one of the boys doesn’t call me ‘Dad,’ it means something. I went.
There was a queue like mail call outside his door; I went in and he shut the door on them. He handed me a double handful of separation slips. “What in the great depths of night is this?” I asked.
”There’s dozens more I ain’t had time to write up yet.”
None of the slips had any reason given-just “own choice.”
“Look, Jimmie—what goes on here?”
“Can’t you dope it out, Dad? Shucks, I’m turning in one, too.”
I told him my guess and he admitted it. So I took the slips, called Tiny and told him for the love of Heaven to come to his office.
Tiny chewed his lip considerable. ”But, Dad, they can’t strike. It’s a non-strike contract with bonds from every union concerned.”
“It’s no strike, Tiny. You can’t stop a man from quitting.”
”They’ll pay their own fares back, so help me!”
“Guess again. Most of ’em have worked long enough for the free ride.”
“We’ll have to hire others quick, or we’ll miss our date.”
“Worse than that, Tiny—we won’t finish. By next dark period you won’t even have a maintenance crew.”
“I’ve never had a gang of men quit me. I’ll talk to them.”
“No good, Tiny. You’re up against something too strong for you.”
“You’re against me, Dad?”
“I’m never against you, Tiny.”
He said, “Dad, you think I’m pig-headed, but I’m right. You can’t have one woman among several hundred men. It drives ’em nutty.”
I didn’t say it affected him the same way; I said, “Is that bad?”
“Of course. I can’t let the job be ruined to humor one woman.”
“Tiny, have you looked at the progress charts lately?” “I’ve hardly had time to—what about them?”
I knew why he hadn’t had time. “You’ll have trouble proving Miss Gloria interfered with the job. We’re ahead of schedule.”
“We are?”
While he was studying the charts I put an arm around his shoulder. “Look, son,” I said, “sex has been around our planet a long time. Earthside, they never get away from it, yet some pretty big jobs get built anyhow. Maybe we’ll just have to learn to live with it here, too. Matter of fact, you had the answer a minute ago.”
“I did? I sure didn’t know it.”
“You said, ‘You can’t have one woman among several hundred men.’ Get me?”
“Huh? No, I don’t. Wait a minute! Maybe I do.”
“Ever tried jiu jitsu? Sometimes you win by relaxing.” “Yes. Yes!”
“When you can’t beat ’em, you jine ’em.”
He buzzed the radio shack. “Have Hammond relieve you, McNye, and come to my office.”
He did it handsomely, stood up and made a speech-he’d been wrong, taken him a long time to see it, hoped there were no hard feelings, etc. He was instructing the home office to see how many jobs could be filled at once with female help. “Don’t forget married couples,” I put in mildly, “and better ask for some older women, too.”
“I’ll do that,” Tiny agreed. “Have I missed anything, Dad?”
“Guess not. We’ll have to rig quarters, but there’s time.” “Okay. I’m telling them to hold the Pole Star, Gloria, so they can send us a few this trip.”
“That’s fine!” She looked really happy.
He chewed his lip. “I’ve a feeling I’ve missed something.
Hmm—I’ve got it. Dad, tell them to send up a chaplain for the Station, as soon as possible. Under the new policy we may need one anytime.” I thought so, too.
Other available copies
Other copies of this work can be found on-line. They have various formats, and various issues of one type or the other.
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
I first read this story when I was in Junior High School back in the 1970’s. The school library had a chrome-plated wire-frame arrangement where paper-books could be displayed. There were numerous Robert Heinlein books there, as well as collections of short stories, and works by Fredrick Pohl, and Arthur C. Clark. My favorites, give my age, were the youth-directed simplistic narratives generated by Robert Heinlein.
Book cover from the Science fiction story by Robert Heinlein.
This is a nice little story, and it remains an enjoyable read. Heinlein introduces the reader to the idea that science fiction is not a world of B-grade monsters and flying-saucers, but rather a normal day-to-day life that can and (perhaps) will, take place in exotic locations.
All during the 1950’s and the 1960’s, popular media expounded upon the ideas of “space monsters” and horrible creatures that lived in the depths of space. As a child during that time, we would watch “Space Cadet” and “Fireball XL-5” and imagine what it would be like to battle these hideous creatures.
It was shows like “Space Cadet” that inspired me to study Aerospace Engineering, and desire to fly planes.
The Menace from Earth
by Robert Heinlein
My name is Holly Jones and I’m fifteen. I’m very intelligent but it doesn’t show, because I look like an underdone angel. Insipid.
I was born right here in Luna City, which seems to surprise Earthside types. Actually, I’m third generation; my grandparents pioneered in Site One, where the Memorial is. I live with my parents in Artemis Apartments, the new co-op in Pressure Five, eight hundred feet down near City Hall. But I’m not there much; I’m too busy.
Mornings I attend Tech High and afternoons I study or go flying with Jeff Hardesty—he’s my partner—or whenever a tourist ship is in I guide groundhogs. This day the Gripsholmgrounded at noon so I went straight from school to American Express.
The first gaggle of tourists was trickling in from Quarantine but I didn’t push forward as Mr. Dorcas, the manager, knows I’m the best. Guiding is just temporary (I’m really a spaceship designer), but if you’re doing a job you ought to do it well.
Mr. Dorcas spotted me. “Holly! Here, please. Miss Brentwood, Holly Jones will be your guide.”
“‘Holly,'” she repeated. “What a quaint name. Are you really a guide, dear?”
I’m tolerant of groundhogs—some of my best friends are from Earth. As Daddy says, being born on Luna is luck, not judgment, and most people Earthside are stuck there. After all, Jesus and Guatama Buddha and Dr. Einstein were all groundhogs.
But they can be irritating. If high school kids weren’t guides, whom could they hire? “My license says so,” I said briskly and looked her over the way she was looking me over.
Her face was sort of familiar and I thought perhaps I had seen her picture in those society things you see in Earthside magazines—one of the rich playgirls we get too many of. She was almost loathsomely lovely . . . nylon skin, soft, wavy, silver-blond hair, basic specs about 35-24-34 and enough this and that to make me feel like a matchstick drawing, a low, intimate voice and everything necessary to make plainer females think about pacts with the Devil. But I did not feel apprehensive; she was a groundhog and groundhogs don’t count.
“All city guides are girls,” Mr. Dorcas explained. “Holly is very competent.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” she answered quickly and went into tourist routine number one: surprise that a guide was needed just to find her hotel, amazement at no taxicabs, same for no porters, and raised eyebrows at the prospect of two girls walking alone through “an underground city.”
Mr. Dorcas was patient, ending with: “Miss Brentwood, Luna City is the only metropolis in the Solar System where a woman is really safe—no dark alleys, no deserted neighborhoods, no criminal element.”
I didn’t listen; I just held out my tariff card for Mr. Dorcas to stamp and picked up her bags. Guides shouldn’t carry bags and most tourists are delighted to experience the fact that their thirty-pound allowance weighs only five pounds. But I wanted to get her moving.
We were in the tunnel outside and me with a foot on the slidebelt when she stopped. “I forgot! I want a city map.”
“None available.”
“Really?”
“There’s only one. That’s why you need a guide.”
“But why don’t they supply them? Or would that throw you guides out of work?”
See? “You think guiding is makework? Miss Brentwood, labor is so scarce they’d hire monkeys if they could.”
“Then why not print maps?”
“Because Luna City isn’t flat like—” I almost said, “—groundhog cities,” but I caught myself.
“—like Earthside cities,” I went on. “All you saw from space was the meteor shield. Underneath it spreads out and goes down for miles in a dozen pressure zones.”
“Yes, I know, but why not a map for each level?”
Groundhogs always say, “Yes, I know, but—”
“I can show you the one city map. It’s a stereo tank twenty feet high and even so all you see clearly are big things like the Hall of the Mountain King and hydroponics farms and the Bats’ Cave.”
“‘The Bat’s Cave,'” she repeated. “That’s where they fly, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s where we fly.”
“Oh, I want to see it!”
“OK. It first . . . or the city map?”
She decided to go to her hotel first. The regular route to the Zurich is to slide up and west through Gray’s Tunnel past the Martian Embassy, get off at the Mormon Temple, and take a pressure lock down to Diana Boulevard. But I know all the shortcuts; we got off at Macy-Gimbel Upper to go down their personnel hoist. I thought she would enjoy it.
But when I told her to grab a hand grip as it dropped past her, she peered down the shaft and edged back. “You’re joking.”
I was about to take her back the regular way when a neighbor of ours came down the hoist. I said, “Hello, Mrs. Greenberg,” and she called back, “Hi, Holly. How are your folks?”
Susie Greenberg is more than plump. She was hanging by one hand with young David tucked in her other arm and holding the Daily Lunatic, reading as she dropped. Miss Brentwood stared, bit her lip, and said, “How do I do it?”
I said, “Oh, use both hands; I’ll take the bags.” I tied the handles together with my hanky and went first.
She was shaking when we got to the bottom. “Goodness, Holly, how do you stand it? Don’t you get homesick?”
Tourist question number six . . . I said, “I’ve been to Earth,” and let it drop. Two years ago Mother made me visit my aunt in Omaha and I was miserable—hot and cold and dirty and beset by creepy-crawlies. I weighed a ton and I ached and my aunt was always chivvying me to go outdoors and exercise when all I wanted was to crawl into a tub and be quietly wretched. And I had hay fever. Probably you’ve never heard of hay fever—you don’t die but you wish you could.
I was supposed to go to a girls’ boarding school but I phoned Daddy and told him I was desperate and he let me come home. What groundhogs can’t understand is that they live in savagery. But groundhogs are groundhogs and loonies are loonies and never the twain shall meet.
Like all the best hotels the Zurich is in Pressure One on the west side so that it can have a view of Earth. I helped Miss Brentwood register with the roboclerk and found her room; it had its own port. She went straight to it, began staring at Earth and going ooh! and ahh!
I glanced past her and saw that it was a few minutes past thirteen; sunset sliced straight down the tip of India—early enough to snag another client. “Will that be all, Miss Brentwood?”
Instead of answering she said in an awed voice, “Holly, isn’t that the most beautiful sight you ever saw?”
“It’s nice,” I agreed. The view on that side is monotonous except for Earth hanging in the sky—but Earth is what tourists always look at even though they’ve just left it. Still, Earth is pretty. The changing weather is interesting if you don’t have to be in it. Did you ever endure a summer in Omaha?
“It’s gorgeous,” she whispered.
“Sure,” I agreed. “Do you want to go somewhere? Or will you sign my card?”
“What? Excuse me, I was daydreaming. No, not right now—yes, I do! Holly, I want to go out there! I must! Is there time? How much longer will it be light?”
“Huh? It’s two days to sunset.”
She looked startled. “How quaint. Holly, can you get us space suits? I’ve got to go outside.”
I didn’t wince—I’m used to tourist talk. I suppose a pressure suit looked like a space suit to them. I simply said, “We girls aren’t licensed outside. But I can phone a friend.”
Jeff Hardesty is my partner in spaceship designing, so I throw business his way. Jeff is eighteen and already in Goddard Institute, but I’m pushing hard to catch up so that we can set up offices for our firm: “Jones & Hardesty, Spaceship Engineers.” I’m very bright in mathematics, which is everything in space engineering, so I’ll get my degree pretty fast. Meanwhile we design ships anyhow.
I didn’t tell Miss Brentwood this, as tourists think a girl my age can’t possibly be a spaceship designer.
Jeff has arranged his classes to let him guide on Tuesdays and Thursdays; he waits at West City Lock and studies between clients. I reached him on the lockmaster’s phone. Jeff grinned and said, “Hi, Scale Model.”
“Hi, Penalty Weight. Free to take a client?”
“Well, I was supposed to guide a family party, but they’re late.”
“Cancel them. Miss Brentwood . . . step into pickup, please. This is Mr. Hardesty.”
Jeff’s eyes widened and I felt uneasy. But it did not occur to me that Jeff could be attracted by a groundhog . . . even though it is conceded that men are robot slaves of their body chemistry in such matters. I knew she was exceptionally decorative, but it was unthinkable that Jeff could be captivated by any groundhog, no matter how well designed. They don’t speak our language!
I am not romantic about Jeff; we are simply partners. But anything that affects Jones & Hardesty affects me.
When we joined him at West Lock he almost stepped on his tongue in a disgusting display of adolescent rut. I was ashamed of him and, for the first time, apprehensive. Why are males so childish?
Miss Brentwood didn’t seem to mind his behavior. Jeff is a big hulk; suited up for outside he looks like a Frost giant from Das Rheingold; she smiled up at him and thanked him for changing his schedule. He looked even sillier and told her it was a pleasure.
I keep my pressure suit at West Lock so that when I switch a client to Jeff he can invite me to come along for the walk. This time he hardly spoke to me after that platinum menace was in sight. But I helped her pick out a suit and took her into the dressing room and fitted it. Those rental suits take careful adjusting or they will pinch you in tender places once out in vacuum . . . besides those things about them that one girl ought to explain to another.
When I came out with her, not wearing my own, Jeff didn’t even ask why I hadn’t suited up—he took her arm and started toward the lock. I had to butt in to get her to sign my tariff card.
The days that followed were the longest in my life. I saw Jeff only once . . . on the slidebelt in Diana boulevard, going the other way. She was with him.
Though I saw him but once, I knew what was going on. He was cutting classes and three nights running he took her to the Earthview Room of the Duncan Hines. None of my business!—I hope she had more luck teaching him to dance than I had. Jeff is a free citizen and if he wanted to make an utter fool of himself neglecting school and losing sleep over an upholstered groundhog that was his business.
But he should not have neglected the firm’s business!
Jones & Hardesty had a tremendous backlog because we were designing Starship Prometheus. This project we had been slaving over for a year, flying not more than twice a week in order to devote time to it—and that’s a sacrifice.
Of course you can’t build a starship today, because of the power plant. But Daddy thinks that there will soon be a technological break-through and mass-conversion power plants will be built—which means starships. Daddy ought to know—he’s Luna Chief Engineer for Space Lanes and Fermi Lecturer at Goddard Institute. So Jeff and I are designing a self-supporting interstellar ship on that assumption: quarters, auxiliaries, surgery, labs—everything.
Daddy thinks it’s just practice but Mother knows better—Mother is a mathematical chemist for General Synthetics of Luna and is nearly as smart as I am. She realizes that Jones & Hardesty plans to be ready with a finished proposal while other designers are still floundering.
Which was why I was furious with Jeff for wasting time over this creature. We had been working every possible chance. Jeff would show up after dinner, we would finish our homework, then get down to real work, the Prometheus . . . checking each other’s computations, fighting bitterly over details, and having a wonderful time. But the very day I introduced him to Ariel Brentwood, he failed to appear. I had finished my lessons and was wondering whether to start or wait for him—we were making a radical change in power plant shielding—when his mother phoned me. “Jeff asked me to call you, dear. He’s having dinner with a tourist client and can’t come over.”
Mrs. Hardesty was watching me so I looked puzzled and said, “Jeff thought I was expecting him? He has his dates mixed.” I don’t think she believed me; she agreed too quickly.
All that week I was slowly convinced against my will that Jones & Hardesty was being liquidated. Jeff didn’t break any more dates—how can you break a date that hasn’t been made?—but we always went flying Thursday afternoons unless one of us was guiding. He didn’t call. Oh, I know where he was; he took her iceskating in Fingal’s Cave.
I stayed home and worked on the Prometheus, recalculating masses and moment arms for hydroponics and stores on the basis of the shielding change. But I made mistakes and twice I had to look up logarithms instead of remembering . . . I was so used to wrangling with Jeff over everything that I just couldn’t function.
Presently I looked at the name plate of the sheet I was revising. “Jones & Hardesty” it read, like all the rest. I said to myself, “Holly Jones, quit bluffing; this may be The End. You knew that someday Jeff would fall for somebody.”
“Of course . . . but not a groundhog.”
“But he did. What kind of an engineer are you if you can’t face facts? She’s beautiful and rich—she’ll get her father to give him a job Earthside. You hear me? Earthside! So you look for another partner . . . or go into business on your own.”
I erased “Jones & Hardesty” and lettered “Jones & Company” and stared at it. Then I started to erase that, too—but it smeared; I had dripped a tear on it. Which was ridiculous!
The following Tuesday both Daddy and Mother were home for lunch which was unusual as Daddy lunches at the spaceport. Now Daddy can’t even see you unless you’re a spaceship but that day he picked to notice that I had dialed only a salad and hadn’t finished it. “That plate is about eight hundred calories short,” he said, peering at it. “You can’t boost without fuel—aren’t you well?”
“Quite well, thank you,” I answered with dignity.
“Mmm . . . now that I think back, you’ve been moping for several days. Maybe you need a checkup.” He looked at Mother.
“I do not either need a checkup!” I had not been moping—doesn’t a woman have a right not to chatter?
But I hate to have doctors poking at me so I added, “It happens I’m eating lightly because I’m going flying this afternoon. But if you insist, I’ll order pot roast and potatoes and sleep instead!”
“Easy, punkin’,” he answered gently. “I didn’t mean to intrude. Get yourself a snack when you’re through . . . and say hello to Jeff for me.”
I simply answered, “OK,” and asked to be excused; I was humiliated by the assumption that I couldn’t fly without Mr. Jefferson Hardesty but did not wish to discuss it.
Daddy called after me, “Don’t be late for dinner,” and Mother said, “Now, Jacob—” and to me, “Fly until you’re tired, dear; you haven’t been getting much exercise. I’ll leave your dinner in the warmer. Anything you’d like?”
“No, whatever you dial for yourself.” I just wasn’t interested in food, which isn’t like me. As I headed for Bats’ Cave I wondered if I had caught something. But my cheeks didn’t feel warm and my stomach wasn’t upset even if I wasn’t hungry.
Then I had a horrible thought. Could it be that I was jealous? Me?
It was unthinkable. I am not romantic; I am a career woman. Jeff had been my partner and pal, and under my guidance he could have become a great spaceship designer, but our relationship was straightforward . . . a mutual respect for each other’s abilities, with never any of that lovey-dovey stuff. A career woman can’t afford such things—why look at all the professional time Mother had lost over having me!
No, I couldn’t be jealous; I was simply worried sick because my partner had become involved with a groundhog. Jeff isn’t bright about women and, besides, he’s never been to Earth and has illusions about it. If she lured him Earthside, Jones & Hardesty was finished.
And somehow “Jones & Company” wasn’t a substitute: the Prometheus might never be built.
I was at Bats’ Cave when I reached this dismal conclusion. I didn’t feel like flying but I went to the locker room and got my wings anyhow.
Most of the stuff written about Bats’ Cave gives a wrong impression. It’s the air storage tank for the city, just like all the colonies have—the place where the scavenger pumps, deep down, deliver the air until it’s needed. We just happen to be lucky enough to have one big enough to fly in. But it never was built, or anything like that; it’s just a big volcanic bubble, two miles across, and if it had broken through, way back when, it would have been a crater.
Tourists sometimes pity us loonies because we have no chance to swim. Well, I tried it in Omaha and got water up my nose and scared myself silly. Water is for drinking, not playing in; I’ll take flying. I’ve heard groundhogs say, oh yes, they had “flown” many times. But that’s not flying. I did what they talk about, between White Sands and Omaha. I felt awful and got sick. Those things aren’t safe.
I left my shoes and skirt in the locker room and slipped my tail surfaces on my feet, then zipped into my wings and got someone to tighten the shoulder straps. My wings aren’t ready-made condors; they are Storer-Gulls, custom-made for my weight distribution and dimensions. I’ve cost Daddy a pretty penny in wings, outgrowing them so often, but these latest I bought myself with guide fees.
They’re lovely!—titanalloy struts as light and strong as bird bones, tension-compensated wrist-pinion and shoulder joints, natural action in the alula slots, and automatic flap action in stalling. The wing skeleton is dressed in styrene feather-foils with individual quilling of scapulars and primaries. They almost fly themselves.
I folded my wings and went into the lock. While it was cycling I opened my left wing and thumbed the alula control—I had noticed a tendency to sideslip the last time I was airborne. But the alula opened properly and I decided I must have been overcontrolling, easy to do with Storer-Gulls; they’re extremely maneuverable. Then the door showed green and I folded the wing and hurried out, while glancing at the barometer. Seventeen pounds—two more than Earth sea-level and nearly twice what we use in the city; even an ostrich could fly in that. I perked up and felt sorry for all groundhogs, tied down by six times proper weight, who never, never, never could fly.
Not even I could, on Earth. My wing loading is less than a pound per square foot, as wings and all I weigh less than twenty pounds. Earthside that would be over a hundred pounds and I could flap forever and never get off the ground.
I felt so good that I forgot about Jeff and his weakness. I spread my wings, ran a few steps, warped for lift and grabbed air—lifted my feet and was airborne.
I sculled gently and let myself glide toward the air intake at the middle of the floor—the Baby’s Ladder, we call it, because you can ride the updraft clear to the roof, half a mile above, and never move a wing. When I felt it I leaned right, spoiling with right primaries, corrected, and settled in a counterclockwise soaring glide and let it carry me toward the roof.
A couple of hundred feet up, I looked around. The cave was almost empty, not more than two hundred in the air and half that number perched or on the ground—room enough for didoes. So as soon as I was up five hundred feet I leaned out of the updraft and began to beat. Gliding is no effort but flying is as hard work as you care to make it. In gliding I support a mere ten pounds on each arm—shucks, on Earth you work harder than that lying in bed. The lift that keeps you in the air doesn’t take any work; you get it free from the shape of your wings just as long as there is air pouring past them.
Even without an updraft all a level glide takes is gentle sculling with your finger tips to maintain air speed; a feeble old lady could do it. The lift comes from differential air pressures but you don’t have to understand it; you just scull a little and the air supports you, as if you were lying in an utterly perfect bed. Sculling keeps you moving forward just like sculling a rowboat . . . or so I’m told; I’ve never been in a rowboat. I had a chance to in Nebraska but I’m not that foolhardy.
But when you’re really flying, you scull with forearms as well as hands and add power with your shoulder muscles. Instead of only the outer quills of your primaries changing pitch (as in gliding), now your primaries and secondaries clear back to the joint warp sharply on each downbeat and recovery; they no longer lift, they force you forward—while your weight is carried by your scapulars, up under your armpits.
So you fly faster, or climb, or both, through controlling the angle of attack with your feet—with the tail surfaces you wear on your feet, I mean.
Oh dear, this sounds complicated and isn’t—you just do it. You fly exactly as a bird flies. Baby birds can learn it and they aren’t very bright. Anyhow, it’s easy as breathing after you learn . . . and more fun than you can imagine!
I climbed to the roof with powerful beats, increasing my angle of attack and slotting my alulae for lift without burble—climbing at an angle that would stall most fliers. I’m little but it’s all muscle and I’ve been flying since I was six. Once up there I glided and looked around. Down at the floor near the south wall tourists were trying glide wings—if you call those things “wings.” Along the west wall the visitors’ gallery was loaded with goggling tourists. I wondered if Jeff and his Circe character were there and decided to go down and find out.
So I went into a steep dive and swooped toward the gallery, leveled off and flew very fast along it. I didn’t spot Jeff and his groundhoggess but I wasn’t watching where I was going and over took another flier, almost collided. I glimpsed him just in time to stall and drop under, and fell fifty feet before I got control. Neither of us was in danger as the gallery is two hundred feet up, but I looked silly and it was my own fault; I had violated a safety rule.
There aren’t many rules but they are necessary; the first is that orange wings always have the right of way—they’re beginners. This flier did not have orange wings but I was overtaking. The flier underneath—or being overtaken—or nearer the wall—or turning counterclockwise, in that order, has the right of way.
I felt foolish and wondered who had seen me, so I went all the way back up, made sure I had clear air, then stooped like a hawk toward the gallery, spilling wings, lifting tail, and letting myself fall like a rock.
I completed my stoop in front of the gallery, lowering and spreading my tail so hard I could feel leg muscles knot and grabbing air with both wings, alulae slotted. I pulled level in an extremely fast glide along the gallery. I could see their eyes pop and thought smugly, “There! That’ll show ’em!”
When darn if somebody didn’t stoop on me! The blast from a flier braking right over me almost knocked me out of control. I grabbed air and stopped a sideslip, used some shipyard words and looked around to see who had blitzed me. I knew the black-and-gold wing pattern—Mary Muhlenburg, my best girl friend. She swung toward me, pivoting on a wing tip. “Hi, Holly! Scared you, didn’t I?”
“You did not! You better be careful; the flightmaster’ll ground you for a month!”
“Slim chance! He’s down for coffee.”
I flew away, still annoyed, and started to climb. Mary called after me, but I ignored her, thinking, “Mary my girl, I’m going to get over you and fly you right out of the air.”
This was a foolish thought as Mary flies every day and has shoulders and pectoral muscles like Mrs. Hercules. By the time she caught up with me I had cooled off and we flew side by side, still climbing. “Perch?” she called out.
“Perch,” I agreed. Mary has lovely gossip and I could use a breather. We turned toward our usual perch, a ceiling brace for flood lamps—it isn’t supposed to be a perch but the flightmaster hardly ever comes up there.
Mary flew in ahead of me, braked and stalled dead to a perfect landing. I skidded a little but Mary stuck out a wing and steadied me. It isn’t easy to come into a perch, especially when you have to approach level. Two years ago a boy who had just graduated from orange wings tried it . . . knocked off his left alula and primaries on a strut—went fluttering and spinning down two thousand feet and crashed. He could have saved himself—you can come in safely with a badly damaged wing if you spill air with the other and accept the steeper glide, then stall as you land. But this poor kid didn’t know how; he broke his neck, dead as Icarus. I haven’t used that perch since.
We folded our wings and Mary sidled over. “Jeff is looking for you,” she said with a sly grin.
My insides jumped but I answered coolly, “So? I didn’t know he was here.”
“Sure. Down there,” she added, pointing with her left wing. “Spot him?”
Jeff wears striped red and silver, but she was pointing at the tourist glide slope, a mile away. “No.”
“He’s there all right.” She looked at me sidewise. “But I wouldn’t look him up if I were you.”
“Why not? Or for that matter, why should I?” Mary can be exasperating.
“Huh? You always run when he whistles. But he has that Earthside siren in tow again today; you might find it embarrassing.”
“Mary, whatever are you talking about?”
“Huh? Don’t kid me, Holly Jones; you know what I mean.”
“I’m sure I don’t,” I answered with cold dignity.
“Humph! Then you’re the only person in Luna City who doesn’t. Everybody knows you’re crazy about Jeff; everybody knows she’s cut you out . . . and that you are simply simmering with jealousy.”
Mary is my dearest friend but someday I’m going to skin her for a rug. “Mary, that’s preposterously ridiculous! How can you even think such a thing?”
“Look, darling, you don’t have to pretend. I’m for you.” She patted my shoulders with her secondaries.
So I pushed her over backwards. She fell a hundred feet, straightened out, circled and climbed, and came in beside me, still grinning. It gave me time to decide what to say.
“Mary Muhlenburg, in the first place I am not crazy about anyone, least of all Jeff Hardesty. He and I are simply friends. So it’s utterly nonsensical to talk about me being ‘jealous.’ In the second place Miss Brentwood is a lady and doesn’t go around ‘cutting out’ anyone, least of all me. In the third place she is simply a tourist Jeff is guiding—business, nothing more.”
“Sure, sure,” Mary agreed placidly. “I was wrong. Still—” She shrugged her wings and shut up.
“‘Still’ what? Mary, don’t be mealy-mouthed.”
“Mmm . . . I was wondering how you knew I was talking about Ariel Brentwood—since there isn’t anything to it.”
“Why, you mentioned her name.”
“I did not.”
I thought frantically. “Uh, maybe not. But it’s perfectly simple. Miss Brentwood is a client I turned over to Jeff myself, so I assumed that she must be the tourist you meant.”
“So? I don’t recall even saying she was a tourist. But since she is just a tourist you two are splitting, why aren’t you doing the inside guiding while Jeff sticks to outside work? I thought you guides had an agreement?”
“Huh? If he has been guiding her inside the city, I’m not aware of it—”
“You’re the only one who isn’t.”
“—and I’m not interested; that’s up to the grievance committee. But Jeff wouldn’t take a fee for inside guiding in any case.”
“Oh, sure!—not one he could bank. Well, Holly, seeing I was wrong, why don’t you give him a hand with her? She wants to learn to glide.”
Butting in on that pair was farthest from my mind. “If Mr. Hardesty wants my help, he will ask me. In the meantime I shall mind my own business . . . a practice I recommend to you!”
“Relax, shipmate,” she answered, unruffled. “I was doing you a favor.”
“Thank you, I don’t need one.”
“So I’ll be on my way—got to practice for the gymkhana.” She leaned forward and dropped off. But she didn’t practice aerobatics; she dived straight for the tourist slope.
I watched her out of sight, then snaked my left hand out the hand slit and got at my hanky—awkward when you are wearing wings but the floodlights had made my eyes water. I wiped them and blew my nose and put my hanky away and wiggled my hand back into place, then checked everything, thumbs, toes, and fingers, preparatory to dropping off.
But I didn’t. I just sat there, wings drooping, and thought. I had to admit that Mary was partly right; Jeff’s head was turned completely . . . over a groundhog. So sooner or later he would go Earthside and Jones & Hardesty was finished.
Then I reminded myself that I had been planning to be a spaceship designer like Daddy long before Jeff and I teamed up. I wasn’t dependent on anyone; I could stand alone, like Joan of Arc, or Lise Meitner.
I felt better . . . a cold, stern pride, like Lucifer in Paradise Lost.
I recognized the red and silver of Jeff’s wings while he was far off and I thought about slipping quietly away. But Jeff can overtake me if he tries, so I decided, “Holly, don’t be a fool! You have no reason to run . . . just be coolly polite.”
He landed by me but didn’t sidle up. “Hi, Decimal Point.”
“Hi, Zero. Uh, stolen much lately?”
“Just the City Bank but they made me put it back.” He frowned and added, “Holly, are you mad at me?”
“Why, Jeff, whatever gave you such a silly notion?”
“Uh . . . something Mary the Mouth said.”
“Her? Don’t pay any attention to what she says. Half of it’s always wrong and she doesn’t mean the rest.”
“Yeah, a short circuit between her ears. Then you aren’t mad?”
“Of course not. Why should I be?”
“No reason I know of. I haven’t been around to work on the ship for a few days . . . but I’ve been awfully busy.”
“Think nothing of it. I’ve been terribly busy myself.”
“Uh, that’s fine. Look, Test Sample, do me a favor. Help me out with a friend—a client, that is—well, she’s a friend, too. She wants to learn to use glide wings.”
I pretended to consider it. “Anyone I know?”
“Oh, yes. Fact is, you introduced us. Ariel Brentwood.”
“‘Brentwood’? Jeff, there are so many tourists. Let me think. Tall girl? Blonde? Extremely pretty?”
He grinned like a goof and I almost pushed him off. “That’s Ariel!”
“I recall her . . . she expected me to carry her bags. But you don’t need help, Jeff. She seemed very clever. Good sense of balance.”
“Oh, yes, sure, all of that. Well, the fact is, I want you two to know each other. She’s . . . well, she’s just wonderful, Holly. A real person all the way through. You’ll love her when you know her better. Uh . . . this seemed like a good chance.”
I felt dizzy. “Why, that’s very thoughtful, Jeff, but I doubt if she wants to know me better. I’m just a servant she hired—you know groundhogs.”
“But she’s not at all like the ordinary groundhog. And she does want to know you better—she told me so!”
After you told her to think so! I muttered. But I had talked myself into a corner. If I had not been hampered by polite upbringing I would have said, “On your way, vacuum skull! I’m not interested in your groundhog girl friends”—but what I did say was, “OK, Jeff,” then gathered the fox to my bosom and dropped off into a glide.
So I taught Ariel Brentwood to “fly.” Look, those so-called wings they let tourists wear have fifty square feet of lift surface, no controls except warp in the primaries, a built-in dihedral to make them stable as a table, and a few meaningless degrees of hinging to let the wearer think that he is “flying” by waving his arms. The tail is rigid, and canted so that if you stall (almost impossible) you land on your feet. All a tourist does is run a few yards, lift up his feet (he can’t avoid it) and slide down a blanket of air. Then he can tell his grandchildren how he flew, really flew, “just like a bird.”
An ape could learn to “fly” that much.
I put myself to the humiliation of strapping on a set of the silly things and had Ariel watch while I swung into the Baby’s Ladder and let it carry me up a hundred feet to show her that you really and truly could “fly” with them. Then I thankfully got rid of them, strapped her into a larger set, and put on my beautiful Storer-Gulls. I had chased Jeff away (two instructors is too many), but when he saw her wing up, he swooped down and landed by us.
I looked up. “You again.”
“Hello, Ariel. Hi, Blip. Say, you’ve got her shoulder straps too tight.”
“Tut, tut,” I said. “One coach at a time, remember? If you want to help, shuck those gaudy fins and put on some gliders . . . then I’ll use you to show how not to. Otherwise get above two hundred feet and stay there; we don’t need any dining-lounge pilots.”
Jeff pouted like a brat but Ariel backed me up. “Do what teacher says, Jeff. That’s a good boy.”
He wouldn’t put on gliders but he didn’t stay clear either. He circled around us, watching, and got bawled out by the flightmaster for cluttering the tourist area.
I admit Ariel was a good pupil. She didn’t even get sore when I suggested that she was rather mature across the hips to balance well; she just said that she had noticed that I had the slimmest behind around there and she envied me. So I quit trying to get her goat, and found myself almost liking her as long as I kept my mind firmly on teaching. She tried hard and learned fast—good reflexes and (despite my dirty crack) good balance. I remarked on it and she admitted diffidently that she had had ballet training.
About mid-afternoon she said, “Could I possibly try real wings?”
“Huh? Gee, Ariel, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
There she had me. She had already done all that could be done with those atrocious gliders. If she was to learn more, she had to have real wings. “Ariel, it’s dangerous. It’s not what you’ve been doing, believe me. You might get hurt, even killed.”
“Would you be held responsible?”
“No. You signed a release when you came in.”
“Then I’d like to try it.”
I bit my lip. If she had cracked up without my help, I wouldn’t have shed a tear—but to let her do something too dangerous while she was my pupil . . . well, it smacked of David and Uriah. “Ariel, I can’t stop you . . . but I should put my wings away and not have anything to do with it.”
It was her turn to bite her lip. “If you feel that way, I can’t ask you to coach me. But I still want to. Perhaps Jeff will help me.”
“He probably will,” I blurted out, “if he is as big a fool as I think he is!”
Her company face slipped but she didn’t say anything because just then Jeff stalled in beside us. “What’s the discussion?”
We both tried to tell him and confused him for he got the idea I had suggested it, and started bawling me out. Was I crazy? Was I trying to get Ariel hurt? Didn’t I have any sense?
“Shut up!” I yelled, then added quietly but firmly, “Jefferson Hardesty, you wanted me to teach your girl friend, so I agreed. But don’t butt in and don’t think you can get away with talking to me like that. Now beat it! Take wing. Grab air!”
He swelled up and said slowly, “I absolutely forbid it.”
Silence for five long counts. Then Ariel said quietly, “Come, Holly. Let’s get me some wings.”
“Right, Ariel.”
But they don’t rent real wings. Fliers have their own; they have to. However, there are second-hand ones for sale because kids outgrow them, or people shift to custom-made ones, or something. I found Mr. Schultz who keeps the key, and said that Ariel was thinking of buying but I wouldn’t let her without a tryout. After picking over forty-odd pairs I found a set which Johnny Queveras had outgrown but which I knew were all right. Nevertheless I inspected them carefully. I could hardly reach the finger controls but they fitted Ariel.
While I was helping her into the tail surfaces I said, “Ariel? This is still a bad idea.”
“I know. But we can’t let men think they own us.”
“I suppose not.”
“They do own us, of course. But we shouldn’t let them know it.” She was feeling out the tail controls. “The big toes spread them?”
“Yes. But don’t do it. Just keep your feet together and toes pointed. Look, Ariel, you really aren’t ready. Today all you will do is glide, just as you’ve been doing. Promise?”
She looked me in the eye. “I’ll do exactly what you say . . . not even take wing unless you OK it.”
“OK. Ready?”
“I’m ready.”
“All right. Wups! I goofed. They aren’t orange.”
“Does it matter?”
“It sure does.” There followed a weary argument because Mr. Schultz didn’t want to spray them orange for a tryout. Ariel settled it by buying them, then we had to wait a bit while the solvent dried.
We went back to the tourist slope and I let her glide, cautioning her to hold both alulae open with her thumbs for more lift at slow speeds, while barely sculling with her fingers. She did fine, and stumbled in landing only once. Jeff stuck around, cutting figure eights above us, but we ignored him. Presently I taught her to turn in a wide, gentle bank—you can turn those awful glider things but it takes skill; they’re only meant for straight glide.
Finally I landed by her and said, “Had enough?”
“I’ll never have enough! But I’ll unwing if you say.”
“Tired?”
“No.” She glanced over her wing at the Baby’s Ladder; a dozen fliers were going up it, wings motionless, soaring lazily. “I wish I could do that just once. It must be heaven.”
I chewed it over. “Actually, the higher you are, the safer you are.”
“Then why not?”
“Mmm . . . safer provided you know what you’re doing. Going up that draft is just gliding like you’ve been doing. You lie still and let it lift you half a mile high. Then you come down the same way, circling the wall in a gentle glide. But you’re going to be tempted to do something you don’t understand yet—flap your wings, or cut some caper.”
She shook her head solemnly. “I won’t do anything you haven’t taught me.”
I was still worried. “Look, it’s only half a mile up but you cover five miles getting there and more getting down. Half an hour at least. Will your arms take it?”
“I’m sure they will.”
“Well . . . you can start down anytime; you don’t have to go all the way. Flex your arms a little now and then, so they won’t cramp. Just don’t flap your wings.”
“I won’t.”
“OK.” I spread my wings. “Follow me.”
I led her into the updraft, leaned gently right, then back left to start the counterclockwise climb, all the while sculling very slowly so that she could keep up. Once we were in the groove I called out, “Steady as you are!” and cut out suddenly, climbed and took station thirty feet over and behind her. “Ariel?”
“Yes, Holly?”
“I’ll stay over you. Don’t crane your neck; you don’t have to watch me, I have to watch you. You’re doing fine.”
“I feel fine!”
“Wiggle a little. Don’t stiffen up. It’s a long way to the roof. You can scull harder if you want to.”
“Aye aye, Cap’n!”
“Not tired?”
“Heavens, no! Girl, I’m living!” She giggled. “And mama said I’d never be an angel!”
I didn’t answer because red-and-silver wings came charging at me, braked suddenly and settled into a circle between me and Ariel. Jeff’s face was almost as red as his wings. “What the devil do you think you are doing?”
“Orange wings!” I yelled. “Keep clear!”
“Get down out of here! Both of you!”
“Get out from between me and my pupil. You know the rules.”
“Ariel!” Jeff shouted. “Lean out of the circle and glide down. I’ll stay with you.”
“Jeff Hardesty,” I said savagely, “I give you three seconds to get out from between us—then I’m going to report you for violation of Rule One. For the third time—Orange Wings!“
Jeff growled something, dipped his right wing and dropped out of formation. The idiot sideslipped within five feet of Ariel’s wing tip. I should have reported him for that; all the room you can give a beginner is none too much.
I said, “OK, Ariel?”
“OK, Holly. I’m sorry Jeff is angry.”
“He’ll get over it. Tell me if you feel tired.”
“I’m not. I want to go all the way up. How high are we?”
“Four hundred feet, maybe.”
Jeff flew below us a while, then climbed and flew over us . . . probably for the same reason I did: to see better. It suited me to have two of us watching her as long as he didn’t interfere; I was beginning to fret that Ariel might not realize that the way down was going to be as long and tiring as the way up. I was hoping she would cry uncle. I knew I could glide until forced down by starvation. But a beginner gets tense.
Jeff stayed generally over us, sweeping back and forth—he’s too active to glide very long—while Ariel and I continued to soar, winding slowly up toward the roof. It finally occurred to me when we were about halfway up that I could cry uncle myself; I didn’t have to wait for Ariel to weaken. So I called out, “Ariel? Tired now?”
“No.”
“Well, I am. Could we go down, please?”
She didn’t argue, she just said, “All right. What am I to do?”
“Lean right and get out of the circle.” I intended to have her move out five or six hundred feet, get into the return down draft, and circle the cave down instead of up. I glanced up, looking for Jeff. I finally spotted him some distance away and much higher but coming toward us. I called out, “Jeff! See you on the ground.” He might not have heard me but he would see if he didn’t hear; I glanced back at Ariel.
I couldn’t find her.
Then I saw her, a hundred feet below—flailing her wings and falling, out of control.
I didn’t know how it happened. Maybe she leaned too far, went into a sideslip and started to struggle. But I didn’t try to figure it out; I was simply filled with horror. I seemed to hang there frozen for an hour while I watched her.
But the fact appears to be that I screamed “Jeff!” and broke into a stoop.
But I didn’t seem to fall, couldn’t overtake her. I spilled my wings completely—but couldn’t manage to fall; she was as far away as ever.
You do start slowly, of course; our low gravity is the only thing that makes human flying possible. Even a stone falls a scant three feet in the first second. But that first second seemed endless.
Then I knew I was falling. I could feel rushing air—but I still didn’t seem to close on her. Her struggles must have slowed her somewhat, while I was in an intentional stoop, wings spilled and raised over my head, falling as fast as possible. I had a wild notion that if I could pull even with her, I could shout sense into her head, get her to dive, then straighten out in a glide. But I couldn’t reach her.
This nightmare dragged on for hours.
Actually we didn’t have room to fall for more than twenty seconds; that’s all it takes to stoop a thousand feet. But twenty seconds can be horribly long . . . long enough to regret every foolish thing I had ever done or said, long enough to say a prayer for us both . . . and to say good-by to Jeff in my heart. Long enough to see the floor rushing toward us and know that we were both going to crash if I didn’t overtake her mighty quick.
I glanced up and Jeff was stooping right over us but a long way up. I looked down at once . . . and I was overtaking her . . . I was passing her—I was under her!
Then I was braking with everything I had, almost pulling my wings off. I grabbed air, held it, and started to beat without ever going to level flight. I beat once, twice, three times . . . and hit her from below, jarring us both.
Then the floor hit us.* * *
I felt feeble and dreamily contented. I was on my back in a dim room. I think Mother was with me and I know Daddy was. My nose itched and I tried to scratch it, but my arms wouldn’t work. I fell asleep again.
I woke up hungry and wide awake. I was in a hospital bed and my arms still wouldn’t work, which wasn’t surprising as they were both in casts. A nurse came in with a tray. “Hungry?” she asked.
“Starved,” I admitted.
“We’ll fix that.” She started feeding me like a baby.
I dodged the third spoonful and demanded. “What happened to my arms?”
“Hush,” she said and gagged me with a spoon.
But a nice doctor came in later and answered my question. “Nothing much. Three simple fractures. At your age you’ll heal in no time. But we like your company so I’m holding you for observation of possible internal injury.”
“I’m not hurt inside,” I told him. “At least, I don’t hurt.”
“I told you it was just an excuse.”
“Uh, Doctor?”
“Well?”
“Will I be able to fly again?” I waited, scared.
“Certainly. I’ve seen men hurt worse get up and go three rounds.”
“Oh. Well, thanks. Doctor? What happened to the other girl? Is she . . . did she . . . ?”
“Brentwood? She’s here.”
“She’s right here,” Ariel agreed from the door. “May I come in?”
My jaw dropped, then I said, “Yeah. Sure. Come in.”
The doctor said, “Don’t stay long,” and left. I said, “Well, sit down.”
“Thanks.” She hopped instead of walked and I saw that one foot was bandaged. She got on the end of the bed.
“You hurt your foot.”
She shrugged. “Nothing. A sprain and a torn ligament. Two cracked ribs. But I would have been dead. You know why I’m not?”
I didn’t answer. She touched one of my casts. “That’s why. You broke my fall and I landed on top of you. You saved my life and I broke both your arms.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I would have done it for anybody.”
“I believe you and I wasn’t thanking you. You can’t thank a person for saving your life. I just wanted to make sure you knew that I knew it.”
I didn’t have an answer so I said, “Where’s Jeff? Is he all right?”
“He’ll be along soon. Jeff’s not hurt . . . though I’m surprised he didn’t break both ankles. He stalled in beside us so hard that he should have. But Holly . . . Holly my very dear . . . I slipped in so that you and I could talk about him before he got here.”
I changed the subject quickly. Whatever they had given me made me feel dreamy and good, but not beyond being embarrassed. “Ariel, what happened? You were getting along fine—then suddenly you were in trouble.”
She looked sheepish. “My own fault. You said we were going down, so I looked down. Really looked, I mean. Before that, all my thoughts had been about climbing clear to the roof; I hadn’t thought about how far down the floor was. Then I looked down . . . and got dizzy and panicky and went all to pieces.” She shrugged. “You were right. I wasn’t ready.”
I thought about it and nodded. “I see. But don’t worry—when my arms are well, I’ll take you up again.”
She touched my foot. “Dear Holly. But I won’ be flying again; I’m going back where I belong.”
“Earthside?”
“Yes. I’m taking the Billy Mitchell on Wednesday.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
She frowned slightly. “Are you? Holly, you don’t like me, do you?”
I was startled silly. What can you say? Especially when it’s true? “Well,” I said slowly, “I don’t dislike you. I just don’t know you very well.”
She nodded. “And I don’t know you very well . . . even though I got to know you a lot better in a very few seconds. But Holly . . . listen please and don’t get angry. It’s about Jeff. He hasn’t treated you very well the last few days—while I’ve been here, I mean. But don’t be angry with him. I’m leaving and everything will be the same.”
That ripped it open and I couldn’t ignore it, because if I did, she would assume all sorts of things that weren’t so. So I had to explain . . . about me being a career woman . . . how, if I had seemed upset, it was simply distress at breaking up the firm of Jones & Hardesty before it even finished its first starship . . . how I was not in love with Jeff but simply valued him as a friend and associate . . . but if Jones & Hardesty couldn’t carry on, then Jones & Company would. “So you see, Ariel, it isn’t necessary for you to give up Jeff. If you feel you owe me something, just forget it. It isn’t necessary.”
She blinked and I saw with amazement that she was holding back tears. “Holly, Holly . . . you don’t understand at all.”
“I understand all right. I’m not a child.”
“No, you’re a grown woman . . . but you haven’t found it out.” She held up a finger. “One—Jeff doesn’t love me.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Two . . . I don’t love him.”
“I don’t believe that, either.”
“Three . . . you say you don’t love him—but we’ll take that up when we come to it. Holly, am I beautiful?”
Changing the subject is a female trait but I’ll never learn to do it that fast. “Huh?”
“I said, ‘Am I beautiful?'”
“You know darn well you are!”
“Yes. I can sing a bit and dance, but I would get few parts if I were not, because I’m no better than a third-rate actress. So I have to be beautiful. How old am I?”
I managed not to boggle. “Huh? Older than Jeff thinks you are. Twenty-one, at least. Maybe twenty-two.”
She sighed. “Holly, I’m old enough to be your mother.”
“Huh? I don’t believe that either.”
“I’m glad it doesn’t show. But that’s why, though Jeff is a dear, there never was a chance that I could fall in love with him. But how I feel about him doesn’t matter; the important thing is that he loves you.”
“What? That’s the silliest thing you’ve said yet! Oh, he likes me—or did. But that’s all.” I gulped. “And it’s all I want. Why, you should hear the way he talks to me.”
“I have. But boys that age can’t say what they mean; they get embarrassed.”
“But—”
“Wait, Holly. I saw something you didn’t because you were knocked cold. When you and I bumped, do you know what happened?”
“Uh, no.”
“Jeff arrived like an avenging angel, a split second behind us. He was ripping his wings off as he hit, getting his arms free. He didn’t even look at me. He just stepped across me and picked you up and cradled you in his arms, all the while bawling his eyes out.”
“He did?“
“He did.”
I mulled it over. Maybe the big lunk did kind of like me, after all.
Ariel went on, “So you see, Holly, even if you don’t love him, you must be very gentle with him, because he loves you and you can hurt him terribly.”
I tried to think. Romance was still something that a career woman should shun . . . but if Jeff really did feel that way—well . . . would it be compromising my ideals to marry him just to keep him happy? To keep the firm together? Eventually, that is?
But if I did, it wouldn’t be Jones & Hardesty; it would be Hardesty & Hardesty.
Ariel was still talking: “—you might even fall in love with him. It does happen, hon, and if it did, you’d be sorry if you had chased him away. Some other girl would grab him; he’s awfully nice.”
“But—” I shut up for I heard Jeff’s step—I can always tell it. He stopped in the door and looked at us, frowning.
“Hi, Ariel.”
“Hi, Jeff.”
“Hi, Fraction.” He looked me over. “My, but you’re a mess.”
“You aren’t pretty yourself. I hear you have flat feet.”
“Permanently. How do you brush your teeth with those things on your arms?”
“I don’t.”
Ariel slid off the bed, balanced on one foot. “Must run. See you later, kids.”
“So long, Ariel.”
“Good-by, Ariel. Uh . . . thanks.”
Jeff closed the door after she hopped away, came to the bed and said gruffly, “Hold still.”
Then he put his arms around me and kissed me.
Well, I couldn’t stop him, could I? With both arms broken? Besides, it was consonant with the new policy for the firm. I was startled speechless because Jeff never kisses me, except birthday kisses, which don’t count. But I tried to kiss back and show that I appreciated it.
I don’t know what the stuff was they had been giving me but my ears began to ring and I felt dizzy again.
Then he was leaning over me. “Runt,” he said mournfully, “you sure give me a lot of grief.”
“You’re no bargain yourself, flathead,” I answered with dignity.
“I suppose not.” He looked me over sadly. “What are you crying for?”
I didn’t know that I had been. Then I remembered why. “Oh, Jeff—I busted my pretty wings!”
“We’ll get you more. Uh, brace yourself. I’m going to do it again.”
“All right.” He did.
I suppose Hardesty & Hardesty has more rhythm than Jones & Hardesty.
It really sounds better.*
Afterword by Eric Flint
Once we settled on Clarke’s Rescue Party as the opening story for the anthology, the choice for the second story was practically automatic: This one.
Well . . . not quite. The part that was more or less automatic was that it would be some story by Robert Heinlein. The question of which story in particular, however, was something we had to kick back and forth for a while.
We faced a bit of a problem. For all of us as teenagers, the Heinlein was not really the Heinlein who wrote short stories. It was the Heinlein who wrote that seemingly inexhaustible fountain of young adult novels: Rocket Ship Galileo, Citizen of the Galaxy, Have Spacesuit—Will Travel, Tunnel in the Sky, Time for the Stars, The Star Beast, Farmer in the Sky, Space Cadet, The Rolling Stone, Starman Jones . . . the list seemed to go on and on.
If books had infinite pages—or book buyers had infinitely deep pockets—we would have selected one of those short YA novels for the anthology. Alas, pages are finite and the pockets of customers more finite still, so we had to find another alternative.
We chose this story, because of all Heinlein’s short fiction it probably best captures the spirit of his great young adult novels. Most of Heinlein’s short fiction is quite different, often much grimmer, and—speaking for me, at least, if not necessarily Jim or Dave—not something which had much of an impact on me in my so-called formative years.
Plus, there was another bonus. Again, for me at least. I’m sure I first read this story when I was thirteen. I think that because I remember being absolutely fascinated by the fact that: a) the protagonist from whose viewpoint the story is told is a girl; b) she was really bright; c) she was often confused by her own motives and uncertain of herself, for all that she pretended otherwise.
Leaving factor “a” aside, factors “b” and “c” described me at that age to a T. That bizarre age in a boy’s life when girls had gone from being a very familiar, well-understood and mostly boring phenomenon to something that had suddenly become incredibly mysterious, even more fascinating—and completely confusing.
After reading the story, I remember thinking that I really, really hoped Heinlein knew what he was talking about—and that the depiction of women and girls you generally ran across in science fiction of the time was baloney. With few exceptions, in SF of the time, a female character was doing well if she achieved one-dimensionality. And that dimension was invariably good looks. This was no help at all. I already knew girls were good-looking. What I needed to know was everything else—everything that Heinlein had put at the center of his story.
A year later I was fourteen and I had my first girlfriend, who remained so throughout my high school years. And whatever doubts I might have had that Robert A. Heinlein was the Heinlein were dispelled forever.
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
